All About My Zachary

I've been compiling my fun list of things about Zach and I've been excited about doing a post all about him. He sure is one fun boy and just like his sister, is truly special to us. So without further ado, here's a post all about Zach.



12 Fun Things About Zachary:

1. He loves school, in fact he will go to school rather than almost anything else. When we were going to do the ultrasound for our new baby, Zach really had a hard time deciding whether to stay at school or be checked out to go with us. In the end, he decided that he wanted to see the baby, but it was cute that he had such a hard time deciding if it was worth missing school. His favorite things at school are PE, music, and computers and he loves his teacher, Mrs. Winters.

2. He loves sports - whether it's playing or watching (although he tells me that playing is a lot more fun). He plays basketball, soccer, and baseball in the local community programs. If you ask him which is his favorite, he usually will tell you the one he's currently playing, but that he loves them all.



3. He's very determined and a perfectionist (I have no idea where he gets that from!), so much so that sometimes he gets very upset if he can't seem to do something that he wants to do. It gets a little frustrating now, but we hope that will translate into a good determination when he gets older.

4. He loves to ride his bike more than playing or doing almost anything else. He got a new big boy bike for Christmas and it's been torture to not be able to ride it as much as he wants to - we can't wait for summer to be here!

5. He's very social and makes friends easily, but he's still quite shy and can be quiet when he first meets new people.

6. He loves to rub, pat, and love my belly to let the baby know he loves him so much. He's very excited that he's getting a new little brother and that the baby will eventually sleep in his room (he may change his mind about this when he gets older).

7. He came home from the dentist with his first cavity a few months ago and told me that the dentist told him he needed to start "fossiling" his teeth.

8. He's very emotional and always wants us to be proud of him. When he gets in trouble, there's always tears because he so much wants to be a good boy.

9. He wants to do everything just like his Dad - which I think is wonderful (his Dad is really a good role model for him). He gets upset when Jeremiah works late or is gone before he's up in the morning because he just loves him.

10. He's up at 7am every morning, no matter what time he gets to bed the night before. Actually, he's up before 7am, but we've taught him to stay in bed until he sees a 7 on the left side of his digital clock.

11. He loves to play video games - playstation, XBOX, or Wii. Although he will play by himself, his favorite thing to do is play with his Dad.



12. He always wants to help me out in whatever I'm doing. His latest fascination is in trying to help me cook dinner. He doesn't seem to understand the dangers of the stove, so we're working at finding other things for him to do so that he can help me out.

Yes, as you can see, we have quite a special little boy. He is continually amazing us at the things he does and the ways he tries to help out around the house. He's a bit crazy and silly, like his sister, but I love him so much for all the fun and wonderful qualities that he has and I couldn't survive without him.



We sure do love you Zach!

All About My Hailey

I haven't really had a lot to post about lately. Our January and February have just been busy, but with the same old things. So I thought it might be fun to post a little bit about each of my children. Today I'm going to do Hailey. I've been making a little list of some of the fun things she does and thought it would be fun to document them here.



12 Fun Things About Hailey:

1. She loves the color pink and is ALL GIRL, but she also loves to play with her brother, whether it's cars, throwing balls, or even pirates (ARRRR PIRATES!).

2. She loves to sing, but only when no one is listening (at least when she thinks no one is listening). I quite often will find her upstairs with the play piano and her primary song book singing songs - some she's learned in primary and some she's made up on her own.

3. She loves to say the prayer - whether it's a mealtime, family prayer, or in church she always volunteers and most often is chosen to say the prayer. This has definitely helped out when we get together with my family - what used to be the "last one in says the prayer" situation has now become the "don't worry, Hailey will say the prayer" situation.

4. She's very social and makes friends wherever we go. When we're at the park or another public place to play, she often finds someone to play with and usually runs around holding hands with them (more than often it's not her brother because he doesn't want to be attached to her, which can slow him down).

5. She just started a dance class in January and she absolutely LOVES it. She only goes for half an hour once a week, but she is all smiles the entire times she's there. And then once we get home, we start the "do I get to go to dance today?" questioning for an entire week until Tuesday rolls around again.



6. She loves to have nail polish on her fingers and toes (or paint nails as she likes to call them). She also loves to do my hair - I get a full hair makeover at least 3-4 times a week - she'll get all of her combs, brushes, play hair dryer, and even her pretend curling iron to make sure my hair is just beautiful!

7. She loves babies and can't get enough of holding them. Whether it's dolls or real babies, she loves them to death. Needless to say, she is thrilled that we will be having our very own newborn baby in June (although, as she reminds me daily, the baby is taking forever to come out!).

