Trick-Or-Treat!

Tyler was Spidey & Hailey was Sleeping Beauty for Trick or Treat. We made the mistake of not trying on Tyler's costume ahead of time, so when we put it on over his sweatsuit, it barely button. Also, the head piece is supposed to go over his eyes, but in order for it to fit over his eyes, it won't close in the back, and visa versa. The below picture he has his "eyes" on as well as Bop's old man hair!Daddy with Little Spidey.First stop was Nana & Pappy's...Pappy surprise Hailey by dressing up as Aladin. She role plays with him all the time and calls him Aladin and she's Jasmine. So when he came around the corner as Aladin, she goes..."I'm not Jasmine today, I'm Sleeping Beauty!....Prince Phillip goes with Sleeping Beauty" She knows her princess & prince couples and does not like to mix them up!!Uncle Mike, Aunt Wendy and Blaine joined us again this year for Trick or Treating.Blaine was a scary joker, but didn't put his mask on alot....may have been best, as Hailey does not like scary things.The first few houses Hailey wanted to be held....But eventually she got the hang of it!Trick or Treat, smell my feet!The Gang!Hailey is directing our troups!Tyler is getting some Gram time...not long after this he fell asleep on my chest in the baby carrier. LOVE THAT THING...he's not going to like it when he's too heavy for me to wear it. If I'm not careful, I will be wearing a 5 year old!!!Sorting her loot....Time to go home....Tyler is BEAT! (Notice how he has completely come out of his costume on the bottom...the buttons started popping within minutes of putting it on.)Look at all this candy!You better hide that stuff from Daddy!!! Fun night! Thanks to Gram, Bop, Uncle Mike, Aunt Wendy & Blaine for coming along with us and to Nana & Pappy for the special treats at their house.

Not too tired to stop eating....

Tyler is so tired...but not too tired to stop eating. Eyes were closed but he kept opening his mouth for more food, saying "Um, Um, Ummm"

Jack-A-Turn

Shawn and Hailey have embarked on the task of making a "Jack-A-Turn" to put on the front step. Hailey was very diligently helping her daddy (take note of Shawn's SERIOUS face in the first picture)Finished product! Good job guys!Always time for silly time!

Halloween Party

The neighborhood hosted a Halloween Party for the neighborhood children. They had the kids come in costume and had several games, lots of cakes and candies, and fun activities for the children to do. Hailey enjoyed decorating sugar cookies (which she devoured) and paiting a pumpkin (which is sitting to her right in the below picture.I wasn't able to take alot of picutres until Shawn arrived. But here are the kiddos playing during the party....I think they like each other OK!Weeeeeee!!!! Shawn and Mini-Shawn....if anyone should have a "Junior"....these guys are identical!Fun times with Daddy!Sleeping Beauty enjoying the playground.And meeting new friends...this little girl was a princess too so Hailey was drawn to her.

Magic Kingdom

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Our day at the Magic Kingdom was a blast. We got to the park before the gates opened and saw the production of the train pulling into the station and all the characters singing and dancing. Hailey was so tickled that she was finally at Disney World and getting to see the princesses and Cinderella's Castle. It was so sweet to be able to watch her expressions through every aspect of the day. (White sporting the Versace Shades!)

The morning started a little rough...we were planning on spending all day Tuesday (the day before) "relaxing" so we could be rested for our day at the Magic Kingdom. But we spent all day at the pool, skipped nap (bad idea) and went to Aunt Em & Uncle Mike's for dinner...shout out to Aunt Em, Uncle Mike, Julie, Jim, Jacob, Matty, David & Scott ....and all the puppies and kitties! Thanks for the awesome dinner! We had a great time! OK, so because of our long day, Hailey wanted NO parts of waking up this morning and was quite cranky. But the day progressed, she got out of her funk, and aside from the heat (what else should we expect in Florida) we had a FUNtastic day!

The first thing we did, after meeting Pluto at the gates, was watch a show with the characters and princesses. Hailey was in awe as each of them came out. She was so excited to see all her princesses and their princes in real life.

After Mom & Dad, Melanie, Jason & the big kids made a detour through Space Mountain, we headed off to Fantasyland, where we were plagued with lines all around. But no worries! We were there to meet characters, so that's what we did...stood in line to meet characters...first Tigger & Pooh...outside...in the direct sun...for 45 minutes....by the time we got to them Tyler was asleep and Hailey was mad and didn't want to meet them....so were we waiting for the kids, or for ourselves!?!?!? Anywho, the fast pass then put us directly on the Winnie the Pooh ride. We did Peter Pan's Flight, saw the parade, then went back to Toon Town to meet the princesses. 75 minute wait! I know you are thinking, what are you thinking??? It was TOTALLY worth it. Hailey was totally star struck, which was funny to see - she froze! But each princess took several minutes to talk to Hailey and take pictures and ask her about herself. What an amazing experience! Hailey loved every minute of it and Tyler was smitten too!

