4

Our wildly curly headed, blue eyed, one dimpled first born baby is four. Time has flown; however, we cannot remember what we did with ourselves before we had her. Curly is everything we ever wanted in a baby and more. She is caring, loving, friendly, energetic, spunky, sassy and very very very girly. She wants to wear a dress everyday. She still loves all the Disney Princesses and Fairies. She sleeps hard just like a ton of bricks. When she does wake up she goes from 0 to 100 in 1.2 seconds. She has a ton of energy in the morning. She loves her friends, her family and perhaps most of all her baby sister.

Just for fun, I did a little interview with our birthday girl:

What is your favorite color? Blue (she usually says Pink so this was a surprising change)

What is your favorite food ? Chick Fil A

What is your favorite place to go ? Chick Fil A

What is your favorite story to read? Jesus on the cross

Who is your favorite princess? Cinderella

What is your favorite movie? Ariel

What is your favorite drink? Lemonade

Where do you live? Georgia

Who is the President ? BaRocket Obama

Where is somewhere you've never been but would like to go? For a ride on Santa's Sleigh

What do you want to do when you grow up? Be a mom

How many kids do you want? 20

What will you name them? Brodie, Dylan, Ansley, Harper, Will, Emma (some of her friends)

What will your husband do for a living? Work at his work

What does Daddy do at work? He pays for our house and food

What do you like most about Mommy? She makes my lunch (interview conducted right after lunch).

What do you like most about Daddy? That he comes home

What do you like most about The Bear? Her hugs

How old are your grandparents? 20 (she started at 12 then went to 15 and settled on 20)

What do you like most about going to Augusta? Playing with the beads

What do you like most about going to Montgomery? Grandma and Pap Pap

Birthday 1st Year

2 Years 3 Years

FOUR AND FABULOUS

Happy Birthday Curly!

Work in Progress

Curly got her progress report from preschool this week. She is doing wonderfully in all areas. Well almost all areas. There were 3 specific areas that her teacher marked as "working on this skill".

#1 - Using scissors. This is my fault. I've never bought her scissors. Giving my kids scissors makes me nervous. Perhaps it's because I accidently cut myself way too often with knives. It's very sad how often I can be seen with bandaids on my fingers because of knife cuts. One time I even sliced my fingerprint completely off. Yes that's gross. Yes it hurt. Yes it left a scar. I will get her some scissors though and let her practice using them. Hopefully she did not inherit my knack for cutting herself.

#2 "Seeking only my fair share of the teacher's attention". I admit she is a bit of an attention hog. In her little mind Miss Robbi and Miss Heather (her teachers) should pay attention to her first and all the other kids second. Clearly she has more important things to say.

#3 "Waiting for my turn when speaking in a group". Ummmm... we know. She is a chatty chatty little girl who is rarely shy and speaks what's on her mind. She just loves to talk. A lot. Daddy and I are already preparing ourselves for bad conduct grades when she starts elementary school.

We were not at all surprised by any of the teacher's comments. Curly started speaking in full sentences very early (around 12 months) and she really only stops talking when she goes to sleep. I love that she has a lot to say. We've been having full blown conversations with our little Curly for almost 3 years now. Her zeal for communication has always been apparent. Hopefully she will grow out of her teacher hogging and speaking out of turn in class.

Good Samaritan

Today in church Curly learned the story of the Good Samaritan. She told us the whole story on the way home. She was excited to "help all the people today". Daddy just so happened to have an appointment this afternoon to give blood. I told Curly that Daddy was going to be a Good Samaritan today by giving blood. We talked about why giving blood was important. Curly was very excited about it and she really wanted to go with Daddy while he gave blood. His appointment time was during The Bear's nap so I stayed home and Curly went with her daddy. We told her all about what she should expect to happen. Unfortunately as soon as they walked in, they were informed that Daddy could not give blood with Curly there and no other adult. Something about OSHA rules and regulations prevented them from being allowed. Curly was really upset. She said "Daddy I wanted to see you do a good job. I wanted to pat you on the back after doing a good job". She really is such a sweet hearted little girl.

