last day to vote...

Today is the last day to vote for Hadlea to be on the cover of TulsaKids Magazine! Click HERE to put in your last votes!

They will announce the winner tomorrow...

fingers crossed!

new purchases...

Well... this first one isn't really a purchase, but Nana may feel like she was bought as a slave by a 1 year old! Hadlea likes to sit in the recliner and rock her babies, but since she cannot really make the chair rock, she wants you to 'SIT' beside her and rock her and her baby! Goodness... she is so bossy! Sorry, Nana! :)

Diapers. I found a coupon online and ordered a bunch of diapers the other day.... 471 diapers to be exact! Grammie and I split the order. I was just so tired of getting a box here or there. I ordered from diapers.com on Friday and they got here Tuesday. My kind of shipping!

I have been in to anything Pomegranate lately so one day while picking some stuff up at the liquor store, I ran into these! They are amazing! I am more of a beer drinker and anything else. I do not really like anything too sweet... and these aren't. Definitely recommend...

Meat. This is a deep freeze of hamburger, steaks, roasts, etc. My dad farms for a living so he has his own cattle butchered. I cannot honestly tell you how much better home grown meat is rather than buying it at the store! Such a huge difference! I never buy meat from a store unles I am compeltely out... which I havce been for the last 3 weeks. It was a killer to find something that is not hamburger related... (chicken makes me crazy to cook because I never know when it is done. Don't laugh!) It is also nice not to have to run to the store just to get meat to make something! Nothing better than a 1/3 of a cow in your freezer... Ha!

Bows and Rompers. My mom found dollardaisies.com and we decided to make an order. Everything was so cheap that we were not sure of the quality. I bought a black petti romper not to long ago and paid $30 for it. I found these two for $8.50, I think. The bows are 4 inch bows and were only $.90... yes, NINETY CENTS! They are not the best quality and do not have clips, but you can buy a box of clips at Hob Lob for $2. Super great stuff... only thing I have noticed is they sale out FAST!

And our biggest and best purchase of the week... the iPad2. We have been debating on this little thing for a year or more now! I have been letting Hadlea play a few games on my laptop and I knew it would be easier for her to play on the iPad. Plus, I am a techno junkie and can play with gadgets all.day.long. I am not sure we NEEDED this little thing, but I am loving it! We got the white 32 gig. Hadlea is loving the camera since she can see herself. I will have to get some pictures posted!

zoo and an adult lake day...

We had some friends come in for the weekend so Grammie headed over to keep Hadlea so we could have an 'adult' weekend at the lake. Of course, anytime Grammie comes, she plans all sorts of things for her and Hadlea to do. Saturday, they did just take it easy in the morning and then headed to Alan and Amanda's to swim. They met Grandma Janelle (Aunt Amanda's mom) and Janelle soon became her favorite person when she brought her a new baby...

Sunday, they were up early and heading to the zoo. Our zoo has been opening at 7AM due to the extreme heat...

And our dare devil of a daughter touched her first snake! She now goes around saying, "nake" and sticking her tongue in and out. She thought that was the greatest thing about him!

Our friends, Catherine/Doug and Alissa/Dustin all came in to head to the lake...

We had an awesome time! So good to catch up with old friends!

That evening we were all sitting outside our room and heard what sounded like a gun shot. Shortly after, we seen flames. A mobile home burnt so quickly! It was right across the street from where we were staying. It was amazing to see how fast the fire department got there... which happens to be volunteer because it is in the middle of nowhere! Thankfully they got it out fast and before anything else caught on fire. There was a church and a log cabin restaurant right next door and both of them were safe.

We headed back Sunday morning to see our babies! Hadlea was tired and went down for a nap, so my first baby and I did a little cuddling!

Once she was up, we spent some time playing! She is really in to dressing herself... notice her pajama pants and a pair of shorts, which are on backwards!

When I went in to get her from her nap, she started pointing to her bed and saying, "lay down momma. sit". So I crawled in and got a little cuddle time from her! She then wanted Berkley and daddy to get in... which daddy wasn't about to agree on! Ha!

We then got dressed and headed to the hospital to visit Justin's family, went to Best Buy (more on that in another post) and then out to eat!

It was a great weekend! Thanks to Grammie for coming to stay with Hadlea. I know I NEVER have to twist my mom's arm to come keep her, but I am so thankful she will come to my house and stay. Traveling with Hadlea or making her sleep somewhere else can completely throw off her schedule. It is so nice for her to be able to sleep in her own bed and not have to travel! Plus, we do not have to get a babysitter for Berkley, and he can stay home too! ...two very spoiled kids we have!

what she's saying wednesday

Hadlea is starting to talk more and more. Just when I think she cannot get any funnier, she learns something new! I thought I would start a little "What She's Saying Wednesday" to make sure I am keeping up with everything she is saying...