With all of that and a little bit of shopping, our evening concluded with the Night Parade. What a great - LONG - day at the park! It was crazy, hot, frusterating at times (Shawn and I had some communication break downs), the kids had fussy moments, but it was Totally worth it!! And an experience I will not soon forget. (The good parts!) I'd do it again in a second!

Disney Pictures

Here is a slideshow created on Picasa. If you put your mouse over the bottom of the screen, a speaking buble will show up. If you click the bubble, it will show the comments to explain what is going on in the picture. (I'm still trying to finish all of the comments) If you click on the whole picture, it will send you to the Picasa Website where you can view the slide show in larger format. I am continuing to add pictures as we go, but here are pictures of the first few days.

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Disney World Update

Well, we are here and having a great time and I have TONS of pictures to post but I'm having a very hard time getting a strong enough internet connection to post the pictures. So we will have to wait until I get home. Anyway, here's a quick update.

Saturday - great flight, kids did awesome. Hailey loved flying and Tyler slept the majority of the time in the air. - bad news is that Saturday morning as I was changing his diaper, I noticed a few red spots on his belly and they multiplied as the day went on. UGH!

Sunday - We started the morning at a Character Breakfast with Minnie, Goofy & Donald Duck....SO MUCH FUN!!! Hailey waited so patiently for the characters to come to her and sign her autograph book!! The pictures will give more life to these stories once I can post them. Then, today was supposed to be Shawn & Jason's MAN day, watching Football at ESPN Zone and Melanie and I were going to keep the kids at the pool. I ended up calling Shawn at 1:15 (15 minutes after the games started) to come back and help me take Tyler to the Urgent Care center, as his spots were looking worse and I was getting more and more worried. I felt bad because Shawn felt guilty for leaving me with both kids in the first place. On a normal day I'd be fine, but Tyler was EXTREMELY fussy (probably because he wasn't feeling well) and Hailey wanted to play so badly. Even though Ken was able to help out with Hailey, I felt guilty that I couldn't play with her and join her in the joy of playing in the pool. Anyway, back to Tyler, after 2.5 hours, they confirmed the diagnosis that our On-Call Doctor gave us over the phone, but ended up changing his antibiotic. Summary - he was on Amoxicillin for his Ear Infection. The spots were either a sensitivity reaction to the Penecillin OR it was viral while the antibiotic was working to fight the bacterial ear infection. It was his only reaction, so it wasn't anything that could cause great danger, but she went ahead and took us off the Amoxicillin and put him on Omnicef, to continue to work to fight the infection but in hopes that the spots will clear up. Today the spots are no better, but they did warn us that there is a 4% chance he could have the same reaction to the Omnicef and it won't clear up. Plus, the Penecilin may not be completely out of his system and it may take a while for the spots to clear.

Monday - we went to Animal Kingdom. It was great...Hailey met Mickey, Donald, Chip & Dale and rode on a Safari through Africa. Plus several other thing too. There was a parade at the end of the day that both kids had a BLAST watching. Which makes us really excited to see them at the Magic Kingdom, which is planned for Wednesday. Tonight we took a walk around the boardwalk and roasted marshmallows at a campfire.

I LOVE to watch Hailey having such a great time. I can't tell you how much joy I'm getting with her taking this all in. I'm looking forward to the rest of the week, but we are doing one more park and the rest of the week is slighted for relaxing, as both kids are totally ZONKED right now.

I appologize if there are typos. I'm too tired to proof read. I promise if I dont' get pictures posted this week that I will put them all on a website such as Kodak or Photobucket and post them all for you to flip through.

By the way, we ended up purchasing a Canon REBEL XSI and we love it. We've been getting some really great shots and have taken over 300 picture in 3 days. So you should keep quite entertained with the pictures once they are posted, even though I will do my best to edit the quantity!!! OK...rambling again....the exhaustion is really setting in....good night!

We are off!!

Sorry I've been slackin'! Crazy week - the kids both had ear infections, it's be a crazy week with work, and we leave for vacation TOMORROW!! WAHOO!!

If you've been trying to reach us and we haven't been "reachable" it's because we've been so busy! Tonight was the Mercy Me Concert - AMAZING! I wish each and every one of you could have been there. I'd love to chat more about it, but I'm SOO exhausted and I have to go finish packing to be able to make it out the door in time tomorrow morning.

Shawn is taking his laptop with him to Florida, so I'm going to try to download pictures and upload them to the blog...if there is time in the evenings! Otherwise, I'll make sure to blog all about our trip when we get home.

Hailey is extremely excited that tomorrow we finally get to go to "Floda"! So we'll be sure to save up all the little stories she has and share them with you.