8. She will take off her right sock while she's drinking her milk or juice and tickle her foot with her blanket. More often than not, she'll forget to put it back on and will run around the house most of the day with one sock on and one sock off.

9. She has this thing with parking next to red cars when we go anywhere. I don't know how this started, but we've frequently parked a lot further away from a store entrance just to be next to a red car. She's also decided she wants a red and pink striped car when she gets older - heaven help the salesman who tries to satisfy this determined little girl!

10. She loves to go shopping and won't hesitate to tell you she wants to go to her favorite store - TARGET! Although lately, she's decided that the dollar store and Smith's are favorites too.

11. She hates getting on the freeway, because she doesn't like long car rides. Even a 10 minute ride of the freeway is too long and she'd rather take twice as long on the side roads than being quicker on the freeway (she doesn't often win this argument, but we have it every time we get on the freeway none-the-less).

12. And last but certainly not least, she talks 100 miles per hour. Sometimes she doesn't even need anyone else there to respond to her. In fact, the only times she's quiet are when she's sleeping or doing a puzzle (which she's very into right now).



And yet despite of all of these things, or more than likely because of them, I love her more and more every day. She is my little angel and I couldn't live without her!



We sure love you Hailey!

Oh Baby!

Yesterday was the exciting ultrasound at the doctors office. After having such a positive experience with Zach when I was pregnant with Hailey, we decided it would be fun to take both the kids with us this time. The kids have been looking forward to yesterday for weeks now since we told them about it. I don't think Zach quite remembered what it was like, so both were not exactly sure what to expect other than the fact that they were going to see the baby on the computer screen.

It was fun to watch each of them react to the lady squirting the ultrasonic gel on my stomach and then putting the little ultrasound instrument on my stomach. They both were a bit in awe and both asked me about 5 times if I was ok. It was so sweet that they were concerned about me being alright.

When the images of the baby appeared on the screen, things got even more interesting. Zach sat right next to me and stared in awe at the pictures of the baby - he was so excited when he could see things that he could identify like the head, hand, or foot. Hailey on the other hand sat on her Dad's lap and would not stop talking the whole time. She kept asking the same questions over and over and would not hold still. She was up and down and up and down. She tried really hard to see the baby on the screen, but I don't think she quite knew what she was looking at.

Here a few pictures that we were able to take home with us:

Arm and hand


Footprint


Profile


Body and legs (looks like the poor little thing is bent in two) - in fact during the ultrasound we actually saw the baby reach down and grab it's foot with it's hand - it was so cute!


After showing us all of the fun pictures and taking all the measurements that were needed, the ultrasound technician asked us if we wanted to know what the baby was. Of course we all said yes! Well, the baby had other ideas because it had it's little legs crossed and would not uncross them! After about 15 minutes of me rolling from side to side, getting up and walking around, and even going to the bathroom, the baby finally moved enough for us to see (thank goodness!). And we found out that it was a ...



BOY!

Needless to say, 3 out of the 4 of us were thrilled! Hailey is still getting used to the idea that the baby is a boy and not a girl. She was so sure that it was going to be a girl that she got really upset and cried all the way home. After some talking, I think we've convinced her that having a little baby brother is going to be ok. We've had some back and forth on the acceptance, but we expect that for at least another week or so until she finally gives in. She seems to be much better today, so we're hoping she'll come to that conclusion really soon.

In all, it was a very fun doctor's appointment. Even more relieving to hear that everything looks great and all the measurements were just as they should be. We're still right on track to have the baby the first week of June or so and as far as we're all concerned, it can't come fast enough!

Now we just have to decide on a name!

Our Beautiful Dancer!

Since we put Zach in a whole bunch of sports throughout the year and he has school, Hailey was feeling a bit left out. So we signed her up for a 3-4 year old dance class so that she's have something of her very own to do. She has been waiting forever (so she says) for it to start and this last week it was finally time!

Here she is all dressed up and ready to go. You'll notice she's in pink from head to toe - that's what she picked out at the store. They had blue, black, and white too, but she wanted everything in pink.


Thinks she's just the least bit excited?


The class is only half an hour, so they don't get through a whole lot. Here they are at the beginning of the class, meeting each other and their teacher Miss Christine.


They each had to stand on a specially marked spot to do their warm-ups.


They did a lot of shoulder, head, arms, legs, and whole body warm-ups. This is Hailey jumping up and down with her class (see the video later on of some more jumping).


Here they are stretching out their legs and arms - Hailey wasn't quite sure what was going, but was doing her best to follow along.


After that they were finally ready to do some dancing. They ran around the room, danced in different ways (or just ran around for most of the girls, including Hailey), and finally learned first position. Hailey like to call it first pedition - she knows what it means, even if she can't quite pronounce it.


