Cutie

Check out this cutie. She is trying her hardest to start walking.

"School" area

When my mom was here last weekend, Mike and I reorganized our office. I didn't do before and after pictures. I was more focused on getting things done. While we were organizing we made an area for Hadley to do her "school" work. This is an area for her to color, craft and have fun. This is also where Hadley and I have one on one time while Jillian takes her morning nap. I try to do this at least twice a week. Hadley seems to enjoy all the attention and I love getting to focus on her.
Here are some pictures of her "school" area.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day from the cutest Valentines around.

Boring

Not much blog worthy going on around here. We had an uneventful week with little sleep. I am convinced we will have sleep issues forever around here. I have a couple new pictures of the kids but am to lazy/sick to go get my camera and edit pictures. So here are a few from a couple of weeks ago to hold you over.

Look alike?

I have been seeing more of Mike in Hadley as she gets older. Here are a couple comparisons.

Look alike?

When we were cleaning out the office I found some pictures of me as a baby. I think that Jillian might look a little like me. What do you think?
I will say she has her daddy's ears. And I think our mouths are shaped a little different.

Productive Weekend

This weekend was a very productive one at our house. My mom came on Friday evening to watch the girls while Mike and I worked on cleaning out the office. It has been the room that everything gets piled in and was diving my crazy. We spent all day Saturday cleaning it out and setting up new shelves. We finished up around 11pm. It feels great to have it cleaned and organized.
The girls loved having their Lady here to play. They spent a lot of time playing doll house and reading books. Hadley kept asking Lady if she could stay longer. She was very sad to see her go. When I was putting her to bed she kept asking when she could play doll house with Lady again. Jillian was all smiles for Lady except for Friday night. I think Lady was a little surprised at the little amount of sleep we get at our house :) Although last night was better and I am hoping tonight is a good one as well.

Here are few pics from the weekend. I didn't take very many I was busy cleaning.

Thank you Claire

Hadley got a wonderful surprise in the mail today. A package from Claire in Minnesota. Inside was the dress that Claire wore when she was a flower girl in our wedding. She sent it to Hadley because she knew how much Hadley loves to dress up. Hadley could not get it on fast enough. She loves it and twirls around and around.
It is extra special because I have a picture of Claire and me from my wedding day on my dresser. Hadley is always asking who it is in the picture and why she is wearing a "boo-tiful" dress.
Claire and Krista, thank you so much for thinking of Hadley. I think I have the happiest 2 year old around.

Here is a picture of Claire and me on my wedding day.
The beautiful sign that Claire made for Hadley.

The "boo-tiful" dress!
Spinning round and round.

9 month pictures

We are still alive believe it or not! Jillian has been sick and Hadley has been a very strong willed 2 year old. Needless to say that makes for a really tired mommy and daddy. But we are getting through it and I am patiently awaiting my "Parenting the Strong-Willed Child" book by James Dobson.
We got Jillian's 9-month pictures taken today. Some turned out GREAT and others left a little to be desired. I have posted some of the pictures from the session and if you look through all of them at the end you will find the latest in funny stories from Hadley.
First let me set up what went on before leaving to get pictures taken. Hadley asked to wear a dress so she could be "boo-tiful." I let her pick between two dresses and thought we were good to go. About 30 minutes after getting dressed she started throwing a fit that the dress she was wearing wasn't long like her nightgowns. So I let her pick another one. We get all dressed, get Jillian in her carseat and are ready to head out the door. Hadley starts another fit and says that dress #2 is not long enough as well. I then tell her she can wear the dress she has on or her jean skirt. She says jean skirt and we run to change. We needed to be leaving right then. We start to get the skirt on and she says no she wants to wear the dress she has on. So we head out the door in a mad dash. We are pulling out of the driveway and the screaming begins, "Go back I want my skirt." At this point I throw my hands in the air laugh and turn Sugarland on as loud as I can and start singing. So I am singing, Hadley is screaming and Jillian is babbling and that was the 20 minute ride to the studio.
No wonder this was one of Jillian's pictures.


Then we got some good ones.






Now that you made it through that another Hadley story. Earlier this week Hadley got in trouble, for what has slipped my mind, probably because she has been in trouble more often than not these days. This too shall pass! Back to the story. I spanked her(yes we spank). She then looked at me and said, "Mom it's no use." I think my jaw hit the floor at this point. I then asked her 3 times what she said. I was sure I had heard her wrong. When I asked her what that meant she said, "Mom, it's English." Boy do Mike and I have are hands full or what?

Princess Nest

Yesterday when I was done putting Jillian down for a nap this is where I found Hadley. I asked her what she was doing and she said "sitting in my princess nest." Mike had made it for her to watch tv in while he was showering.