MY MOMMY'S HERE!!!

I love that sound. When I pull in the driveway to the daycare, if Hailey can see me she shouts for me. Today, as I was hoping out of the car, she caught a glimps of me in the window and I hear "YEAH, My Mommy's Here!" I went inside and sat down to put her shoes on and Tyler sees me, crawls over to me at what I would consider lightning speed, and climbs right into my lap! I love it!! I picked him up and he grabbed my neck and open mouth slobber kissed me all over my face!!

It totally makes up for last night when we had to leave Bible Study after 20 minutes because both kids were screaming in the nursery and were fussy while we attempted to keep them in our classes. Both Shawn and I were irritated and discouraged by this situation, but then Shawn shed some light on the situation. "They just want us...it's been a long day, they've been at daycare, and they just want to spend time with us." How can you deny them that?

So after we got home last night Hailey requested that I be the one to "take her a bath" (little confused with her verbs). Then we sat on the bed playing tea party. I was Shrek and she was Fiona. We had to say cheers and clink our cups before we could drink. I'm surprised she hasn't told me to put my pinky up yet! (She has a book - Fancy Nancy - that we've been reading every night lately and it talks about doing things "fancy")

Mamma's gotta keep bragging on her kids, so here it goes:

Hailey can spell her name H-A-I-L-E-Y.

She had a worksheet to do at school the other day that they expected to be slightly advanced. It was a numbers sheet that had dotted lines for the numbers and the kids were to trace the dotted lines to write the number 4. Hailey took her crayon and completed the task prior to needing to hear instructions. They said she did it perfectly! She was very proud of it.

Tonight she was playing with her magnet doodle pad and was drawing "seals"....I promise you, they looked exactly like two seals swimming after each other...First of all, to draw that at 2 1/2 is great, but secondly to acknowledge that it is a seal that she was drawing! She's amazing! :-)

OK, anyon that attends EWC will get a kick out of this one....tonight Hailey was playing in her room with her Elmo Karaoke toy. She was singing into the microphone and she turns to me and says, "Hey Mommy, I have a telephone like Mark has at church!" Telephone/Microphone. I get what she was intending!!

Tyler is crawling full speed (as I've already shared) and on all fours. He is able to spot a toy that he wants and get it, passing many other items in his path. He sets his mind on something and has the determination to get what he wants!!

I'm also noticing he has chosen a few favorite toys. In the bath tub we have foam letters that he reaches for, past many of the other random toys/figurines floating in the tub. He has a little hammer that goes with a toy that Nana bought him. Every time he sees the hammer he goes after it and carries it around with him for quite a while. He's known to bop himself in the head with it at times, but it's currently the fave! Still no "lovie" at bedtime that he's attached himself to - would prefer just to nurse himself to sleep if we still let him (which sometimes I do...just cuz I can...) At this age, Hailey was just starting to really attach to her Blanky, but we also gave it to her more often. Tyler was never as tactile has Hailey was at this age. Hailey seemed to have a need to have something in her hands. Ty is just chill to watch his surroundings, especially if it's Hailey or any other kids.

I put Tyler in his room the other day and asked Hailey to sit with him to make him happy while I put some clothes away. She was jumping around his room making faces and noises. He was belly laughing SOOO hard...I didn't dare go in the room to interupt their fun. I just watched in amazement from the hallway. I just want to bottle the sounds of my babies playing together and having a blast laughing at each other.

Have I mentioned that I love my kids and I think that they are absolutely amazing!?!

Fall Festival

I LOVE the fall...I think it might be my favorite time of year....when there is a slight chill in the air and you need a sweater. I love the color of the leaves, the thought of Apple Pie & Pumpkin Pie, harvest decorations. We had a fall festival at church on Sunday and it was so much fun watching the kids (and adults) have such a fun time, celebrating the harvest! Haile LOVES the bouncies....
She is so funny when she runs, she gets her arms pumping and swinging back and forth....
Shawn took this picture...I have NO CLUE what she is doing, but I find this face HILARIOUS!
There were "professial square dancers" at the festival this year...as they were giving their display of dances, the girls decided to join in...see Hailey and her friend Isabella dancing around....

They danced and swung each other around for several songs...they kept kissing each other too...that must be because of so many Disney Princess movies that are "the thing" with girls this age.....

Tyler was having a good time watching the dancers and hanging with his daddy....

The Chicken Dance!!

Now the adults turn...Shawn and I opted out, but below are some of the adults learning how to squaredance. (This was about the same moment that Hailey peed on herself...having to much fun to go to the potty!)
Mark & Sara were quite the entertainment....

Tyler pooped out on us!!
Hailey & Garrett having a blast with balloons!
I love opportunities like this to watch Hailey (and eventunally Tyler) having fun playing with other kids...what a fun tradition to have.