All of a Sudden a Daddy's Girl

Over the past few weeks Hayden has done a complete 180 on me! She went from everything having to be "mom, mom, mom" to now being "dad, dad, dad"! She can't get enough of her daddy! And who can blame her, she has a great father! I love my husband with all my heart and I'm so thankful for him. He works hard all day and we barely get the time to see him with his late night schedule, but he always makes a special effort to make time for his little princess.

Lately he's been going to pick up Hayden from my parents house and taking her out to lunch just the two of them, they get some ice cream, and just spend time playing until I get home. If I'm working late, he'll drop her back off at my parents house on his way to work. So ever since he started doing this, Hayden hasn't really wanted me all that much. It's a little disheartening, but at the same time, I know she still loves me and needs me. It's just right now, she's a total daddy's girl and I'm ok with that!

Here are some pictures of the past month where all she wanted was to be with her favorite person, dad!

At the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ on her birthday

Hitching a ride on daddy's shoulders while visiting mom for lunch in the city

Birthday kisses from daddy

At her birthday party (the Little Gym)

So is it true what they say, "once a daddy's girl, always a daddy's girl"? I hope so! These two make a terrific duo! I'm looking forward to many many more years of this!

Dancing to her own beat

I think this is one of the cutest things Hayden is doing now! For the past few days Hayden has been entertaining herself in her car seat by humming to herself. I don't know where she picked it up, but now she will sit in her car seat or stroller holding her baby doll and humming. But not only is she humming a little tone but she is also dancing to it and making her baby doll dance too!

I've been trying to get it on video or picture, but the instant the camera comes out all she wants to do is take the camera from me! One of these days, I'll get her! So check back for pictures soon!

1 Year Check Up

The official stats are in! Hayden is just about off the charts on everything yet again!

• Weight - 25 lbs 15 oz - 92%
• Height - 2' 6" - 87%

Hayden has been sleeping through the night for the past 2+ weeks now and I've been in HEAVEN!!! I can't remember the last time I got 6 hours of continuous sleep! So now that she's FINALLY sleeping through the night and we have a good bedtime routine, the doctor tells us we need to change our routine! WHAT??? Yes, she can no longer have a bottle. I'm sure she'll be ok with that, at least I'm hoping she will! But here's my thing... Hayden is so difficult to put to bed. She refuses to go to sleep unless I give her milk and rock her to sleep. Once she's out, I put her in bed and she's down for the night! Now if I give her milk at night I have to brush her teeth afterwards, which is fine, I totally understand that! But then that means that I have to walk and dance (more like bounce) around until she falls asleep.

I've tried many times to just put her down and let her put herself to bed, but she has never been willing to do that! We've figured out that she doesn't like confined spaces (cribs, playpens, etc) so she's been sleeping in our bed by herself with pillows around her. She loves to roll from one pillow to another! So now we are looking at buy her a full size bed (a twin bed will A- not fit her convertable crib that readjusts to fit a full size bed, and B- she rolls around too much that she'd roll right off a twin bed!)

I guess I will just have to deal with a new bedtime routine yet again! I hope she adjusts to this new routine quick and without a hitch! If anyone has any tips for me, I'm all ears!!!!

Cookie Monster!!!

Look what daddy has created! A little cookie monster! Dan gave Hayden a thin mints cookie yesterday and now she's hooked! I let her have one as a dessert after dinner yesterday and this is what she looked like afterwards!

Rub-a-dub-dub Hayden's in the tub!

Hayden gets a bubble bath every night! This is her favorite time of the day. After she finishes her dinner, she knows what time it is! I'll take her out of her high chair and she make a bee line for the stairs and points upstairs! Once we are upstairs she goes straight into the bathroom and tries to open the sliding door to the bath tub! What a funny little girl! She normally plays for about 15-20 minutes then stands us (very carefully) and is ready to have me take her out of the tub to get dressed!

Hayden in January

This month has definitley been all about this little cutie right here! With her birthday at the beginning of the month, so how the celebrations have still continued! I guess we just can't stop celebrating her, having her in our lives is magical! We waited so long and suffered through so many difficulties and now we have this little angel! I am so grateful to have her in my life!

Hayden with her "Happy Birthday" tiarra. She finds this every day and brings it over to one of us to put it on her. She's not happy until she is wearing it! And don't forget her tooth brush! She would have that thing in her mouth all day if I let her!