Don't Beg For Food!

Curly is an eater. She always has been. She gotten slightly pickier with age but that's because she has tried just about everything and she knows what doesn't taste good. When she was a baby she used to walk around the room when people were eating saying "Please, Please" until someone fed her and then she would move onto the next person. She was like a little puppy begging for food. To this day whenever we go to play group, the store, the doctor, or pretty much anywhere I have to tell her "Don't beg for food". Because she will. The other night we were going to a concert and our very sweet friends Angela and Brian volunteered to watch our girls for us. I dropped them off and went on to enjoy the evening. However, I failed to tell Curly "Don't beg for food". Later that night after returning, Angela let us know that Curly had been wonderful; however, she ate A LOT. Angela was shocked at how much food one child could eat and STILL ask for more when it was all gone. She finally had to cut Curly off because she was afraid she was going to have a tummy ache. If someone doesn't know Curly's eating habits, I forget that it can be quite shocking at the quantity a tiny little girl can eat. I know. I know! We need to be cautious of childhood obesity. Curly is NOT overweight or even close to it. Nor does she just eat junk. However if given the choice of a cookie or a carrot she's not dumb, she'll take the cookie. So when around grandparents she tends to eat more junk as they tend to offer more junk. Curly loves a wide variety of food. She just loves food. Perhaps we have a future chef on our hands. We are cautious about what we feed her and how much because we know her appetite is hearty.

I am very grateful that Curly is not a picky eater. We heard so many stories from friends about picky eaters and how hard it was to get them to eat anything. I was apparently a horribly picky eater. We felt blessed that we didn't have to deal with a child who wouldn't eat. Then naturally The Bear came along and she considers food a nuisance. She would live off of milk alone if we let her. The other night The Bear wasn't eating anything. Nothing. The girls knew I had made cookies for dessert. Curly had completely finished her dinner and was somewhat patiently waiting for her cookies. We wanted The Bear to eat something. Anything. Just one bite before we served dessert. When my back was turned, Curly hopped out of her chair and walked over to her sister and ate every piece of food off of her tray, got back into her chair, and said "Mommy, all The Bear's food is gone can we have cookies now?". I guess her patience had run thin.

Enjoying her food

Not enjoying her food

It Snowed Y'all!

We got our annual snow day on Friday. It started snowing about 20 minutes after I put the girls down for their afternoon nap. By the time they woke up the ground was pretty well covered and Daddy had come home early from work with flowers for his little Valentines. They were super excited. We got dressed and headed out to enjoy all the snow. Curly loved every minute of it. The Bear was skeptical of all the wet white falling snow. She didn't want to be outside long. This was okay with Daddy and I. We have not yet bought new gloves and hats after losing our old ones in the fire. Oops! So we were both very cold. We woke up Saturday to about 3 inches total and bundled up for a morning outside to play in our winter wonderland. The Bear was much a bigger fan of snow this morning. Her favorite activity was making snowballs and throwing them in her wagon. Curly loved anything and everything to do with the snow. As we ate lunch inside, most of the snow had melted away. It was beautiful and fun while it lasted. The weather folks say we may get more on Monday.

Curly builds a small snowman on the deck

The Girls

The Snow Bear

A winter walk around the neighborhood

Valentines Party

Today Curly had her preschool Valentines Party and I was one of the room moms. Curly was bouncing off the walls excited this morning. It was so much fun. We ate a yummy treat, made a fun Valentine craft, played games and danced the Hokey Pokey several times. The kids had a blast doing all the activities and handing out their Valentine cards to all their friends. Here are a few pictures of Curly enjoying her party.

Welcome

Well we wanted to start a family blog almost 4 years ago when we first became parents but it never really took off. So this is our attempt at keeping family and close friends informed about what is going on in the Haynes household. We've decided to keep our first names private on the blog. It's just a security thing for the kids. We will be known as Mommy and Daddy. Our oldest girl will be known as "Curly" for obvious reasons and our baby girl will be known as "The Bear" a nickname since birth. We hope to update often with stories from our family. Add us to your Google Reader or just check back often to see what's new in our world. Love to all!