It's hard to believe...

...that this is going to be me again, soon!! (yup, you read that right...I'm pregnant!) I loved the precious minutes that I got to spend with Hailey right after she was born and I can't wait for the minute that I get to meet my new baby! September 6th seems like so far away, right now, but I know that it will go very quickly and in a flash it will all be done and we'll be a family of 5! (Allie counts, doesn't she???) :) Right now I'm just focusing on having enough energy to keep up with my incredibly quick moving 1 year old! What's the best is that I was really worried about when I was going to stop nursing Hailey and I didn't have to worry about it at all- she just quit when I got pregnant! Pretty neat, huh?! :)

Thank you, Lord, for answering my prayer above and beyond anything I could ever have wished or hoped for!

memories of a sweeter time...

On Thursday one of my best highschool friends went on to meet her maker and I think, no matter who it is, it's never easy to see someone young and full of life die. At 25 you're supposed to be planning a wedding, going to baby showers, having fun with friends- not fighting leukemia and getting bone marrow transplants. Lacey did face all of this with great fortitude and strength, but that didn't make it any easier to watch, or, any easier for her to handle!

I was thinking back to the first time that I met Lacey and it was over 10 years ago, she was starting her sophomore year at Lincoln and I was in my junior year. She joined the cheer and stunt team and instantly made herself well liked and a star. That was how she was- she couldn't even help it, it seemed like when she walked into a room people instantly fell in love with her. The best part about her was that she didn't wear the coolest clothes, she didn't worry about making sure she had tons of make up on before she came to school, I know that she cared about what other people thought about her, 'cause what kid doesn't, but Lacey really lived by her own rules and she inspired me to do the same!! I don't know why, but for some reason Lacey and I just clicked. We both cheered for wrestling, she started dating my stunt partner, and pretty much the rest is history. We went swimming in the summer, we stunted after school and before school and hung out in our coaches room during school, we shared seats on the bus, she shared a bed when we slept over places, and we often rode in to school together! I had my drivers' liscense before her, since I was a year older, so I drove us around that first year, but the next year my sister moved home and I lost my car to her, so Lacey drove me around! :) One of my fondest memories of Lacey is that we would go to McDonalds and get fruit and yogurt parfaits, drive to the park and sit on the swings laughing and eating those parfaits! To this day I love fruit and yogurt parfaits at McD's, because it brings back all those sweet memories. We also shared a love for those chocolate cadburry eggs...one year after Easter we pooled our money and went and bought as many as we could afford- I don't know how many it was, but we had at least a shopko bag full! I don't know if we got sick of eating them, but I do know that we stashed them all over, so that we'd always have them if we needed a little pick me up during the school day!

During my senior year one of our cheerleaders, Amber Rahn, died in a car accident. It was one of the most heartbreaking things that I had gone through up until that point and that night, Lacey, her boyfriend, and a friend of his, came over to my house and sat on the living room floor, drinking hot chocolate and just reminiscing about her...later, on Amber's birthday, Lacey and I drove out to the site of the accident and just sat there crying, together. We didn't even need words, because we both knew what the loss meant to us! That's what good friends are- people who will be there for you, with words when you need to hear them, but more often than not, just tears and a shared shoulder!

Unfortunately, as with most highschool friendships, Lacey and I lost contact with each other and drifted apart. We still saw each other every once in a while and kept up on facebook, but it would never be the same! I guess life is like that- we all change and life changes around us! I know, though, that I will never forget Lacey- it's hard to look at any of my pictures from highschool and not see her and it's impossible to think back to highschool and not have her in my thoughts! I have been praying, though, that her death would make each one of us who knew her think about our own destinies...her life was short and it gives me pause to think about what I've accomplished and what I should be worrying about. It's so easy to get caught up with the mundane aspects of life, but, really, it is what we are doing with Jesus Christ, that matters, not how clean our houses are, or how well dressed our babies are, or even if they've had a bath recently- all of that is trivial compared to the question of where we will spend eternity. Lord willing, Lacey made that decision to accept Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior, before she came face to face with Him, and I can only hope that each one of us makes that choice!

where there's a will, there's a way!

Hailey has just been cruising around our house, lately. It's so fun to watch her. It seems like if I leave the room for even a minute, she's in a different place when I come back! Yesterday we spent a long time in the doctor's office (our doctor was running late...) and she walked all around that waiting room, on the chair numerous times. I know that it means more work for me, and more bumps and bruises for her, but I love to see her so mobile! It makes my mommy heart happy. :) And...she got a clean bill of health at the doctor's office, yesterday. She's 18 lbs. 2 oz. and is 28 inches long! I'm proud of her...she's growing so well! The only thing is that the doctor told us to lay off of milk for at least 3 or 4 more months. I don't think she'll mind, but it's hard not to want to feed her cheese or stuff like that! But, in 3 months we can try yogurt and then move up from there, if she does good with it!

