Hadley's 1st Birthday!

Weight: 23lb 10oz (75-90%)

Length: 30 1/4 inches (90%)

It seems to me like the 2nd child seems to grow even faster than the 1st! Somehow Hadley turned 1 year old and yet I still feel like I just had a baby.

Miss Hadley the days of me rocking you to sleep are already over.  You fight sleep terribly unless I can go lay you in your bed where it is dark and quiet except for the lullaby music/light show (one of our favorite baby item purchases).  Therefore sleeping is only a problem when we are anywhere except home.  You also play with your hair when sleepy.  Bows and ponytail holders never stay in.

In the last couple of months you have started waving, playing patty-cake, and blowing kisses.  You also have a "boyfriend" at daycare.  Miss Bettye at daycare has always told me that you and Raedyn keep an eye on each other.  Now you two have started frequently blowing kisses back and forth.  Bettye even told me that the other day you two had been blowing kisses for a while and moving closer together, eventually Raedyn just leaned over and kissed you on the mouth.  :)

 You're eating everything, just like Caden did.  One huge difference between you and Caden--he has always been a little obsessive compulsive with his plate.  He would always organize his food (sometimes by color, or just all in a straight line).  Once he was done eating he would neatly put the leftover in the cup holder of his highchair or insist that his plate be taken away.  You on the other hand see this as an opportunity to squeeze the food, scatter it all over the tray, and make an absolute mess.  And after looking up my blog post from when Caden turned 1, you are almost the exact same size.

You are signing "more" and "please".  You are also saying the words, mama, daddy, thank you, byebye, bubba, hi, where go?You like watching t.v. much more than Caden.  You seem to grow 6 arms when someone tries to wipe your nose and put up a very good fight.  Finally crawling everywhere but mot walking without holding on.

You are quickly developing your attitude and tantrums.  I think someday one of us will accidentally drop you because when you are mad while we are holding you, you throw yourself backwards into an impressive backbend that requires two arms to control.  You also have some stranger anxiety, especially with men.  You have been the only girl in your class at daycare up until very recently and they say you usually pick trucks over dolls.

Nonny and Poppy let us have your 1st birthday party at their house.  You loved your cake and true to form, after you finished eating started your destroy and scatter.  It was EVERYWHERE and almost a pudding consistency from all your squeezing.  One of these days when I figure out how to get pictures from my camera, to my iPad and on my blog I plan of posting pictures of the party.  (Gigi is probably right when she tells me I somehow missed my generation, I'm TERRIBLE with technology).

And I love the way you point with your index fingers on each hand put together!

Hadley 9 Months

Hadley Ann at 9 Months Old

Length: 28 inches (75%)

Weight: 21 lb. 4 oz. (90%)

Miss Hadley (AKA "Smiley"), you are on the move--army crawling that is.  You will get up on your hands and knees but then when you decide you want to get somewhere you lay back down and roll or army crawl to your desired location--which is usually under furniture or any other inconvenient location. 

You babble a lot and say "mama", "dada" and "byebye".  Four teeth allow you to bite...Hard.  Wearing 12 month old clothes and size 3 diapers.  So far you are a great eater. There is not much we can put in front of you that you won't eat. 

Momma may have passed on her out of control hair to you.  It is becoming very blonde and and is still very short on the back and sides of your head.  The hair on top of your head is getting long.  Fixing you hair a challenge for momma (and impossible for daddy).  You usually have it in one long ponytail right on top of your head... but if I have time I'll try to put pigtails in.  You hate it when I do that.  You are the only girl in your daycare class right now and those boys love to pull your hair.  Lucky for you, Caden keeps a pretty close eye on you when he stops by to visit your class.

You are going through a bit of a shy stage and when someone else talks to you, you will give a sweet smile and lay your head down on the shoulder of whoever is holding you.  However, you will let anyone hold you (except Santa--you are not fond of him AT ALL). 

The tantrum stage has hit, but really only when you are hungry or sleepy and someone walks away from you.  Otherwise you are still our happy, laid back girl.

(I don't like it when blog posts don't have at least one picture.  I can't seem to get any pictures to upload on here anymore.  Boo!  If anyone has any ideas as to why please let me know!)

Hadley 6 Months

Hadley at 6 Months Old

Length: 27 1/4 inches (95%)

Weight: 19 lb 10 oz (>95%)

Head Circumference: 17 3/4 inches (<95 p="p">

 

What have you been up to, Hadley?  Growing too fast like always. Wearing 9-12 month clothes.  You wake up with a smile on your face and stay that way almost all day unless you are hungry or sleepy.  You babble some but usually do more smiling and laughing.You drank breast milk exclusively until you were 5 months old, then it was a combination of formula, breast milk and baby food.  You usually sleep from 9:00pm to 6-7:00am in a pack-n-play in our room--only because you and Caden share a room and we don't want you waking each other up since your schedules are different.

