A typical day...

And a video snippet...Jackson pushes this "makeshift walker" around and Kailee just tags along for the ride!

Some kids see shapes in clouds. Mine see's shapes in her...

Some friends of mine have recently posted funny bathroom humor, so I figured I'd add Hailey's two cents. I love that her creative juices are flowing and that her imagination is always at work, but she crosses the line when she tells me what shapes her poop makes! (SORRY, NO PICTURES FOR THIS POST!) :) She got so excited and yelled for me the other day to come see "a house" (it was a t-shape) and recently "a pirate ship" (it was a floater) :) Typically, she just names them by size "that's the daddy one, that's the mommy one, that's the sister, etc..."

Since we are on a disgusting subject I might as well continue grossing you out with Hailey's love for creatures. She has a very kind heart when it come to animals, but the dead worm thing a few weeks back and now slugs really is creepy. Yesterday morning there was a slug on the backyard fence. She wanted to "save" it and put it in a shady spot. Little did I realize how much she probably handled it and it ended up dying in that spot. She saw it when she went to look later and the ants were eating it. She freaked out and now had to save (the already dead slug) from the ants.

Kailee is on the move!

Kailee has finally gotten going...she "army crawled" for a bit, than crawled on her knees for 2 or 3 paces, but now is finally putting it all together. She's not all over the place by any means, but she can go about 5 feet at a time. Brooke and Jackson have been leaving her alone as they roam, so maybe this week she'll follow their lead and keep up! This video isn't the greatest...she was fussy and ready for a nap, but you'll get the point!

Thinking she's ready for the stairs...hold on there tiger! She definitely gave it some effort, but didn't get anywhere...yet!

And p.s. on a side note, Kailee is continuing to follow EXACTLY in Hailey footsteps in terms of meeting the big milestones. So not only do they look alike and weigh the same, but they sat up in the same time frame and have now crawled in the same time frame (Kailee beat Hailey by about a week). It's very odd considering the broad window given for crawling (typically 5 months to 9 months with some kids who never do and just start walking) And with slightly different environments...Hailey, the only child at the time with all the attention vs. Kailee, who has to share the spotlight, but has the other older babies to observe. Interesting... Well, the next biggie is walking and Hailey did that at 10 1/2 months. Maybe these physical milestones are met at the same time because they have practically identical body structures. hmmm.......

Tragedy in the MacDonald House...ok, not really...

Tragedy has struck our household...Hailey broke my camera! It happened on Friday when she was taking pictures of the babies...she brought it over to me to show me a picture and I think was trying to put it up on the island and then climb onto a chair, but it bumped out of her hand and dropped onto the floor with the lens out. The lens jammed open and is stuck forever! It's cheaper to just buy a new camera than it attempt a repair. I was crushed! I was really surprised at how mad I was. Not so much at Hailey, but at myself for letting her use it. I guess it has such sentimental value. It's created so many memories for me (ironically, I bought it when Leevi was in Afghanistan the first time 5 years ago). It's not like those memories were lost with the camera, so I'm not sure why I was so upset. And I'm not sure how differently I would have felt if I had dropped it or lost it or damaged it. Anyway, I had wanted a new camera soon (potential bday present, but had also thought about just waiting for Christmas), but I was going to keep the old one as a backup/smaller compact size for travel, beach, diaper bag, etc. I did a lot of research Friday and found one that I thought would be perfect. It's a Sony Cybershot like the one that broke, but a more professional model. It has some pretty amazing features like, Smile Shutter (it detects when the person smiles and snaps the picture!), 15x optical zoom, Face recognition, automatic scene selction, etc, etc. Hailey and I made a trip to the NEX on Saturday and bought it (glad I was able to walk in and buy it and walk out...it would have been too overwhelming to try to choose one at the store with a kid in tow). And I also bought a smaller Cybershot for the diaper bag...the sale price was unbelievable! And you can't beat the military tax free! So, I've gotten over it and am happy with my new purchase...still trying to figure all the features out. It will take some time, but I'll get plenty of practice with the babies this week! :)

This is the last picture taken on the old camera and the one Hailey was so excited to show me...looks like Kailee knew what was coming!

Practicing with the Smile Shutter...it's really amazing!

Checking out the zoom...


And lastly, a video of Hailey recapping the tragedy...

A Special Tidbit from Hailey

After finishing up our bedtime story, Hailey says to me,
"You're the best Mommy ever made!"
Thanks baby girl, that made my night! :)

And my new favorite quote...

Swimming with Sea Turtles

We had an awesome beach day today which originally just started as a photo shoot of the Staffaroni family (similar to the one I did with the girls a few weeks back...I'll let Heidi post those beautiful pics!) But it turned into a wonderful day at the lagoons with the babies. All three kids were amazing and I stayed longer than I thought we'd be able to. It turns out a lot of our friends and babies were at the same beach strip, but different lagoons, so only small groups were able to link up. Heidi and I debated packing up and lugging the kids and beach stuff to meet up, but it would be too much of a hassle and parking was a problem. BUT we are so glad we stayed because we got to see some sea turtles close up!!!!!!!

Tidbits from Hailey Part IV

Some random thoughts from Hailey Monster...

