Playing catch up again

We went to visit our dear friends and Hayden had a blast.....however it is tough being part of a herd of kids when you are use to being the only kid in the house.  So it was a great experience and we will continue to put Hayden in this type of situation so that she becomes a little less "only child" like.  Hayden is normally a great sharer...but when you are at someone elses house and you have to share 24/7, they have such cool neat toys that you don't have and you are 2 almost 3, well let's just say it is a little tougher to share than when it is a 2 hour playdate:)
While there we went to Katie's(7) cheer clinic, and well the pictures say it all.  H LOVED it.  Why not, a bunch of yelling and music and pom poms~what is there not to love?
We celebrated Meggie's 4th birthday a little late, but still had so much fun at her party and we are so glad we could be there to celebrate.  It was a swimming party and well swimming was the theme of our trip, pretty much all we did while we were there, and the little brown bean is now a really brown bean even with a ton of sunscreen applied all day long!!!  We loved getting to swim everyday at their club and the girls really had fun swimming and playing together at the pool. 
 The girls all had a blast for the most part, and Jack(10) is totally smitten with Hayden.  He just loves on her and even told me that he just didn't understand how I could ever punish that sweet little face(boy does she have him fooled) Anyway, it was a great visit, and they will be here to visit us in about 3 weeks. 

When we came home our caterpillars(from here) had come out of their cocoon as beautiful butterflies(we missed it by a day) so Hayden was so sweet and kept saying how beautiful they were, but that we should let them go.  So you will the bottom shots are of her letting her 5 beautiful butterflies fly away home!!  Need company.  We want to do the ladybugs next.

We are back and packing back up for a unscheduled trip to the beach.  David is still recovering from his surgery and we have decided a trip to the beach and cooler temps will help his recovery along a little better.  Total relaxation, beautiful setting, guncles, and connection for our phones is less than desirable!!!  So no need to feel guilty that he is not working(he has a little problem with shutting down work) LOL  So we are off again and Hayden is thrilled to be headed to our happiest place on earth.  She does so WELL at the beach, she sleeps well, she loves being there with our family, and we just have an all around great time being there.  So house/dog sitter will be here to take care of stuff and we will be off not thinking about taking care of anything but having fun and David getting back up to speed. 

Okay so we will see everyone on the flip side of the 4th of July......how is that even possible??
Be safe and have fun!!

very interested in the emergency procedures on board

Waiting for KK to pick us up

Meggie, Hayden and Katie ready for the pool

3 good friends swimming together

Hayden's first baseball game to attend.  That is Jack at bat.

Hayden taking pictures again....Sweet Meggie

Okay so maybe she is running on a slight delay of the big girls....but man she was cheering her heart out!!

pom poms always make it look more professional

oh okay she is back in sync with the girls

Meggie's hello kitty cake

right before the party really started

gotta wear shades.....look at sweet ginger Meggie!!

Hayden played with the noodles endlessly....she was riding them and saying they were her dragons.

Can you see the butterflies in there??(the gross stuff you see is from the dye of their wings when they emerge)

go butterflies.....fly away home

last one in there to fly away.

First dentist appointment

Let's just say this was a first that I have been dreading for quite some time.  For the most part Hayden is a very happy go lucky child with a zest for life that is actually a bit contagious.  However she also has fairly severe stranger anxiety and we deal with it fairly regularly....sometimes she is completely unaffected by strangers and other times you would think they were strangers from the dark....however I should point out that if they are male with any sort of facial hair Hayden will pretty much decide from the first moment that she will have NOTHING to do with them, as well as probably scream her head off!!  Nothing personal, and for all you men out there with facial hair you are in good company because Hayden does not have any appreciation for Santa or Jesus either!!    So while this child has major love of taking ritualistic care of her teeth and the fact that we have been talking about going to the dentist for months; I finally broke down and bit the bullet and made the appointment even though I was pretty certain it was going to be a terrible experience and probably a waste of money.
I went with a pediatric dentist that had been recommended over and over again and everyone assured me that Hayden would do great and totally surprise me.  I talked with her everyday for a week about the appointment, I guaranteed her that she would walk away with a brand new toothbrush, paste and FLOSS(her favorite part) she wanted to know if she would also get some new rinse because she wanted to make sure they knew she doesn't really like the mint kind:) 
So on the drive there we talked about how great it was going to be, and what to expect, and how mama would be RIGHT there with her the whole time.  We went over the dentist's name about 20 times(Hayden's must know every ones name)  I thought for sure we would walk in and she would melt down.  Well when we walked into the COOLEST office I have ever seen she was intrigued.  The staff was so warm and friendly and spoke directly to Hayden.  They had an awesome tree that played never ending cartoons, there were video games mounted to the wall, as well as plenty of other kids waiting for their turn.  So far so good.....then a sweet girl with a big bow in her hair called our name and she introduced herself to Hayden and said "let's go pick a movie to watch" (hayden wanted to know if they had Stuart Little...they didn't, so she chose Babe) Miss Karen took us back to the "orange room" and yes everything was orange, she got H settled in the chair(still doing great) she showed her how to put the earphones on and Hayden sat back and said "are you going to give me a new toothbrush"??  Miss Karen told Hayden exactly what she was going to do and she told me that we would just do what Hayden would let her....they like the first visit to be as positive as possible. 

