Hadley’s First Halloween

We started celebrating Halloween a little early this year.  On Friday, the 28th, we had plans to go up to Matt’s work for breakfast and “trick or treating” at the office, but Hadley had a rough night so we let her sleep in to get some rest.  (Sidenote: just so you don’t think we’re super lazy, “sleeping in” these days means sleeping until about 7:45.) 

The Little Gym that we go to was having a Halloween party for all of the kiddos that same night, and Hadley had been acting fine most of the day, so we decided to go.  She only lasted about 30 minutes at the party, and we couldn’t really get a smile out of her (see evidence below) but we still had fun!  We didn’t let her try any candy, but she did try a nilla wafer for the first time!  I’m guessing she loved it by the fact that she tried to shove the whole thing in her mouth after taking one bite!  We got a couple cute pictures out of the party, too. 

Don’t judge the lack of makeup below… most days I’m just glad to have clean hair and clothing!

These next two pictures crack me up.  I’m not sure if this is teething related or just a personality thing, but Hadley makes the funniest face if you make her “smile” when she doesn’t want to smile.  She was getting cranky at the party, so Matt decided to toss her up – which always gets a smile and/or laugh.  You could tell she wanted to stay cranky, but was having too much fun not to sort-of-smile.   Stubborn little girl – was doing everything in her power not to open that mouth.

She was still munching on the nilla wafer when her teacher, Ms. Christy, came over to say hi.  She wouldn’t put it down, and decided to just hold it in her mouth for a picture. :)  Silly girl!

Since tonight is actually Halloween, we’ll put her in her costume and probably just sit on our front porch to pass out candy until it’s bedtime.  I figured since she won’t actually be eating the candy, it might look a little weird if we took her trick-or-treating this year.   Next year, however…. bring on the candy!!

Happy Halloween!

A certain little bumblebee wanted to wish you all a very happy Halloween – filled with treats and no tricks.  

Cheerios

Dear Hadley,

As much as I’m sure you would love to, you can NOT have Cheerios for every meal.  No amount of screaming, throwing your head back or kicking your legs will bring you more Cheerios.  Unfortunately, until they make Cheerios with a full serving of fruit and vegetables, your consumption will be limited.  I promise that I’m not keeping them from you just to be mean. 

Love,

Momma

Texas State Fair

This past weekend was the last weekend of the State Fair.  It snuck up on us this year, but we decided to brave the crowds (which, at least in the morning, were NOTHING like they are for the TX/OU game, so I was happy).  I woke up with a sore throat, and Hadley fought her nap with everything she had, but we still managed to have a good time. :) 

We figured Hadley would sleep in the car since we left just before her morning nap time, but no such luck.  We arrived with a cranky, tired baby, who eventually crashed in her stroller while we just walked the fair grounds to keep her sleeping.  Once she woke up, we were able to get our picture in front of Big Tex, enjoy some Fletcher’s Corn Dogs, fried cookie dough, fried snickers and fried cheesecake!  Ugh – it makes me kind of sick just typing that.  But it was delish. 

We took Hadley into the petting zoo.  I was surprised by all the different animals they had there.  We saw: sheep, goats, antelope, zebras, ponies, an ostrich (those suckers are scary!), pigs, kangaroos, cows, and others, but I can’t remember what else was there.  She really enjoyed seeing the goats and sheep at the Pumpkin Patch, so we thought she’d enjoy all the different animals here.  Not so much. 

In true Hadley fashion, she was ready to go by the time we were halfway through.  Oh well – maybe next year she’ll enjoy it a little more! 

It’s taken 2 days to get her back on schedule, but it was a great time!  I just love this time of year and all of the activities that come along with it! 

Baby Loves and must haves: Months 6 - 9

Time for another edition of our baby must-haves.  If you missed the earlier editions, you can see months 0-3 here and months 3-6 here.

