Waiting for spring...and baby

38 weeks pregnant!

Harliegh posing with her giraffe.

Harliegh's paintings of Mommy (with green eyes), Daddy (with glasses) and Harliegh! (she painted everything herself but the circle for the heads and glasses, which I helped her with)

I figured I was overdue for a new blog update, so I'm gonna take a few minutes to do just that.

Well it is officially Spring...and it's snowing. Hooray (note sarcasm) Last week it got a little warmer and the snow actually started melting, and then last night we had ice storms and now snow. Ah...life in Minnesota, right? I kept telling myself that as soon as all the snow was gone I would have the baby, but at this rate the baby will never be born!
Speaking of baby...I am now a little over 38 weeks along which means baby could technically come at any moment, though I am suspecting it will be closer to my due date (April 4th). I have been busy getting ready. I am almost done with school, only a couple assignments to finish up and one class left for this term. My house is looking GREAT thanks to the nesting that is getting increasingly more intense. We have most everything we need for baby boy. (except diapers...we could always use more diapers...and wipes!) And I would say we are pretty much ready to meet this little guy! We are all getting excited to hold him, see what he looks like (blue eyes like daddy? green eyes like mommy?) and to see how Harliegh adjusts to being a big sister. She might not fully understand but I think she understands that there will be a baby very soon. She talks a lot about the baby ("Mommy, is this for my baby brother! Awww, it's so cute!") and she has been playing "mommy" with her baby dolls more often.
In other Harliegh news, she has been doing amazing with potty training! I am expecting some regression after the baby is born, but so far she has been pretty good with very little accidents. She is getting so smart and saying things everyday that really shock us! She is becoming quite the little artist and paints with her watercolors almost everyday. We are looking forward to going to story time this spring and maybe planting some flowers for our patio...if it ever warms up that is!
As some of you might have heard, the company Tyler worked for shut down suddenly leaving us with no income or insurance only a month before baby is due. But no worries, Tyler got right out there and applied for a ton of jobs and started his new job today! It's a place called Loram that makes maintenance equipment for trains and railways, among other things. It sounds like a great place to work with excellent opportunities to move up and they will even pay tuition if Tyler decides to go back to school...so maybe in the end, this will be a better fit for us in the future! :)

So that's about it for news in our little family! Next time I post hopefully the grass will be visible and turning green and I will have new pictures of our baby boy!

HELP

AAAAAAH! My Creative Writing teacher wants everyone in my class to submit a piece of work to a literary magazine! YIKES! If you have the time to kill and want help me out please go to my other blog here and read "Red Shoes" and "The Forgettable Life of Patrick Sullivan" and tell me which one you think is better. Keep in mind that I am still working on my rewrite of the Patrick Sullivan story. THANKS!

Our little artist!

Kisses for Mommy and Daddy

Hello Everyone!

I have tried numerous times to post a video of Harliegh saying some animal sounds butit just won't load, but if you are a Facebook friend you can go to my profile, click on videos and watch it there.

Not much is happening here at the Hay house. Harliegh recently had her 18m appt and doing great! She was a little on the skinny side so we are trying to load her up on healthy fats, but we are not stressing about it too much! She has gotten really good at animal sounds and is now starting to show a lot of interest in art and the alphabet! She loves to flip through a book pointing out letters (A...P....T....O) though she can't really recognize the correct letters, at least she is recognizing the fact that there are letters on the page! She also learned two new words this week, cracker and cookie. Ironically, she doesn't even like cookies...she just learned Cookie for her undying love of Cookie Monster and anything Sesame Street related! She has also started sitting longer for me to read her stories. I can finally move past the simple board books to longer picture books, which is nice because some of the board books are getting annoying!
We are both excited to start going back to Story Time at the Library next month!

Winter term is almost over for me! I also just met with my adviser and declared to graduate next year! The end is in sight! I am very excited to finally be done with that part of my education. Then I will decide whether I should continue to get my Master's or work for awhile first.

Pretty soon we will be putting away our coats and pulling out the flip-flops and we couldn't be more ready. Since it has gotten a little warmer outside, Harliegh and I have started taking short walks but it would be nice to not have to dodge the snow and ice!

Have a great day!

