Thursday, August 23, 2012

My Little Ballerina

It is only fitting that Hayden should start her first dance class...she has been walking on her toes since she learned to walk!  She loves dancing around our home and choreographing songs with dad so I knew she was ready to listen to the instructions and follow a dance teacher.  She was so excited to pick out her leotard and tutu, but wasn't to thrilled about her shoes (the tap shoes and ballet shoes) but once she saw all the other girls in the same shoes she was all about them!




I thought this last picture was cute, she kept looking down at her outfit to admire it!  She had such a great first class and asks every day if it is time to go back to "dance class" as she calls it.  She tried really hard to mimic her teacher the entire class and it was so fun to watch!

Monday, August 20, 2012

Jenny & Kyler's Wedding

Despite being in Utah for an entire month in June, I got the opportunity to go back to Utah for a few short days to participate in the wedding festivities of my best friend from Occidental College, Jenny Willis and her fiance Kyler Mahoney.

I arrived in Utah Thursday afternoon and spent a few hours with my high school friend Kim Smith.  She was kind enough to pick me up from the airport (right during nap time) and hang out with me until my mom got back from Cedar City. It is always wonderful to see her.  Once my mom picked me up we went to Murray and I got ready to go to Jenny's bridal shower in Pleasant Grove.  It was decorated so beautifully and she got lots of fun stuff for her honeymoon :)  After that a few of us got the privilege to spend Jenny's last single night with her.  The pictures a little fuzzy, but here we are (plus Jenny's mom).

 Noel, Tawnya, Jenny, Jackie, and Kristine

 Jenny heading down to breakfast on her wedding day!

Jenny got ready through the morning and then her fiance came and picked her up for lunch and to head to the Salt Lake Temple.

 Here is Jenny trying to get into her dress and not mess up her hair!

Jenny & Kyler

 Jenny coming out of the temple, happy as always!

 Jenny hugging her dad!

Jenny and I

The sealing was beautiful and always makes you reflect on your own sealing and the feelings you had that day. That night I got to hang out with my family and I also got to see my cousin Brian who was in town writing a story on President Monson's birthday celebration.  We stayed up way to late talking as usual.

The next morning was Jenny's wedding brunch at the Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City.  It was a beautiful place for the brunch and the food was excellent.  I ate so much that I wasn't hungry all day long!

Jenny and I at the brunch


After the brunch I got to visit with my in-laws Anne and Steve.  I met them where they were celebrating Steve's birthday and got to do a little bit of shopping with them at City Creek.  It was so great of them to take the time to visit with me and I'm glad I got to see Steve on his birthday!

That night was Jenny & Kyler's reception in Heber.  It was decorated so cute and she served frozen yogurt.  It was tasty!


 Cutting the cake



1st dance

It shouldn't have come as a surprise to me that I got along so well with all of the friends Jenny has made since our time at Oxy together. I love Jenny, so of course I'd love all her new friends! I had such a great time getting to know many of them.  Here is Annette, who let me hang out with her and her husband for most of the evening.  She was husband-less through some of the other events as well, so we kept one another company.

I flew out early Sunday morning, so it was a crazy weekend, but I had such a wonderful time.  I got to see so much of Jenny which I am truly grateful for.  This was the longest time period I have ever been away from Hayden and I missed her and Paul so much.  I was worried how she would respond to seeing me again.  I was hoping for excitement, but was preparing for her to ignore me for leaving her for so long.  When I got to baggage claim, Paul said, "look there's mamma" she saw me, her face lit up and she ran as fast as she could to me.  It seriously brought tears to my eyes.  I'm not kidding, I cried (this kind of shocked me), the bond between a mother and her child is special isn't it...It's never fun being away from family, but I'm glad I was able to support my friend and celebrate her special weekend with her.  

The Sacrament

For reasons unbeknownst to Paul and I, Hayden stopped drinking the sacrament water about 6 months ago. Paul thinks she may have choked on it one Sunday, but we really have no idea.  We figured the phase would pass and she would start drinking it on her own.  But as months and months went by without her taking it, we decided we had to do something.  Each Sunday she would say, "no water today, ok" with desperation in her voice, like we were making her drink poison, it was crazy!

We took a few water cups home and would practice during family home evening every Monday night.  She eventually started doing it then, so we figured she'd be set for Sunday.  All our hard work did NOT pay off! She still refused after doing it every week at home.

Then about 3 weeks ago Paul was at church alone with Hayden and she drank it!  Now that's all she talks about.  "Mom, let's go to church and drink the water and eat the bread!"  The day she finally overcame her "fear" of the sacrament water she ran into the house screaming, "I drank the water, I drank the water, treat, treat" (Because we've been bribing her to drink the water with this reward for months...)

This is so Hayden, she refused to drink the water until she was good and ready!

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Hayden

It's been a long time since I posted anything about Hayden.  She has changed so much lately.  She is losing all her baby fat and everyone keeps telling me how lean she is getting.  She has such a long and lean torso!  She is talking so much more now and rarely does her "gdagdagda" before saying a real word.  Although she still resorts to baby talk and laughs hysterically around other people because they think it's funny and she gets rewarded for it.

Some of our favorite expressions are the following:

Whenever she doesn't want something she'll either say, "no thanks" or our favorite, "no banana tonight!!!"  Whatever it is she doesn't want to do she'll say, "no_________tonight."