• "Momma. Love you too, Momma" (She says this for dadda, bubba, etc. She has to say 'Love you too'. She never leaves out the 'too'!)
• "Jus-in" (She has started calling her dadda Jus-in (Justin). Maybe she hears me yell at him alot! Ha!)
• "Sit. Stay. Lay down momma" (When she wants any of us to lay down so she can cover us up like her babies.)
• "Hi Babies. Swing? Huh? Huh babies? Babies swing? Babies nigh-nigh? Rock? How-eee (Hadlea) Rock? O-tay" (This is a complete conversation she had with her baby the other day. The baby was in her swing. She had just woke up, went in the living room. Said, "Hi Babies". She got down on her knees to be eye level with her baby. She said, "swing?" Like, "Are you swinging?". Then she says, "huh?" {where did she learn the word huh? I am thinking I say it to her when I cannot understand her! Hilarious what they pick up!} Then she starts like a series of questions, "do you want to swing, do you want to go night night?" Then she says, "Rock?"  And then Hadlea rock. She has been calling herself How-eee and will speak in third person!)
• "Ouch" (She thinks it is so funny to say ouch! Really not sure what the obsession is or if she just thinks it is a funny word. She will say it and laugh. She will throw her babies on the floor, say "Ouch", then kiss them to make them all better!
• "Mize" (or mine - EVERYTHING is 'hers' these days... even Berkley's toys are 'mize'!)

saying all of her loves...

She thinks her Jus-in dadda is the GREATEST!

special care...

This past Sunday, Justin, Hadlea and I went to St Johns Hospital to visit Justin's aunt who is in ICU with kidney failure. It is a very sad situation, so please say a prayer for their family!

We happened to park on the same floor of the hospital where Hadlea was born. After visiting some of Justin's family, we were headed back to our car and I told Justin I wanted to stop by the nursery to see if there were any babies. There were a couple, and Had was so excited to see them!

Hospitals these days just make me too sick. Jake's accident just about did me in with ever wanting to be around a hospital again! The thought of anyone in my family ever being in that much pain again is just too much to bare sometimes. So with already being in the hospital and then walking past the very special care nursery room where Hadlea was her first 3 days of life just became so emotional! I couldn't help but break down in tears! ...which my husband thought was completely CRAZY! :) Men!!

Anyway, after sucking it up, I had him take a picture of us in front of the room where we watched her lay for 3 days... hoping and praying she would start regulating her own temperature, oxygen and sugar.

I cannot believe how fast the last 19 months have been... just seems like yesterday we were all sitting in a room staring at this...

And I was BEGGING every.single.second to do this...

hold my sweet baby girl! I did finally get to hold her for more than a few seconds that next morning! She was wide eyed and starting to come around! I just KNEW she needed her momma! Ha!

I think because I was so sick during delivery and with all of the medicine I had in my system (I had two FULL epidurals before I even had her which I do not recommend, I had 3 or 4 rounds of medicine to stop making me throw up and something else as Hadlea and I were both running a fever.), I don't remember much of the delivery or of my hospital stay. I have a few memories, but I definitely do not remember the entire stay. But I also thank God planned this. I was very calm about Hadlea being in Special Care and being sick. I think if I had been in my right mind, I would have been a basket case. The nurses and drs were so great to keep us informed, let us be around as much as we wanted and just kept us comfortable in knowing she was improving and would be okay!

It was definitely not the ideal birth. But 19 months later, I have the ideal baby girl... that even if I would have been praying for something so perfect, I would have never expected to receive the gift I did! She is beyond anything I could have ever imagined!

project 365 - week 29

You can find week 28 here!

Day with Gigi! While Gigi was in town and Dadda was fishing, us girls headed to Affair of the Heart, to the Country Club for a swim and back home to play with our 'babies'! Dadda and I went out to dinner and back home for a movie while Gigi watched H!

Sunday at home! We got up, headed to church, picked up lunch to bring home, played with babies, took naps, played with babies, went to see Auntie Amanda and back home to play with more babies! :) This is Hadlea's safe haven with all of her babies!

Goss! (gross). Hadlea and I played outside for a bit while dadda worked late. She was playing with cups in her pool and with her water table. She kept getting grass on her and yelling "goss" (for gross)! ...love the snarl on her face!

Sprinklers! We normally wait until Hadlea is in bed to put out the sprinklers because you cannot keep her out of them. She will run in... clothes and all!

My little alarm clock! This was the only picture I took this day. I tell Justin everyday at 11AM Berkley sits like this by my office chair. I normally try to take lunch or run errands around 11AM. If I am not going to be anywhere for very long, he rides with me wherever I am going. I guess I have done this for so long, he now has his internal clock tell me when it is 11AM!

Reading to our baby! Every night before bed Hadlea and I read two books. She is getting where she knows what is coming in a couple of the books and will start talking about some of the pages before we even get there! It is so funny to see her little mind work! This night, she told me to "sit" and she read her baby and I a book! Bossy little thing she is!

Ready for the lake! Hadlea helped Dadda and I get the boat ready for the lake this past weekend! She LOVES being on the boat and talks about it the entire time it is at our house if we are not in it! No doubt she is going to be a lake bum just like the rest of us!

hadlea's latelys...