Here she pushed her lion to the coffee table, got on the coffee table, moved to the rocking chair and went to say HI to the nice lady on the tv! :)

earlier in the day she had gone from the lion, or her piano, I can't remember..., to the ottoman and then pushed that over to the green chair...

paused for a few minutes to look cute! :)

then made her way to the green chair! (then she got tangled up in the cord for the laptop and I had to rescue her...) I also had to rescue her from underneath the table and shutting herself in the bathroom numerous times, yesterday! :) (her new trick is shutting doors, she just doesn't understand how to open them again!)

what a difference a year makes...

Isn't it crazy that the baby on the left is the same as the baby on the right??? Only a year of difference??? I can't believe it...and, I just can't believe how much of a difference this year has made in our life and in her life! God is pretty amazing!

Here's a little look at how much Hailey has changed in a year...

-she was born weighing 6lbs. 1/2oz. and today she weighs 18lbs. 4oz! (good job, honey!) :)

-she was 18 1/2 in. at birth and she's almost grown a whole 10 inches since then- amazing huh?

-she has enough hair to put a ponytail in it, now, whereas when she was born she didn't have much hair at all!

-a year ago Hailey and I were still trying to figure out how to get nursing down, but she's been done nursing for almost a month, now, and eats pretty much everything and anything- her new favorite is blueberries!

-as a newborn Hailey was barely mobile and spent a lot of time sleeping, but now I can barely keep up with her. She walks along all of the furniture and loves to scoot all over the house getting into trouble

-she used to sleep a lot during the day, and cry even more, but now she barely cries at all- if anything it's kind of a whine- and sleeps almost 12 hours every night! Isn't that amazing?!

-when we first brought Hailey home she was only content to sleep in her bouncy seat, and she slept in that or in my arms for each nap and at night, but now she never wants to cuddle with me and she wants to sleep in her own crib, all by herself!

-the best and biggest difference that a year makes is that Korey and I are both feeling a little more like we can handle having a baby! (it only took a year, and now she's probably gonna change on us...) When we first brought her home it was all so overwhelming and maybe it was the lack of sleep or all the crying, but I wasn't sure I was cut out to be a Mom. I knew that I had prayed hard for a baby, but I was afraid that maybe God gave me what I wanted and it wasn't what I wanted!!! But, thankfully, He showed us a lot in a year, and Hailey is everything I've ever wanted and could ever hope for in a baby girl!

-probably the only thing that hasn't changed in the year is my love for Hailey...on the day that I was giving birth to her, I remember feeling her head and having this overwhelming feeling of love rush over me and being able to do whatever it took and handle whatever pain there was in store for me to get that baby out and hold her...and that love has not changed one bit. It helped me through those sleepless nights, the days of bouncing and walking a screaming baby, the midnight car rides to try and calm her down, and the bites while she was teething! Hopefully all of those things will be mere blips of all my mommy memories, but I don't think I will ever forget what it felt like to feel her head that first time- at least I hope not!! That "tough" mother love is the greatest gift that God has ever blessed me with!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday, dear Hailey!

Hailey turned 1 on the 22nd, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had celebrating it with her! :) I thought it would be sadder to have her "growing" up, but I wasn't really that sad!! I guess that's a good thing, right??? Here's how we spent the day...

first we had breakfast in bed!
then, right after, when she was all filled up we weighed her to see if maybe she could move up to her big girl carseat...it's a no go- she's still only 18.4lbs! What a bummer! :(

since she doesn't have to watch her weight I let her have an unfrosted cupcake for lunch! :) Too bad I don't have that problem...

Mommy and Daddy took her out for dinner at IHOP- I think she liked it and the couple next to us loved her- she kept bothering them and saying HI to them!

she almost at the whole pancake- can you believe it???

Then on Saturday we had a party at my Mom's house...

Auntie Fysh helped Hailey open her presents...

then she had some cake!

she had to sit on the floor and eat, so she thought it would be fun to crawl around while she was eating! :) It got kinda messy!

Then on Sunday, Auntie Sarah and Uncle Mike came up to celebrate with us!

Uncle Mike and Hailey both had a good time opening her present!

she got a lion walk/ride and she loves it! She got braver and braver as the day wore on and before she went to bed today she was walking all over the house with it! :)

Aunty Sarah, the great cake maker, made her this beautiful Winnie the Pooh birthday cake!

She loved it! (and so did her mommy, unfortunately! :))

she learned how to stand up on her own, too! Isn't she a doll???

I know this pic doesn't have Hailey in it, but after she went to bed Daddy got out her blocks and played with them! :) Isn't that cute??? I love this guy! :)

as cute as a bug in a rug!

