Catching Up!

Here are some updates!  The blog is giving me some trouble, so I'm going to type everything here!  Hallie has let me do her hair alittle bit: when I did pig tails, she called them "piggy tails." But she does mainly like me not to do anything.   Karen and Dean got her to actually get in a little pool at their house! She's still afraid of the big pool though.  It's ironic though since she loves to wear a bathing suit!  She loves to swing and does well in a big swing now! One of her favorite stuffed animals is now "Geoffrey" the giraffe, which Linda and Gary got for her!  She loves her IPAD and is doing really well with the letters games. She can even write some letters since there's an app that focuses on phonics where it says the letter sound and has you write it!  She loves to sit in our bed under the covers with the IPAD. She also loves to swing on the treadmill.

  As far as shows, she really likes "Handy Mandy" and the Tinkerbell movies (with one in particular that she wants to watch a few times a week. I think Jason and I can quote the whole movie now!)  She also found this movie called the "Ooglieloves" on Netflix (but playing with the IPAD) and she wants to watch that constantly!  It's a bit annoying for me and Jason, but she loves it! She sings their songs a lot now! A video is at the bottom!

 Potty training is not going as well as we hoped.  She doesn't "want to" go to the potty most of the time.  Hopefully, she's just going to get it on her own soon and be fine, but it's hard right now because I don't get a memo telling me when/if that's going to happen, so I worry.  I just don't want to force her too much because I think that would backfire with her since she's so stubborn. So, pray for us to have wisdom with this!

Strawberry Girl!

 These were taken a month or so ago, when Jason, Lee, Der, and Hallie went to one of Der's demonstration sites to pick strawberries!  She loved it!

 

I think wearing Lee's hat!

 

 

 Der took this at Lee's birthday party!  I love it! Aida says Hallie is her favorite cousin!

After month of refusing to have anything in her hair, we're making progress!  Jennifer (daycare) took this week and her daughter did Hallie's hair for this pic!

 

 

I got her hair in a ponytail as well!

 

 

 

 

She loves her Tinkerbell bathing suit!

 

 

 

 

 

She's picking up more things we say!  I accidently stepped on her once and told her sorry. She responded by saying "You're fine, dear. It's okay, dear."

 

It surprised me but I think Jason and I say this to each other, plus we call her dear, honey, sweetie a lot so she must have just picked it up from us!

 

But she also uses our words against us.  We want her to be patient so we'll tell her we'll do something in just a minute or moment.  Then, we'll ask her to do something and she tells us "Just a minute!"

It's very annoying, but funny! Guess Jason and I need to learn patience too!

 

She's starting to really like Veggie Tales, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and Handy Manny.  She is still learning songs and music quickly!

 

Haircuts, Pedaling, and Watering Plants!

Hallie gave me a haircut today with the curling iron!  She brushed my hair a bit too! (I did get my haircut about a month ago!)

 

 

This was a few weeks ago, when the weather was actually nice!  She's starting to understand how to pedal! We look forward to summer and her learning more!  Yes, she's going down a hill, but we think she's getting the concept!

 

 

Jason's strawberry plants a few weeks ago!  They've got more blooms now! 

Our first season of strawberries!

 



 

At Linda and Gary's in mid April!

She got completely soaked watering the plants!

 



 

She's been testing the waters more with us lately, throwing bad temper tantrums!  Yesterday morning, she had a fit over Jason putting a skirt on her!  We hope she'll like skirts again this summer but so far, she's only wanted to wear pants.  It can be a battle to just put on clothes!

 

Sometimes, she won't listen to what we say, then she'll do this mischievous laugh.  Sometimes it’s funny, other times it feels very disrespectful, like she doesn’t take Jason and I seriously.

 

Hallie doesn’t seem to be a morning person either.  Twice this week I went into her room after 7:00 and she said, “No, want to go to sleep!  I tired!  I don’t feel good!” She really was fine, but wanted to stay in the bed longer! So, I’ve figured out if I wait just a few minutes and come back, she’s ready to get up! Then, it switched a she woke up on her own at 6:45....never predictable!

 

I remember telling Jason when Hallie was a baby I thought she was a night owl!

 

Her new favorite show is the WonderPets.  We watched the same episode about a Reindeer just about every day this week.   The songs keep torturing Jason and me.

 



Random new things!

Hallie wanted to put on a dress today to twirl!

 

 

 

Yes, I will explain below!  Hallie had super bad diaper rash over a week ago and I think now feels obligated to put cream on her baby dolls!  She seems to also like them to have no clothes on, so we have quite a toy nudist colony going on!