You are still a momma's girl... when you see me walk in the house when I get home from work you start kicking those legs and jumping like crazy!  Then if I walk by without picking you up you let me know how you feel about it. 

Caden is still very protective of you.  He likes to help take care of you, especially when you cry.  He also wants you to have as much fun as he is when riding his toys so he will ask us to put you on there so he can push you around the house.  You're always watching Caden and so badly want to be able to play with him.  You just can't quite get around well enough yet.  There is something special about watching you two together that just melts my heart more!

 

 You are rolling all over the house but no crawling yet.  You starting sitting independently at 5 months old but really prefer standing if someone is willing to help hold you up.

 

You are the sweetest baby, Hadley Ann!  I hope you keep that contagious smile forever!

Caden 2 years old

Caden 2 years old:

31 lbs (75-90%)

36 inches (90%)

 

That's basically old enough and big enough to be put to work, right?

Don't judge, we had to find a way to keep food on the table.  Speaking of food, we found out in March that Caden in gluten intolerant.  I actually think he has Celiac disease but we have never had him tested. We do know for sure that he cannot have any trace amount of gluten or we will ALL regret it.  The good news is he has been feeling MUCH better now and I'm just glad it can be treated with diet and not medications!  The bad news is that going "gluten free" has forced me to be much more domestic that I would really like.  More on that later...

 

What else are you up to, partner? 

 Well, Cadester, you still LOVE to be outside, especially if you are on the 4-wheeler or lawnmower ("awn mo mo").  Your eyes are always watching and you are always learning.  Honestly, you are the one who showed me how to start up the 4-wheeler the first time I took you for a ride.  You have seen daddy do it before.  You also know how to work an iphone/ipad.  I'm on the fence with how I feel about you playing with these things.  We settled for limiting your time with the electronics and downloading educational apps for you.



You still look out for your sister and she seems to always watch your every move.  I love how every morning you either ask where she is or just go find her to say "hi sissy".  Pushing her on your tractor was your idea.  You even tried to teach her how to push the handle to dump the bucket. 

 

 

You are still a great sleeper.  We shoot for getting you to sleep by 8:30 but it's hard to get everything in time since I don't even get home from work until almost 7:00.  You really only wake up in the middle of the night when you have gotten gluten in your system.  When that happens you cry/scream for about a minute before putting yourself back to sleep.  You consistently wake up around 7:00am and usually just lie there and talk to yourself for a little while.

The time of constant questioning has begun.  Everything you see is, "whatssat momma?" I'm always surprised at the things you know.  Usually you are stubborn and only let on to these things when you think i'm not really paying attention or trying to get you to tell me/show me.  Turd.

 

You also know how to throw a very serious temper tantrum.  These may include screaming, crying, whining, stomping, hitting, biting, pinching .  These also sometimes include throwing yourself on the ground--which you did this morning in the daycare parking lot and managed to bust your lip in the process.

 

Happy 2nd birthday, Cade man!!  You are so loved!

 

Pictures from your 2nd birthday party at Nonny and Poppy's house...

Had fell asleep in her floatie.

Supper with cousins, Paislee and Kache

 

Great-grandmothers... Mimi and Nenaw

Nonny's birthday cake for you!  Gluten free, of course.

too busy for a picture with momma

Lauren Hostas

Off to ride the 4-wheeler with poppy!

Uncle Callan, Uncle Caleb, Uncle Cory and Daddy

Papa

If you want to be productive...

...do not take your child to work.

"...nake!"

I've been meaning to post this for a while now...  This is one of those stories that Cody and I will still be laughing about several years down the road so I wanted it in writing with pictures.

Back in May, on Memorial Day, a strong thunderstorm was heading our way with 60 mph wind gusts, heavy rain, and slight hail.  Storms make us a little nervous now that we are living in a trailer house (I now understand why people living in trailer houses put the tires on the roof.  However, we have not succumbed to that.   Yet.) 

Anyway, these storms make us nervous so Cody went to look out the back door window to check it out...

View from the back window

Cody:  "HOLY SHEEP COW!" and starts bouncing form one foot to the next trying to figure out what to do.   (Those actually were his words... I don't even know what that means but I know when Cody, my calm and collected husband has a reaction like that, it's means something). 
My first thought it tornado, so I start rounding up the kids as I ask, "what?  WHAT?"
Cody:  "GET THE GUN"
Lacy: "Are you KIDDING me?" Now I think it's just a stupid coyote.. because he does get overly excited when a coyote or hog, etc is withing close enough proximity to shoot.  I, now calmly, start to walk over to the door to see what he's ready to kill this time...
Cody:  "GET THE GUN, that's a big rattlesnake"
Lacy:  "OH, uh...which gun?!?"
Cody:  bouncing back and forth about 4 feet because he can't decide if he can take his eye off the snake or go get a gun, "Get the SHOTGUN!"
Lacy: I look outside to see a large snake (they're all pretty big in my mind) leaving our backyard and heading out toward the grassy area behind our house.  
Cody: "No, GET A SHOVEL", "GET ANYTHING!  THAT THING HAS TO DIE!" Then he runs off to put on his boots and somewhere finds a shovel. Meanwhile, Caden is nervously looking at like we have lost our minds while we bounce around back and forth yelling.

