A month?

It's been a month since my last post? Where has the time gone?!

Haidyn is getting ready for her Christmas program for school. The preschoolers through 2nd grade have their own service that they are performing at December 11th. She's been practicing singing "Away on a Manger." I can't wait, they're going to be so cute!

Eli is 2 months old now. He was 12lbs 4oz and 24" at his 2 month appointment. He smiles all the time! I'm not going to mention how he's sleeping, as soon as I think we're getting close to sleeping through the night, it goes haywire! So I'm just going to let it be what it is. He's such a good boy, does love to have attention though. :)

A month already?

How is Eli a month (and a week) old already? I can not believe how fast the time is going! I'm not sure we're any better off than we were a month ago. Eli still has no schedule. It's not helping that he's sick. He's got a bad cough and congestion. So that is not helping with the sleeping issues. Normally he's not bad at night. He sleeps in his crib and gets up once or twice to eat. But with this cold, all bets are off. We spent the night on the couch last night. It was a long night. And day time naps are ... well.... pretty much non existent. He will not sleep in his crib, or the swing, or the pack and play. He prefers to be held. Now I like baby snuggles as much as the next person, but I can't hold him all day. :( I do have to keep reminding myself that he is ONLY a month old and I can't expect him to have the perfect schedule yet. I am a little worried that I go back to work in a little over 2 weeks though. Not sure how I'm going to do that yet. Hopefully he'll have a little better schedule by then and I can manage to get some work done.

Eli had his one month appointment on Monday the 24th. Dr. Bedingfield was happy with how he's doing. He's now 10 lbs even and 23" long. He's on the perfect growth curve. He did get one vaccination and didn't do too bad. He did get his cold right after that though which makes me wonder if he picked it up at the doctors office. He goes back at 2 months and gets a whole big round of shots.

Haidyn is doing well. She's at her schools Fall Party today and she got to wear her Princess Ariel costume. She has another costume for trick or treating. She wanted to be a witch, but she couldn't wear that costume to her school. So it worked out that she got the princess costume from Aunt Ellen and Uncle Steve. She'll go trick or treating at Safety Town in Streamwood with Jen and her friends on Friday. We have the schools Fun Fair this Saturday and trick or treating in our neighborhood on Monday. It's going to be a fun weekend! And busy! :)

We got the pictures from Kelsey. AWESOME! I love them all! Here are a couple from the shoot. Do I have the most beautiful children in the world or what?!

October fun

October is here! My favorite month! I love Halloween! Auntie Ellen and Uncle Steve (and cousins) came for a visit. Haidyn got a beautiful Ariel (for those of you who don't know... she's a Disney princess) costume, with the gloves, tiara, wand and even sparkly shoes! So guess what Haidyn is going to be for Halloween? :) We still need to get Eli something. I think it will be a last minute costume that's fit for the weather. Who knows what it will be like on that day.

Eli is one day shy of 3 weeks. Wow! It goes by so fast! He gave me a nice little present last night. Sleep! Yay! He ate at 8pm, I tried putting him down at 8:45, but he ended up wide awake. He hung out with Daddy until almost 10 when I fed him again, but he didn't eat much and crashed. I thought for sure he'd be up in an hour to eat again, but he was down until 2:40. Another feeding and diaper change and he was down at 3:15 and slept again until 7am. Woo hoo! Only one feeding during the night! NICE!

Haidyn is... well, Haidyn. :) She's a great big sister and loves her little brother. It will be great when he's a little older and can actually interact with her.
She's doing fantastic in school. Loves it and is so smart! We originally weren't going to put her in preschool until she was 4, but I think it was a good move getting her started now. She's so smart and observant that the extra educational attention she's getting at school is good for her.
I asked her the other day what she wants to be when she grows up and she told me a builder. Guess she hasn't changed her mind yet on that. But then she told me she wants to be the one holding the sign so the cars stop while they're building something. :) I thought all little girls wanted to be ballerina's or princesses when they grew up?

Eli is home!

Eli is here and fitting right into our family. Haidyn is doing very well adjusting so far. She loves her little brother. She has to get her snuggle time in with him and she's very good at helping us with him. She even gave him her beloved green blankie. Makes my heart melt. :)

When Haidyn grows up.....

She wants to be "a worker. One that makes buildings and streets." How cute is she?! She told me this on the way to school this morning.

She's pretty darn cute as long as you're not trying to get her into a carseat. Ugh. It's the source of most of our "discussions." She hates it. I hope once she's big enough (40 lbs) to move into a booster seat, it won't be so bad. I don't know how we're going to do this until she's 8 years old.

On a bright side, she's not as afraid as water as she used to be. She can actually get her face wet without screaming. She won't stick her whole face in by herself, but when she showers, she asks to get sprayed in the face. Yay! I think swim classes have finally been paying off! Too bad she's done with them and back into gymnastics. Maybe over winter we'll get her back into swim.

First Day of School

Haidyn had her first day of preschool today. I can't believe she's old enough to even go off to school. I know it's only preschool, but still. She did great! She was very excited. And surprisingly, no tears from either of us at drop off. I didn't expect her to cry, but I thought I would. I guess 3 years of taking her to Jen's has broken me in. Plus it was only for 2 1/2 hours. That makes it a little easier. She's such a big girl now! She's looking forward to going back on Thursday.