January 2010

Hello Everyone!
It seems about time for another blog. How is everyone enjoying 2010? We have been staying busy. Earlier this month Tyler was in a car accident, he is okay but the car, unfortunately, was totaled. Luckily, it wasn't his fault so we didn't have to pay the deductible and we ended up getting a newer, better car.
Tyler has been pretty busy at work and he is looking into taking some online classes next fall. I have been pretty busy with my classes. I am taking Creative Writing and there is a TON of reading and writing homework, a lot more than I expected, but thankfully the other class I am taking, Graphic Design, has very little homework. I was looking at my degree progress yesterday and I think I may have about 8-10 more classes to take, which means I should be done by next June! Yay! Then I am considering getting my Master's in Library Sciences...if I am not sick of school by then!
Harliegh is doing great, as usual. I can't believe she will be 18 months old in just a few weeks. Time sure does fly! We bought a potty chair and decorated it with Sesame Street stickers. She wasn't too excited about sitting on it, though. I plan on just showing it to her and talking to her about it once a day until she shows interest, then we will start potty training. I am not going to push it, she's still young! She loves animals and seems to learn a new animal sound or two every week. We decided we are going to wait to introduce the bed until she is 2, we thought that would make a great Birthday present.


Well, I hope you all are surviving the winter. I am already counting down the days until Spring!

Happy New Year!

Sad Harliegh. :(

Cooking up a delicious Christmas Dinner!

She LOVES her Uncle Kyle

She is obsessed with anything Sesame Street!

Happy Holidays!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! Tyler, Harliegh, Oscar and I just got back from spending a few days in Iowa with family. The weather was horrible so our two big family Christmas get-togethers were canceled. Despite the weather, we ended up having a great Christmas and we could still see all of the grandparents in Iowa. Harliegh loved being the center of attention and showing off how smart she is. She learned a new word this week: "GRANDPA" though it comes out more like Gampa. "Santa" got Harliegh a kitchen playset and she got a lot of playfood from pans from her Uncles. She loves to pretend to cook, mixing food and pretending to shake spices on the food. She will even "taste" the food and then say "mmmm, good!" I didn't realize she watched me cooking so closely! She loves her new stuffed Big Bird, too! Harliegh is learning so much and her vocabulary is getting bigger and bigger everyday. We have even heard her pop out sentences, "Can I have that?" and "Just a little bite, ok?" Of course, she says it so quickly that only Tyler and I can understand her!
I am getting ready to start my second term at Augsburg. This term I will be taking Creative Writing adn Graphic Design. I chose these classes because I thouht they would be nice, relaxing classes. unfortunately, I looked at my syllabus for Creative Writing and discovered I have to wite 4 reports, 2 short stories and 8 poems. I am just a little intimidated by this. :) Class starts on the 9th of January, so I guess I should start brainstorming ideas!

Well, I hope you are all doing well and I wish you the best in 2010!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ready for School?

Harliegh feeding Stitch

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

How is everyone doing? The Hay family is doing great! Tyler's first game as a Producer was just released to stores, so if you have a Wii, you should check out Buck Fever. (Christmas Present??) I am almost done with my first trimester at Augsburg and so far I am enjoying it for the most part. Next trimester I will be taking Creative Writing and Graphic Design. I am a little disappointed that it's going to take me a little longer to finish then I originally thought, but I'll get there eventually!
Harliegh is growing an learning more and more everyday! She is such a "little mommy" she loves playing with her stuffed animals and dolls. Like the video I posted, she will pretend to feed them and give them drinks. She will also talk to them, sing and dance with them, hug and kiss them, put them "to bed", etc. It's super cute. Of course she is also learning more and more words and sounds. I was reading her a book the other day and she said "Baa" at the picture of a sheep and "Moo" at the cow, and she still ROARS at everything with sharp,pointy teeth! She has her 15m checkup next week. It's hard to believe she is 15m already! At the daycare I worked at before she would be going into the toddler room now!
Well, I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! I love getting together with family and eating all that delicious, cozy food. We are looking forward to setting up our Christmas decorations, I am excited to see Harliegh's reaction! I just hope that she won't try to destroy the tree!

Also, I am updating my address book so could you all e-mail me your current mailing address? Thanks!

Happy Halloween!

Hey Everyone,
Hope you had a great and safe Halloween! Here is our little family dressed up for Halloween! Harliegh and I were butterflies...Tyler is a scrooge and didn't want to dress up, so he is "the butterfly catcher". We had fun going to a friend's Halloween party on Friday night. Then on Saturday we took Harliegh trick-or treating for the very first time! She loved it, and after the first couple of houses she insisted on carrying her pumpkin herself and walking to the door. It mad me sad that she was doing it all by herself like a big girl!
I hope everyone is doing great and I will be seeing most of you within the next few months for the Holidays!!