The snake had now turned around again and was trying to get under the skirting of our house to get out of the rain that started to pour down.  It was raining so hard and we were both running around like crazy people so the dogs and kids needed to get out of the way.  I locked the dogs and Hadley up in our room and closed Caden in his room to keep Trip (our crazy blue heeler puppy) away from him.

Still yelling so I can hear him over the loud trailer house wind, Cody says, "I'm going to need help killing this one."  Oh geez. 

I put my boots on, opened the back door and barely managed to push myself out due to the strong winds coming from the West.  I grabbed the hoe and spotted the snake now in the shape of a U with half of it's body in the fenced area, and the other half looped around this t-post. 

Worst fence ever to stand on while killing a snake...

The snake was in wedged in these tight spaces which made him much harder for us to get hold of, not to mention it was crazy strong.   The rain was pouring horizontally from the 60 mph wind gusts, and it was actually painful. Cody was standing with both feet on the flimsy fence we have and leaning over it trying to pin the snake's head down while I was standing on the dogloo trying to pin its body down to keep him still.  We could barely see anything with our faces in the rain (Cody later described it like trying kill a snake while looking straight up into a running shower facet).  So while he holding the snake down I put my baseball cap on his head to shield some of the rain off his eyes. 

It wasn't long before the snake got away, and started trying to head back to the lot behind our house.  Cody lunges and spears the snake (while on the flimsy fence) and flings him back toward the house all while saying, "NO, this thing has to die."  So here we go again, Cody is now just randomly stabbing the snake while I try my best to steady the fence Cody is standing on because the way that thing was swaying back and forth, I was too worried Cody was going to end up face down in the grass with the snake.  Eventually the snake was died (Poor thing, I wanted it dead but was hoping for a quick painless death).  We climbed back on the deck, hurried back in the house with boots FILLED with water, only to find the electricity was out.    

Post-snake self portrait:  Still soaked and Cody wearing my cap

Hard to see in the picture but Cody's back and chest were red and swollen from the hard rain.

Once we got back in the house, Caden was still closed up in his room crying.  His room doesn't have any windows so it was completely dark with the electricity out.  I'm sure we scared him and he associated it with the storm.

Once the storm passed we went outside to check out the snake.  It measured 5'6" exactly and had 12 rattlers and a button.  eek!  This was really scary for us because we often let Caden play around the backyard by himself with the dogs.




We did take Caden outside to show him the snake, and tell him to stay away from them.  I wanted him to know that's what all the fuss was about, not the storm.  He kind of got the idea, for the next couple of weeks he became a little obsessive about it and frequently talked about "nake!!"  Unfortunately, ever since this day, he gets scared every time he hears thunder. Poor little guy.

Hadley 4 Months

Hadley Ann at 4 months old:

Weight--17 lb 2 oz (95%)

Length-- 25 1/4 inches (90%)

Head Circumference-- 17 inches (95%)

Hadley, you are a big, healthy and happy girl!  You have the SWEETEST smile and you are not afraid to show it. 

You are still sleeping through the night most of the time but we still have you sleeping in our room in a pack-n-play because we are just not quite ready to move Caden to a big bed.  The biggest challenge is actually getting you to sleep.  We are not always great about sticking to a schedule and if you get too sleepy it can by very hard to get you to relax enough to sleep.  I sometimes get desperate and just breastfeed you, even though you are not actually hungry, but because it is so comforting to you. 

Right now, it is usually momma that can soothe you when you are upset, but you sure like to laugh at daddy.  Caden is a big source of your entertainment and you love watching him play.  He can't wait for "Sissy" to start playing with him.

Dr. Yap told me at your appointment that you are very much ready for stage 1 veggies and fruits.  He said he was impressed that you are almost sitting up on your own and that you love to stand.  As he went to put his hand on your belly to finish your check-up, you let out the biggest belly laugh I have ever heard come out of someone so small.  Dr. Yap got so tickled that he couldn't even finish what he was doing.

You still look so much like Caden.  Your hair is darker than his, but it's starting to come in blonde. You have also almost completely rubbed it off of the sides and back.  I'm so excited to watch you two grow up together... just don't do it so fast!

Father's Day 2012

Hadley 3 Months