Since she stopped nursing (I don't think I mentioned that yet, BTW- Hayden is no longer nursing, WooHoo!!!) she's had a little bit of a harder time going down for her naps. Last Saturday I was just so exhausted and just couldn't deal with her crying anymore, so I put her in her high chair and gave her some food and chocolate milk to try to make her happy. She took one bit of ther chicken nugget, looked at the TV and was out!

Here's daddy and Hayden on the train to the city to have lunch with mommy! I love when they come to the city and surprise me!!!
This is my favorite picture! She is so head over heals in love with her daddy! Dan had her on his shoulders and she would keep looking down at him like this, make kissy faces and start giggling uncontrolably! It was so great seeing her so happy with her dad! Melts my heart!

What's new with Hayden?

1. She is totally walking/running all on her own
2. She went from only having 2 teeth for the longest time to now a whapping 8 teeth!
3. Her favorite words/phrases (yes, I did say phrases!) are "Mom", "Dad", "Mommom", "Poppop", "dog", "ball" and most importantly "stop it!"
4. She's sleeping 10-12 hours through the night!!! (FINALLY!!!)
5. She HATES confined spaces (that's why she refused to sleep in her crib or playpen and would literally freak to the point that she couldn't breath) I think she's a little claustraphobic!
6. Her favorite person in the world is her daddy.
7. She stopped nursing the day after she turned one. It's like all of a sudden she was "too big" to nurse anymore!
8. We weighed her at the aquarium to see what shark she would be and she weighed in at a whopping 27 lbs!

My little baby is growing up so fast! I hope I can continue to document all the memorable moments in our lives for her to enjoy later on in her life!

Hayden's 1st Birthday- Danica Nelson Photography

I am beyond thankful to my friend Danica, an amazing photographer, who was kind enough to take pictures for me at Hayden's birthday party. Not only did it relieve a great deal of stress for me for that day not having to worry about trying to get a snapshot of every fun, exciting, and happy moment Hayden experience, but it also allowed me to just relax and enjoy the party! I was able to focus all of my attention on our guests and most importantly, I was able to play and have fun with my little birthday girl. Here are the AWESOME pictures Danica took!

Danica, I know I've said this like a million times, but I truly am so very thankful for the beautiful pictures. I can look back at this memorable day and have such sweet pictures to remind me of all the fun we had! Thanks again!

A quick note for anyone in the St. Louis area! We are so sad to see the Nelson family leave, but they will be moving to St. Louis in May, so all you St. Louis residents, prepare yourselves for an amazing family! Lucky you, you get to have not only one of the COOLEST families join your area, but you also get to have the amazing talent of the one and only Danica Nelson! We will miss you guys when you move! Thankfully we still have a little time before you leave!

Happy birthday to you...

Happy 1st Birthday Hayden!!!!

My little angel is now 1 years old!!! I still can't believe that a year ago today we were at the hospital in absolute amazement that this little child was ours! And now we are celebrating her birthday! It took every bit of strength I had this past weekend to not break down in tears. I was so emotional! My little girl has grown up so much over this past year. She's basically tripled in size, went from needing us to do everything for her to now walking and talking! She's such a big girl!

We had a very exciting "birthday weekend" starting with a birthday party with all her little friends at The Little Gym. Hayden has classes there every Saturday morning and just loves it! So I thought I'd go the "hassle free" route and have the gym host the party. What a great way to celebrate! We had an instructor (who was fantastic with the kids) and an assistant. They did all the setting up and cleaning up, so we had to do was show up with the kids and bring the cake. They played music and did different types of games and activities with the kids. Hayden spent most of the time either on the balance beam, running around screaming or on the whale ride (this big round wheel like thing pictured below) My friend, D, who's a photographer, took most of the pictures, so I was free to enjoy the party. here are some pictures that we took from the party:

Hayden wasn't too interested in smashing her "smash cake" and didn't want to touch it at all! I think it's because the icing was made with shortening and it just didn't feel right to her!

After the party, we invited the family to come back to our house to open gifts with Hayden. She loved everything she got! Thanks everyone for the awesome gifts! They will all be put to good use, promise!

On Sunday, we had my side of the family over for some hot chocolate, cookies and pizza rolls! It was a good time! Hayden loved drinking her chocolate milk and was much happier with the cupcakes that I got for her to eat! Unfortunately Dan was called in to work, so he missed Sunday's party. Everyone had a good time and Hayden loved every minute of it!

