we headed toward the lights

considering this is the holiday season, we had quite the boring weekend. next weekend we are completely booked, so don't expect us to show up at your house (unless you're melanie, of course). but this weekend, we didn't have a single thing planned.
hayden loves christmas lights. so i started thinking maybe we should surprise him and go drive through hinse park for the annual lightfest. so we loaded in the car and headed off to whatever city it starts in and drove through whatever cities it goes through. hayden wanted to close his eyes to keep the surprise alive until we told him we had awhile to drive before getting there. we sat in line on a main road for a really long time.
as we got closer, hayden closed his eyes (kind of) until the first lights appeared. but even then, we had a lot more waiting to do until we finally saw the main event. he seemed to have a great time. talan was hungry so he made a little more noise than usual until i stuck a bottle in his mouth.
none of us have ever been and we all agreed it was a pretty cool thing.
here's a few pictures that don't really do it justice, but they are cool enough:


cannon over the bridge. the timing was off on it, but it was still pretty cool:




tunnel of butterflies and flowers on our way out. this one was way cool:
hayden gave the evening's festivities 2 thumbs up even though he only used one:

santa 2007

every year we take hayden to see santa at twelve oaks mall. it's the same santa every year, except when he was almost 3 because santa's son was getting married in some other state and he had to be there. this santa is amazing. we love him. he was trained by disney and is so great with the kids. even hayden.
hayden's first year he was almost 1. he loved him. he would look up at him and touch his beard and even babble at him. every year after that it's gone down hill. each year we've at least been able to make him calm down for 2 seconds enough to get a picture with him sitting on his lap. santa is holding hayden tight and squeezing hayden's legs between his legs in order to stop the break-away attempt. it's really a cruel thing. making your child, who obviously hates it, sit on some strangers lap.
last year was the worst year yet. the kid was almost 4 years old and he had such a freak out that we didn't get any pictures of him with santa. he didn't sit in his lap at all. after some coaxing, i got him to stand relatively close to him, but only because i was a buffer between them. i thought this stuff would get better with age, not worse. so yeah, his 4th christmas and there was no picture of him with santa.
this year we've talked A LOT about it. about how he needs to show talan how it's done and how he needs to tell santa about all of the toys that he wants. we go over the list of what he's going to tell him. i had high hopes that this year was going to be a good year. dave didn't think so.
so jenn was in town with rainah and we decided to all head over to the mall yesterday to visit santa. for whatever reason, anytime we go to get pictures taken, talan is in a serious not smiling mood. but at least he doesn't cry. hayden was doing well the whole way through the line. we got closer and he started doing this fake cry type noise and would bury his face in me. i continued to bribe him and tell him he would only get a cookie if he was good and sat on santa's lap for a picture. i also showed him how santa was giving presents to the kids that sat on his lap.
rainah was up first. she's the same age that hayden was his first year, however, rainah does not like being left with other people and watching her mother walk away. jenn can't even leave the room without rainah crying and crawling after her. so jenn wasn't so sure it would go so well. i told her "at least she's small enough that you can force her to sit in his lap. just put her there and walk away." we couldn't do that with hayden last year.
jenn sat rainah on santa's lap and she looked up at him right away. it was really cute. they were able to snap a picture of that right before her HUGE bottom lip stuck out and the tears came. she would cry, then stop for a minute, look up at him again and then stick the lip back out. so really, jenn had the best of both worlds. she got a few cute shots and then some good ones of her crying. those are always cute....when the kids isn't FOUR YEARS OLD!!!!
hayden kept asking "is it my turn yet?!" and it wasn't even in a panicked way. he almost seemed excited to get his turn on santa's lap. so jenn goes over and picks rainah up and we're told to wait a minute before we went over. hayden didn't even want to wait. we finally were able to go over and he sat right down and i put hayden down on his other leg. i stepped back and we started taking pictures, until talan, our little grabber, grabbed his real beard and wouldn't let go. hayden wouldn't really smile, and at one point even started sticking his tongue out. but later, i realized, how much could i really ask for?! last year we didn't get him even close to santa at least he was sitting there on his lap, usually looking at the camera and then started telling him everything he wanted for christmas.
talan did fine, as expected. he'd look up at santa, he'd look around, try to squirm out of his lap. the usual. i was trying to take as many pictures as i could before they kicked us out and then finally went over to get the boys. santa handed them a puzzle and we started to walk out and hayden said "i didn't want this present. i wanted aquadots and he didn't have them. and i told him i wanted a new doodle pad but he didn't have them either." i had to try to explain several times that this was just a little present for coming to see him and now he would go back up north and tell the elves what toys hayden wanted. he will then come and fill his stocking on christmas eve and then leave his presents at grandma's house . i think he's beginning to understand it a bit more, but he was a little disappointed all he got was a puzzle that he could have put together when he was 2 years old.


