Blessings

I feel so truly blessed this Christmas season and thank God for all he has given unto me! I just want to highlight a few things that have been going on lately around the Keyes' house...

• Miles realized that he has a gap between his front teeth and told me he thought he would be getting another tooth to fill that hole. He didn't quite get the Keyes' Gap theory....
• Hailey likes to blink at me. She'll blink and blink until I realize what she's doing and blink back at her. Then she'll smile and blink at me and back and forth it goes. I think it's her way of telling me she loves me. :)
• Hailey is now waving bye-bye and sometimes hello too. It's too precious!
• Miles was talking to me one day about how much he loves Hailey's cheeks. From the time she came home from the hospital, he's been grabbing her cheeks. He just says they are so so so soft and he loves them. I think it's cute. It drives Ahmad crazy!
• Hailey is also trying to blow kisses. She's got the hand to her mouth part, but the "maaa!" part is lacking. She just puts her hand to her mouth and smiles.
• Hailey is also playing peek-a-boo. If you say "Where's Hailey, peek-a-boo!", she'll bring her hand/s to her eyes and hide from you. After several repetitions, her hands don't always make it over her eyes, but it's so cute how she laughs and giggles through this.
• Miles has been having several rough days at school again and we had to remove the majority of his toys, movies, music, etc until further notice. Luckily, he did do better towards the end of the week and was able to get a few things back. He was also lucky that Santa came! He's since had a wonderful few days at home and I'm really excited to have this next week at home with him and Hailey.
• Hailey is walking walking! She's not all the time, but I won't be surprised if she is soon. She's taken steps here and there and would go 2-3 feet at a time. Yesterday, on Christmas, she got some confidence and began doing laps between Ahmad and me, about 7-8 feet at a time. She shrieked and giggled the whole time, so proud of herself! She hasn't stopped since!
  
• Miles was in the Christmas Pageant at Christmas Eve Mass and was a great shepherd! Much better at this performance than his school program!
• Hailey is now starting to throw tantrums if she doesn't get what she wants. I can't believe she's old enough to be doing this and hate that we have to start almost disciplining her! She's still my little baby! However, I will say she's pretty good at them!
• Hailey is also signing more now, which is so much fun. She's signing Eat, More, Milk and All Done on a fairly regular basis.
• I know I've commented on this before, but Miles is such a little boy now. He's into his superheroes and bad guys and running and jumping. He's definitely all boy! However, he has such a sensitive side and still loves to snuggle and gives hugs and kisses to us all. He really is such a sweetpea!
  

Here are a few (I know, I have a bad definition of a few!) of my favorite shots from the last week or so...

Miles has only slightly improved over the years...he still doesn't like Santa!

All ready for Christmas Eve Mass

Cutie pies!

Silliness!

The Good Shepherd!

Miles dictated his note to Santa!

Ready for Santa to come in their Christmas jammies!

Hailey's first tea party!

Hailey's first time playing in the snow; Miles just loves the snow!

Little Drummer Girl

Oh Christmas Tree!

First Christmas Program...

Miles had a Christmas program at school this year-his first one ever. It was really cute, just his class and he did get up to sing. I was worried he wouldn't, but he did. But then he started acting silly and parents started laughing, so all was lost! Here are some glimpses....

He's My Cherry Pie!

On the way to visit my very dear friend, Bubba (AKA Shannon), Miles worked very hard to get the cherry out of the bottom of the milkshake cup....

Gobble Gobble!

We've had a busy time lately, but it seems that everyone is doing well. We went to South Bend for Thanksgiving and Hailey enjoyed her first feast of turkey, crown pork roast, macaroni and cheese, and greens. She ate it all up!


We had a ball hanging out with family and cousins and had an extra special treat of seeing my brother and his family a few times. Missy is from South Bend as well and they came in town to surprise her mom for her 60th birthday. It was a great party, despite us being a bit late! and we got to hang out again at Chuck E Cheese on Black Friday. Good times!


A few days before Thanksgiving, Hailey took her first step! But, then she didn't do it again until tonight. I think it might still be a bit before she takes off. She's doing so much these days! She can almost wash her hands-she puts her hands under the water and rubs them together! We have a hand sanitizer by her changing table and use it after a diaper change and now she gets this big grin on her face and imitates me putting it on my hands. She has also begun waving bye-bye, but hasn't blown kisses yet. We're working on that one! At night, part of our routine is to turn off the light after reading a book and now she likes to do it! She'll reach out and push the button and laugh as the lights dim and go out. She's also just begun to sign a bit more. I was getting a bit frustrated (not really, but just wondering when she would do it!) and then today she did like 3 signs-"more" and "all done" on a few different occasions. She also cracks up at Miles. He just acts silly and she laughs and laughs. It's the cutest sweetest sound to hear them both giggle together. She's going to get him in trouble, I can tell. I'm sure in the future he will be doing something he's not supposed to and she will egg him on....!