Well Let me just tell you my rock star dental obsessed kid let her do EVERYTHING that she needed and wanted.  So once that part was finished Miss Karen said that Dr. Chris would be looking at her teeth too and he would be there shortly.  Well Dr. Chris was working on a child in the next chair(about 10 feet away) and Hayden took off her earphones and said "mommy is is that Dr. Chris"?  and while I was hesitant to answer I had to say yes and you guessed it.....while we knew he was a man; he also had facial hair.  Hayden looked at Miss Karen and bluntly said "I do not like facial hair....is there another dr here"?  DEAD serious look on her face!!  Miss Karen and I almost dropped to the floor because it was so funny that something like that would come out of a 2 year old.  Miss Karen asked me again "how old is she" ?  Miss Karen then assured H that there was someone else and that Dr. Julie could come look at her teeth. 

Well Dr. Julie could not have been better.  She LOVED H from the moment she met her and was blown away with her language and her description of her oral hygiene, she had to laugh when Hayden asked her if it would be okay for her to also look at her friend Stuart's teeth while we were there(I had to point out that Stuart Little is Hayden's imaginary friend and goes EVERYWHERE with us)  Dr. Julie agreed that checking his teeth would be a great idea.   She told us that only one of her 2 yr molars have come in, but that we will check again in December to see how many have some in....Hayden didn't get her first tooth until she was 11 months old, so she said that is not uncommon that these molars have not come in then.   She talked to Hayden about the fact that fruit snacks are not a good idea for her teeth that they leave sugar bugs on there.  They talked about juice(we do very little juice, but we do it in a sippy cup and that is a big NO NO....puts the juice right up to their teeth) and they talked about the "pink one" aka the pacifier.  We are down to just having it in bed(which she said was not a big deal until after age 3) but she told Hayden that lots of babies don't have pink ones...which is exactly what Hayden and I talk about everything she owns including her pink one.  So before Dr. Julie could go further Hayden told her that when she is big and doesn't need her pink ones anymore that she is going to tie them to a balloon and send them to Taiwan to Mrs. Chen's babies so they too can have a pink one.  I thought Dr. Julie was going to start crying.  She said that is the sweetest thing she has ever heard!!!  I told her we have had that conversation a few times before.  BTW Hayden has retracted her statement and said that she will send all of them but one because she thinks she will like having just one in her bed even when she is big!!  LOL  So we finished up and they let her pick out her new toothbrush and some other dental treats, she got a sticker and got to pull a toy from the treasure drawer and she was given a coupon for a free scoop of ice cream from across the street!!!  So it went great and I was so pleased with the outcome.  We are having to do a fluoride treatment at night.  It is precautionary since we don't know her birth families dental history and dental issues appearently are hereditary and plus she said we have no idea if H's first few months of life included water that would have contained fluoride. 

To conclude our visit to the dentist we then had gymnastics..... I always bring a bag of fruit snacks for H and other girls in her class(this day was no different other than I knew it would be the last time I brought them after the sugar bug talk)  We have done this for well over a year and all the girls know that fruit snacks and stamps come at the end of class.  Well everyone got their stamps and then Hayden announced to her friends*even though I had the snacks and had not told her it was the last time,  She tells them that my mom can't bring fruit snacks anymore....they leave sugar bugs on your teeth, but she will bring us goldfish instead(again she made this part up)  Her friends looked so sad and all of the moms just started laughing!!!!  Oh Hayden you are a hot Atlanta mess!!!! but with clean teeth!!

