That term is about to take on a whole new meaning as Brady is scheduled to make his big debut tomorrow morning!  You have been so sweet this whole pregnancy – talking to my tummy, kissing my tummy, tickling my tummy.  You definitely understand that there is a baby in there, but I am not sure you have quite conceptualized the fact that he will soon be here with us.

We have to be at the hospital by 6am tomorrow so Kim is going to come over around 5:30am.  She’ll play with you and get you ready then take you to school by 10am.  Then Luli will pick you up around 3pm.  Depending on how Brady & mommy are doing we might have Luli bring you to the hospital that afternoon.  If not, then we’ll wait til Saturday.

Luli is soooooo excited to see you!  And I know she is already feeling very thankful for the opportunity to spend some special one-on-one time with you.  You are pretty much the highlight of her day….everyday!

You are doing well in your new school.  You finally settled in and are able to get dropped off with excitement instead of sadness and hesitation.  Your teachers are awesome, the curriculum is challenging, and you love all the extras – dance, gymnastics, and Mr. Vick.  You stay busy all day but your favorite part is getting to go play outside 2x/day!

You have been on a kick lately of recognizing like items by exclaiming “Same Ting!”  It can be anything from 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, to us drinking from the same cups, or even when we are both eating a cheese stick.  You love to find things that match or are the same – especially colors.  It’s pretty impressive how smart you are!

You are loving your baby brother!  You have fun laying on mommy’s tummy and even like to give Brady kisses!  You’ve been lucky enough to feel him move a few times — which always seems to draw a smile from you.

You are doing well in your new school.  You get to do gymnastics, dance, and once a week Mr. Vick comes to sing songs, play guitar, and do puppet shows.  Your teachers are very nice – Kelsey, Shonna, & Ambryn.  You are one of the youngest in your class and seem to enjoy the challenges that come along with that.

You are starting to recognize your alphabet letters and we’ve been going through your flashcards each night.  You are able to recognize every single picture and over the past week or so have begun to recognize a good portion of the letters.  It’s so fun to watch you grow and develop – you are such a bright and beautiful young lady!

What a blessing you are to our family. I thank God each and every day for you!

It amazes me how much and how fast you are growing. You’re articulate, curious, cautious, helpful, loving, kind, caring, and funny. We were in Toys R Us the other day and I said “I love you Hailey”, and you replied with “I am special?!”. It made me laugh and cry at the same time!

You seem excited about your brother’s arrival. You give my belly kisses and talk to him a lot. I don’t think you have any clue what his arrival will mean for you but I am glad you are excited…at least for now. 🙂

There have been many (negative) changes at your daycare over the past few months. After giving it MUCH thought, your father and I decided it would be best to move you to a different school. We checked out a few and decided on the Children’s Courtyard. It’s a little bit farther but the positives will definitely be worth it: nicer facility, more organized classrooms, more structured curriculum, more staff, more extracurricular activities, and a super cool playground!

I am a bit nervous about introducing too much change in your life, but feel confident this is the right thing to do. Luckily your dance class (same company and teacher) is offered at the new school so you’ll still get to see Miss Wendy once a week. And we signed you up for gymnastics, too. I really think you’ll enjoy that!

We went on our usually weekend morning coffee run Saturday and I drove you by the school – want to try and get you excited about the change. All we really did was see the playground but that was enough to get you fired up! My plan is to leave work early one day this week so we can go tour the place and introduce you to all the new teachers and kids.

Your mom and I knew this dad would come, we just didn’t expect it so soon, and so, so suddenly.  This saturday out of the blue “Why Daddy” and “Why Mommy” started.

Eat your green beans…  “Why Daddy” …because they are good for you… “Why Daddy”
Get in the car… “Why Daddy”  …because we are going to the store… “Why Daddy”
I have to let Maddie outsite “Why Daddy”  …because she has to go potty…  “Why Daddy”

“Why Daddy”, “Why Daddy”, “Why Daddy”  ALL day Saturday.  Never before this day had you asked.  It’s now Wednesday and it has continued all week.  Looks like this is going to be a trend for a while.

Where did you learn this?  and “Why Hailey”

Love you Monkey!

You are officially in your big girl room!  We moved your stuff over and had your furniture delivered a few weeks ago (12/3)…and you’ve been sleeping in your big girl bed ever since.  You done a great job with the transition to your new room and bed.  You love the freedom of your twin size bed but don’t take too much advantage of it.  For the most part you stay in bed from the time we put you down til the time you wake up!

It’s hard to believe how fast you are growing up!  You are speaking in full, grown up sentences.  You are so vivacious and full of life.  You are rather stubborn and opinionated though – not sure where you get that from?!  Your father, I am guessing.  🙂

You are excited about Christmas but you’re not a huge fan of Santa Clause.  We’ve tried twice now to get you in his lap but you will have no part of it.  We are trying to decide if we should force you into it and get one of those infamous screaming kid pictures or just leave it be for this year?!  We went to Interlochen and looked at Xmas lights last night and you loved it!  You were asking to see more and more lights!  We’ll have to do it again before the season is over…maybe when we are in Iowa next week!

Grandpa and Abby asked if you could spend the night with them on Thanksgiving.  Knowing you’d probably outgrown a pack ‘n play and that we’d need a solution for our visit to Luli & Papaw’s house later in the week, we decided to invest in a blow up big girl bed!  Your first night in the new bed was Wednesday and it’s safe to say things didn’t go just great.  You woke up many times and called for me or your daddy each time.  But you did much better Thursday at Grandpa and Abby’s – only woke up once!  You did pretty good in your bed at Luli & Papaw’s house and tonight we are trying you on an actual twin size matttress on your bedroom floor.

We are well on our way to getting you 100% converted to a big girl bed…which is good news considering your new bedroom set is scheduled to arrive on Saturday!  We ended up getting you a 4 post bed, nightstand, dresser w/mirror, and an armoire from Haverty’s a few weeks back.  We delayed the delivery knowing your new room would not be quite ready for you to move into for a few more weeks.

This is all just one more sign of how fast you are growing up….TOO FAST!  🙁

Our sweet, sweet Maddie is 8 ½ years old. Knowing that we always want to own pets (dogs) we decided it would be a good time to get a new dog acclimated and potty trained so that it would be all settled into our home by the time the new baby arrives. We applied for a Mastiff puppy through a rescue group but the puppies went fast to other homes. Realizing that wasn’t meant to be, we began researching other breeds and Greandma Karen mentioned the “Teddy Bear” puppies. LONG story short….we ended up with not one, but TWO new puppies!

Tucker is a mix between a Shihtzu & Bichon Frise and Bandit is a mix between a Shihtzu and a Coton de Tulear. Both are absolutely adorable and super lovable! Tucker is weighing in at a whopping 2.5 lbs and Bandit almost doubles him at 4.6 lbs! It’s quite the drastic change from our 175 pound Maddison! You have already been such a big helper with the puppies — it only proves what we already knew to be true…you are gonna be a GREAT big sister!

So we are currently a household of 3 ½ people and 3 dogs! Are we crazy or what!?

Brother!!!!  We just left the Dr’s office for mommy’s 16 week check-up.  While your little sibling wasn’t fully cooperative we’re 95% sure it’s your brother!  Mommy and daddy are very excited!

When daddy went to get you from you bed after nap today you were clearly still interested in laying around.  So daddy told you to let him know when you were ready to get out of bed.  To that, you proceeded to grab the end of the bed, throw your leg over the railing, and lower yourself down onto the floor!  I was in the other room but you came in shouting “I got out of bed”….shortly after your dad explained that you meant that quite literally.  So, we put you back in bed and asked you to do it again.  And you did.

I guess you could say this is officially the end of an era…the era where mommy and daddy are in control of your whereabouts at all times.

We had a super fun weekend!  We met Michelle, Kevin, and Charlotte at the pumpkin patch Saturday morning.  We got to feed the goats, see a pig race, go on a hay ride, and pet lots of way cool animals–cows, horses, chickens, bunnies, sheep, and guinea pigs!  You had a fantastic time and we all went for lunch afterwards.  We realized that this time next year, our table of six would be a table of 8 given that Michelle & I will both have our babies around the same time in 2012!

After your nap we dressed you in your Halloween costume – a cute little witch – and met up with Kim & Catrina at their church’s Trunk or Treat event.  You were VERY intimidated by the holding of the bag and saying trick or treat part.  Towards the end you were finally getting the hang of it though.

Then today we carved pumpkins!  Mommy did one and Daddy did two.  You found that interesting for about the first 10 minutes….then you started getting a little bored.  Oh, and then daddy cooked bloody fingers for your dinner….hot dogs with pasta noodles hanging out the end of them with lots of ketchup.  Needless to say it was an action packed weekend!