ONE.

this beautiful baby is celebrating her first birthday today! i can't believe that she has been here for one year -- time has seriously flown by. we are so blessed to have the absolute best baby ever. her personality changes every day; she becomes more fun with every second. everything about her is so animated and she can get pretty over the top when things don't go her way (she gets that from her mama), but she is still so mellow and laidback, very rarely whining or fazed by anything (like her daddy!). she's started doing everything like a "big girl". she is not walking yet, but she'll walk all over the house with us if we hold one hand. she takes whole milk from a sippy cup three times a day -- no more bottles (mama took them away cold turkey :) she gives high fives, attempts to blow kisses, and waves bye-bye to everyone and everything. she is eating all solid foods and will eat anything that is not tied down... current favorites are green beans, mandarin oranges, vanilla pudding, and lasagna (homemade or chef boyardee). she is talking all of the time. the words you can actually understand include mama, daddy, bu-bye, nana, dog, bubble, no, and something that resembles "that". she has learned to stack toys, put blocks in and out of buckets, and open and close doors (and put things into cabinets when she opens them). she has become quite the little ham and has a great smile that she frequently flashes where you crinkles up her nose and grins big enough to show her 6 teeth -- i love it! we go for her 12-month check-up next week, so we'll see just how big our big baby is. she's wearing 12-18 month clothes now and wearing them well. we are just so lucky to call her our kiddo! i can't wait for all the years to come...

bubbles.

anniversary.

happy anniversary to us!

jered and i have been married for 3 years today! we had a great day with both of us at home for once and went out to the melting pot tonight for dinner, which was AWESOME. our friend mindy watched hadleigh for us, so we got to go out just the two of us. jered got a godfather game for his playstation, which he's playing as i type. i got a wii fit and the book twilight... both of which i had mentioned that i wanted; jered was paying attention and got them for me! i also got a shamwow... which i never asked for, but i'm pretty sure jered wanted it and passed it off as a gift to me.

happy anniversary, hubby! i love you.

arkansas.

we just got back from a week-long trip to arkansas, and we had a great time! spent lots of time with family, had a little birthday party, and had some long overdue time to relax!

too cute.

happy (early) birthday to me!

hadleigh enjoying her first taste of cake at last night's birthday party...

happy easter!

on our way to arkansas...

daycare.

jered, hadleigh, and i play a game a lot nowadays where hadleigh crawls away, looks back and giggles to make sure we're following her, and then crawls away at warp speed. we're supposed to follow her around the house. she laughs and laughs as we say "i'm gonna catch you, i'm gonna catch you." then we "catch" her, and she thinks it's the greatest thing ever.

apparently, she decided she wanted to play in daycare today. so she went crawling away, turned around giggling, and started to crawl away again... and a little boy in her class followed her! her teachers said they were chasing each other around the room today. hilarious.

jered was not happy about this. he is appalled that his little girl is such a flirt this early on :) i, however, think it is so stinkin cute.

favorites.

a few pictures of hadleigh and her current favorites...

sonny. hadleigh is loving sonny again. she lost interest for a little bit, but now it's back. this newfound "interest" mostly consists of hitting sonny in the face, on his nose, and across his tail (while she tries to pull it). he looks exhausted in this picture... probably because that mess of a child keeps beating on him.

getting into things she shouldn't... mostly this includes dog food, dvds, mama's school stuff, anything but her own things. this week, the list has grown to include the fireplace (her new favorite place to climb!).


daddy! hadleigh loves her daddy. she actually is laughing in this picture -- hysterically laughing. her face lights up every time she sees him. i love watching the two of them together... makes me love jered more and more every day!


food. any food. we have yet to put something in front of hadleigh that she will not consume. this picture was her first go at beef-a-roni... kind of gross, i know, but she LOVED it.


shoes. for whatever reason, if any shoes are sitting by the front door, she gravitates towards them. she likes to pull/untie/chew on shoelaces, beat the shoes into the floor, and bang on the soles of shoes...

bathtime! hadleigh would stay in the bathtub for hours if we'd let her. she loves everything about the bathtub -- she loves to crawl across the tub, splash, and throw toys out of the tub :)

what a fun kid we have.

duke.

i go to grad school at duke. i'm pretty proud of it, and i like them alright; therefore, i have a little duke sticker in the back window of my car.

today, hadleigh and i went to kohl's. as i was putting her in her stroller, two guys walked by (at least in their 30's) and mumbled, "duke sucks." whatever.

THEN -- hadleigh and i were walking up the entrance, and a truck drives by. the guy proceeds to roll down his window and again say "duke sucks." all i said was ok, so he said it AGAIN.

seriously? what grown man is so anti-duke (or anti-anything) that he taunts a woman and her tiny child in the kohl's parking lot? cool, guy.

eleven.

our sweet girl is 11 months old now! still as fun as ever. currently, her favorite "toys" are dvd's, the xbox, and mama's keys. it's pretty rare to see her play with her own toys. when she does, she has learned to put things in and out of containers and is trying to play with things the right way instead of just chewing on them. we went to the doctor a few days ago, and hadleigh weighed in at 22 pounds, 6 ounces! wow. she is definitely not our little girl anymore... she is still wearing 6-12 month clothes only because it's still cold, and i can't bring myself to buy any bigger winter clothes! the second it gets warm out, we're upgrading to the 12-18 month size. she has 6 teeth now (she got 3 new ones within a 2 day span -- poor kid!). now that she has all those teeth, she has started to do a big, cheesy grin which is too cute. she's down to 2-3 bottles a day and eating lots of solid foods. favorites include peaches, lima beans, chicken nuggets, and gerber yogurt bites. she is still cruising along furniture and occassionally letting go and standing for seconds at a time without holding on. her interest in sonny comes and goes... when she does play with him, it's hilarious. she grabs his nose and ears and just laughs and laughs. he takes it well though. she's learned to wave the right way, claps all the time, shakes her head "no" (but never yes!), says hi/dada/mama/baba (which means bottle and bye-bye), and dances all the time. it is HILARIOUS. she throws her right hand up in the air, shakes her booty, and bounces up and down on her tiptoes. love it. we are currently in the process of planning her 1st birthday party -- i can't believe she's almost 1!!