Dear Sweet Hayden....

This is a post I started about a month ago and haven't had time to get back to it but I really want everyone to know what a sweet kid Hayden is...

Oh my, what can I say about this kid? Sometimes I get so frustrated with him... Like when we were in the car the other day and I kept telling him something and he would reply with, "What mom?" So I'd tell him again, the same response. I think this happened 3 or 4 times before Andy helped me realize that Hayden could hear me, he just didn't want to hear what I was saying.

The other day my sister and Caroline were over. Hayden and Caroline were in the backyard playing, after awhile they came in... Take a look at the picture, we're not sure how he ended up so dirty, while Caroline looked perfect!

Or isn't it interesting how I can be talking to him, mere feet away asking him to pick something up and he totally can't hear me? And it amazes me that he can be thrown into hysterics at the mere thought of having to clean up. There could literally be three toys in the room and he practically has a coronary...

And isn't it interesting how for so long I have struggled with him to be able to use scissors properly and the time he finally figures it out, he takes a big chunk out of his bangs, yep, that's Hayden for ya! The funny thing is, he came to tell me he had done it and wanted to show me all of the hair on the floor...

(New addition to the post as of today Jan. 21st)

Some days I don't know how I ever got so lucky to have such a sweet boy in my life and other days I really don't know what to do with him. What I know everyday, is the fact that I have no idea what I would ever do without his sweet spirit, his charm, his goofiness, the funny way he phrases things, and his inquisitive mind... He really is such a joy and I have realized this weekend that sometimes our kids will really surprise us and do things we had no idea they could do.

Yesterday at church I decided to start writing words to see if Hayden could sound them out, to my total shock and disbelief, he could read EVERY SINGLE word that I wrote for him. I made sure that the words didn't have funky letter combos in them or anything but he read every 3,4, and 5 letter word I wrote down. This was our best church experience ever, he sat with me for a good 20 minutes and whispered every word to me. This may be normal for most 4 1/2 year olds, I'm not sure, but for him, this was a huge breakthrough!

This may seem weird to post but the other thing Hayden did was during the night, around 4 am, I heard Hayden crying from the other side of the house. I ran to see what had happened and I found him in the bathroom, hanging over the toilet throwing up, like a big boy! In the past if he gets sick he stays in his bed and cries and yells for me and throws up all over his room. Not this time, all of the puke was in the toilet. When he was done he asked for some water and I tucked him into bed, where he slept the rest of the night.

I am amazed at how he is growing and getting older and love that he talks about going to Kindergarten next year. It makes me sad to think of the innocence that he has and that someday it will be gone...

Our fun weekend!

I wanted to really quickly tell about our exciting weekend. Friday night we went to our friend Maddy's house for her baby's first birthday. There were two other families there, but one had to leave early. While the kids played and made a complete mess of Maddy's house (sorry Maddy!) the adults had fun too play Guitar Hero on Tony's Wii that he brought over. I've heard of Guitar Hero but never played and honestly I thought it sounded pretty lame. But, I was converted by the end of the night and I even got all the way through one of my songs! I'm sure it was quite funny to watch, my whole body kind of got into the rock action of the songs. I totally want that game now (Hey Andy, my birthday is coming up soon!)

That was the only fun thing we did, the rest of the weekend was spent, cleaning, painting, packing, buying plants, hanging valances, etc. in preparation for our house going on the market this week. Our realtor came by today and took hundreds of pictures, our house looks so nice right now, the challenge will be keeping it this way... Although Hayden is so excited about a new house that he is actually cleaning up toys after he plays with them because I told him that is the only was we can sell our house, if we all work together!

Tomorrow I have a prenatal massage and pedicure scheduled, thinking of that is the only thing that got me through the weekend!

