New Hair Cutt

Hailey has had LONG hair for as long as I can remember. There have been times when I thought we should try something different, but she was very adamant about not wanting it cut. She ALWAYS wanted long hair, until now. Most of the girls in her class at school have short hair, or just got their hair cut short. She has been asking us if she could cut her hair for about 2 weeks or more. I was hoping she would forget or change her mind, but that didn't happen. She has beautiful curly/wavy hair, but when short it just poofs and frizzes. (I know from experience). I talked to Shane about cutting her hair, as I know he LOVES it long. Surprisingly he was okay with it being cut. So, today since all the kids need trims at least, I took Hailey and Hayden to Cool Cuts for Kids. Hailey cut her hair off to her shoulders. It was about 4 inches chopped off. I almost cried. Nonetheless, she loves it and is so happy. I had to use the hot iron to straighten the frizzies out. It is cute, but I hope it grows FAST!!!

She is super excited so that is all that matters. :)

New words

Well in my last post about Hayden being 18 months old, I forgot some of the most important words that he is saying.

Mama
Dada
Daddy
"Gigi" for JESUS
Yuck (not important really but a word non the less)
Bubba (that is what the girls call him most of the time)

Hayden - 18 Months

My sweet baby boy is already 18 months old. I can't believe time has gone by so fast. He is such an amazingly funny and smart little boy. He is saying quite a few words. Some of the words he is saying regularly are... "ball, thank you, stinky, I dirty, papa, dog, juice, "ap" for apple, up, no, and many more. He gets into EVERYTHING - from the refrigerator to the fireplace. He loves to climb and bounce on things, which scares me to death. I know he is a boy and he needs to learn on his own, but I am not ready for an emergency trip just yet. He can open the refrigerator, doors, cabinets, and anything that he wants to get into. His favorite toys are balls, trucks/cars (anything on wheels), playing baseball with his tee (he is actually really good), books - favorite "Elmo-n-daddy Take Me Out To The Ballgame", drums, skateboards, tools, phones and any of his sisters toys he can get his hands on. Hayden loves music. It has to be upbeat though. He doesn't have much interest in slower songs. He is quite the dancer as well.

He also loves shoes, and always wants to be wearing someones, whether his own or someone Else's.

I am just so blessed to have this little guy in my life. I love him so much and the past 18 months have really been amazing.

I can't wait to see what the next 18 months have to hold :)

Graduation - Yeah!

Tonight at 3 pm, Shane graduated from Regis University with his MBA in Business. I was unable to get any clear pictures during the ceremony as there was a LOT of people there. They had over 900 students walking the stage out of about 2500 that graduated. I walked up as close as I could when it was his turn, but still was not able to capture any good shots. I guess we will just have to pay for the ones the photographer took. The graduation lasted about 3 hours. We unfortunetely forgot to discuss where we were going to meet after the ceremony was over. I walked around looking through thousands of people trying to find my wonderful husband. After about 15-20 of looking like an idiot, I finally found him. At that point my head and eyes were extremely bothering me and I let my frustration take over and I just wanted to get out of the auditorium. I regret that now as we have only 1 picture to show of the graduation (that is clear). None of us together or anything.

I am glad he was able to walk the stage and I am glad I was able to be there with him. Thank you mom and Dad for watching the kids for us.

After the graduation, we drove down to the 16th street mall and walked around. We stopped at a nice little cafe that was there to eat. It was cold outside and we were so tired. After a few hours we headed back to the hotel to relax. Once at the hotel, we went to the restaurant and shared a good $6 slither of apple pie (definitely not worth the money) in front of the fireplace. Then we went to our room to watch a movie and relax. We got to bed EARLY and slept in LATE. That was the greatest night in a LONG time (sleep wise). Ahhhh!!!

That night the temperature dropped to 0 degrees and it snowed ALOT. The next morning at the airport the temperature was -2, and when we arrived in Texas, the temp was 75 degrees. What a change in body temp. :) Then this morning the temp in texas was in the low 20's. What is going on? I love the cold weather though.

Regis University

Shane told me we didn't have to do anything else on our trip to Denver, but he had to go see the campus of Regis University where he graduated with his online MBA. It would be kinda strange to say you walked the stage, but never saw the campus. Of course that is exactly what we did. After checking into our hotel, we headed over to the campus. It was beautiful. The pictures don't do it justice. You would have to see it. The campus is backed by the beautiful snow covered Colorado mountains.

Regis has an amazing chapel. It had a handcarved cross with Jesus hanging on the wall directly in front of the pastors podium. It was really neat. What a great place to worship.

The entire campus was beautiful, and we were glad we had the opportunity to see it.

Denver Colorado

Shane finished his online MBA back in October, but couldn't walk the stage until this weekend (Dec 13). So, Shane and I took a quick overnight trip to Denver. My parents volunteered to watch the kids for us, which was a huge blessing. I don't think taking them to a 3 hour graduation would have gone over very well. We flew out of DFW at 7:20 am on saturday morning. When we arrived in Denver, we went to go pick up our rental car, which by the was was 12 miles away from the airport. When we got there and checked in, they sent us outside to get our car. No one was out there to show us to our car. Finally someone walked out and they showed us a lane of cars and told us to pick one and get in it. Note the picture of Shane standing by the cars. We thought we would save the money and just get a mid-size car since it was only the two of us for one night. Now, midsize cars are kinda silly looking. I think there was only one that wasn't. We decided we would go the route of the "silly" car. It was really small and had a very annoying blinker, but it was alot of fun. We never got to actually "pick" our car out before. I didn't know rental car places did that. Anyways! After we got our car we drove into Denver and checked into our hotel. It exceeded our expectations for the price. It was a really nice hotel. Then we headed over to see Regis University. Shane was super excited about getting to see the campus. It was a beautiful campus and had really interesting buildings.

Nutcracker

This is our 2nd Annual Nutcracker Production to take the girls too. We always allow the kids to bring a friend with them. Hailey of course wanted to bring her best friend Abby. Hannah brought Madi Weaver. We started our evening out a little crazy. We had a lot going on today, and the fact that we were rushing trying to get everything ready, we didnt have time to pick the girls up early to play. Shane picked Abby up around 4:30. They stopped at Chick-fil-A to get a quick dinner. They arrived back at the house about 5:25. We sat them down to eat, and hailey spilled abbys sprite all over the place. It was a mess. Then we found out Abby doesnt like chicken without honey mustard. So, shane made his homemade honeymustard (he mixed honey and mustard). That should do it right? No way!! I think she ate a few french fries. Poor girl. We were suppose to pick Madi up at 5:45. Now that didn't happen. We didn't even have the girls dressed. After we quickly scarfed down our food. We quickly dressed the girls in their beautiful dresses, and packed everyone up in the car. We headed over to the Weavers, loaded up Madi and then quickly headed to the stamps to drop off Hayden. Becky had made up some warm homemade chocolate chip cookies. The kids loved that. They quickly ate their yummy cookies. We finally arrived at the Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium. The girls were super excited. When we got inside they kept asking when it was going to start. At 7:30 if finally started. They were so cute watching the ballerinas. They all acted very good. We were shocked. We were expecting someone to do something. At the intermission I took Madi to go potty, and she asked me when the "princesses" were going to come out? Shane had made the mistake and told her that there was going to be princess' dancing. She thought Cinderella and all the other Disney princesses were going to be there. Way to go babe!! :) Madi understood and it didnt seem to upset her. Then, the last 20 minutes everyone started getting really tired. Hannah and Hailey both fell asleep. I think Abby crashed for a couple of minutes as well. Madi was tired and just laid her head on my arm. When the Nutcracker was over, we stopped at Quicktrip and everyone got a treat for being so good. Yes, I know, sugar that late at night is not very smart, but they deserved it. Then we went home and got ready for bed.