Three Day Halloween

Toto…..we’re not in Kansas anymore!

Haley was “Dorothy” this year for Halloween. Although she has never seen The Wizard of Oz, and has no idea who Dorothy is, she chose her own outfit this year. While at Target, she gravitated towards the costume….it had to be the shoes! In fact, we had to hide them from her until Halloween because she kept wanting to wear them early.

We definitely got our money’s worth out of this years costume. We did Halloween celebrates on three different occasions last week. Needless to say, I am tired of red ruby slippers and attempts at braiding thin wispy hair!

Haley’s school had a Fall Festival with fun and games. She actually got in the bounce house, which I was super excited about!

And what school party is complete without a cookie-filled classroom party. There was fruit on the plate, but she chose cookies instead, which lead to lots of lots of crazy crawling on the floor and she eventually lost the shoes.

Saturday night, our little hometown had a “Trick or Treat on the Square”. For such a rinky dink little town, there was quite a turn out. She was more interested in collecting fallen leaves and acorns than the free candy….that’s my girl!!!!

Sunday we went on a road trip to my BFF’s little boy’s 3rd B-day party. We totally intended on dressing up for his party, but it was too hot and hectic.

Our last stop on the Halloween tour was to trick or treat in the neighborhood. Our original costume idea was for Haley to be Dorothy and Rhett (our German Shepherd) to be (and overgrown) Toto. Sadly, she (and me) were just worn out from the party and Rhett was being less than cooperative. We only made it to two houses….which was fine by me. I think we all were starting to come off our sugar high and getting grumpy….early bedtime for everyone!

Put That Girl to Work!

In the olden days, isn’t the reason people had a dozen or so children was to have more help out on the farm??  Well, its high time that Haley start earning her keep in this household!  She has been assigned the nightly task of feeding the animals (it kind of is a small farm in our house). 

We taught her how to feed the animals several weeks ago.  I have been meaning to post these pictures.  She is very regimented about her chores too.  She never forgets that it needs to be done and sometimes has to remind us its time to feed everyone. 

Sadly, these pictures were taken 1 week before our youngest dog, Clyde, passed away suddenly.  I don’t want to rehash the tragic event, it was horrific and traumatizing for me.  We still don’t know what happened to him, he had a seizure one night and died the next day.  Haley misses him, she points out the window and says “dog” then hold up two fingers as if to ask “why is there only 1 dog now”.  She still insists on filling two tupperware bowls of food, one for Rhett, one for Clyde.  How do you explain the death of a pet to a 2 year old….you can’t.  Anyhow, that was depressing….on to the pictures. 

She pushes her little desk chair to the food box in the pantry and gets two tupperware bowls of dog food

Then she pushes the chair and food to the door, we have to help her cross the threshold. 

Then she puts the food in the bowl, she often has to push Rhett out of the way, that 28lb girl can hold her own with a 90lb German Shepherd!!

Then she puts the tupperware bowls back in the pantry and INSISTS she must close the door

Now time to feed the cats

Good Job!!!! 

Little Betty Crocker

Look who likes to help in the kitchen.  Haley helped me make some pumpkin spice cookies today.  Super easy recipe…if you can even call it a recipe with 2 ingredients!  And a pretty healthy, low fat recipe too!!! 

~1 can of pumpkin

~1 box of “spice cake” cake mix (no other ingredients, just the mix)

Mix together, put on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes.  Makes approx 2 dozen cookies….depending on how much batter your toddler eats prior to baking :)

Can it get any easier????  Little fluffy pumpkin pies that melt in your mouth!!!!

However, there was a misunderstanding when it was time to put the cookie dough onto the cookie sheet.  It seems Haley felt like she should be allowed to eat the entire bowl of cookie dough, instead of actually baking it.  Massive meltdown occurred, but was shortly resolved after she got a fresh baked pumpkin cookie….YUM-O!

News Flash

We interrupt this irregularly scheduled blog for some breaking bathroom news.  Earlier this evening, Haley was asked if she wanted to use the potty.  Instead of the usual sitting on the potty unproductively for 10 minutes followed by standing to play at the bathtub and then urinating in the floor instead of the appropriate receptacle……Haley actually pee-pee’d in the potty!!!  Yes, you heard it here first folks….Haley made pee-pee in the potty.  Next up…poo-poo in the potty.   

