updates

Well, we did have a little celebration for Derrick's day which was the first day of school. Of course I didn't get pictures of it, but it was a lot of fun. I hope he knows how much we love him.

Life has calmed down quite a bit. We're getting into a good routine and getting to know some friends here.


The bus goes right by our house. Sometimes the bus driver will even drop Derrick off right outside our door! Hayden loves busses and gets excited every half hour or so when he sees one drive past. We all love to go outside and wait for Daddy to get home and see the bus drive by. That's what we were doing in the picture above.


This boy adores his sister. He still wants to hold her all the time, even though she's too independent for that now.

As you can see.

Who wants to sit when you can explore?

She is officially a crawler and she has the red knees to prove it! She can get back into sitting position too, so she's really just mobile and independent. She loves to climb things too, and whenever she gets a chance she pulls up on the furniture. Did I mention that she's wearing size 12 month clothes?!?! She got so big so fast. She skipped right over the 9-12 month size. She's only 8 months!

This was a funny picture. You'll have to click on the picture to see it better. Halle got up from her nap one day and I put her on the floor to play with Hayden. When I looked at her again I was really shocked and worred that Hayden must have hit her really hard. She had a big red mark on her tummy that looked like someone had slapped her and left a handprint. Upon closer inspection I discovered that it was her hand... She had slept on her hand I guess!


I had to document the first time Hayden picked his own outfit. He brought the clothes to Derrick and asked him to help put them on. He chose a soccer shirt and pajama pants. When I tried to take a picture he ran away and hid in his room.

We have been doing a lot of potty training again. (Sorry to those of you who hate people talking about potty training, but this is my blog so I don't care if you don't like it.) We gave up a couple times because he just wasn't getting it. I decided to wait until after all the moves were over and he asked to do it again. He asked sooner than I was expecting, but I just decided to let him tell me when he was ready. I'm refusing to go back to diapers this time, so we had to pull out the big guns.

We borrowed a Bob the Builder DVD from the library, and so Hayden would run around saying, "Can we do it? YES WE CAN!" I thought it was perfect slogan. If he goes a day without accidents he gets a colored character to cover the plain one. If he gets 5 he gets a big toy that he picked out. We are on day 7 and he has three colored characters. Not perfect, but so much better than any time we tried it before. He only has one or two wet accidents a day when he does have them, so it's manageable. I really really hope this is it.

Is there anything better than a sleeping kid? I don't think so.


Hayden had a hard time falling asleep last night. He just cried and cried in his room and nothing would calm him down once we left the room. So finally Derrick said, "Fine go outside, but no lights on, and Daddy has homework so no playing." He just came and sat on the chair next to me and sat quietly. A few minutes later I looked over and saw this. Why didn't he just do this in his bed???

Halle almost always sleeps with her little bum in the air. She's not the greatest night sleeper either. She still wakes up every 4 hours, just like when she was a newborn! It was great then, but not so much anymore. I know she honestly is hungry when she wakes up, so I can handle it. I just hope she starts learning to sleep longer on her own because I'm not willing to do the cry-it-out thing anymore. No thanks.

So that's about it! I like it this way.