Monday was Hayden's actual birthday, so since Dan already had the day off, I decided I would also take the day off to celebrate with my little sweetheart! We got up early, ate breakfast in her new high chair, which she totally loves, ready some books (her favorite was the book the Bradbury's gave her with all the different farm animals) and watched some of her favorite morning TV shows on Disney! Dan had to run in to work for a quick meeting and then was home by noon. We got dressed and headed out to lunch at the Corner Bakery, our favorite place!

Then it was off to the Aquarium! Hayden loved all the tropical fish and the hippo! She wasn't too excited to see the sharks, but she did surprise me and her daddy. We were at the touch tank with the baby Bamboo sharks and Hayden actually reached down and touched one! I'm so proud of my adventurous little kiddo! What a champ!

The aquarium was a blast and then it was in to the city to pick up some yummy cheeses and meats from DiBruno Brothers for daddy to make some fresh homemade pizza's on the grill! Hayden got her own personal pizza before heading off to be (we ate a little later) and we sang happy birthday one last time. She loved her cupcake, but I think she liked daddy's pizza much better!

Looking back at the last year, my life has changed so much. I wouldn't give up one second with this little angel!

New Years Eve Celebration!

Looking back at the past year, it has been more memorable then I ever thought it could be! What an amazing year! Watching my baby girl grow up before my eyes this past year has been wonderful! Becoming a mother is by far the greatest thing to ever happen to me! I love waking up each morning (even if it is at 5:30 am Sunday-Saturday with no break in between!) and the first thing I see is my little princess reaching out for me and calling out "mom"!

I love this picture! Hayden didn't know why my friend C was tying her scarf around her head.

Here's to a Happy & Healthy New Year! Hope 2010 brings us as much (if not more) joy & happiness as 2009!


HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Merry Christmas Eve

(I know it's not the clearest picture, but here is our Christmas tree all decorated and presents all wrapped up!)

Well, it's finally here! It's Christmas Eve and I'm so excited! I can't wait until tomorrow morning when we go downstairs and see Hayden open all her presents. I'm not really doing any presents from Santa this year since she doesn't really understand it yet, but maybe next year. We also only got her 2 toys and some clothes. I know my parent's and in-laws will have plenty of toys and goodies for her, so I didn't want to over do it. Plus, her birthday is next week too, so I'm sure she'll get more than enough toys from both events!


We did take Hayden to see Santa on Tuesday night at the mall (finally!). Unfortunately Dan couldn't come with us, but Hayden did pretty well considering... She was so excited when we first got to the Christmas village at the mall. She saw Santa and was trying every way possible to get through the fencing and rope to get to Santa. There was a decent size line to wait, so Bianca and Jeremy went and got their last minute shopping done while I waited in line with Hayden. She was pretty well entertained by the other kids running around and she tried to join in the fun as best she could. It was more like she walked around and around the stroller and made faces at the other kids. Very cute!

Finally it was getting close to our turn and we could just barely see where Santa was sitting from where we were. Hayden tried desperately to lean forward to see Santa. Then it was our turn to go up. I put Hayden down to see what her reaction would be. I didn't want to force her to sit with Santa! She shocked me! She walked all the way from the entrance to the Christmas village all the way up to Santa with the biggest grin on her face! I wish I could have captured it on film, but they don't allow cameras in that area! Once she got to Santa, she just looked up at him in absolute amazement. Then it happened, Santa reached down to pick her up and she lost it! She started crying and screaming bloody murder! She was doing so well, I guess she just wanted to see Santa! So I sat on a stool and put her on my knee while Santa sat behind us. He would leave forward just in time to take the picture and sit back before Hayden turned around to look at him. It worked out pretty well, but I have to say, her picture came out pretty funny! She's not exactly smiling, nor is she crying. She's just trying to figure out what the heck is going on! I need to scan the photo on the computer, and as soon as I do I'll post it here!

Sleeping Beauty

We were watching A Christmas Carol last night and Hayden just didn't want to go to sleep. It was already an hour past her bed time and she was struggling to stay awake to keep watching the movie. She would start crying uncontrolably if I even attempted to take her upstairs to sleep. Finally she couldn't take it anymore and fell asleep on the couch. Isn't this just the cutest thing you've ever seen???

I let her sleep there for about 15 minutes then moved her to her bed. She is just too cute for words!