Hailey's Toothless!

Well the day finally arrived - on May 8th Hailey finally lost her first tooth!

You would think with the amount of times she was wiggling it that it would have come out sooner, but we still had to be patient and wait for it to come out all on it's own.  If you ask Hailey, it was a VERY LONG WAIT!  But she loved the dollar and note she got from the tooth fairy and can't wait to go pick out a prize at the dollar store.

Once she saw herself without her tooth, her first words were "I have a whole in my teeth!"

Finally she can say she has lost a tooth and more importantly, put a tooth up on the "lost tooth board" at school - she was one of the last ones and so afraid it wouldn't come out before school was out!

She's now impatiently wiggling the next one over trying to get a jump start on the next tooth loss - silly girl!

Hailey's Dance Recital

After 4 months of dance classes and much practicing, it was finally time for the much anticipated dance recital.  Hailey was so excited and looked so darling in her costume.

Look at that smile - darling!

Here's the group all ready to perform (she's the third from the right, standing up in the back row).

And during the dance.  She did so great, I was so proud of her.  She remembered every step and didn't miss a single thing.  Good thing she inherited her coordination from her dad and not her mom!

We were so happy to have Nana and Papa come to see the performance - the even got there early and helped Jeremiah save us some seats (the kids and I were at Activity Days and had to come a bit later than we would have liked).

Hailey loves her Nana - she was so excited to show Nana her dance costume!

Of course Dad, Zach, and Tate were there too.  I was worried, but they had fun watching all the other performances.  

Of course her Dad brought her some flowers - she loves flowers and thinks it's so special to get them.  I agree, getting flowers from her Dad is the best!

And just because I think she was the most darling one there, I'm including a little video clip so that you can see for yourself!

Way to go Hailey - you are quite the dancer - we are really proud of you!  Love you Sis!

Curly Hair

It's human nature to want what you don't have.  At least it seems that's the way most of us are - we always seem to want something different.  Our home is no exception.  Hailey constantly is telling me that she desperately wants curly hair, you see, I have naturally curly hair and hers is completely straight.  I on the other hand would die for straight hair!  We both want what we don't have - ironic.  

Well, after hearing her complain for what seemed like the millionth time that she wanted curly hair, I decided to pull out my old curling iron and give her a version of curly hair.  I haven't used that curling iron in over 10 years and I wasn't sure it would even turn on.  Luckily it did and she was thrilled with the result - I agree, curls were so darling on her!

As usual, it was hard to get the back too curly, so it's a good thing she couldn't see it very well.  But it was still cute.

The side was darling - I couldn't help taking a picture of that view.

As you can tell from her smile, she loved it!  So much so in fact that we curled her hair every day for a whole week after this just to make her happy.  

We even purchased some foam curlers to cut down on the time it takes to get it done.  Our first try at this wasn't so successful because her hair wasn't dry by the time we had to take them out and the curls just didn't stay in - but we did get a picture with her hair in curlers.  But we have plans to try again and hopefully we'll have a more successful outcome the next time around.

I have to admit, it is fun having a little girl who wants to be just like you - I know it won't last very long, so I'm enjoying it while I can.  She is such a cutie and I love how darling she looks with her curly hair.  But, then again she's beautiful with straight or curly hair!

Easter Sunday

After a very fun day at Nana and Papa's Easter Party, the big day arrived with plenty more presents and fun.  The Easter Bunny pretty much dumped his load at our house, I'm not sure how any one else got anything!

Here's Hailey's stash ...

Here's Tate's ...

And here's Zach's.

Quite the spread if you ask me.

Of course there was some for Mom, Dad, and even Taylor!  How that Easter Bunny knew he was here is amazing!  The kids just could not get over how the Easter Bunny knew and left him some treats too!

Hailey had a blast going through all of her presents.  Candy, a princess cup, books, coloring boards, magnetic dolls, and her favorite ...

a new princess shirt!

Zach just couldn't believe all the fun stuff he got.  Candy, a Lego Star Wars cup, books, coloring boards, a Perry the Platypus shirt, and his favorite ...

a new bike helmet!  I have to just pause here and say that sometimes the pictures you capture are just hilarious!  Zach really did love his helmet, but I caught the picture at just the right time and it almost makes him look like he doesn't like it!  :)

Tate couldn't quite reach his basket, but he loved everything he got.  Candy, coloring books, crayons, a new mickey mouse shirt, and a mitt and baseball ...

