Family Time and Some Exciting News!

After some serious guilt tripping from a certain Family Member.....thought it was time for a Happy Days update! ;) Mark, Hayden and I drove to Grand Rapids to visit my Mom for Turkey Day! Mom cooked a yummy dinner and Hayden had her favorite grilled cheese for dinner! She did however, try a bite of my Mom's pumpkin pie and she liked it! I wish she would try healthy foods as easy as she is willing to try junk food! How does she know?!?!?!?!?
Hayden had her 18 month check-up the day before Thanksgiving and is doing well for her age, other than the eating. I had a heart to heart with the Dr. and she gave me some ideas for tough love to get her to try new foods at dinner.....it is still a work in progress, but we made a step in the right direction this weekend.....more on that later. Hayden weighs 25 lbs 5 ozs. and is 31 1/8" tall. She is growing up way too fast!


Thursday, Hayden and I headed to Gaylord for a visit with Aunt Linda, Uncle John, Grandma, Rachel and Todd. Hayden got to try out her new snow suit Friday morning and play in the snow! I froze my butt off trying to get pictures and a video of Hayden laughing at their dog, Libby.

Hayden was laughing so hard at Libby jumping in the snow. You might have to turn the volume up a bit to hear her laughing....I think she also says, Silly doggie a couple times. ;)

Once we got done playing in the snow, in other words, freezing my butt off, we loaded into the car to go to town. Hayden threw a bit of a temper tantrum as she wanted to keep playing outside. Once we managed to get her strapped in her car seat, she gave us this look!

Auntie gave me a little cooking class while I was up and taught me how to make a couple easy meals. Friday night we made a pork loin dinner. It was very yummy and of course, Hayden wanted nothing to do with it at first. Suddenly she started acting more interested in what I had on my plate. She sat on my lap and started playing with the meat on my plate. She kept saying "pizza" and eventually took a bite of it. She ended up eating several bites of it until she discovered the fat. She literally picked up a big hunk of fat and put it in her mouth. I was so grossed out, but she kept eating the fat! Eeewwweeeee!! I guess I should be happy she ate a new food! ;)

Mark drove up Friday night and on Saturday we took some Family Christmas photos.....will post some of those later. Then we had Mark's Christmas Party up at Boyne on Satuday night. On Sunday, we got up and headed home in the morning as Mark had lots of work to do. Hayden slept all the way home and was full of it when we got home, though I desperately needed a nap! Oh well, thats life when you have a toddler!

Now it is time for my bragging moment. Sunday night Mark, Hayden and I were sitting on the couch and I asked Hayden how old she was, as I am trying to get her to stick her index finger up to say she is 1 yr old. When she put her finger up, I said "One". Hayden then said, "Two"...... I repeated every number she said and she would say the next number and counted all the way to ten!! I could not believe it! Where did she learn that?? I never said the next number and she said each number from 1 to 10 all by herself! Talk about bringing a tear to your eye! ;) My kid is so smart!! ;) Ok enough bragging......but seriously, she is too darn smart!! ;)

We have some very exciting news, though many of you already know about it. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we signed a purchase agreement on a house in Saginaw. We've already had the inspection and that went pretty good. We found a couple minor things during the inspection and got the price down on the house another $2,000. Overall, we got the sellers to come down $12,000 from their asking price, plus they are paying $3,000 towards our closing costs! We are getting very excited though we still need to get through the Appraisal and hope the bank approves our financing. Apparently since I am now layed off and on unemployment, they can't count my income.......GREAT. So it is just one more hurdle we hope to clear. If it all works out, we will be closing on this house in early January! So PLEASE say a few prayers that this all works out for us! We have certainly had a frustrating year searching for homes. But everything happens for a reason and hopefully this is the home for us!

I can't believe Christmas is just around the corner and I haven't even started my Christmas shopping! I can already feel the stress building up inside! Guess I better get shopping!
HAVE A GREAT WEEK!