Pig Tails

I have been waiting for this day for almost two years.... Brynley can wear pigtails in her hair! As many of you may know, fixing hair is not my specialty. My nieces will especially understand this as they are always disappointed when I watch them and can't quite get their hair right! So, having a daughter has caused me a little stress, not anymore but in the beginning I was just glad that Bryn didn't have much hair so I had a lot of time to practice. She's been doing a cute pony tail on top of her head with a bow for quite some time but I think the pig tails look so cute. Now this means I will have to start making two of every bow I make for her, you may think this should be no big deal since I kind of make bows for a living but usually I don't have time to make new bows for Bryn. Oh well, I guess I'll have to make time! Oh, and on a side note, Hayden is letting me fix his hair again. He won't let me spike it all over because "that's for little kids" but he will let me do it up in the front, yay!!!

Cute Puppies!

About two weeks ago, my dad and Debbie's dog Chloe, had puppies! It was hard to believe that little Chloe had 6 puppies in her little belly. They are Dachshund puppies and they are so very cute. Dachshunds aren't my favorite dog but as puppies, they couldn't be any cuter. In fact, if we weren't about to have a baby, and about to sell our house, I might have been suckered into taking one. Hayden can't stop talking about the teeny tiny doggies and how he will have one someday. My dad said not to worry, the other two dogs will be bred soon so we can take our pick from when of their litters. Probably not gonna happen, but it's fun to go and visit them at least.

Brynley went into the dog cage with Cookie, who promptly left, a few minutes later, Hayden decided to get in as well. They are so cute!

Not much going on...

Well, it seems like we've been really busy the last few days and yet I'm not sure why??? We have finally taken a few big steps to getting our house on the market. We rented a storage unit yesterday and have taken 3 loads already. The first load was just Christmas stuff that we normally keep in the attic and the others have been random things I've boxed up that we won't need for a few months. I am so relieved to finally be getting things ready, we should have it on the market by the end of next week if not sooner. We are just so anxious to get into a bigger house, I do have to take a step back into reality and realize that our house may not sell, so cross your fingers for us!

Anyway, that's about it, we're all getting over some nasty colds so I'm glad about that. Hayden can't wait to get back to school tomorrow and Brynley is just the same old stinker, she's just getting more mischievous everyday. For instance about 5 minutes after getting her out of the bath and clothed on Friday, she plopped herself right back into the tub of water with Hayden, fully clothed. Then about an hour later she comes to me soaking wet (In new clothes by the way) and I discover that she has plugged the sink in her bathroom and has caused it to overflow and flood all the drawers, cabinets and the floor of her bathroom. I thought she and Hayden were playing way too nicely while I was cleaning, turns out they weren't paying together, Brynley did that all on her own! All I know is it is a darn good thing that I am six months pregnant because if I wasn't pregnant already, I'd probably consider stopping with Bryn, she is quite the handful lately, but a super cute one!

SNOW!!! In St. George???

On Saturday we took the kids on an adventure to find snow. Little did we know that we would find it just 30 minutes from St. George where the climate is similar to AZ. Andy's dad told us about a little place called Pine Valley, and sure enough, there was quite a bit of snow. Apparently this is the place where all of the teens from St. George go to do some crazy sledding, Hayden really wanted to sled like the big kids but we convinced him that it was really dangerous and he should wait until next year, he agreed. We had fun throwing snow balls and trying not to fall, Hayden found some small hills to go down on his bum. We had a lot of fun, here are some cute pictures from our adventure.

Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!!!

A family photo op

Hayden loved every bit of playing in the snow, Brynley however, kept saying, "Owie" whenever the snow would touch her bare skin!

Andy taught Hayden that he could eat the snow as long as it wasn't yellow!

Brynley being cute!

December 26th - Off to St. George

We decided at the last minute that we would go to St. George for a few days to visit with Andy's parents. We left early on the morning of the 26th and stayed until the 30th. St. George is always a laid back trip for us, no real plans, just a lot of hanging out! We were excited to be able to visit with Andy's oldest Brother David and his wife Ashley and their beautiful little boy, Noah. Noah and Brynley are only about 10 days apart in age so it is fun to see them play together, we haven't seen them since last Christmas. Hayden spent much of his time in St. George torchering everyone with his new Spider Man "Shoot Thing" as he calls it, and Bryn spent her time being super cute!