1. Balboa Baby Shopping Cart Cover.  Unfortunately, I haven’t figure out how to make this fit the SuperTarget carts yet, but it fits every other cart, and high chair, so it still makes the list.  It folds up into itself, has a large strap to keep her in and two loops on the corners for attaching toys or her sippy strap.  Plus, I think it’s pretty. :)  I know these aren’t for everyone, and some people think they are too much of a hassle, but after reading an article that talked about how shopping carts are dirtier than most public restrooms, I think I will stick to using this and washing it when we’re done. 

2.  Puffs.  Is it cheating to put a food item on here?  These aren’t the healthiest thing, but they are a “must-have” because having a handful of these with me at all times enables me to finish grocery shopping or running an errand.  Hadley LOVES her puffs – especially the sweet potato flavor (M thinks they taste like fortune cookies??).  Is it wrong to use food to keep my daughter occupied while I run errands?

3. Convertible Car Seat.  (Not everyone will need this so soon, but we’ve got a big girl on our hands!)  After doing a lot of research, and purchasing and returning one, we ended up with the Britax Boulevard 70CS.  We plan to keep Hadley rear-facing in her seat until she is at least 2 years old (For why – see here or here or – this is a really good link) so I wanted a seat that had high weight & height limits for rear-facing.  Also, because we have captain’s chairs in the Tahoe, I can’t have her in the center of the car, so I wanted a seat that had extra side-impact protection.  This seat was really easy to install using the LATCH system in the car (although it took me a couple tries to get the recline angle right), has an easily adjustable harness, little velcro spots to keep the straps out of the way while you’re trying to get a wiggly baby in there, and the cover (which was one of the few that I thought was cute) can come off and be washed without uninstalling the seat!

 

4.  Sippy Cups.  The two that Hadley loves are the Playtex Little Gripper Straw Trainer cup…

and the Munchkin Mighty Grip Sippy Cup…

We started sippy cups around 6 months with Hadley, and it wasn’t until about 8 1/2 months that she really caught on and could drink out of them consistently, but they still make this list because I think it was important for her to get the practice!  That, and she loved to chew on the Munchkin cup.  I think it felt good on those sore little gums!  We also tried the Dr. Brown’s and Tommy Tippee cups, but she doesn’t like them. 

5.  Speaking of sippy cups – I couldn’t live without our sippy strap!  Hadley thinks it is SO fun to pick up her sippy and throw it down, and this keeps me from washing it over and over and over.  We got ours from Oh Sew Cute Designs and Amanda is great to work with if you need one! 

That’s all I’ve got this time.  Everything else that I “can’t live without” right now is something that I’ve already mentioned on one of the previous lists!  Happy Friday, friends!

Our lil Pumpkin

We went to the Big Orange Pumpkin Farm in Celina, Texas on Monday with our playgroup friends.  Hadley did SO well, and we had a really great time!  I was worried because in order to get there on time, we had to leave before her morning nap.  I was just praying she would get enough of a nap in the car on the way there, and she did! 

We saw longhorns and got to feed goats and sheep, took lots of pictures with the pumpkins, went on a hayride, and had a picnic lunch in the shade with our friends!  I think we’ll have to make this an annual tradition with Hadley – it was such a fun time. :)

Sorry for the photo overload.  I seriously don’t know how to choose just one or two!

This next one cracks me up.  Hadley’s looking at me like… mom, Noah’s pulling my hair… can you make him stop?

I Love A Good Deal

Unless you have been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of Erin Condren’s Life Planner by now in the blogging world.  They came out this summer and go through December of 2012.  They are a lot more expensive than what I would usually pay for a planner, but I found a coupon code for mine and managed to get it for half off!  Add the fact that it’s got a personalized, laminated cover, tabs for all the months, plus a ton of super cute personalized goodies and I was sold.  :)  I was SO excited when mine came in the mail! 

This is the one I got… only it says “The Coleman Family” on it with our names below.  Love. It. 