rainah and talan after seeing santa. if you look real close, you can kind of see talan's two teeth on the bottom:

waiting in line in the "snow globe" to see santa. they were all looking up at least:
hayden having fun looking at his crazy head in the ornaments:
talan and me waiting to see santa:
rainah, jenn, talan, me and hayden in the snow globe:
rainah and santa. you really need to click on the pictures to make them bigger so you can see her faces:


talan grabbing his beard:
santa trying to break free from talan's death grip:
santa is saying "seriously, when are you going to get these kids off my lap?!":

there's the tongue:

two years in the making

about two years ago our friend jason came over to help me paint the landing to the basement. dave was off leading worship at a church so it was jason, me and hayden. i was in the kitchen doing something, possibly telling jason what to do, when hayden came in and started jumping around. no surprises there.
the counter top in our kitchen was white ceramic tile with blue grout that i'm assuming the people that lived here before us did themselves. and they did a really poor job of it. it was nice looking, but in many areas the grout was not sealed properly so blue chalk would come up just by touching it. and in time the tiles started to loosen as well.
so hayden's jumping. and as if in slow motion i saw the whole thing happen. he was the perfect height at the time. he got right under the edge of the counter and came up right at the corner, where the tile was the weakest. ceramic tile busted all over the kitchen. he just stopped for a second and looked around like "oh crap. i'm in big trouble now." then he realized that "wow. that really hurt." and then the tears came. but not for long, this is hayden we're talking about.
jason threw down the paint roller and ran over to look at hayden's head. we only noticed a small cut that wasn't bleeding too badly, so i figured no stitches would be needed. i mean, he did run his face into the corner of the wall on his second christmas with my best friend's husband watching in slow motion and we didn't give him stitches then. so i'm trying to keep some ice on it while jason is cleaning up the ceramic tile in the kitchen, and even in the living room.
that was two years ago. our counter top has had the wood exposed on that edge for two years. so we finally got around to getting a new counter. and sink. several weeks back, dave and i busted out most of the ceramic tile and then that weekend my dad came over to help us install the new counter and sink. boy has it ever made a difference.
now we only need to patch up some of the wall, pick out tile for the back splash and install it. any guesses on how long that will take us?!
thanks for all the help, dad!!!

safety first. yes, he did wear goggles:


without the sink in, there is so much extra counter space. i thought for a few seconds about just not putting the sink in at all. i mean, the bathroom is right around the corner:
finished. well, just about:

