On the Loose!

Well well, how quickly our little angel is growing! Two major milestones to report this time! In order of occurence, and without further adieu, Haley has TWO teeth AND is crawling!!

Haley's first tooth was her left bottom tooth, which broke through around January 6th. Kyle and I didn't even notice until one day I just decided to fish around her mouth for teeth and I'll be damned if there wasn't one in there! Then, no more than 2 weeks later, a second one popped through right next to it! She is super cute with two little pearly whites to add to that precious little smile...as if she wasn't super cute before! We're pretty certain that she'll be getting an upper tooth, or two, pretty soon. Her drooling is extra excessive these days and she's been a little crankier than usual. Nonetheless, here is a picture of Haley with her two little teeth:

And then, only a couple weeks after her first teeth, Haley finally figured out how to crawl...FORWARD!! She was doing a pretty darn good job of pushing herself backwards with her arms; and then one day, I put her on the bed while I was doing some laundry and she just about crawled off. I most certainly was not expecting that to happen so I plopped her down on the floor, and there she went...clear across the living room floor! The best part - I got the very first forward-crawl on video! She's pretty wobbly on this video (and still so proud!) but by now, she's a little crawling machine! Even already noticeably harder to watch her since she's officially on the loose and after everything in sight! Anyway, after the video, I attached two pictures of her from tonight crawling/cruising around like a little pro.

Uncle Brandon, Aunt Katy, Jess, & Unkie (and everyone else who follows along)...thanks for being patient with my blog-slacking! More to come soon!!

Dada...dadadada

Well, I was going to wait and post this one in a few days, after the haircut had a chance to sink in...but I just watched the video and it's too funny to put aside! Haley just recently discovered that she can use her tongue and mouth for speaking and making different sounds. Her favorite is "dadadadadadada" which just happens to sound a little tiny bit like she's saying "Dada." She's most definitely not - Mama will come first, of course - but Kyle likes to think so I'll just let him believe what he wants for now!

Here is the video of Haley talking (and Kyle really excited about it!). This was the first day she started doing this and she is still 6 months old in this video. A couple weeks later, she's still doing this (and "babababa"), but now it's pretty much all the time! No complaints; she's precious!

Hairey Caray

Being my child, it came as no suprise that Haley was born with a full head of hair. It never fell out but just continued to grow and grow. She even grew what Kyle referred to as a "rat tail." I stupidly did not take a 'before' shot so you could see said "rat tail" but nonetheless, Kyle always said he was going to cut it off one day while I was at work. My response was, "please don't, I'm not ready!" Finally, I got really afraid that he would butcher her precious little head of hair so I agreed to beat him to it. New Year's Day was doom's day. Okay well it wasn't that bad! Of course, the whole entire event was video taped and photographed! Below is the video that was taken by a friend of my mother-in-law, and he was most definitely not messing around!

Haley's first haircut at 6 months old:

Dear Santa, I Want Wrapping Paper for Christmas

Christmas with a new baby is so awesome. Haley was very overwhelmed in many ways but the rest of us had lots of fun with her and buying her lots of cool toys, books, and clothes. Christmas was also very busy. Right after Thanksgiving, we took Haley back to Sylver for Christmas pictures. Again, the pictures were absolutely wonderful and Haley did great. Here are a couple favorites from that.

A couple weeks before Christmas, we went to Kyle's Christmas Party at his work, which is 100% geared toward the kids. This is where Haley met Santa and Mrs. Clause for the first time! Here is a picture:

The week of Christmas, we started in Michigan with my Dad's side of the family; several of which Haley met for the first time! Then we came back to Indiana to Grandma Leonard's and then to Kyle's Mom's in LaPorte. Then, the next day, we hosted Christmas with the rest of Kyle's family and my Mom and brother. Busy week but lots of fun! Lots of time for Christmas outfits too! Here's 2 of 4-ish Christmas outfits that Haley sported over the weekend!