I am old school in that I just can’t get used to using only an electronic planner – I NEED to write down our schedules somewhere, and I love to do it somewhere this cute!  Anyways, because I love a good deal, I thought I’d share with y’all today that Zulilly has a deal going on where you can pay $25 for a $50 credit at Erin Condren!    Add that to the fact that you can enter in the code WELCOME10 to get another $10 off and you can get your planner and free shipping for just the cost of the voucher.  That’s a steal.  And if that voucher was going to be good through next summer, I would totally buy it so I could use it to get my planner next year. 

That’s all I’ve got for today.  Just wanted to share a good deal – I certainly don’t have any ties to Erin Condren (although if they wanted to hire me I wouldn’t complain!) nor am I being compensated (although if you sign up at Zulilly through that link, and order something, I do get a credit).  

Okay – let me know if y’all get one! (Or if you already have one!)  I’d love to see what design others picked out! 

Just a quick post

If you are friends with me on facebook, you already know this, but I wanted to mark it down on the blog as well.  It took us 9 months, but Hadley stayed successfully in the church nursery for an hour today!  I was a little emotional, so they paged us as soon as she started getting upset, I think because they were more worried for me than for her!  She wasn’t thrilled, but she was fine and calm when we got there, so I know she could have made it the whole service. 

Hopefully next time she does even better (and hopefully I do, too!). 

Mid-Month Hadley Update

I’ve been bad about saving all of the Hadley updates for her monthly post, and I know there are some grandparents out there who wouldn’t complain about not having to wait so long, so here’s a mid-month mini update. 

Hadley is cutting her 4th tooth!  I’m pretty sure teeth numbers 3, 4, and 5 have all been trying to cut through at the same time, making for some rough nights.  I can now feel the top right-middle tooth and see and feel the right incisor tooth in addition to her bottom two teeth.  It makes her look like such a big girl. 

She started “waving bye bye” a couple days ago, as well!  Although she just sort of holds her arm up to about chest level and moves it back and forth, we’re pretty sure that’s what she’s doing.  It’s still pretty random, but she’s been doing it to Matt in the evenings after her bath when I’m about to take her to put her down.    She’ll also do it when she and I are going from one room to another – like she’s saying “bye room!” 

And, she’s been kind of doing this for awhile, but just started consistently drinking out of a sippy cup!  Her favorite is her straw-sippy, but she will also drink out of a regular one as well. 

Excuse the flash-photo below.  I didn’t have enough daylight to catch her in the act without it being blurry.  Oh, and the bedhead.  She just woke up from her nap.  And the spit up on her onesie.  Really no excuse for that… I was just too lazy to change her outfit.   But y’all, look at this sweetheart.  She looks like such a big girl drinking out of a sippy cup!

My New Hobby

I recently purchased this guy (using some credit card rewards points).

I seriously cannot even sew a basic button on by hand (I can never remember how to tie that knot that keeps everything from unraveling!), but I decided I wanted to try to teach myself. 

Thanks to Pinterest and good ol’ Google, I found a couple tutorials and just started playing around.  I cut up some old t-shirts first, so as not to waste fabric, and then headed to Hobby Lobby for supplies.  I first made some “baby-legs” for Hadley out of a pair of knee-high socks. 

Easy-peasy, so I decided to try something a little harder.  I went with a skirt first, as it looked pretty simple.  Much to my surprise, it was! 

After two successes, I got a little over-confident and tried to make some ruffle pants… like these (from Little Lizard King)…

… let’s just say I’m not quite there yet.  Good thing the fabric was on sale.  I’m determined, though – just need to find a good tutorial/pattern! 

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

She may not be able to get up there on her own, but this little girl LOVES to stand and play now.  She is pretty proud of herself. ;)

9 Month Photo Shoot

And your monthly photo overload – for the grandparents. :)

The next picture is a face she’s been making lately – I think it’s teething related.  I call it her “brain freeze” face – she’s half smiling while she’s doing it… it cracks me up!

Aaanndd…. Hadley decided we were done taking pictures so she had to remove her 9 month sticker.