 

 

This is from about a month ago, but we got her to wear a hat for a bit!

 

A new thing we came up with is having  a food party on our bed!  The toy food has pieces that come apart so Hallie will cut them with her plastic knife!

 



 

Lately, we've been singing tons of Belle songs, Ariel songs, and have started to get into (Tangled) Rapunzel. I wish  my video of her singing Belle would load, but it won't!  She does seem to really pick up on songs well!

 

Fun times!

Jason came up with this great idea of indoor sledding on a Friday night!  Hallie also liked pulling it behind her!  We love how she laughs!

 

Hallie has always responded to music well!  There is a gingerbread man video on the ipad that she loves to sing!  It amazes us how quickly she picks up the lyrics! 

 

 

Lately, we've been listening to Hakuna Matada from the Lion King and Jessie's song from Toy Story.  She loves to be chased and run around the house!  It's a daily thing, yes daily!

 

And she wants to be on daddy's shoulders now too!  Every day!

 

She likes to play on our bed a lot (though she'll say she's in daddy's room; apparently, I don't have a room!)  She likes to pretend to sleep under the covers!

 



Happy Valentine's Day!

Hallie's Valentine's Day outfit!

 

 

I moved the playroom to the front living area after the new year!

 

Hallie has gotten into a clip of Michael Buble singing "White Christmas" on one of his Christmas specials that we found on youtube.  Hallie loves to sing it!

 

 

 

She has really gotten better at colors lately and is constantly telling us the color of something!  She also likes the "Once upon a dream" song, as a few weeks ago we watched "Sleeping Beauty" every day! This week, it's been "Toy Story 2" (with Jessie!).

 

I've even introduced her to Hip Hop! I hope to get a better video of her singing this one day, but for now.....she knows a bit of the classic 90's song, "Hip Hop Hooray!"

 

 

Christmas, Memphis, and Disneyworld!

Okay, so the pics are in most recent order of event!

 

We went to Disneyworld the 10th to 15th! We stayed in the Art of Animation hotel- Cars section, which was cute! The pool was the Cozy Cone hotel setting and it had the characters all over the section-  I just took a pic of Sally and Lightning

 

 

 

Day 1, we went to Epcot!  Hallie's first ride was Figment! 

 

Aida ran the Mickey Mile on Friday, so we went to the ESPN sports area for that!

 (Will ran the Marathon on Sunday!)

 

 

 

One of my favorite pics below! How sweet!

 

 

We headed next to Animal Kingdom!

 



 Hallie didn't know what to think when watching the Jungle parade!

 

 

But chocolate Mickey Mouse ears made it better!

 



 

We went on the Safari ride!  Hallie loved seeing the animals!

 

 

We went to Hollywood Studios that evening!

One of my favorite things was a place they called Disney Jr. Dance Party!  Pluto, Goofy, Mickey, and Minnie were dancing with all these little kids!   I managed to get a pic of Minnie!

 



 

Here's a quick video of the Dance Party!

 

They played "Call Me Maybe" (one of Hallie's favorite songs! and I tried to get Hallie to

sing with me!

 

 

After day one.....

 

Day 2 was Magic Kingdom!

 



 

For the Enchanced Tales with Belle, Aida, Will and Jason got to participate in recreating a bit of the Beauty and the Beast story!

 

 

 

We ate in the Beast's castle!

 

 

 

 

We met Ariel!

 

 

 

Teacups!

 

 

About 5:00 on Day 2....

 

 

Later that evening, I got Hallie on Dumbo! She liked it more than she wanted me to know!  She also enjoyed the Jungle Cruise, which had some (fake) elephants under a waterfall. She now says "Elephant's messy!" and she tips her head back and puts her lips together to do an elephant impression!  We also got her on Pirates, so she did her first hill ride!

 

 

Day 3, went back to Epcot for the Day! After the Nemo ride, they had an aquarium type setting with a cute play area for the kids!  Here's us in Bruce's mouth!

 

 

We met Aurora!

 

 

 

Hallie seemed to recognize Snow White and kept pointing saying, "Snow White!" while we waited.

 

 

 

Pic at Sunset

 

At dinner on Day 3...

 

 

 

We had a great trip to Memphis after Christmas! We were excited to meet Leah!

 

 

Both Isaiah and Hallie loved the I-pad!

 

 

 

We went to a Children's museum since it rained!  It had a slide that Hallie liked!

 

 

At least we got some sort of picture with Elvis while we were there!

 

 

Christmas was great!  Here's a summary of photos!