1. We were driving in the car and Hailey was pushing down the chest buckle on her car seat and taking her arms out. I told her she needed to stop and pull it back up right away because if we were in an accident she would go flying right out of her seat. She replied with, "I can't fly. I don't have wings."

2. I was doing some random crunches (not complete sit-ups) the other day while I was playing on the floor with the kids. Hailey came up behind me and offered to help me get up because she thought I was having trouble!

3. Hailey took a piece of her playdoh and rubbed it on her stuffed animal's bottom and said it was "butt paste" (the diaper rash cream we use)

4. I was getting ready to take the babies upstairs for their morning nap when Hailey reminded me that I forgot to make her breakfast (poor thing!!!), so I set Kailee back down and she started to fuss and Hailey said to her, "Kailee, you have to be patient!"

5. Hailey was trying to be sneaky in an incredibly unsneaky fashion (she was backing away from me with her hands behind her back with a smirk on her face). She, of course, was naked except for her underwear and before I even asked what she was doing she incriminated herself and said, "I don't have nuffin in my underwear." (It was a pen she was hiding!)

6. Kailee is able to push herself up from her stomach to a sitting position. When Hailey saw Kailee do this for the first time she said, "I'm so proud of her! She is growing up!"

7. When I put Hailey to bed at night, we "recap" the day mostly of her behavior and I'll tell her how happy I was with how she acted at the store or how she shared her toys with Rylee, etc. Or if we had an incident we'll talk about why she got upset and so forth. Sometimes if I think the day has run pretty smoothly I will just say how happy I am, but Hailey will remind me of something she did wrong as if she was confessing her sins! :)

8. I had one particularly ROUGH day with attitude from Hailey (she had the biggest meltdown at the NEX food court and was screaming so loud I'm sure people thought I was kidnapping her. It was too embarrassing to even make eye contact with anyone as I drug her to the elevator.) Anyway, that day continued with various crying fits about nothing specific and I think ended on a somewhat o.k. note. The next day we worked a lot on maintaining her temper and lots and lots of exaggerated positive reinforcement from me. She was a brand new child!!!! Not one tear, not one meltdown, not one "counting", so going to bed that I told her how proud I was of her and how happy it made me that she was in a good mood all day. As I said that to her I was holding her face in my hands and she put her hands on my face and said to me, "I'm so proud of you for not yelling at me today!"

9. Hailey can get into a zone when she's playing or watching t.v. and sometimes won't acknowledge me if I tell her something. I'll say, "Yes, mom." (like, hello??? did you hear me??) and she'll reply "yes, mom"...well the other day I told her that I was going down to switch the laundry and I said, "did you hear me?" and she said, "yes, your majesty" :)

10. Kailee yawned the other day with an "H" sound and Hailey said, "SHE SAID MY NAME!!!"

Our Free Spirit!

No, there aren't any topless beaches in Hawaii that I know of, but Hailey claims this is false! Here she is "playing beach" outback...notice her dress discarded in the chair by the door. She had even used her sippy cup of milk as "sunscreen" to lube up before laying down!

I CANNOT keep clothes on this kid!!!!!! She drives me batty! I shouldn't be having this clothing battle at such a young age and can only imagine what the years to come will bring. She's been fighting me mostly at night with the type of pajamas she wants (mostly doesn't want) to wear. She doesn't wear a pull-up to bed anymore, but she refuses to wear underwear to sleep in. I've let her get away with wearing pj's with shorts/pants and no underwear, but now she only wants to wear "mommy shirts" (I think she means night gowns, but I don't typically wear night gowns, so don't know where she gets that from). She says that underwear "tickles" her! Ughhhhhhhh!!!! And shoes too!!!!! I think she's just pushing her limits on independence. I've had some success in offering her "choices" of clothing...I pick out a few articles of clothing that are appropriate for whichever occasion and she gets to "choose" what to wear.

A Whistler (sort of) and A Crawler (sort of)

Lots of practicing in the MacDonald house....whistling and crawling!

Happy Easter

We had an eventful Easter "season" starting this past Thursday with Easter festivities with the Stampfer kids and then a busy day today with looking for hidden eggs and the basket from the Easter Bunny, church, an egg hunt at church, Easter dinner, and an egg hunt at dinner. The girls were exhausted and Kailee barely napped today, but they were amazing well-behaved! Poor Kailee crashed within seconds every time we got in the car, but would wake up when we arrived at the next place and couldn't miss out on anything!

The Easter Bunny at the MacDonald house hides the baskets and leaves clues leading to the basket. He also hides eggs with money in them (and this year, a few My Little Ponies from the Ponyville collection). It's a combination of traditions from how Leevi and I grew up. Hailey did great with her clues and found her basket in the bathtub and Kailee dug right into her basket. We hurried to get ready for church and even got to squeeze in some webcamming with Leevi (he's in Bagram for the next few days!!!)















If you look close there is a rainbow near the middle right of the picture just above the fence!

And lastly...video snippets from the day...

Kailee Laughing....

Easter Party!

We had an early Easter celebration with the Stampfer kids on Thursday evening...dying eggs, an egg hunt, and then dinner. We will go to church with them tomorrow and then to a friend's house for Easter dinner. Hailey is excited for the Easter Bunny's visit tonight (more pics to post tomorrow!)