Tree with cartoons and can you see the video games mounted on the wall to the left?? 

sorry these are with my iphone.....I forgot my camera at home and because I was so stunned at how well she did I forgot to take many pics.

Surgery, snow cones and self portraits

David had neck surgery this week....a 2 level neck fusion.  Can you believe this is the outside of the hospital??  It is the like the Four Seasons of hospitals.  Just as nice inside as it is on the outside.  So lucky that we were able to sched his surgery here!!!  Best hospital experience we have ever had!!!

David waiting(not so patiently Imight add) for them to come get him.  They ran 2 1/2 hours late!!!  That was frustrating but could not be helped.

our night in the hospital went well once they had his pain under control(that took quite a bit of work and meds) but they have cameras and everything is monitered....so they don't come in nearly as often and so we both were able to get some much needed rest.  I even was able to sleep on the pull out sofa in the room!!

Waiting for the nurse to come with the wheelchair to take David to the car!!  We had great nurses too!!

 Hayden enjoying her first cherry snowcone

a little on the cheek

mmmmmmm

" Mom I love what are these called??...oh yeah I love snowcones" LOL

Hayden is obsessed with my camera and she is constantly setting it now so she can take pictures of herself...trust me she takes a ton of everything else too, but she is a more willing participant than the rest of us.  So these are all that she took herself with the timer. 

Such a typical expression for this silly willy!!

clearly she is pleased with herself:)  she is such a nut!!  is that a smile or what??

Swimming lessons

Hayden has started swimming lessons again this summer, and she is doing great. She LOVES her teacher Miss Hailey, and each week she seems to be making a lot of progress. Such a HUGE relief since we have a pool.....it is critical that Hayden know how to swim(for this reason alone) We go to great lengths to keep our pool locked off and unaccessable to Hayden!!

The good news is she likes the water, she is not afraid(for the most part) and she is really trusting of me in the class. It is a mommy and me class so I have to be in the water(in a bathing suit...ugh) so I have no pictures of her in her formal class.

But we are so lucky that Taylor(H's big sis) is a certified swimming instructor and so she has been supplementing Hayden with lessons when she has time. I would say this so much better for Hayden because Taylor makes her actually do stuff that Miss Hailey will not....she is very sweet(but doesn't push very hard)  Taylor makes H go under and let go and do much more on her own. So I think this along with going to our club and swimming with friends will be what really gets Hayden swimming like Nemo.  what a relief

Hope everyone is having a great start to the summer. We have A LOT going on in the next few weeks!!! Man when I think about it makes it nearly the middle of JULY!!!!!

Look "No HANDS"

Check out her goggles!!

annnnnd down she goes!!

annnnd again(she doesn't really like going under....but she does it)

One of the days we were at the club and careflight landed in the field behind(we still don't know why) but Hayden was amazed at the close-up of the helicopter and its female pilot!!

and summer has begun

the heat is here, the pool is warm and I seriously can't believe it is already June!!! Where did the first half of 2011 go?? So much planned, so much going on, and know in a few months I will be saying what happened to the summer. LOL

For my memory here are a few new milestones; we are a week in panties and no accidents!! Yay Hayden way to go girl!!! Hayden has also mastered going under water at swimming lessons. We will start going to our club pool(more fun to go with lots of friends than just being in the backyard pool) so I am hopeful we will have mastered swimming by the end of summer!!

Mommy when can I play the harp?

If you remember we went to our friends harp recital last year and that is where Hayden discovered her love of the harp.  She was immediately drawn to the music and loved watching Gracie and Madi play. 
Well another year has passed and we went to watch their end of the year recital about 2 weeks ago and again Hayden was mesmerized by the beautiful harps lining the stage and the peaceful music everyone played. 
As soon as we got in the car she asked me "mommy when can I play the harp"?

What she doesn't know yet is we are storing a small harp for our friends while they build a house and soon I will surprise my pippa with sitting down and playing the harp that both Madi and Gracie started learning on.