Adventures, Oranges, Pig Tails and More!

Hailee is one who LOVES the outdoors! Everyday we go on our "walk" down the street and back! She loves to look in every one's yards, chase the dog, and play with things she finds on the ground! This is SERIOUSLY such a fun stage!





On Friday, January 9th we went to Disneyland with Jenn and Jocelyn Ward and Jen and Ashton Little! This was all of our first times going without the husbands! Just us and our babies! It was alot of fun! Ashton is full of smiles! He was flashin' his flirty smile to everyone! And Jocelyn was such a cutie! I was shocked that she knew what the carousel was. We were standing in line for the Peter Pan ride and she kept pointing to the horses on the carousel! The kids are all so cute together! Hailee had so much fun walking everywhere and running up and down the stairs! We will definitely have to do this again! Jenn Ward and I went together...it was so fun having Hailee and Jocelyn in car seats next to each other! So much easier because they were able to entertain each other!

Yesterday, Hailee went out with Grandma to pick tangelos in the back yard! She had so much fun! Especially when she discovered throwing them IN the pool! She is such a big girl! It is so neat to see how well and fast she understands and does things!

Last night, January 10th, I put Hailee's hair in pig tails! It was so cute! I was so excited that her hair was finally long enough to do something! Now hopefully the sides will start growing!
Lastly, don't laugh at this next picture! (Okay, I guess you can...I gave it my best shot!) We have this cupcake book that shows you how to make all different cupcakes, so I thought I would be creative and make cute doggy cup cakes for my primary class! This is how they turned out! I definitely need more practice but it was alot of fun trying!

What a SCARE!!!!

Wow...I think today was the first time I have really had a "scare" with Hailee! This morning we were out in our car cleaning it. Hailee was up in the front seat staying busy with the radio controls and I was in the back seat polishing the leather seats. Once I finished the back seats, I got out, closed the door and was going to clean the front seats, when CLICK! She locked the doors on me, and the keys were INSIDE! I stood there for a second, and then I realized "Oh my GOSH! She is LOCKED INSIDE with the KEYS!" I honestly had no clue if we had a spare key, and if we did, I didn't know where it was! I ran inside, and thankfully Gregg had just gotten home from work and barely fallen asleep, so I woke him up and told him! He ran outside thinking we had a spare underneath the car and he couldn't find it! I was about to call the police! At this point Hailee was crying and hitting the window trying to get out! It was so sad and scary! Gregg then remembered that we had a spare key in the safe so he ran and got it and....wallah....he rescued Hailee!
What a scare that was! I was so happy Gregg was home to find the spare key. I definitely will remember to always keep my keys ON me and not in the car with Hailee!
Hailee says "Thanks Daddy for rescuing me! I love you!"

HELP!!!!

I need HELP!
Okay, so here's the problem.... Hailee won't sleep at night.
Hailee has never been a really good sleeper. When she was about 3-6 months old, she actually would sleep for 6 hours straight. Then something happened. I don't know what, but it is getting worse. Hailee now wakes up EVERY HOUR of the NIGHT! And most of the time she just wants her BINKI! I always put several in there but she doesn't like to open her eyes to find them. I know I should probably just let her cry until she finds it, but I can't, because my parents work and have to be up early each morning.
Some nights, she will wake up around 2:30am, FULL OF ENERGY and just wants to play! So those nights I am up from 2:30am till around 5am until she decides that she wants to finally go back to sleep; for only a couple of hours, then she is wide awake and ready to PLAY again! This is seriously WIPING me out! I am always SO TIRED and feel like I have a NEWBORN again! But I don't! I have a 13 month old! She should be wanting to sleep and be able to sleep a whole night through, right?
Does anyone have any ideas? Suggestions? Books? that I should do or read to help her to sleep at night?
I really don't know what to do, besides cry every night because I am so exhausted and knowing that I won't have a break through the day either.
I would really appreciate everyones help!
Thank you so much!

Happy New Year!

We wish you all a wonderful 2009!

Wow....2009 is HERE! We are so excited! 2008 was definitely a year full of new experiences and so many changes for us! Not only did we have a newborn, but we made a HUGE move out to California! We have had some major bumps in the road since living here, but we are so happy to have one another, our beautiful daughter and our family who is here to love and support us in everything that we do! We are really excited for this new year to start and to see where it takes us!
Here are just a few things we are looking forward to this year!
1) Running a half marathon this month (Laurie)
2) Gregg testing with a couple of fire departments this month (pray he will get one of them)
3) Gregg and Laurie doing an Adventure Race together
4) Hailee entering Nursery
5) Hailee continuing to grow and talk more
6) Our 3 Year Anniversary
7) Gregg turning 31
8) Laurie turning 26
9) Hailee turning 2
10) Hopefully moving into a house!