Preschool!

Preschool starts in 2 weeks! I can't believe my little girl is off to school already. Granted, it's only 2 days a week from 8:15 to 10:45, but still. Where's the stop button? Or at least the pause? She wants to grow up even faster. It doesn't help that the girls at Jen's are older than her. She can't wait to be 5. She's so silly.

My crazy Haidyn is such a 3 year old girl!

Long gone is my little tomboy. She's a full blown princess now. With dancing shoes and everything. For the past month or so, she HAS to wear socks when she's dancing. I thought it was just because she can spin easier on the wood floor. But I learned something tonight. We bought her a new pair of black dress shoes last night because she had outgrown all her other pairs. Tonight we put on *Surprise!* Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses movie (which we've seen at least 400 times!) and she was so excited she could wear "dance shoes." She told me, "I don't have to pretend my socks are dancing shoes anymore!" What a nut.

Someone sent me a link today on why 3 year olds are worse than 2 year olds. I agree. I think you will too. :) http://www.rantsfrommommyland.com/2011/07/top-ten-reasons-why-3-is-worse-than-2.html?m=1

Haidyn is doing well. Growing like a weed. I swear every time I look at her, she's gotten taller. We're getting ready for preschool. Registration is August 4th and her first day is August 23rd. I think she'll do great and will love it!

I have to make sure I update this blog often in the next couple of months before it turns into Haidyn and (baby brother to be named at some point. Hopefully before we take him home from the hospital).

Concert

Haidyn had to put on her pretty "princess" dress tonight and told me to sit down for a concert. This was my show. I may be biased..... but I LOVED it! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcJzC_Wa2MI

Yes, yes, I know... I've been slacking quite a bit with this blog. Haidyn is doing fantastic. She seems very excited about being a big sister. She's even ok with having a brother now. Although I did just find out that she's telling Jen that she's going to have a sister after her brother comes. Hmmmm.

She'll start preschool in the fall at St. Johns. We're all excited about that. I think it will be good for her to be around other kids and be exposed to some different things. And Haidyn loves her teacher and the fact they have a play kitchen in the room. :)

She still amazes us every day. She's so smart. There's no pulling a fast one on her, she figures it out. She's far smarter than me and her father. Which is scary, but I love the way she thinks. She's very logical and comes up with answers and/or questions that a three year old shouldn't.

We're taking a break from classes for the month. Gymnastics is on hold for awhile, not sure when we'll go back to that. Her next swim class starts July 19th. I think we'll put her in dance in the fall. She just loves to dance! We've asked her several times if she wants to take gymnastics again or a dance class and she always answers dance. I think we'll try it while I'm on maternity leave. Maybe we can squeeze a class in during the day so we're not jam packed with night classes. There's a dance academy in downtown Elgin that looks promising. They have a "creative movement's" class for her age group. It sounds perfect!

Our Haidybel is still very strong willed, but I think both Mike and I have done pretty good at adjusting to it. We've figured out that there are a lot of things we just have to drop and let go, but some things are important and we have to stand our ground. No matter how ugly it gets. I think Haidyn has realized that too. She still has her meltdowns occasionaly, but she's realized we're not going to give in. I thought girls weren't suppose to be difficult until they were teenagers?? I think God just needed to teach me patience. Thank you. I've learned my lesson. Now can it be easy??

I guess it's time to get a new picture on here seeing as how it's summer time now. :) Here's our little girl roller skating for the first time. She did really well! No falls or anything!

Blizzard!

Haidyn got to experience her first blizzard. It was a little spooking riding home from Jen's on Tuesday, February 1st. I left work early knowing that the storm was on it's way and I wanted to get Haidyn and be home before it yet. I apparently timed it wrong. The wind was blowing like crazy, making visibility very poor. Haidyn kept telling me, "I can't see out the window Mom." I assured her we didn't have far to go and that we would be fine. We were very close to home when we had to drive past a field. The wind picked up and blew the snow making it a complete whiteout. Haidyn yelled, "I can't see ANYTHING Mom!" I white knuckled the steering wheel, said a little prayer that we stayed on the road and as soon as the wind died a bit allowing me to see where the road was, I gunned it. Once we made it past the field it was ok. It continued to snow for quite a long time after that. The next day we ended up with 20" of snow. But the snow drifts were the worst. The driveway was over 5'. We did get outside for a little bit to go sledding and check out the tunnel that Daddy made for her.

ER Visit

I'm a little late getting this on the blog. Ooops. Haidyn had an ER visit in the beginning of January. We had just gotten home and Mike was home already so Haidyn was excited. She ran into the living room for Mike to chase her and we heard. Thump! SCREAM! We ran in there and blood was squirting from her head. We got the bleeding to slow down quite a bit, but there was a pretty big chunk of her forehead missing, so off to the ER we went. She was such a good girl. We had to wait a while, but she did just fine. She fussed a bit when they cleaned it out, but she was still amazing. They used glue to put it back together. Even though it's been several weeks now and just about healed, Haidyn insists on wearing a bandaid. I think the look of it in the mirror freaks her out. We followed up with our pediatrician and it's healing just fine and there is no harm in Haidyn keeping a bandaid on it. I have a feeling it's going to be a long time before we can go without one.