Haley got lots of nice things from everyone. Although it wasn't the toys that she was so excited about, it was the wrapping paper that the toys came in! Once the gift was unwrapped, she'd look at it, and go back to playing with (or eating) the wrapping paper! Here's the proof:

As Christmas wound down and all of our guests left, Haley was wiped and just plain passed out! Not sure what I mean? See below (Haley and Unkie)!

More to come soon, I PROMISE!

Turkeys & Doggies

First, I apologize for the lacking posts over the past month. This holiday season has been nothing short of busy! Here are two posts to make up for it...first one starts Haley's first Thanksgiving! After a classic Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma Leonard's, we hosted Thanksgiving with the rest of the family at our house. Haley was great. She was a little tired of getting passed around by so many people but she did fine. The highlight of Thanksgiving for most people is the delicious turkey dinner. For Haley, it was her introduction to Hunter the dog! Kyle's brother Brandon and his wife Katy brought their dog Hunter with them over the Thanksgiving weekend. You would not believe the fascination Haley had in this dog! I have included some pictures of Haley, Brandon, and Hunter to prove it! Also included in the Thanksgiving pictures is a four-generation picture of Haley, her Daddy, her Daddy's Mom, and her Daddy's Mom's Mom (Mema)!

Additionally, and as a quick update, Haley is doing fantastic with her cereal each night. We're mixing it with a baby veggie or fruit and she doesn't seem to dislike much of anything so far! She loves being in her high chair and loves to play with the empty bowl and spoon when we're all done. Below is another great picture of Haley making a huge mess of herself at the "dinner table"! Also, Haley is now getting baby Oatmeal each morning and is doing great with an added meal per day!

I guess it's pretty sad when I can't remember what I've posted and what I haven't at this point because it's been so long but just in case I forgot this part, Haley is now rolling over! I've finally witnessed this event but still haven't gotten it on video camera yet. We're working on it; it doesn't happen very often! On a similar note, Haley is doing great sitting on her own for a short period of time and will be crawling and moving around before we know it. She just has to figure out that her knees need to go under her, not behind her!

Let's move on to Christmas! :)

Cookie Monster

I'm just 2 weeks behind but this post is so worth it! We started feeding Haley baby cereal every night and video-taped her first attempt at eating from a spoon. Since she loves to put everything in her mouth, she seems to get kind of excited that the spoon actually belongs in her mouth and doesn't taste like plain ole' plastic! She even tries to help hold the bowl and feed herself - but she usually just ends up shoving the spoon against her face making a huge mess...reminds me of Cookie Monster! We were putting her in the Bumbo for cereal time and just yesterday, we put her in her high chair for the very first time and she did great! Her first spoon-feeding video is below, and also some pictures of her in her high chair!

Another huge milestone that Haley reached last week...she rolled over on her own for the first time! It was two weeks ago this Tuesday that she was playing on her back, Kyle turned around to answer the phone, and when he turned back around, she was on her stomach! Back to front first! And then the next day, she rolled over twice for Peggy from stomach to back! I, unfortunately, haven't seen it yet and we have yet to have any successful attempts at capturing it on video but it still happened and I'm so proud! :)

Aside from these things, Haley's doing great. She's such a happy baby; smiling back at people and laughing! It's still my favorite thing when she laughs! She's making lots of sounds and lots of times, they're very loud! No idea who she gets a loud voice from! Just kidding.

Coming up next...Haley's very first Thanksgiving!

Poodles & Candy

Happy Halloween (a few days late)! Haley was a precious little poodle for her first Halloween. Of course we didn't take her trick or treating yet (I handled the candy-eating part!); we pretty much just put her costume on her, took some pictures, and took it off but it was still super cute! The next day, my friend Carrie took some pictures of her in her costume in her front yard, as well as some others. Haley was less than cooperative that day but for the costume pictures, was distracted by the leaves long enough to get a few cute shots. Below are some of Haley's Halloween pictures.

These are a couple other great pictures that Carrie took of Haley...




Stay tuned this week for another milestone caught on video! :)