Well, those are just a few of the things we have going on this year so far. This list could go on forever!
Anyways, I'm going to post this (mainly because I will be more likely to stick to it with everyone knowing) but....for the whole month of January I am giving up all chocolate/sweets/junk food! I totally let myself go during December (but I wont lie...I did enjoy eating all of the holiday yummies!) BUT....now it's time to get back on track! So, I'm just giving them up for good! I'm ready to feel healthy again! One of my other goals are to run the half marathon next week, to run a race in April and in May (they are both adventure races) and then I want to run at least 2 more 1/2 marathons sometime in the fall. So, I will definitely be staying busy and I am really hoping I can run all of these! Last year I had a goal of running a marathon and a half, and I only ended up doing one of them (the marathon). So this year I want to be better!
We are definitely looking forward to this wonderful year! Our families saying for 2009 is: "Feel The Fear and Then Do It Anyway!" So, that is what we will be doing!

BOYS CAN BE BOYS....
Well, to catch up from last week, Gregg went shooting and exploring mines with my Dad, Rick, Kip and his father and brother in law. They had so much fun! They had a great time! I'm so glad that they all have so much fun together!

Christmas Day

We had such a wonderful Christmas. The morning started off so wonderful because Hailee slept in until 9am! What a treat that was!

Once everyone else woke up, we went downstairs and gathered around the tree to open presents! My Dad is always the "present giver-outer" so once he was ready, he started handing out gifts and we opened them! How fun, huh!?! It was!

We all got so many awesome things! Gregg got a bunch of stuff for his IPOD, Hailee got new clothes, toys, diapers and a playhouse (which we let her open a few weeks ago!) and I got a bunch of workout gear! We also got the Wii Fit game. It's so fun! Hailee actually enjoyed opening presents too! First she watched how we did it, then she copied us and went to town on tearing the paper off! Once the paper was off, she really didn't care about the gift! haha.

After a little while, she got bored with everything and relaxed on the couch with her books.
Once the presents were all opened, we had breakfast. Hailee has this new obsession with this Mexican Santa that sings and moves. She has us play it over and over and over! Finally she got sick of it!

Later that evening, we had a wonderful dinner that my Mom and Ricky made! We decided to go with the traditional Christmas dinner (turkey and potatoes and all the side dishes) It was soooo good! Thanks Mom and Rick!
Hailee was a big girl and wanted to sit on my lap for dinner and eat off of my plate! She did so good!
Hailee enjoyed playing in the fire truck all day and night! She would steer the truck and then hit the piano keys! It was so funny!

We hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas.We are so thankful for our family, for all that they do for us. We are very thankful to have one another and to have such a beautiful daughter. We are also very thankful for the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ and for the sacrifice he made for us so that we can return to him again.
We look forward to this new year and for all of the new experiences and changes that will happen. We hope you all have a wonderful 2009 too and keep checking our blog for updates on our family!
(Oh, sorry about not getting our Christmas cards out. Things were so busy and I just didn't get around to them. But thank you all who sent us yours. I promise next year we will do better!)

Also....today (Dec. 26th) Hailee is 13 months! I can not believe how fast this last month has flown by! She is constantly learning new things. Some of the new things she has learned this past month are: walking down the stairs (She holds onto the staircase bars), spins in circles, has a new love for books, and she absolutely loves coloring still! Oh, and she now has 11 teeth!

Happy Christmas Eve!

Last night Gregg and I were talking about family traditions what we enjoyed while growing up. It was really enjoyable talking about our childhood years and about all the different things we remember during Christmas times as kids!
Two of the traditions that stood out that we talked about are the following:
My favorite Christmas tradition has to be our Christmas animals. It was in 1989, and my Dad came across these mechanical commercial retail animals at a job he was doing in the mall. I don't remember the whole story, but he was given all of these animals because the mall was replacing them with new ones. Every year since then, we have set them up all around our house creating Christmas animal scenes.

We look forward to every Christmas knowing that these animals are all around the house. They bring us such great memories and Christmas spirit to the house!

One of Gregg's favorite memories is opening Christmas pajamas every Christmas Eve. In my family, we have never done this. (Well, not that I can remember of). I was so excited when Gregg was telling me how he would look forward to opening his new jammies each Christmas Eve, because this was a tradition I wanted to start in our little family! Tonight, I surprised him by pulling out three presents...one for me, him and Hailee and told him we needed to open these tonight! He got a huge smile on his face when he saw that they were pajamas! So, this is a now a tradition we are going to continue with in our family!

Lastly, my entire family started a new Christmas tradition tonight. My Mom put on a wonderful Christmas program and one of the things that we had to do was to bring a Christmas poem/story to share with everyone. After we were done reading, my Mom gave us a binder to put the stories in and along with that, she gave us 24 more Christmas stories so each family now has their own set of Christmas stories to read to their families! Each year, we will come with a new story to add to the book!
Here are a few more pictures from the night:

We had a very yummy Mexican dinner tonight!

Us playing Hailee's new favorite game, Ring Around A Rosie
Kip and Sarah opened up their presents tonight because they will be with her family tomorrow.
And Hailee being as cute as ever!