New place to play

Jillian has a new favorite place to play...under the kitchen table.

Snow fun

Mike and Hadley spent some time playing in the snow today. The snow wasn't great for making a snowman but they did make a snow blob. They also had a snowball fight and made snow angels. I think they both had a great time.

*Since KU beat KSU today my brother said I owed him a blog post. Here you go Jordan. It was a close game. Hope we can pull it off next time.

Dance Me Daddy

Hadley got this book for Mike for Christmas.

It is called Dance Me Daddy. It is a very cute book and fits Hadley and Mike perfectly. She is always asking Mike to dance with her and calling him a prince. The book is based on a song by Point Of Grace. It came with a CD and Hadley loves to dance to it. Here are Mike and her before bed having some dancing time.

Iced/Snowed in

We have been iced/snowed in since yesterday and it is still coming down. It started as freezing rain and sleet last night. The snow started around 10am this morning and has been going strong. They are saying we could get up to 9 inches. I love being snowed in and staying in jammies all day but this time I am sad because it means my mom can't come visit. Maybe next weekend.

Here is how we have been keeping busy.

I'm a winner!

Mike came out from rocking Hadley last night and said, "I am so proud of my girl." I asked why and he told me what she said.
"Uncle J say go jayhawks. I no like jayhawks, I like Wildcats. I'm a winner."

I don't know where she got the I'm a winner part but I love it! Hopefully we will be winners on Saturday in our basketball game against KU!

Names...

I was thinking about the girls' names the other day and decided I wanted to write down why they are named what they are. Since this is basically our family scrapbook I thought this would be the best place for it. So here are the stories of how the girls got their names.


Hadley ElizabethFrom the minute we found out we were pregnant with Hadley we started talking names. We knew Elizabeth would probably be the middle name for a girl. It is a family name in both of our families. On my side it was my Grandma Sisson's middle name, my Aunt Janet's middle name and my middle name. On Mike's side it is his mom's middle name, his sister Tammy's middle name and his niece Rachel's middle name.
Then came the hard part on finding a first name we both agreed on. We are both a little picky. I had really liked the name Adley for some time but Mike just didn't care for it too much. After going through many name books one day Mike out of the blue asked what I thought about Hadley. I loved it! So we knew that if we had a girl, her name would be Hadley Elizabeth. After our 20 week sonogram we started calling her Hadley.

Hadley means a field of heather.
Elizabeth means consecrated to God.

I love the name Hadley and of course think it fits her perfectly. The kindergarten teacher in me loves it because it is pretty easy to spell and really can't be shortened to a nickname.

Jillian Ruth
With Jillian we started talking names again right away but had to come up with a boy and a girl name since we weren't finding out what we were having. We had a harder time agreeing on names this time as well. Especially a boys name. When we went to the hospital I still wasn't sure on a boys name. Good thing we had a girl :)
When we first started talking girls' names we talked about McKinley. My only complaint was it could be shortened and I don't like that. I think it is fine for people who plan on having their name shortened but I wanted my kids called what I named them. Must be the OCD and control issues coming out. So slowly McKinley and my next favorite Madalyn were crossed of the list. That left us without a girl's name. We then started looking through a name book and found Lillian. I liked that but wasn't sold. Then Mike said Jillian. I really liked the sound of Jillian and thought it was pretty. The only problem was it could be shortened. But the more I heard it the more I loved it and knew I would call her Jillian and figured most people would follow suit.
The middle name was an easy one for a girl. We knew that we wanted another family name and we both loved the name Ruth. This was Mike's Mom-mom's (Grandma) name.

Jillian means youthful.
Ruth means friend.

I love the name Jillian and think it fits her perfectly as well. Of course it fits into my kindergarten teacher rule of easy to spell and she will just have to explain that it is Jillian and won't be shortened. One out of two isn't bad :)

Wild Thing

I had to buy this shirt for Hadley when I saw it. I am not a huge character clothing fan but this shirt is special. Where the Wild Things Are is one of our favorite books. It also happens to be one of my mom's favorite books as well. In fact whenever we leave or she leaves we all say "Please don't go, we'll eat you up we love you so." It is something that even Hadley has started to say. When she saw this shirt she said, "Just like my book we read."
Lady this one is for you. :)

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning was a pajama morning for Jillian and me this week. Jillian has a had a very runny nose and nasty cough so I did not want her in the church nursery. We sent Mike and Hadley to church and we had playtime on the floor.

Jillian has figured out how to pull toys out of the toy box.


It looks like she is saying cheese.Time for some music making.
How about a pose for the camera.
She is really on the go these days so we have to find ways to trap her in. Here she is trying to escape.