Ladybug, fireman, and a cowboy

We had some fun October festivities. It started out with the Scarecrow festival at Thanksgiving Point. Jaden enjoyed all the jump toys and getting his face painted like a tiger. Then last week we had our ward Trunk or Treat night filled with lots of candy and tons of yummy soup. Half the ward was to bring a crock pot of soup and the other half brought dessert. In the picture below, Jaden is with his best friend, Jasmine (the vampire) and then with another one of his good friends, Spencer (the cute green dinasaur). It was a fun night, it was super cold out though so the trunk or treat thing didnt really happen but instead the kids just walked around to each room of the church getting candy. I kind of felt like a Halloween scrooge this year. Daniel and I didnt even dress up and we turned out to be one of the only couples not to dress up. We did dress up a little bit for a little Halloween party at Alison and Micahs but we realized later that night we didnt even take any pictures..so sorry youll just have to imagine us as a cowboy and a cowgirl. I did get one picture of Daniel in his cowboy hat. I must say he makes a pretty handsome cowboy :-) I had fun making "gross" treats for the party such as monster toes, edible eyeballs, mudpie with worms and green ice cubes with worms in them for the punch. Oh, the picture of Hailey with hair was just for laughs.

Burrito anyone?

I am bursting with excitment this morning. Let me first say this is the first morning since Hailey was born that I actually got up before the kids (notice its plural) because they are both still sleeping and have been sleeping ALL night! Hailey slept from 10pm to 6am, ate and then went right back to sleep and is still sleeping! I havent felt this good and so rested in a very long time! I can tell I've been pretty well trained to wake up several times in the night though because I still woke up on my own for no reason but it was still great! And I must give credit to where credit is due. Yesterday, I went to a baby expo. I debated about going because I knew I would just end up spending money. But.. I went anyway hoping to perhaps win some cool prizes or gets some good ideas. Well, I ended up spending almost all of my time at a booth called BB Sleep Solutions. One of their advertisements said something to the effect of "Is your baby sleeping 12 hours at night and taking 2-3 naps a day?" Obviously I was quickly drawn to this..so I stopped to find out what it was all about. I ended up buying a great swaddle blanket, a dvd, and a white noise CD all for $32. May seem like a bit much but..let me tell you. A full night of sleep in priceless! I was ecstatic to get home and pop this DVD in and learn the "magic". It happened to be bed time for Hailey anyways so I just started doing the steps with her as I watched the DVD and Hailey was just like a baby doll the whole time. She was so happy and content! She loved being swaddled up so tight like a burrito and when I put her in her crib with the white noise CD playing and the room completely dark I could stil see her face and she was just staring at me like why didnt you think of this before? I wish I could have caught her expression on camera-I could hear her eyes talking to me saying "Wow, am I back in my mommy's tummy?" That is the key I think is recreating the womb the best we can. We were always told to swaddle but we always thought she didnt like it- she used to just cry and it seemed like she always wanted atleast her arms out so we've been sort of halfway swaddling her. I now realize the type of blanket used to swaddle makes all the difference in the world. Here is a typical night for her before I discovered BB Sleep Solutions. Sleep at 10pm, wake up at 1 am, eat, fuss a little bit and maybe be back to sleep after an hour, then shed wake up again anywhere between 4 and 6 am eat change diaper and take another 30-45 min to go back to sleep, then she'd wake up again at 8 ready for the day. So this morning Daniel and I both woke up a little before 6 before she woke up and looked at each other- uh..is Hailey okay? Is she still breathing? We didnt expect to see immediate results from our $32 investments. I totally recommend this to all sleep deprived parents of infants. Here is their website---www.bbsleepsolutions.com
I shouldnt have been taking pictures of her at the chance of waking her up but I couldnt resist :-) she did open her eyes once but luckily she just went back to sleep.




I better get some other things done besides blogging while I still have a chance..

Oh baby!

So I dont have a nice camera or anything but I was just playing around yesterday with some different photos of Hailey. Just as an update, she is doing very well. She is starting to sleep more at night- a typical night for her is bed around 9 or 10pm..eat at 2 am..back to sleep..eat at 5 am..and back to sleep till 9am. Jaden also sleeps till 9 or 930 so it works out well. Hailey has her morning feed and then we all go for a morning walk. I look forward to our morning walks- even getting out of the house for 30 minutes makes a big difference! She is pretty easy going and really only cries when shes hungry or needs to burp. Shes starting to be alot more alert and staying awake for longer periods during the day. I love her new little "coos" and "ahhs" .My favorite things to do with her are singing and dancing with her..and bathtime. Jaden has been saying some cute prayers for her lately. Last night he said .."and thankyou that Hailey learns how to not wake us up at night" (I dont know where he comes up with the things he says- we've never said that and its also funny hed say that because he is such a deep sleeper he never wakes up for anything during the night which Im thankful for) The other day on the way to school he was talking about all the things he was going to learn at school and then he said "yeah and Hailey is learning too..to sleep without her pacifier. (There was a time that she would wake up everytime the paci fell out and just wouldnt sleep without it) Luckily we were able to break that habit! Last night while we were reading scriptures, Jaden had a wide awakening. We were reading the story about Abinadi and King Noah. We were talking about how Noah was wicked because he killed the prophet Abinadi because he would not deny the things he believed in. Jaden then said "we have a prophet today though..Thomas S Monson.. and there are no more mean people". I was sad to have to tell him there are still mean people on the earth today. But Heavenly Father still loves them. After that he said the prayer and in it he remembered how the Holy Ghost protected Abinadi so Jaden prayed "that the Holy Ghost bes with mean people". Its sure fun to see him figuring life out.

First day of school

Jaden started preschool yesterday! He was super excited. Our little boy is growin up!

Fun with Cousins

We enjoyed having Daniels sister Tina and her family here with us this past week. These are just a few pictures from Temple Square and touring the conference building. Jaden enjoyed playing with his cousins- Kylee, Brinna, Avery, and Kenzie. Hailey is now 2 weeks old and has already "seen" lots of sites around here. She got to see Temple Square, tour the Conference Building, tour the Visitors Center, see "This is the Place", and shop at the Gateway mall downtown. She was sleeping most of the time but she was awake to see a few things. It was neat to watch her looking at the Christus in the visitors center. She seemed to focus on Christ as if she totally recognized him. She was a bit fussy until I held her up to see him and then there was a peace that came over her as she stared wide eyed at our beautiful savior. I must say I am quite exhausted from the week, Hailey has probably been out and about more than any other baby her age. I got so many comments from people asking how old she is and what the heck I was doing out and about already. Shes doing well though. Shes finally getting this whole nursing thing down and sleeps for about 3 hour stretches. I think she is going to be a punctual girl- she was born at exactly 10:00 am and she literally wakes up exactly every 3 hours. Jaden ADORES Hailey and is already very protective of her. She seems to have Daniels big muscles- shes already holding her head up quite well and seems to have very strong legs for her age. We still cant tell who she looks like more. We get a wide range of opinions-some say she looks like me some say she looks like her dad and some say Jaden. So sounds like shes a good mix of all of us. We will see..its about time for her to wake up so I will post more later.

More pics of lil Hailey

She is here..

Hailey Ruth Pete has arrived! Our bundle of joy came into this world on thursday july 16th at 10:00 a.m weighing 6 pounds 14 ounces and measuring 20 inches long.. We are so happy to finally meet her and welcome her into our family.
Here are a few pictures from the hospital. More will soon be added.