Here are a few video clips of her dancing (I have a whole lot more, but thought these two were the cutest).

The is one of her jumping/hopping during warm-ups - she was so cute!



And here is one of them dancing with scarves (Hailey's favorite part of the whole class). The teacher had them all lay down on the floor and pretend to be asleep. Then she would dance around and put on a scarf on each of them. Once they got a scarf, they could get up and dance with it. Hailey wasn't quite sure how to dance with the scarf, so she really was studying the teacher and trying to do the same things she was. It was so darling!



It was one of the most fun half hours ever! It's so fun to see her have such a good time and have something of her own to do. She's been running around the house all week practicing her dancing - it's been fun to catch her at odd times when she doesn't know I'm watching - she's even given her bear and blankie a little dance lesson! She can't wait for this Tuesday when she gets to go back and dance some more! To be honest, neither can I!

It's Basketball Time!

That's right - at our house, January and February mean one thing - BASKETBALL! Zach absolutely loves to play basketball and has been looking forward to it starting for months now.

His first game was on Thursday and he was hyper all day waiting for it to be time to go. We were lucky to have Uncle Bubby and Aunt Afton come down to see his first game. Zach was thrilled that they were there and wanted to do his best to show them how good of a basketball player he was.

Here's a few pictures I got before my camera batteries died - or I would have a lot more on here!





We had a blast watching him play. He scored 6 or 7 baskets and got quite a few rebounds (helps when you're a lot taller than most of the players on both teams!). I promise to take more pictures next game when I have in fresh batteries and post them again so you can see some more shots of him in action!

We are so proud of you Zach - you really are a sports nut just like your Dad!

First Time Sledding

Thanks to Santa, the kids both got new sleds for Christmas. After shoveling the driveway one day, we made them a little sledding hill that they played on for a while. We realized that we hadn't actually taken them sledding yet, so we threw everything in the car and headed to a famous local sledding spot. Ok, it's just an outdoor ampitheatre, but it makes a perfect sledding hill in the winter.

Here's Hailey getting ready to head down the hill - yes she went all by herself!


And here's Zach getting ready to go down.


Even though they had to carry their sleds up the hill by themselves, they were still all smiles the whole time we were there.


Think they're having any fun???


It was a bit tricky getting those big sleds (well, big in comparison with the kids' size) up that hill, but they both did great and didn't complain one time.


And because I couldn't help but take some video of them while we were there, I thought I'd include a couple for you to see the sledding in action.

Hailey Sledding Video:



Zach Sledding Video:



The kids had a blast, which meant that Jeremiah and I had a blast watching them. Jeremiah even went down a couple of times with Hailey. We have plans to go again soon since the kids absolutely loved it!

Hailey's Birthday

Believe it or not, Hailey turned 4 this year. You're right - where did the last 4 years go? I can't believe she's already that old.

The day started off just right with a breakfast fit for a princess.


That's right, those are pink pancakes you see on the plate.


Needless to say, she was really excited about the breakfast surprise. Zach wasn't so sure about them at first, but once we convinced him to try it and see that they didn't taste any different, he thought the pink pancakes were very cool. In fact, he's already put in his request for green crepes for his birthday!


Unfortunately, it snowed all day, so there wasn't much else we did that afternoon other than decorate the house and get it ready for the family party that evening (I completely forgot to get a picture of the decorations - pregnancy brain is hitting me hard this time around!).

Once everyone made it to the house (some even traveled 2 1/2 hours for a normal 1 hour trip to get here), we had dinner, then opened some presents.


Hailey was absolutely thrilled with everything she got.


And here she is with all of her presents - quite a haul!


The large item in the brown box is a dollhouse. It was from Jeremiah and I and we were very lax and completely forgot to put it together before her birthday, so she got it in the box. She wasn't very excited about it since she couldn't tell what it was. So here's a picture of it all put together the next morning and set up in her room. It turned out even more cute than I imagined!


Here's the birthday girl with her birthday crown on - all smiles of course!


And here's the "cake" I made for her. She was very determined that she wanted cupcakes this year, so we did sort of a pseudo-cake make out of cupcakes pushed together. Not nearly as cute as I've seen in other examples, but she was thrilled, so I considered it a success.


And here's the big girl blowing out her candles. Seems like not too long ago she had to have help blowing them out and now she's big enough to do it all by herself.



Yep, it was good birthday. In fact, she made my day later that night as I was tucking her into bed. She told it me it was the best birthday ever! Sure, she probably doesn't even remember the last 3 birthdays, but as a Mom, there's nothing that makes you happier than realizing your child was in heaven and couldn't have imagined anything better.

Happy Birthday Hailey-Bug! We can't believe how fast you're growing! We sure love you to pieces!