Last week we had planned to leave on Wednesday to stay with my parents for a few days. Then we planned to be off to a wedding over the weekend followed by another day spent at my parents house before heading home. So, of course last Monday Hailey came down with a cough followed by a fever and runny nose on Tuesday. Wednesday she wasn’t feeling well at all so we decided to wait until Thursday to leave. She acted much better on Thursday, although still not quite herself, and we headed off to my parents house. Her cold seemed to have cleared up but her cough remained. Hailey had been pretty sick back in December after a cold that had a cough that wouldn’t go away and ended up having some bad wheezing, so I was very worried that the same thing would happen.

Anyhoo, I have to share a few pictures of some of the weekend fun. Some of these are pictures from my dad’s camera, but since he hasn’t updated his blog since July of 2007 (gasp… can you imagine?) I don’t think he’ll mind if I post them.

 Hailey and my dad relaxing by the pool.

On Friday night we went to a nearby park with my parents, brothers, sister-in-law and aunt to have a picnic to celebrate my dad’s birthday. They have a great toddler playground there which Hailey loved.

On Saturday and Sunday we went out of town to go to my cousins wedding. Saturday was a really long day for Hailey but she did great. By Sunday morning Hailey’s cough was worse, so we had to start giving her breathing treatments. I hate it so much when she has an awful cough like this, it’s just so scary. We still had a wonderful time and I’m going to post pictures from that in a separate post since I have several that I want to share.

On Sunday night when we got back from the wedding we went to pick up Dottie (our dog) and Murray (my parent’s dog). The dogs get to be spoiled rotten at a farm that we take them to, owned by a friend of my moms, whenever we go away. Since it is a farm they stay at Hailey got to see some horses when we went to pick up the dogs.

Hailey wasn’t exactly sure what to think of the horses at first. We’ve looked at plenty of pictures of horses and looked at horses on DVD’s, but to see one in real life is a little different.

She warmed up to the horses after a few minutes and even had a few smiles for the horses. Although she kept calling them cows

On Monday Hailey enjoyed a nice swim. I could not get a picture of her smiling. Every time I put the camera away she would smile, but she would not smile for the camera at all.

We had a wonderful time! I always love spending time with family and appreciate all of the time we get to spend with them. I’ll be posting pictures from my cousins wedding too, so be sure to check back for those.

Make sure you sign up for my latest giveaway- a $70 prize package from Stubby Pencil Studio.

We are all trying to do our part to help our environment.  I think about it more now that I’m a mom than I ever did before.  I want to leave our world in the best possible shape for our future generations.  So, when I had the chance to review some product from Stubby Pencil Studio I was so excited.  Stubby Pencil Studio was started by Kate Rosenthal in 2006 when she realized the need for eco-friendly and do-it-yourself art products for children.

Hailey received a fabulous package of goodies from the Stubby Pencil Studio and she was thrilled.  Here are some pictures of her enjoying a few of the fun items she received. 

Hailey enjoyed playing with some natural play dough- Mary’s Softdough.  She loved it.  And I loved it- it did not crumble at all like your typical play dough does.  There was no play dough on the floor when she finished playing.  And you moms know that is important.

Hailey always insists on writing Brooke’s name when we play with play dough- so here she is right after we wrote Brooke’s name.  In this picture Hailey is smelling the softdough because it smelled sooooo good.

Here Hailey is coloring with Soy Crayons on her Color ‘n Kids Interactive cards.  I have been teaching her about bugs and insects so the package of Six Garden Pals Color ‘n Kid cards was perfect.  She loved coloring her ladybug.  And I love that crayons are made from all natural pigments and soybean oil and that the cards are printed on 100% PCW recycled stock.

Here Hailey enjoys writing with Jumbo Triangular Color Eco Pencils.  This was her first time using colored pencils and she absolutely loved using them.  I loved the triangular shape because they didn’t roll off of the table and all over the floor.  Plus they are produced with 100% FSC certified wood from reforestation sources.

So, how would like to win a $70 prize package from Stubby Pencil Studio?  I thought you might be excited about that.  Here is what your prize package will include:

Green to the Letter Stationery set including:
4 packs of Color ‘n Kids cards (winner’s choice of styles)
Set of 10 Smencil pencils 
Set of 12 eco colored pencils
Set of 12 Watercolor crayons
Box of 24 Soy crayons
Trio Pencil Sharpener

If this sounds fabulous to you, and I know it does, here is what you need to do to enter to win:

• Click over to Stubby Pencil Studio and look around.
• Come back here and leave me a comment letting me know what your favorite item is.

Want a second chance to win?

• Blog about this giveaway on your blog, linking back to this post, and leave me a SECOND comment with the URL of your post.