She is also such a ham for the camera these days! If she sees me pull it out, she gets this cutest grin on her face and seems to pose for me! It's adorable! However, she is also getting upset when we tell her no. If we tell her no or take something away from her, she will often start to cry. Poor baby! Breaks my heart, but I guess it's got to be done!

10 months old!!!

Miles is growing up before my eyes and becoming a little boy. He's into super heroes now and loves Spiderman and Scooby Doo. He loves being "scared" and monsters and dinosaurs and such. While we were in South Bend, he and Ahmad went to a woman's ND basketball game and got a poster of the girls. It's in his room now...I have a feeling it won't be long before the furry little woodland creatures that are currently on his wall will soon be replaced. :( Bittersweet... He had his first dream that he's ever really told me about. I have consistently asked him if he had a good night and good dreams when he wakes up in the morning and he always says yes. When I ask what he dreamed about, he would usually say mommy, daddy, baby Hailey, etc. It's usually the same thing, so I know it's not always true. When he woke up earlier this week, he was talking about a scary monster and began to tell me about being chased.

Woodwind Brasswind Black Friday shopping

I also have 2 good Miles stories: 1) when we were South Bend, we were pretty busy running around visiting people here and there. On Saturday, I woke Miles up from his nap so we could go visit the Azars. As we were getting ready, he said "Mom, can we just not get ready to go nowhere? I'm tired of getting ready to go somewhere." :( Poor baby! I felt so bad. Then on the way home to Indianapolis, he just asked "Mom, after no schools, where we going to go?" But once I told him (to Iowa to visit Bubba!) he was very happy. After that trip, we'll be in town until New Years, so that will be nice to just do our thing. 2) Ahmad and I had been talking about putting Miles in the children's nativity Christmas pageant at church on Christmas Eve. Last year he was too young, but this year we were interested. I got the info on it and needed to email the person in charge, but first, I wanted to say something to Miles. So after the dentist this morning (which by the way he did great! He got in his own chair and had a full cleaning done while I had mine done!) on the way to school, I asked him if he would like to do a play at church on Christmas about Jesus. He said yes and asked a few questions about it. I told him he'd get to wear a costume. He got really excited and said he wanted to wear his Spiderman costume! I had to explain that wasn't the costume I was talking about, so he asked if he would be Batman. I explained they didn't have Spiderman and Batman then and he'd likely be a shepherd or something. He said no, he wanted to be Spiderman or Batman so he could save Jesus. It was pretty funny!

Unfortunately Miles has been having trouble at school again lately. The other week he had a bad day or two and the following week he had probably 3. This week he's had 3 (out of just 4). He's having tantrums, hitting, kicking, biting, spitting, yelling. It's so hard. I hate that he's doing this and I don't know why. He's such a sweet boy and I don't know where this comes from. And I don't know how to stop it. We talk about it until we are blue in the face. If he gets into trouble like that at school, he does a time out at home and since he's been doing it so much, we've begun taking other things away. He hasn't watched TV in a few days now-we took it away in the evening and in the morning before school. He's also gone to bed early a few days this week. One thing that I did do was talk to him more about how he does in the mornings. He used to have a hard time with me leaving him in the mornings, then we talked about it and he did really well for several weeks. Now he's having a hard time again and I wondered if that was just a start to having a bad day. When I ask him about it, he just says how much he misses me and wants me to stay at school with him. So, last night, we took a picture together and I printed them out really small for him to keep in his pocket. And I wrote on the back "I love (heart) U!" and told him what it said. He said he took it out several times today to look at it, but apparently it wasn't the magic solution. Oh the growing pains of my little baby.....

Ahmad is doing great as well. He's enjoying his new job, but has been on the evening/night shift this week and has decided he doesn't like that! It's been a adjustment not having him here in the evenings, but thankfully, that won't be lasting!

Oh the fun times....I love my life!

I See You!

OK, so I hit post #100 and then hit a stall...ha ha! I'm back! The past 2 weeks have been pretty busy, but very good. I worked both days last weekend and Ahmad started his job and was in training for 2 weeks, so we were all adjusting to that. He used to have dinner ready when I got home with the kids, but now we get home about the same time, so we cook, eat and then it's about time for jammies and on to winding down for bed. The evening sure seems to go faster now! However, we still have a good time! One evening, we had a great time playing hide and seek-Hailey is a great seeker! She loves to look for Miles and can usually find him. We did painting one afternoon and Hailey got to paint for her first time (and yes, her mouth was blue by the end of the 5 minutes that lasted)! We got out Miles' race track one night as well and they both had a blast playing.


