Bitty Baby Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DELANEY!!

It’s hard to believe that our baby girl is 1 year old today! This past year has FLOWN by.

To celebrate her big day we had a small party for her, including the most important part…the cake smash!!

It’s amazing how DNA works…Just like Grayson, Delaney was fairly skeptical about the cake. She loved the singing, loved the candle and all the excitement, but really had no desire to dive on in…again just like her brother.

Here’s where their paths divert…once Momma gave Grayson a taste of cake he was all over it. Once Momma gave Delaney a taste, she really didn’t care much. She enjoyed her bites, but wouldn’t dig in herself. If I offered her a piece on a spoon or off my fingers she ate it, but still didn’t want to touch it. I even tried pushing her little fingers into the cake for her.  It didn’t tempt her or change her opinion at all.

In the end she did have a few big yummy bites.  And she managed to get some icing all over too, but only because she was trying to crawl to Daddy and big brother and the cake happened to be in her path. Oh well!  She’ll appreciate cake later in life, and if she’s anything like Momma, she’ll learn to LOVE the icing.

And one other 1^st birthday event worth mentioning is the recreation photo opportunity. I recalled Grayson wore his Elmo jammies the morning after his party. He loved swatting the strings and balloons as they were losing helium, so I snapped a picture. Well last night, I dug out Grayson’s jammies and was able to take a similar picture of Delaney playing with her deflating balloons, all decked out in the same Elmo jammies. Too cute for words!
 

Here’s to our baby girl! You’ve brought us so much joy and I can’t imagine my life without a little girly-girl that I can dress in every shade of pink.  Love you so much little Laney Bug!

As usual, some pics are below but all of them are out on picasa. Click HERE to see them.

Happy Birthday!

 She loved the singing!

 Coaxing her with a little taste

  Here Grayson, show her how it's done...

Yummy Cake!

 Balloon time!

 We LOVE balloons!

 Break in balloon fun for sibling kisses

 Grayson: "Look how many I hold, Momma!"

The Recreated photo op...

Jingle Bells!

This evening Grayson’s preschool put on their annual Christmas concert. It was so unbelievably cute I can hardly stand it!
The teachers were laughing and having a great time, the room was PACKED with proud parents, and the kiddos were having a blast singing, being on stage and soaking up the church full of loud applause after every performance. I’ll fess up; I went through a tissue…or 2. ;-)  It was an incredibly sweet experience to see all the joy. Goodness, I’m such a softie.

We arrived at school and when I dropped Grayson off with his classmates, he made his usual beeline to hug Julia (his best buddy, remember THIS POST?). His teacher smiled at them and mentioned to me that Grayson was not going to sit next to Julia tonight. I was a little confused, but she continued to tell me that Grayson is NEVER a flight risk and they use him as an anchor, to sit still next to the sprinter classmates and be an example. Now that is funny! I couldn’t stop giggling. Apparently they use this tactic every week at Mass too. I’ll have to remember to ask my Mom and Dan’s Mom about this trait. Somehow I don’t think he got that from me.

So every class got up and “sang a song”. Grayson’s class joined another older class and I didn’t know why until they started.  When you’re 2 ½ and given bells to shake, who wants to sing?? There are bells to be chimed!!  It cracked me up how maybe 1 little kiddo was singing. What’s best is Grayson knows the song, he sings it from start to finish every day, but the bells took precedence. I see definite traits of being a musician like Daddy, not a choir geek like Momma.

Anyway, here are a couple pictures and a VERY shaky video. I apologize in advance for the quality. Delaney kept pulling the camera strap, some dude kept popping up in front of me, there was a microphone blocking my view of Grayson and I was holding the camera over my head. Suffice it to say, I am no camera man in an obstacle course and under pressure.
Enjoy!

Sitting with his class before the show. Of course he and Julia are together.

  
Uh oh! Mom's not as sneaky as she thought! I was busted trying to take a picture.

Double Post!

Things have been crazy busy around here and unfortunately I've let the blog and picture updates lapse.

So this post is all about Halloween AND Thanksgiving.

We had an amazing time trick or treating with Grayson, Delaney and all our wonderful friends here in the neighborhood. The kids lasted well over 2 hours past bedtime, and Grayson LOVED saying “Trick or Treat!” and “Thank you so much for candy!”

The Buzz Lightyear costume was AWESOME too! He loved it, every house commented on it, and it’s his absolute favorite character of the moment. Whenever we are outside he runs around with his arms out shouting “To infinity and beyond!”  Tinkerbell (Delaney) was less involved in the festivities (aka, strapped to Momma in the baby bjorn for 98% of the time), but nonetheless she had a great time and eventually decided to fall asleep in all the excitement. Nothing beats being bundled up, nuzzling with Momma at her age, not even trick or treating or the 1,000 other kids screaming with joy.

Next year is just going to be better, which seems hard to top. Seeing these events through their eyes is so special to me. They are the best kids EVER and their excitement is completely contagious.

For Thanksgiving we headed home to Little Rock. Man, I miss home. We really do LOVE Columbia, but it’s easy to jump right back into the swing of home life. We had such a blast with Mom and Dad (GG and Grandpa) and even got to spend some time with Chris and the boys. I can’t believe how fast everyone is growing! And those boys are going to be heart breakers! Sooo stinking cute!  

Lots of good food, great family, loads of fun, and tons of giggles. The whole week was amazing and I’m so glad we were able to spend so much time.

Next up on the Halsted docket is Christmas in Washington. Brrr! Better pack some long underwear!

And in typical fashion, a ton of pics were taken the past month.
A few are below, but as usual, click HERE for all the fun.

Hard Work, Yard Work

At some point Grayson will despise mowing the lawn, but for now, it elicits giggle upon giggle.

These two boys crack me up!

Make sure to check out all the pictures of the boys working hard, the girls supervising and of course a video at the end. If you ignore the mower noise you’ll hear Grayson’s adorable giggle 4 times.

Man these kids are cute!

Dan and Mini Dan

"Turn here Daddy!"

Time to empty the bags

Giggle...giggle...giggle

Now let's mow the neighbor's lawn! C'mon, this way!

The supervisors...

 1 guess who is teething...

Peek a boo!

Pbbbb, Pbbbb, Pbbbb (boat motor noises...)