This giveaway will end on July 4th at 11:59pm EST.  I will pick a winner using the random number generator shortly after it ends.  This giveaway is open to US and Canadian shipping addresses.

If you can’t wait to see if you win, you can use this coupon code: BDAY08 for a free pack of Color ‘n Kids cards: Six Birthday Wishes ($7.95 value) good thru 12/31/08. The coupon code goes in at checkout - on the review your payment page - on the left hand side there is a spot to click that says Questions, comments or BONUS CODE.

Now I think that a tomato is technically a fruit which would make ketchup a fruit, but that just doesn’t sound right. Vegetable sounds much better.

Anyhoo.

Hailey is such a picky eater that I am really hoping that ketchup counts as a vegetable since that’s about all she will eat. And she doesn’t like fruit either. About the only fruit she will eat is jelly. Is that even a fruit?

When I give her almost any food she will usually try it. Then take it out of her mouth, hand it to me and say, “Gucky!” (yucky) We go back and forth with this throughout every meal.

“Hailey, try your food.”

“Gucky!”

“If you try it you might like it. Just try it.”

Hailey puts her food in her mouth, takes it out and hands it to me and says “GUCKY!”

“It’s not yucky. You liked broccoli last week so I bought some more. Now please eat it.”

“GUCKY Mommy, GUCKY!”

“How about you eat some of your chicken then? You like chicken.”

“COOKIE! COOKIE!”

I do not give her a cookie and I have never given in and given her one no matter how much she demands and screams and cries for it. “We’re eating dinner. We don’t have cookies for dinner.”

“Yo-Ye-O. Peeaazzz! Yo-Ye-O.” (Oreo. Please! Oreo.)

“After you eat your dinner you can have an Oreo.”

“All done. Me yook ousssside. All done.”  (Me look outside)

And that is how most of our meals go.

**This is my sticky post for Wednesday, June 25th. Newer entries may be posted underneath this one.**

Dottie has a whole lot of patience. I’m not sure why but Hailey is always putting stuff on top of her. If Dottie tries to get up and walk away Hailey says “No! No! No! Night, Night!” And Dottie lays back down.

Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom for more wordlessness.

If you haven’t entered my latest giveaway yet be sure to enter to win a Living the Dream shirt from LTDChix.

I usually try to stay away from my computer on the weekends. And Saturday I did especially great avoiding my computer. When I got up in the morning I did have to check my email and my blogs just in case there was some sort of blog emergency. But then it was well into the afternoon before I actually sat down to use my computer. And it was wonderful.

I started out my morning trying to get Hailey ready for our daily walk (I’ve done it for 4 days in a row, so I think it now qualifies as a “daily” walk.) She loves to go for a walk so I don’t know why she fights me so much. She kicked and squirmed while I got her dressed, refused to open her mouth to have her teeth brushed and ran away as fast as she could when I tried to put her sunscreen on. The entire process probably took at least 45 minutes. Finally we were ready to go and enjoyed our morning walk.

After our walk Hailey and I played out front until I got tired of chasing her down every 15 seconds when she would take off running right towards the road. So we went to the safety of the fenced in back yard. Hailey had a blast with her sidewalk chalk, painting with water, going down her “whee,” and watching the ants on our patio.

Then we “helped” Rich wash the car. Hailey thought it was a blast, as long as she didn’t get wet and no one touched her bucket or sponge.

What a little helper.

After we finished washing the car it was time to come inside for lunch. Which of course caused much kicking and screaming (by Hailey). Since she had gotten up bright and early that morning (6am) she went right down for her nap after lunch.

At that point I decided that it could wait no more- I needed a hair cut. It has been over a year since I have had my hair cut, no trimming or anything. So, I’m sure you can imagine that I was very much in need of having my hair cut. And suddenly I felt the urge to have highlights as well. So, off I went to have my hair done.

So now about the title of this post, the one where I said there would be a picture of me? Here you go.

This is me modeling my hip-t a few ago- notice my hair. You can’t really tell but it is several inches past my shoulders. And it is also brown.

And now?

This is me on Sunday morning before church. I did my hair just for you (and also just in case I saw anyone while at church). See how short it is? And you can’t tell from the picture but it is really light. I think it is too light actually.

I know this picture is blurry, but have you ever tried to take a picture of the top of your head before? So in this picture you can kind of tell that it is much lighter but you can’t really tell how light it is. I mean I did tell the hairdresser I wanted the highlights to be noticeable, but I didn’t want them quite as noticeable as they are.

I was so sad with my hair that I thought that maybe I shouldn’t even go to church. Or that I should at the very least wear a paper bag over my head so that no one would notice my hair. Then the lady who sits behind me in church every week told me that she loved the new style and the new color about 3 or 4 times and I started to feel better.

So, tell me what you think- just remember that it is a lot lighter than you can tell from the picture.