Andy's parents treated us to a great lunch at their Country Club, and for those who love High School Musical 2 as much as we do, this is the same country club where the kids spent their summer working. We were even eating at the table where Troy had lunch with Charpay's family! Normally we spend a lot of time at the same pool but it was too cold this time so we spent our time swimming in the in door pool.

Brynley goofing around at lunch

Andy's parents pose for a minute after lunch with the kids

Uncle David and Noah take a second for a picture

Hayden and Brynley really wanted to see the waterfall after lunch. Notice the ice that has built up on the edges? It was really cold...

Christmas Time!!!

Christmas at our house was so much fun this year! We were kind of excited to stay home for the first time in a long time and spend Christmas in our own little house together with our little family. We started off Christmas Eve with our family tradition of having Chinese Take out. This was always our tradition growing up and it has continued every year since. After dinner we helped the kids decorate sugar cookies to leave for Santa that evening. Our friends the Wright's brought us that cute Santa plate earlier in the evening!

While decorating the cookies, we heard the sound of sleigh bells outside. The kids went to the door and found that Santa had left them a few presents. They each got their Christmas pajamas, an ornament, and a new Christmas book! Hayden of course noticed right away that Santa got his P.J.'s from the GAP!

After the kids went to bed, Andy and I had a pretty relaxing night and were looking forward to Hayden running into our room early in the morning to tell us that Santa had come. Well, it didn't exactly happen that way... We were up by 8 and we hear nothing from either of the kids. Finally at about 8:45 we decided to make a lot of noise and open Hayden's door, well, that didn't work so Andy finally woke him up and said that Santa had come. Hayden asked if he was still here and Dad said no, Hayden followed by asking, "Did he leave me some presents?" Andy said let's go see. Hayden went straight to the tree in the family room and somehow didn't notice the bike right in front of the tree until we pointed it out to him, he was so excited! After a few minute,s he went and woke Brynley up, the first thing she saw was her new kitchen and she loved it!

Both Hayden and Brynley loved opening presents, some highlights included Hayden's guitar, BumbleBee Transformer, Planet Heroes Rocket ship, V Tech V-Smile and many more. Brynley was most excited for all of the dishes for her kitchen, Littlest Petshop stuff, and Play dough set. Some of Andy's gifts included an I Pod docking station, a tie, a few DVD's, a book, and a shower clock radio. He managed to spoil me again this year with a Prenatal Massage, some amazing perfume, Oprah's Fav. measuring cups and spoons, and a gorgeous blue Topaz and white gold ring.

After opening presents, it is always our family's tradition to have a big Brunch, so being that we were the only family in town, we invited our good friends Maddy and Dustin over. Dustin made the best Breakfast burritos, a tradition in his family which we may have to continue in our family. The kids all had a great time playing with all of the new toys while the adults got to relax and hang out a bit. The morning culminated with two frustrated adult men, trying to turn the Bumblebee transformer back into a car. After about 2 hours, Andy gave up and so I gave it a try, eventually, I got it mostly back into the car shape after forcing a few pieces in ways that maybe they shouldn't have gone! Needless to say, no matter how many times Hayden has asked since, we have not turned it back into a robot! The sad thing is, this was the only thing he said he wanted for Christmas and it doesn't even work right. Oh well, he spent the rest of the day riding his bike from the Laundry room to the Kitchen and back again. I was a little worried about him being able to peddle but he got it right away and has been unstoppable ever since!

We had so much fun spending Christmas here in Arizona, we missed our family in Oregon and Utah but realized that it really is a special experience to spend the day at our own house, we will definitely be doing that more often!