Hailey was in full "cute baby" mode today and, fortunately, I documented it all on camera! :) You be the judge- have you ever seen anything cuter???

she got a bath in the sink this morning because she has horrible diaper rash and also has a some weird cradle cap, so she can't get her hair washed too often! :)
wanting to play with the dishes in the sink more than in the water!

her first real ponytail- isn't she cute?! :)

I love this face...she's like, what did you do to me???

and I love this little outfit- it's my favorite!

she's trying to climb up my leg, I think one of these days she's gonna stand up and it'll probably be trying to pull herself up on my leg!

sitting in her rocking chair

apparently she's kind of tired of all these pictures, today! But, this is one of my favorite ones...the only problem is that she looks really grown up and that makes me sad! :( She is gonna be 1 on Friday, I just can't believe it!

walking??? well, sort of...

Everyone has been asking me if Hailey is walking, yet, and I know that a lot of babies are walking around, but Hailey prefers to do things her own way! She's never been worried about doing what other's do and I really hope that this keeps up through the rest of her life...she just makes her own rules to live by! (I think she's a lot like her daddy, 'cause I'm definitely more of a "follower" than that!) :) On that note...she is finding her own ways to get around. We don't have a little walker, so she pretty much created her own! She's been pushing around whatever she can get her hands on. She still can't pull herself up on it, but if I stand her up on it, she takes off running- almost literally! :)

"would you believe that I pushed this piano all the way from the living room to the kitchen??? How many kids do you know that can move a piano around??" ;)

...but, the piano got boring quickly and I wanted a bigger and better challenge!
yay! I figured out how to go from one thing to another...I'm getting braver! "peek-a-boo, mommy- I see you!"

"ahhhhh...what do I do, now??"

"hmm...maybe I can get the stool and use it to get around..."

" yay! here I go..."

"I'm going places"

"just try and keep up with me, now, Mom!"

"oh bummer...who put this cabinet here?!"

That is pretty much her only downfall, she hasn't quite figured out how to turn and get around things, she can only push things straightforward, but with her ingenious way of getting around things, I'm sure she'll come up with something sooner or later! :) (or she'll get really brave and start trying to walk on her own!)

Do you think that we could paint the bedroom???

On Friday Hailey and I decided that we were going to just buy some paint to paint Korey's and my bedroom! :) I had been wanting to paint the bedroom for probably a year now, but Korey's been putting it off...I even bought us a new bedspread that didn't match the red walls, but that wasn't enough motivation, so I thought that maybe buying the paint would do it! And, luckily for me (and unluckily for Korey) it did! Unfortunately, as long as we were going to paint the bedroom Korey figured we should take the trim off and put new stuff on, and as long we were re-doing the trim, we should do the door and closet doors, too...so...what should have been a little project turned into a whole week long ordeal! (Hopefully it will only take a week, anyways!) :)

Korey working on taking of the trim!
the beautiful pink laminate tiles that were underneath the carpet

Hailey "helping"

she wanted to paint, too! :)

We decided to put in new laminate wood floors, as long as we were at it! :) Hailey helped Daddy lay down the underlayment! (that's the new color behind her...it's a greyish greenish blue color...)

Well, let's hope that this project gets done soon! I'm ready to move out of our guest bedroom and get back to my real bed! :)

there's a first time for everything!

I kind of thought that as Hailey got older there would be fewer and fewer "firsts", but apparently that is not the case, because in the last two days we've had quite a few of them...they're just a little different than the one's I used to get excited about! :)

For the first time Hailey entertained herself in her highchair all by herself. It was great...I put her by the window and gave her a few graham crackers and she watched the cars go by and waited for daddy to come home!
For the first time she was able to actually play in her toy basket while standing up! She didn't even fall over and even pulled some toys out...well, actually, she pulled all the toys out! :)

For the first time someone clapped for me when I finished eating my banana! Can't say that anyone's ever done that for me before, but it definitely warmed my heart! How can I not love someone who celebrates all my accomplishments with me no matter how small??? :)
I took my friend, Amanda, her daughter, Elianna, and her dog, Sella, snowshoeing for the first time today! :) We had so much fun- I'm pretty sure she's hooked...although, we'll see how she feels tomorrow...we went for about 5.6K- up and down hills and it was super intense! :)

did you see how well Sella sat for the picture??? This is what my dog was doing while we were trying to take pictures...she didn't even care! ;)

For the first time, today, I fell down while snowshoeing ;( boo...poor Hailey was so scared, but it was actually pretty funny. Amanda was all worried that she would, 'cause she didn't know what she was doing, and I had just told her that I've never fallen before and then...bam, down we went! I guess I can't say that now, but I can say that we have fallen and both lived to talk about it!! :)