our little monday visit

our good friends matt and niki had a baby boy the beginning of september. you probably couldn't tell they are our good friends seeing as though we just got over to visit them on monday. we had it all planned out to go over and have dinner and visit and all that fun stuff and then we got sick. and it hasn't stopped since. nobody wants their new baby exposed to the 80 year old smokers cough that talan has going on, so we stayed away. but enough was enough and we just had to meet little everett. too bad dave was at work. well, maybe before he turns 10 we'll all get together.
hayden had the best time running around their HUGE yard with their overly active lab. at one point i caught him climbing up on a plastic play house trying to reach a ball that was stuck in the garage gutter. he honestly thought that he could climb up on the play house and jump to the garage roof and get the ball. turk wasn't helping because he too was also trying to jump to get it. turk ended up crashing on the living room floor and hayden fell asleep on the car ride home. when we were going to bed that nite hayden started fake crying (mostly to get out of going to bed) saying "but i miss the dog. i want to see the dog again." i think at least once a week those two need to get together for a play date. sure made talking to my friend a lot easier.
i tried getting hayden to get in a couple of pictures with everett and talan, but of course, he refused. i'm making sure to document all the times that i ask him to get into pictures. that way, when he grows up and says "how come after talan was born there are no pictures of me?" i can show him that it was all his doing. we tried. we really tried. who knows what you all will be getting on your christmas card this year.
so anyway. it was a nice visit and i'm sorry it didn't happen sooner. here's the proof that we actually got there before his first birthday.

trick or treat

we finished october 2007 out strong by having hayden's school halloween party on tuesday morning, going trick or treating in downtown plymouth on tuesday evening and then having the real deal on wednesday evening. as usual, the family all went over to mom and dad's for a delicious dinner of chicken chili or regular chili (usually the chicken chili was made for jessica, but now she eats meat...YEAH!!!). after dinner we got the kids dressed up and headed out for some trick or treating. hayden usually goes from 6-8, running the whole time. this year we got close to mom and dad's house and planned on going up the other side of the street but he said he was done. very odd. i think he just wanted to get into the candy as fast as he could. in years past it was more about how many houses he could get to, now he realizes it's actually candy he's getting and he loves candy. maybe more than running. so we finished up a little before 7:30. rainah headed back a little earlier and talan just fell asleep in tina's arms when he was done. hayden left his wig on the whole time which shocked me. he would have left the beard on the whole time too if the stupid thing didn't keep falling off the whole time. but at least we got some good pictures. hayden asked me last nite if he was going out again and i had to explain that halloween is over until next year. i think the whole 2 nites in a row really screwed him up. guess he thought we'd just continue going out until the snow started to fall. well, i guess we could try. we didn't hit up our neighborhood yet.


jack sparrow. what?! he's actually looking AND smiling at the camera?!:
ARRRGHHH:
lobster out of water:
hayden as jack sparrow, rainah as an octopus, talan as a lobster:
creatures of the sea:
hayden got the hang of it early. this year we really didn't even need to go up to the doors with him. he would say "trick or treat" before they got to the door and then they would talk to him or ask him questions while putting candy in his bag and he'd just say "thank you" and start running to the next house. this kid is good. no time for small talk, gotta get to as many houses as he can!:

even the lobster got candy:

all that being carried around really tired him out:

pumpkin carving

as you can see by the number of posts on all three blogs, we've had a busy month over here. and i didn't even post the dessert baking day in which tina and i almost burned the house down, or the surprise welcome home party we had for jessica or the trick or treating we did in downtown plymouth last nite. i'm thinking after tonite things are going to start slowing down. but we'll see.
on monday nite jessica, justin and tina came over to carve pumpkins. this is yet another first for justin. we aren't quite sure why he has never carved pumpkins before. i mean, he lives in florida, not mars. he also had no idea that you eat pumpkin seeds. so that was another first.
hayden painted pumpkins with water based paints, so that went over well. talan was perfectly fine jumping in his jumper and then continued to be totally fine when we shoved him in a cold pumpkin. tina and justin did the carving. jessica played on her computer after scraping the pumpkin out and i roasted the pumpkin seeds and took pictures. i did some of the scraping too.

jessica actually doing some work:
this picture was totally posed because hayden doesn't like getting his hands "all yucky":
and here is what talan did the whole time:
until we made him do this:



here is what jessica did most of the time:
water based paints aren't that great for pumpkins. but he wanted that rather than markers:

yes, that is paint all over his hands, arms, body and face:
justin getting down to business:
tina making her masterpiece:

the finished product. good work guys!: