Yum! Oatmeal!

A Visit from Auntie Shani

Last weekend we all enjoyed a visit from Hadley's Auntie Shani, and I'm just now sitting down to write about it and get the pictures up. I'm sorry I didn't get to it sooner, I am in the middle of a rather "heavy" homework assignment for my writing class - write a short story that's 10 - 15 pages long. And the scary thing is that we have to bring it to class to be critiqued! I think the only time I wrote 10 - 15 pages was my junior year in high school, and that was with the help of Celena. We had to do some sort of research on the Shenandoah Valley and waited until the last minute to complete a semester long project. I remember she and I being very sad that we had to stay in on a beautiful weekend in May and work on something that had to do with the great outdoors. At least the topic could've been about flip flops or coffee or something I actually enjoy. Oh, but this blog isn't about ME - it's about my daughter, so here we go.

Hadley just loves Shani. When she woke up in the morning and saw Shani, she ran to her with her arms wide open. Hadley was happy to have Shani read lots of stories to her all weekend long, one of them, My World, which is the companion to Goodnight Moon is one of Hadley's favorites and no one can figure out why. It is a rather strange book to say the least.

We were out and about all weekend long because the weather was beautiful. We stopped in to browse the books at Barnes and Noble, and while Hadley has taken an interest in books, what she really enjoyed doing was riding up and down the escalator with her daddy.

I realize this last one looks a little alarming but Hadley was OK. If you want to be nervous, come over and watch us try to help Hadley up our three flights of stairs in our building while carrying a diaper bag (and sometimes coffee).

We also made a trip to the National Zoo which was our best trip yet. This was the first time Hadley seemed to really enjoy looking at the animals. (She can tell you what a dog, cat, cow, duck, and sheep say.) Her latest obsessions are babies and people her size, any kind of animal, and school buses so she was in her element at the zoo.

I'm not sure what Hadley is looking at here. This could have been the point in our visit where I walked out of the exhibit because there was a sign that read something along the lines of "Our animals are not behind glass and are running around wild. Please use caution." Why anyone would continue to hang out in such an exhibit is beyond me.

I think Jesse's giving Hadley the scientific name of a very small monkey in this picture.

I can't remember what Hadley and I are looking at here, but you can tell she's intrigued.

And here's Hadley trying to get someone's attention by giving him/her a big grin. Who cares about animals when there are all these people around?

Egg on the face

Hadley loves hard-boiled eggs. We gave her one on Sunday morning and she gobbled it up. However, she left a little for later on her face, dress, and tights. These pictures don't do it justice, but you can get an idea of the mess we cleaned up:

Needless to say, we had to pick a new outfit for church, but not before Hadley fed her horse in her room. She loves giving her horse a bottle. I have no idea where she learned to do this since 1) I would NEVER feed an animal and 2)she only took a bottle for about 5 weeks (what lovely days those were). So I guess this is just instinct.

Noone likes a Mr. Messy!

I'm taking a writing class, so on Saturday I spent most of the day at my desk working on my assignments.

After awhile, I walked outside to get the blood circulating and see what was going on with Hadley and Jesse. Hadley was taking a nap, but as you can see from this picture, left her animals in a nice, neat line to look out of the window:

And Jesse was eating his lunch. However, he also lined up his blocks nice and neat. And being the engineer that he is, he used the blocks to place his remote on. Now all he had to do was push the buttons! Smart guy!

I thought Hadley got the sorting/organizing bug from me, but it looks like she's been bitten from both sides.

At the Mall

On Monday we went to the mall to do a little shopping (or a lot; it depends on who you talk to), and Hadley had a good time playing in the play area there. She likes climbing on everything these days so this gave her a good chance to do that. She also loves kids and screams with delight when she sees someone her height. Hadley runs up to them with her arms outstretched and tries to give them all hugs. She must get this attribute from Jesse because I can't think of anytime in my life where I've felt hugging someone I've never met before (and even some people that I have met) is appropriate. But she does it all the same much to some of the other kids' horror. At any rate, here are some pictures of her at the mall:

Today Hadley had a check - up and she weighed in at 24 pounds, and her height is 31 inches. She is in the 60 percentile for both weight and height which the doctor said is good. Her head, on the other hand, is in the 97 percentile (I can't remember the measurement). We had a good doctor's visit, and are happy that she is happy and healthy.

Paperclips and Bottle Caps

This morning during Sesame Street Bert told Ernie that he had a REALLY exciting game for them to play. Ernie got excited and wanted to hear all about it. Bert showed him that the game was sorting Bert's collection of paperclips and bottle caps. Ernie was not as intrigued. I forgot how much Bert liked his collection of paperclips and bottle caps.

After awhile Ernie asked Bert if they could play the game with anything, and Bert said, "Well, yea! That's the beauty of the game!" So Ernie brought in all kinds of animals - including an elephant - to sort. Bert was a little flustered.

Hadley knows the sorting game very well and watched Bert and Ernie carefully as they sorted stuff on TV. She likes to sort her clothes in the morning. She takes each article of clothing out of her two bottom drawers and puts them somewhere else in our home. Recently they've been piled up on the living room chair. She also likes to sort books. She will take one book of the shelf and put it in a pile somewhere else. She is very happy to sort. Here is a picture of her not really sorting, but making some "cookies" in the kitchen (she wanted to help me with my batch so I gave her a bowl, a spoon, and the recipe cards so she could make her own):

She wasn't really fooled with the "fake" cookie mix so I let her stir my batch for a bit:

Please Don't Stop the Music

Today we took Hadley to Rams Head Live in Baltimore for "Baby Loves Disco." This was an outstanding event with a live DJ playing 70s and 80s music while the kids (and parents) danced the afternoon away. Hadley went wild. Jesse and I followed her all over the club as she plowed her way up and down the stairs, around the dance floor, and through the "snack area" (a.k.a. bar). Following are several pictures and a short video.

Here's the dance floor:

Getting dangerous on the dance floor (c'mon, SOME of you know this song - "I know a girl by the name of Rita.....") Here she is with her dadddy showing off their four COMPLETELY different ranges of motion:

Here she is with her boyfriends Aiden and Matthew and their mommies. These are the ladies I hang out with regularly.



Dancing with mommy:

Of course, it's always nice to take a break from the dance floor and read a book.

This was Hadley's favorite hang out area (when she wasn't running around like a maniac) and after awhile, she realized that the railing was a REALLY fun toy.

See what I mean? She even got her little friend Matthew (her partner in crime) in on the game.

And one last picture of her conked out on the way home. But not without singing one last song on her microphone.