Hadley's helper stand

My sister has a helper stand for her son, Max. Hadley has been in it MANY a times and loves it. I also thought it would help her clingyness while I'm trying to prepare dinners/food. It has helped some and she does love it. She can even climb in it herself, we're still working on getting down.

Here are the plans we used. We opted to go with the hinges so it can be collapsable. I will admit it's a great feature, but if James were to build this again, he would definitely be skipping this. It took a while to build but James did a perfect job (as usual).

I helped with the last coat of paint, well the sealing coat. :) All of my mom friends here LOVE it and can't wait for their husband's to make it for them. James thought about making some and selling them but it really isn't worth it for the time it takes.

before painting

after painting- it's gray (hard to tell)

Disclaimer- I did not keep the stand over here by the stove, it moved to the other side 

Jen's Mason Jar Sprinkle

Here are some photos from my twin sister's baby "sprinkle". She is having a girl so we wanted to make sure it was extra girlie! She did an AWESOME job at blogging about it so I will let link her blog at the end of this picture post. Yup, being blog lazy. So enjoy the photos and head on over for her details.

Link to my sister's blog.

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the match (chair)

ahhhhhh, all's right in the world now :) Refer back to this blog to freshen your memory of the SINGLE chair post

BIG shout out to my husband for driving hours to get my matching chair. The EXTREMELY nice worker from TJMAXX in Jackson, MS called to tell me she got my chair in! I had never been to the store she just took down my name/number incase they got one in.... well I'm not sure how she remembered since it's been weeks but sure enough BOOM.

I would like to put them in their spot (replacing the love seat) but we can't get the love seat into the doorway of the spare bedroom so we'll need to sell it. We can't sell it until we buy a new couch, well I guess we could but people will probably want the couch and love seat. So stay tuned in the weeks coming for final family room photos. WOOHOOO

Hadley is 18 months old!

Wow, so crazy!

Stats:

She weighs around 24 pounds (50th percentile) and 33 inches tall which puts her in the WHOPPING 90th percentile! Watch out people, if she keeps growing at this rate, she will easily be 5'7- 5'8, crazy! We are not tall people, our brothers are tall and dad/gpa's so maybe it's in there somewhere!

Likes/Loves:
Hadley's mostly a happy gal and she loves playing outside. She would live outside if we let her. She also likes to eat dirt so that's an issue. Hadley has no problem getting dirty and loves digging in dirt/sand. She LOVES her kitty Bella and she likes Maddie our dog (mostly an issue of bella not being around all the time like maddie). She also loves reading books (and having them read to her).

Eating:
Hadley LOVES eating, always has. She has grown pickier over time but that is mostly when it comes to vegetables. She LOVES peas (weird I know) and I put spinach in our morning smoothie which is also loves. She drinks coconut milk at lunch/dinner but is otherwise a water lover.

Riding around Lowes

Sleeping:
She still sleeps well overall, we recently had a couple nights set back but that was due to getting back home after 2 weeks away and fighting a sickness/teething. She naps at 1pm and usually lasts til 3pm. Hadley goes to bed around 7:30pm and wakes around 7am on good days.

being silly with water table fun

New Developments: 
Hadley is stringing words together. Her recent words are "thank you mommy". She repeats a lot of words and knows the sounds to a lot of animals.

Hadley is currently wearing 18-24 months clothes but I recently bought some 2T and they fit! (mannnnn I am not ready for that, official big girl here). She is in size 5 Honest Diapers (probably equivalents to regular size 4).

Now that's one cool chick :)

We are definitely practicing our "high V" (cheerleading move)

She needs work on making fists, so we practice that too :)

This was Hadley's half birthday month and I wanted to get her more toys to play with outside. Her birthday is so close to christmas that we don't really get her that many things (we spread it out) so I think I'll be looking for a water table of her own soon.

our little garden

I've always wanted to try doing a garden of our own so we decided this would be the year. James built this wonderful raised garden box from scrap wood that we had laying around in the garage. He did that after he priced out wood at Lowes which would have cost over $50 dollars. Our neighbor across the street (who was very interested in helping and has a garden of his own) priced out an irrigation system from where he works and we were ready to go!

Sorry we finished planting and it was night time so here's the dark picture of the before. We got basil, parsley, oregano, and thyme already started from the store, the rest were seeds. We planted lettuce, spinach, carrots, broccoli, zucchini, squashes, peppers, cucumbers, and probably more.

I was out of town for 14 days and this is what I came back to! We have some HUGE growth people! woohooo! The only things that really aren't growing are carrots, broccoli, and spinach. I think some of those are hard to grow but we shall see.

Not bad for our first time. I will keep you updated as we get more visible growth.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Hadley's big trip to the GA Aquarium!

While I was at my sister's in Atlanta, my husband's bestest friends from HS happened to be down in ATL for a weekend. We decided to all meet up at the GA Aquarium. James LOVES aquariums, he was more excited than the kids to go. He drove all the way over here just for the weekend so he could be with Hadley on her first trip (and to see them of course). We had a ball but I was EXHAUSTED by the end of the day. We went to lunch and Ikea as well (where Hadley had a full on melt down because it was nap time, she eventually fell asleep on james).

family photo, Hellooooo Hadley

Happy buddy Max

another fam shot

Jen, David, and Max (plus baby girl in belly) shot

no we're not dumping the kids in haha, you could touch the stingrays

Chris and Matt, James and a pretty happy hadley

peek a boo

this picture made me LOL so bad haha

hi there

matthew and max playing

Penguin selfie :)

this is Hadley at Ikea AFTER her nap meltdown, she slept pretty good in there for a bit

Here's the group photo
Chris, Matt, Missy (and baby boy in Aug. to be), me, Had, James, Jen (and baby girl in June to be), David, and Max

We didn't take many of all of us or some of us together because we were so busy making sure the kids were having fun and taking photos of them. We had a great time, we also got a TravelZoo deal so the tickets were very discounted (so it worked out perfectly!). We wish we could see Chris, Missy, and Matt more often but we're glad we could spend the day with them.

Mantie

I have been mia lately because I'm busy being a "mantie" (Mom and Auntie). My mom (who watches my nephew max) has been away on vacation so I stepped in to help. I have been watching my Hadley and Max the last week and will continue to for most of this week as well.

It has been mostly great mixed with a little not so great. They do good most of the time and play well except when they're inside fighting over toys/things. So we've been trying to hit the neighborhood playground and do things outside.

This was day one (playing at the park and neighbors)

Another day we met Jen at work and went to chick-fil-a for lunch and play. Hadley actually went all the way up by herself but guess who had to go get her down...... (max too)... yup, I'll tell you who didn't.... my preggo sister so yup I did.

Another day at the playground. Some kids were REALLY tired and just wanted to swing swing swing.

We met our cousins who now live where my sister does for a concert at a cool outdoor amphitheater put on by my sister's church and it was pretty fun!

 Hadley was bee bopping around so much! Here is the video of her clapping around below.

There's the amphitheater.

I will post some more about where we went over the weekend, hint, it was FUN. Happy Cinco De Mayo everyone!