Our low-key Easter

Sadly, because of my work schedule, we did NOTHING for Easter. Well, I did get Haley a basket and took some pictures of her looking through it. How depressing? I just keep telling myself that she doesn't understand anyway. Next year will be better, I promise. She seemed to like the things we got her, though. More than anything, she liked the grass that was in there.

Her first look.

Happy girl!


Not happy girl!
I bought Easter ears before I found out that she HATES having things on her head. So, we had to torture her a little bit more. I guess I just keep thinking that maybe she will tolerate it one day. NOPE, not today.

Dada hated them too.

Well, she did tolerate having the Easter grass on her head. I guess it was because she could do it herself. She's very independent.

Fortunately, her grandparents took her out on Saturday to take pretty Easter pics. Some of them were very cute!

She got to try her first Peep. I think she liked it.

Haley's 1 year professional pictures

I just wanted to post the link to Haley's most recent professional pics. I love almost all of them and I have no idea how I'm going to choose just a few. I highly recommend this photographer, Melissa Wells. She's very talented and very sweet.

www.melissawellsphotography.com/galleries/haley

Haley's Ladybug Party!

We threw Haley a 1st birthday party this past Saturday. We went with a ladybug theme because her favorite book has always been Ten Little Ladybugs. I may have gone a little overboard with the black and red, but it was fun and how many 1st birthday parties does a little girl have? We had a great time and I can't thank everyone enough for coming and for all of the help. I had over 300 pictures, so I figured out how to make collages so that I could post more pics at one time.

The invitation:

The sign on the front door:

Decorations:

We served hamburgers and hot dogs, potato salad, coleslaw, beans and all of this:

The guests:

Haley playing with her precious, 3 month old cousin, Ansley.

Playing in her ball pit.

We found a real ladybug for her to play with.

Showing off her wonderful new walking skills:

Mini photo shoot:

Time to open presents. She got the most wonderful and thoughtful gifts.

Family shot

The cake!! She was very dainty and didn't dig in like we hoped she might.

She HATED her birthday hat!

Playtime after her bath to wash off all of the cake.

Here she is with my Grandfather who turned 92 that day.

Playing in her cozy coupe that her Gigi and Da Daddy gave her. She loved it.

This was my favorite pic of the day (even though it's blurry). It looks like she's dancing!

12 month pictures and stats

Haley turned 1 last Friday, so I took her normal monthly pictures. We went to the doctor yesterday and she weighed 19 lbs 3 oz (25th percentile) and was 29.5 inches (75th percentile). She is walking like crazy now and trying to say several words. She is more fun than I can even express in words. We love our little girl!! We had her party this past Saturday and I will post those pics very soon. It's going to take me a while to pick only a few to post.

She started to get a little tired of the photo shoot.

She finally had enough!

Happy St. Patty's Day

Here is my attempt at getting some cute St. Patrick's Day pics of Haley. As you can see, it did not go as planned.

I brought the headband in and then tried to get the settings right on the camera. As soon as she saw the headband, she looked at me like she was saying "You are not going to put that on me!"

Then she did the sideways glance to see if it was still there.

As soon as I put it on, she started to freak out! She HATES to have anything on her head. She really gets very upset.

Look at those tears. I felt terrible, but I had to get some pictures and I was hoping that she would quickly forget that it was on her head.

What a pitiful face!

This was the last one. I tortured her for long enough. Maybe she was just upset that I forgot to put her in something green and the headband didn't match. You would think someone had just pinched her for real.

Almost there! (possible video overload)

I apologize for all of the videos, but we have had a great week and I have been able to catch some of it on video.

Most importantly, Haley is finally starting to walk a lot more. I would say that starting today, she has started walking 1/3 of the time. I have a silly idea in my head that she must be walking by her first birthday (in less than 3 weeks). I know I'm ridiculous to have such a "plan", but it those of you who know me well know that I always try to plan everything. I'm not at all spontaneous. Having her walk by her birthday would be so nice for several reasons: it will be outside, she will be in a dress (I worry about her knees), and the pictures will be cuter. How silly is that? I know! I just have it set in my mind that this MUST happen. So, the countdown is on. I really think it can happen by then with her walking as much as she has today. Sadly, though, I'm afraid that I will eat my words once it finally happens. I really think that it will open up a whole new world for us for her to be walking. Right now, she can't have as much fun outside while crawling (like at the park or our backyard). She has to be in old pants that can be dirty or worn and old shoes that can get scuffed. She can't wear dresses without getting tripped up on them when crawling. OK, enough of my reasoning. Here is the video!

Please excuse the fact that she is in her Christmas pajamas in March. I promise that we have tons of PJs, but these still fit and Scott just happened to pull them out tonight even though I put them in the "to go in the attic drawer". I guess it will always make for a funny story.

Here she is doing her "Indian" (that is not at all PC, but that's what we called it when I was a kid). I didn't really capture it tonight, but she normally has a blast doing this.

Here she is having fun with her ball popper. She gets such a kick out of it. She can now put balls back in it after they have "popped" out. She can sometimes push the lever to make it start, but most of the time needs help. She just gets so excited when it starts up which is the best part for us both.

11 months old

Haley turned 11 months old this past Friday. Here are some of her month-day pictures that I thought were funny. I still can't believe she will be a year old in less than a month. She's growing up way too fast.

She's such a wonderful baby. She sleeps well, eats fairly well, and is pretty much happy all of the time. She has 5 teeth now. Knock on wood, she has handled teething very well. I really can't tell when she is getting them until they appear. She is still not yet walking. She is showing a lot of interest, though, and usually has one episode a day where she takes multiple steps before falling. I keep thinking that it will happen any day now. No hurry though. Right now, I'm just loving every moment with her and trying not to wish time away.