Hailey is hilarious when she nurses these days-such an acrobat! I tell you, she's nearly standing on her head sometimes. One day, while she was nursing, she was facing down, booty in the air, one leg raised and one arm raised. She cracks me up! I remember Miles doing those things as well when he was little, but it doesn't seem like she should be old enough to be doing this. Isn't she still my little baby?! Another thing she likes to do is grab my hand and make me hold onto her foot while she nurses. Or she takes my hand and holds it to her head and face and puts her hand over top of mine so it stays there. It's pretty cute.

A particularly sloppy "sloppy joe"!

Miles is into counting everything and Ahmad said he went to 100 the other day, but I haven't heard him go nearly that high. He insists that he's 4 and just as big as the kids in his class. He'll eat his veggies and then say, 'there, I ate my veggies, I'm 4 now!'. He also consolidates classrooms sometimes at school and ends up in the kindergarten class, so then he says that he's '5 now'. He can get pretty upset that he's not 4, but I keep explaining that after Santa comes, he'll have his birthday...January might be a long month! Along with his counting, he's trying the measure things. He'll count the length of something and just arbitrarily assign it numbers and lengths. So, when trying to determine how old he is for instance, he'll move his hand somewhat consistently up his body saying 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, until he's at his head and they say he's 7. His favorite number seems to be 20 because everything is 20. It's a big number to him and if he wants something, he'll say he wants 20 of them or he wants to do it 20 times.

Hailey is standing all the time now and so close to taking a step. She took a half a step the other day, but then went to her knees before moving her other foot. She'll stand and want to get somewhere and just kind of fall on her belly with her arms out instead of taking a step. I don't think it will be long! She loves to crawl over to me and pull up on my legs and bury her head between them. It's so stinkin' cute. She went to the doctor for her 9 month check up the other week and she's doing good! She's in the 20th percentiles for height and weight and in the 15th for head circumference. We weren't sure how Miles measure up to her, but I pulled out his stats and he was right there too! He was 25th percentile in weight, 20th in height, but 75th in head. Pretty close over all!



Hailey got another tooth, the right top and is very close to her left top. It should be in anytime. I thought she was really teething this last week as she's been fussy-for her anyways, but now I think she has an ear infection. I feel really bad that we missed that all week, but the doctor is first on the agenda tomorrow. She says "dada" all the time and seems to know that means Ahmad. But she calls everyone that too, so it's kind of hard to tell. She loves playing with doors and likes to open and close them and peek around to see who's on the other side.

Miles is a man after my own heart....he loves condiments! I love sauces and dips and relishes, and so does he. He's been into ketchup for a long time, which he puts on any meat (and also calls most meats 'chicken') much to Ahmad's dismay who only uses ketchup very sparingly. But now he's discovered steak sauce and loves it. He requests it to dip his carrots in and the other day, his pancakes. Then he wanted just steak sauce to slurp up plain. Steak sauce is good, but...!

It's been a busy few weeks, but very enjoyable. This weekend was nice-I didn't have anything to do! Ahmad took a grant writing class yesterday, so it was me and the kids and we went to a museum we've never been to-Eiteljorg. It's a Native American and Western museum and I saw some advertisements on their holiday train display. Since both kids were free, we went. It was fun and a nice museum, but definitely a bit old for the kids.


The Kleins came over for some pizza and to catch up a bit and today we're just hanging out. The kids have both power napped yesterday and today-Hailey slept for 3 hours yesterday afternoon and Miles for 4. Not they are both going on 4 hours today. We have some sleepy kids!

When Miles and Ahmad play Wii, Hailey likes to get in on the action!

We're excited about Thanksgiving and are heading to South Bend where we not only will see the Keyes family, but my brother's family as well! So excited! Lots of fun plans coming up and we're starting to realize the holidays are upon us. I cannot believe how fast this year has gone. It goes fast with one kid, but gosh, with 2, it just flies. Trying to hang on to every moment.....

#100!

This post is my 100th post! I can't believe it! When I first started this blog, I wondered how I'd be able to keep it up and if I'd keep it up...seems to be going ok! I really enjoy posting and keeping a diary of sorts on our life. Just looking back to when I started this, I was just pregnant with Hailey. Now she's almost 10 months old. Time flies...which is exactly why I'm doing it-so I can look back and try to savor those precious life moments....

Hailey went to work with me one day for part of the day...she's a good helper!