In related news, Haley will under-go her “three year old testing” tomorrow.  She will be tested on several areas including (but not limited to) fine and gross motor skills, speech, cognitive learning and problem solving abilities.  Although Haley is not, in fact, 3 years old yet, this is in preparation for the impending switch to the school system taking over Haley’s therapy needs.  This testing will show where Haley falls compared to her peers, and help determine what and how much therapy she will receive in the near future.  Haley will be phasing out of the state’s Infant-Toddler program once she turns 3 in February(the program responsible for assisting in coordinating Haley’s therapies and financial coverage for said therapies).  When she turns 3 she will be moving on to the school system to handle her therapies.  Hopefully Haley will continue to receive all her needed therapies and this transition will not decrease the amount of therapy she so desperately needs to continue to flourish.  Stay tuned for most cutting edge and up-to-date news, here on Channel Bogey

First Haircut….2 1/2 Years Later

Yes, you read that right…..we are just now getting around to getting Haley’s very FIRST haircut.  She was blessed with a full head of hair from birth, which we have had to put in bows to tame pretty much from the very beginning.  Everyone has been pressuring us to cut her hair forever now, and I just couldn’t do it.  Cutting her hair somehow signifies she is no longer a baby.  But at 2 1/2 it was getting a little out of control and ridiculous. 

I was also so worried that it would be a sensory overloaded, drama and tear filled event for her.  I was simply putting off making a huge scene at my hairdressers.  As usual though, I don’t give her enough credit…..when will I learn!!!!  She sat on the booster seat all by her self, like a BIG girl, and didn’t fuss one single bit the entire time.  She actually acted as if nothing was going on.  I guess she is so used to people playing with her hair that she didn’t even think twice about it.  I’m really proud of her!

I didn’t want to do anything drastic, just a trim.  She has such beautiful long hair that I couldn’t bear to cut it all off.  You can’t even tell by the pictures that it has even been cut.  But looking at her tonight after her bath, she somehow looks older, bigger, more grown up.  What a difference a half inch of hair being cut off makes.

Before the big “chop” with her scraggly ends 

 

Just playing with her toys like nothing is going on

Almost done!

I’m so pretty (notice my clip-on earrings!)

Gawking at myself in the mirror

Wordless Wednesday

There are TONS of blogs out there that do a “Wordless Wednesday” post.  I have never done it, but have the perfect opportunity today.  Pretty self-explanatory, post pics….sans words.  These pictures don’t need much explanation.  It won’t be long!!!

Summer Fun

Where is the Summer going….honestly….its August already!!!!  Not that I’m complaining, I’m not a huge fan of the sweltering summer heat, but its just flying by.  It will be Christmas time before we know it!

We got her her first tricycle a few weeks ago.  She has moments when all she wants to do is ride, and others when she doesn’t want to look at it.  She LOVES to wear the helmet though.  I have actually had to resort to hiding it from her, otherwise she would never take it off!!! 

Daddy trying to convince her to ride

”Ok, this is where the feet go”

And we’re off! 

She is also starting to enjoy the swing set a little more. 

We’ve been going to the museum a lot.  She loves the fish!

 

Haley is doing FABULOUS.  She has a new speech therapist and I’m not sure if its just coincidence or if the new therapist is making the difference, but Haley is just making progress by leaps and bounds.  She is saying a handful of new words.  She doesn’t speak them clearly, but we understand them.  She is able to point to the correct numbers and letters when you ask her to identify them.  She is walking holding on with just one hand now and continues to take a couple independent steps every now and then.  It seems like she does something new everyday.

Haley’s Intro to Trail Running

Well, not actually trail “running” per se, but Will wanted to go trail running and I needed a “recovery day” after running 12 miles yesterday so I opted to hike with Haley in the back pack while Will ran.  We were a little hesitant and unsure of how Haley would tolerate the pack.  We have only used it a handful of times and the last time we tried to use it it was a big fat FAIL.  But we decided to be strong and try something new and push Haley a little bit past her comfort zone. 

As we suspected she initially rejected the idea, but we strapped her in anyway, gave her a fig newton and sang her favorite songs “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Wheels on the Bus” and she calmed down within a few minutes.  Will took off and left us quickly and Haley was a little skeptical of the woods once it got a little darker and thicker.  I distracted her with more songs and asking her to play with my hair.  Pretty soon she started pointing to trees and grabbing at leaves. 

  We got to the Lake Trail and started finding some interesting things.  The geese got an enthusiastic “wow” from Haley and then a few “d, d, d” sounds…her version “duck”.  We also came across some frogs jumping in the lake and a man fishing.  She was starting to enjoy the ride. 

Then Haley finally snagged a leaf and was counting the points on it, she thought that was pretty funny. 

But shortly after she began to get antsy and wanting out.  We made it about a mile and a half I’m guessing (about 30 minutes).  We are really happy that she enjoyed herself not knowing what to expect with out first nature outing.  Hopefully as she gets older we can instill in her a love for nature and one day turn her into a trail runner LOL.