Hailee's B-Day Parties

Ok, I know I'm way behind. I'm going to post a blog marathon here so I can catch up. I posted a few pictures of Hailee's birthday in November, but I have a few more I wanted to post. Hailee was lucky enough to have three birthday parties!

Her first birthday party was when we were in Arizona and we celebrated it with both Hailee and Addy because Addy's birthday was coming up soon too. It was so much fun! Kaleena made this perfect cake for them. You can't tell from the top, but it's actually a "tiara" cake.

Here's the front view. How cool is that!?! The girls loved it!

The girls admiring their cake with Blake.

This was hilarious. Grandpa decided to buy trick candles and I have never seen either of them laugh this hard. You can see in the picture how hard they were laughing.

Since her actual birthday was the day after we got home, we didn't have anything big planned for her. Her big party was the following weekend, but we wanted to do something to at least celebrate her actual birthday. I made cupcakes with Hailee & she got to open a few presents.

Here's her big birthday party. It was fun, we had our family and some friends over. As you can see, Hailee is very loved!My mom made the cake this time. Look at this awesome princess castle cake! We've got some serious cake making skills in my family (I'm not a part of that classification).Here's the birthday girl!
Hailee's big gift. Ty has been wanting to get this for Hailee since we found out we were having a girl when I was still pregnant! Finally she's old enough to have her own bike. Of course it had to be a TREK because no other bike would be good enough for this bike snob's little girl!

Arizona

Ok, I'm way behind on posting pictures, but I had to post some pictures of our fun trip to Phoenix! I apoligize for the number of pictures, but I swear I scaled them down as much as I could bear!

This is Hailee playing basketball with Brady in their new backyard. Check out their awesome new court! Brady was trying to do slam dunks by jumping off the chair and Hailee had to get her own stool to try to do the same.

Here are the cousins having dinner together.

They all took turns holding baby Jake. Here's Carly with him.

An unprecedented moment. Hailee NEVER falls asleep in the car. Must've been all the jet lag, time change and activity she was experiencing.

Hailee & Addy swimming with Grandpa in the pool. Notice he's wearing a wetsuit? Ya, it was freezing. But the kids didn't seem to mind!

Aunt Krista with baby Jake.

Here are the cousins out to dinner. Ya, we went all the way down to Phoenix to go to Peter Piper Pizza! The kids had a blast though!

Here we are at the zoo. Hailee is trying to touch the sting rays.

Hailee & Addy.

This was a lot of fun. Addy goes to this fun class at the library so Hailee got to go with her. They read stories and danced around to music and did an art project. This is Hailee and Addy showing how old they are.

Here's the whole crew at the Science Museum.

Hailee had just accidentally flipped dirt up onto Brady's nose. They thought it was hilarious!

Here's an attempt at a picture of the whole gang.

My Uncle Jeff & Aunt Jodi (from CA) happened to be in town the last day we were there, so we got to visit with them for a bit. They brought their dog and Hailee walked her all over the place.

Here's a picture of the Shreeve clan at Blake & Kaleena's house. I just noticed I'm not in any of these pictures. I guess I was behind the camera the whole time!

Hailee's airplane entertainment!

We had so much fun! Thanks to Blake & Kaleena and the Stone's for making us feel so welcome and for entertaining us so well! Thanks to Grandpa for coming with me and helping me entertain the kids. We had such a great time, I can't wait to do it again!

Help Me!

Ok, I haven't posted forever, so I apologize. I'll post pictures of our fun holiday season later, but right now, I need help!! Jake is waking up every 1-2 hours all night long. I could use any ideas or tips. I know all of you out there have method that worked for you and I'm willing to try anything. This is totally uncharted territory for me because Hailee was sleeping 9 hours a night when she was 6 weeks old and never looked back!! Here's what I've tried. I've been doing "BabyWise" religiously since he was born. For those of you that don't know, that is a feedtime/waketime/naptime cycle over and over again. It worked for Hailee wonderfully. So, when Jake was first born, he was only waking up about twice a night and then he started only waking up once a night. Then that once a night started moving to a later and later time, which was great. Then he got stuck on waking up at about 3:00 or 4:00 every night. I could only hope for that now!! But at that time, I was trying to get him "unstuck". He only needed to sleep a few more hours. So, I tried the "cry it out" method. That is the biggest mistake I have ever made. The night I tried it, I just couldn't handle hearing him cry, so I went downstairs and slept on the couch. He had started crying at about 4:00. I woke up naturally at 6:00 and quickly turned on the monitor to make sure he was asleep and he certainly wasn't! My poor baby had been crying for two hours (or at least that's what I assume)! Of course I felt like the worst mother in the history of the world and vowed to never ever do that to him again. Ever since that day (which was about a month ago), he has been waking up every 1 to 2 hours. Sometimes I just have to go in and put his binkie in and he'll sleep for another hour or so, sometimes I just have to hold him and rock him for a few minutes and he'll sleep for another hour or so, and sometimes he won't go back to sleep until I feed him. So I can't keep doing this or I'm going to die! I need some help! Please...anyone!?!

Snow Day

We took the opportunity to play in the snow a little bit today. The weather was supposed to be bad today, but it turned out pretty good in our area. Hailee loves to be pulled around on the sled, she wanted to take Jake for a little ride as well.

The Best Christmas Song Ever

I've found a new favorite Christmas Song and for anything to surpass a Something Corporate song for me is a huge deal. It's from Relient K called "I Celebrate The Day". I get teary every time I listen to it. It's on my playlist, so check it out.