Hailey is such my little lady! She is such a smiley baby-always has a grin on her face. She's babbling away and seems to respond to us when we talk to her. She's full of "mama's" and "dada's". She also does "baba's". Miles says that she's trying to say "big brother"-which may be true! She enjoys walking behind her push toys and is standing more on her own. She started clapping and if you say "yay, Hailey", she'll often stop what she's doing and clap. :) She is also starting to clap to music and bob her little head and move to a beat. She has also just begun holding on to my hands and walking. She's so proud of herself, and she should be! What a big little girl. She melts my heart. And her snuggles...I love her snuggles. She snuggles right into my shoulder and under my chin, burying her head into my neck. I just want to keep her there forever. I love you Love Bug!



And then there's Miles. Miles is such a light in my life. He's such a wonderful big brother and son, he melts my heart. He often exclaims "Oh I love my baby so so so so so so so SO much!" And then he proceeds to give her hugs and kisses. If he's hard to wake in the morning, I just bring Hailey in and he perks right up and says how Hailey wants him. This morning, she was clamoring to get to him and gave him hugs and kisses until he woke up. Then he hugged her and hopped right out of bed. He's so smart and is doing so well in this new class. He's in the 4's room, a Pre-K room. He's writing his name really well now and counts forward and backwards all the time. He looks for things to learn about in daily life; for example, we'll point out and look for different shapes when we're waiting for something (i.e. at the doctor's office or in a restaurant). He knows the months almost in order (just skipping a few). He's figuring the world out and just can't seem to get enough! He's doing awesome in school and hasn't had any incidents in a long time. I'm so proud of him! And we're working on his drop offs in the morning as well. In the past, he's liked for me to carry him to his classroom and then has a meltdown-crying and grabbing my neck-sometimes hanging from my neck. I usually leave him in the teacher's arms crying. So, we're working on that. I'm not carrying him back anymore and he's giving me lots of hugs and kisses in the room. I'm taking my time with him and allowing him to have that. When he's ready (with me moving it along without rushing him), I leave. He's done so well and I can tell by the look on his face that he's proud of himself. And I'm proud of him too! Oh Smiles, I love you so much!

This past weekend, we went to visit my parents. My brother, Matt, and his 2 boys, Gavin and Emmett, were in town too. We had such a great visit! Dad seemed to be doing pretty well and so was mom. I was happy that we were able to do a little bit of work for them while we were there. I hope to be able to do more and more of that. I like being able to help them. We went bowling on Saturday morning and that was the first time for Gav and Em and the first time in about 2 years for Miles. Of course it was Hailey's first time too, but she didn't really bowl! :) It was a great time. It was also funny while we were there-Em and Miles got snacks and slushy drinks. Miles drank his drink really fast and ended up with brain freeze. While I felt bad for him, it was pretty funny! It was also a great treat that my very dear friend, Shauna, was able to join us! I haven't seen her in about a year and it was really nice to catch up. Even if we did get beat by all 3 boys!

Brain Freeze!

Friends since Kindergarten!

While I anticipated a very busy weekend, it was actually pretty restful! Miles, Gavin and Emmett played together nicely and didn't require too much direction. Ahmad was also wonderful and often kept watch over them and ensured they had lots of fun things to keep them busy. It was a wonderful visit and I hope to see everyone again real soon.


We also had a real nice visit today. Since I got off work early, I took the kids over to our old neighbor's to play and have dinner. It was a great visit and the kids really had a lot of fun. The dads got there after they were done with work and enjoyed dinner and some playtime before we had to leave. Miles was very sad to leave and told me on the way home that he wanted to take his bed to Evelyn's so he could stay there for a long long time. It was cute! On that note, Ahmad also has a new job. Today was his second day and I'm so proud of him. It seems like a good fit so far and I hope he enjoys it. I'd love for him to like his work.

I'm excited about this week and about everything that is coming up. I hope that we all find peace and happiness in God's time-which is sometimes different than our time!

Boo!

We had a marvelous Halloween! We went to Zoo Boo the weekend before Halloween with Amber, Jeff, Lauren, and Monica. We enjoyed the zoo, trick or treating, and seeing everyone dressed up. It was a good rehearsal for the big night!


We had fun getting ready for the big night too! Last year, Miles wouldn't touch the pumpkins and I had to carve them myself. This year, he was pretty into it! Hailey liked it too and had fun getting slimy. Miles decided he wanted his pumpkin to be be scary and Hailey's pumpkin to be sad. :)

Hailey turned 9 months old on Halloween!

Halloween night was a bit chilly, so Ahmad and Hailey were only with us for a short while. Then they headed back to the house to pass out candy. Miles did really well for the most part. He wanted to ride his bike and that worked out pretty well. He got upset once because he wanted to keep crossing the street back and forth and he got tired towards the end. He decided he wanted to come back and help hand out candy, so we skipped the rest of the houses and headed home. The candy bucket is still pretty full....