She was dancing around to her favorite songs with Daddy and she said, "daddy, take a break, your sweaty."

We got a book case for her room finally and put all her books in it and she has LOVED it.  I was a little worried about her being destructive with the paper pages, but she has done great.  Every morning I can hear her wake up and pull out books.  She then reads them to herself until I go in and get her.  Some of her favorites right now are, "The Spooky Old Tree," "The Tickle Monster Book," "The Interrupting Chicken," and any of her counting books.  She just started to really enjoy counting things.  She also discovered two of those Eye Spy books and she loves to look at all the little details on each page.

She is totally obsessed with princesses right now and always comments on the color of their dresses and how pretty they are when she sees their movies, or pictures of them in stores.  Her favorites right now are Rapunzel, Cinderella, Belle, and Sleeping Beauty.  She is hilarious to watch Sleeping Beauty with.  She is so worried about her when she is about to touch the spinning wheel.  she runs around the living room yelling, "don't touch it Sleeping Beauty, don't touch it!!!" Over and over again.  If she is in another room playing and she hears the music come on indicating that she is about to touch the spinning wheel, she abandons whatever it is she is doing to go support Sleeping Beauty.

She also loves to reenact a scene from Beauty and The Beast where the Beasts arm is hurt and Belle is nursing him back to health.  She gets some kind of cloth and will say, "Now hold still, this is going to hurt" and she proceeds to nurse us back to health.

Hayden also loves to serve tea and loves to ask how many "sugars" we would like.  If we don't respond she'll say, "ok, 2, 2 sugars."  Sometimes I'm not very careful with my tea and if I tip the glass at all she take it away from me and say, "hey, don't spill it."

Hayden is really good at remembering the names of everyone we meet and become friends with.  We went to a play group at the park last week and all the moms were impressed that she would say, "hi" to everyone who came and call them and their mother by name.

I love to watch her play with her toys and her imagination.  This is the scene I walked upon today:

Every time I called her name she'd say, "mom, we're eating!"  I even put everything away and when she woke up placed her dogs and food in the exact same spot.

She also loves to wrap up her baby dolls and put them down for naps.  She has come up with a lot of creative beds for them recently.


Terrible Twos:

So while there is a whole lot of fun about Hayden right now, there is a whole lot of drama too!  She is such a stubborn little girl and once she has something made up in her mind she does not let it go.  When we go to the store she will see some toy she wants and say over and over "it's mine, buy it, buy it" until she totally melts down and we have to leave the store.  I have tried telling her what I expect of her before entering the store, I have tried showing her a potential award that she can have if she asks like a big girl, I leave the store when she starts screaming and yelling.  Seriously, nothing seems to be getting through to her, all she knows is that's a cool toy and I want it and I am going to let you know I want it.  It is getting really old and I am hoping this phase becomes more controllable soon.

She went to the potty all day one day and was doing great, I started rewarding her each time and even printed up a sticker chart which she thought was great.  I thought, "this is awesome, she's potty trained" and the next day she flat out refused to put on underwear and begged for a diaper.  I didn't give her one and so she peed her underwear all morning until I caved.  She obviously isn't ready to give up her diapers!  All summer she has refused to go down the water slide at the pool and this week she said, "mom, go down the slide?"  so I took her up and we went down and she loved it.  We went over and over again, but she refused to do it until it was her idea and she was ready for it.  I think that's how potty training is going to have to be.

It's crazy how you can love your child so much and be so completely frustrated with them at the same time.  I hear 3 is worse and I am just hoping I have the patience to make it through!

Reasons Why the West Is The Best!

Sometime last week I hoped in the shower and looked down and saw this:


Upon first glance I thought it was just a huge piece of lint (I thought, why did Paul drop a huge piece of lint in the shower!), so I bent down for further investigation and saw a set of eyes blinking at me!!!  Paul was of course out of town so I couldn't leave the "creature" unattended for 2 days.  I went into panic mode for a bit as I started imagining what I was dealing with.  In Cheyenne we had bats and when a bat is all curled up it looks a lot like this, so that was my first thought, 2nd I thought, hopefully it's a frog, and my 3rd guess was a tarantula.

My heart was pounding as I formulated my plan.  I decided to get my trusty Dyson vacuum cleaner and I pulled out the extension for the hose and I sucked, "it" up, I was screaming and I could feel the clanking of it's body against my hands holding the hose.

In hindsight I should have emptied the vacuum so I could clearly see what I was dealing with, but that's why hindsight is 20/20.  So my vacuum is completely full and I am looking until I see the blinking eyes once again...


If you look very closely, you can see the little guys to the left.  And to my relief, I discovered I had a frog.  But seriously, how did a frog get in my house, climb up my stairs, and get through a shower door?  It really grosses me out.  That's the south for you though, at night there are tons of frogs jumping everywhere.

It was a bit of an arduous task to get him out of the vacuum and not make a huge mess and I debated just dumping him straight in the garbage, but my conscience got to me.  I'd already vacuumed the poor little guy up, the least I could do was set him free.

After he jumped back into our garage several times as I tried to close the door, I finally got him out!


Look how little and innocent he looks here...I am telling you he didn't look this way in the shower!