He also got a new ball ...

And his new favorite toy - his very own broom!  He had been playing with my full size one for months and was always swinging it around and smacking everyone and everything in his path.  This one is a little more manageable and there are a lot less casualties!  He will even grab his broom whenever I pull mine out and sweep the floor with me.  It has definitely been a success, he hasn't asked to have mine once since he got his!

After the excitement of the easter baskets died down a bit, the kids realized there were more surprises to be found.  The Easter Bunny had hidden three dozen of their plastic easter eggs around the living room for them to find.  

Zach's were hidden a bit harder this year and he really had to search to find the last few!

Hailey was very dedicated in her searching - looking everywhere!  Nice shot of your backside there silly girl!

After the easter egg hunt the day before at Nana and Papa's, Tate was really into finding eggs and most especially opening them because he knew from the day before that there was candy in them.  Ironically, every single picture of him finding eggs was all blurry.  

Not long after we found the eggs, it was time to get ready for church.  But as soon as we got home, all three were back playing with toys and eating candy.  They sure had a fun easter this year!

Nana and Papa's Easter Party

About the middle of February the kids got a letter in the mail from Nana and Papa inviting them to the annual Easter Party at their house the day before Easter.  The kids were so excited and couldn't wait - in fact they asked me daily if it was time for the Easter Party yet.  Finally the day arrived and we headed off to have a whole afternoon of fun!

We started out with coloring some easter eggs.  Nana was smart and set up some tables outside so all the fun coloring was out of her nice kitchen.  Hailey started with pink of course.

Zach moved so fast from color to color that he was done with 3 eggs before I even got over to take a picture of him.

Everyone was having a great time!

After that the boys started playing with the toys and girls added some stickers to their colored eggs.

Where is Tate you are asking right?  Well, he was up early and had a bit of a rough morning, so I passed him to his Dad to calm down while I helped outside.  I came in a bit later to find him passed out on Jeremiah's lap.  Although he missed out on some of the fun, it was good for him to get a nap because he was much happier the rest of the afternoon.

When the girls finished with their stickers, they did a couple of puzzles and then moved on to a relay race Nana had set up.  They had to do some fun things like run back and forth with a bunny mask on ...

... and do a spoon and egg portion.  Zach did great, I don't think he dropped his egg once!

Libby had a great time with her egg and spoon too and ran back and forth after all the kids.

Not long after that it was time to decorate some cupcakes - Nana had quite the spread of candy for them to put on!

Zach didn't want anything on his - unlike his brother and sister he's not into sugar.

Tate had finally woken up at this point, but he didn't want anything to do with the cupcakes (which is probably a good thing, because that would have been a huge mess) - all he wanted to do was run around and play with the balls Nana and Papa had.  If you were there, you'll get a chuckle when I say that he also wanted to tell Nana he had a ball about every 5 seconds - he's crazy and I guess he wanted Nana to know that he had one of the balls and really loved it!

A little bit later it was time to do the egg hunt.  All of the kids had made easter sacks earlier and were all sitting and waiting for the Dads and Uncles to hide them in the backyard.

When the were done, we unleashed the kids on the backyard and off they went finding eggs.  Hailey was so cute and counted each egg and she carefully put it in her sack.

Zach was just tossing them in left and right and had to pause once or twice to count how many he had.

Tate was interested in the whole "egg hunt" idea since he was so young last year.  But once he realized there was candy inside each of the eggs, it was all over!  He was more than content to just open the few eggs he had instead of trying to find any others.  We did eventually get him to pick up his share of the eggs.

Libby was darling finding eggs as well.  She was finding eggs left and right and took time to look at them all before handing them over to her mom to put in her sack.

She's really into purse and bags lately, so she was more than thrilled to have a bag full of easter eggs all to herself - darling!

Here's our silly little one cheesing it up for the camera - had to include this picture because after a rough morning, it was good to see him in such a happy mood.

And here are my three angels - I can't believe how big they are all getting - time sure is going by fast and they are growing faster than I would like them to!

Thanks Nana and Papa for such a fun Easter Party!  We all look forward to it every year.  We love all the fun activities and can't wait for Easter to come around next year - WE LOVE YOU!