I feel like I sometimes get stuck on documenting our daily lives that I do not document what Hadlea is actually doing/saying... She is a FULL BLOWN motor mouth! She is constantly talking, jabbering, singing, counting, etc. She is a GREAT communicator. I may not understand every single word, but for the most part, she can tell us exactly what she wants... or boss us around enough to tell us what she wants us to do! Never in my life did I think I would be answering to a 19 month old... Oh well... I LOVE every second of it!

I think the two things we get compliments on the most besides "she is cute" and "she has amazing skin" would be that she is BUSY and a great communicator.

She gets funnier by the day! ...always doing something to make someone laugh.

Here are just a few things she is up to lately:

• She is a LOVER! (add in the occasional tantrum here and there... and by occasional, I mean every other hour, but who is counting... right?!) She will hug and kiss her babies, her momma, dadda and bubba like no other! MELT.MY.HEART!
• She loves LOVIN' on her babies. Right now she is in to putting them to sleep.. "nigh-nigh" (there is no 't' in night!). And they HAVE to be laying face down completely covered with a kitchen towel, hand towel or wash cloth. Do NOT think about laying them on their back!
• Says "Bess you momma", "Bess you dadda" or "Bess you bubba" after any of us sneeze or cough. She will even fake cough and say "Bess you Babies". (She has said "bess you" for quite some time, but she will now add a name. I am loving that she is putting more words together!)
• She calls everything "Babies". Like "hi babies", "love you babies", "ouch babies".... and this will even be when she is NOT talking to her babies! We went out to eat the other night and an older couple was in a booth next to us and she waves at them and says, "Hi Babies"! They both laughed so hard! She will even call Justin and I babies.
• She LOVES to give knuckles. But if she gives them to one person, she has to give them to EVERYONE around. I think we should add it to her OCD traits! Ha!
• She has to hug, kiss, give 5s, knuckles or shake to Berkley if we ask her for one of them. We have been shaking hands so she will start doing it in church. If she has to do it, then Berkley has to do it too! Before bed every night we all hug, kiss, say good-night and I love you. Once she does all of these to her dadda and I, Berkley is soon to follow!

• I don't think we are too far from potty training. She sits on the toilet every night before getting in the bath. She has yet to go, but is so proud of herself to get up there and set. She also has to get down, wipe and throw the tp in the toilet. It really is funny to watch!
• She has started trying to put her own diapers on herself or me! She cannot stand to be wet. So once she is, she will go get a diaper and bring it to us. One day last week, I caught her naked which she had removed her own pants and diaper and was standing up with a new diaper between her legs trying to put it on. She was so proud of herself! Once, I was sitting in the floor, and she tried pushing me over and started putting a diaper down the back of my pants! Silly girl!
• She loves putting diapers on her babies!
• She has developed the LOUDEST scream/squeal... it could possibly burst your ear drums! She will do it when she is excited, when she wants to our attention or when she is extremely mad!
• She is loving being CHASED! She will hide in our bedrooms (sometimes in the dark) and scream our names to 'fine me' (find me) and once we go in there, she will run and want us to catch her! She will giggle like no other.
• She screams 'watch' when she wants to show us something.
• She says "ready. set. go" before she runs or jumps.

But my FAVORITE thing she is doing right now:

• Saying "Love you momma" WITHOUT me saying it first! We were getting ready for daycare one morning this week. She was sitting in my lap so I could put her shoes on and she just blurted it out... "LOVE YOU MOMMA"! I swear I started crying like a big ol' baby and wanted to hold her the rest of the day! It took everything I had to send her to school! With that... we started through everyone's names... Love you dadda, bubba, grammie, poppa, nana, rusty, etc....

I am not sure what I did before her. Where in the world was the other half of my heart... my sole?! I love her dadda and her bubba like no other too, but the LOVE for my baby girl just doesn't compare to anything in this world! And like my momma used to tell me... she will never understand until she has her own!

stealing pictures and a new name...

**Warning... long post. :-)

When I think about people stealing pictures, I think about people printing their photographers pictures when they do not have permission to do so. I have done this... as much as it pains me to write that, I have. It was YEARS ago. I have also thought many times about sending a check to the person that I did that to for the prints. One day, I WILL pay her back. I guess I just keep hoping I will run into her some day to explain myself and NOT have to do it in a letter.

I never knew how much work went in to taking pictures and editing them until I started to do it myself. I spend HOURS taking pictures and editing them. I do not even sell these pictures. I honestly cannot even imagine doing it as a living. As much as I LOVE pictures and photography, it is a hard job. It is an art. And I truly believe you have the touch or you do not.

So a couple of weeks ago, I get a call from my mom. She gave me a person's name to look up on Facebook. When I pulled up this person's name, which I had never even heard of, I see a picture of Justin and I as their profile picture. I WAS SICK.... mad. pissed. I mean, who would do that?! Steal a picture of someone else?! They had around 200 friends, and as I started to look through their friends, I seen another 4... FOUR profiles that were using my pictures. All of those included Hadlea. Now I am beyond pissed and sick to my stomach. It is one thing to take a picture of me, but to take a picture of my daughter.... I felt so invaded.

Now. This is completely normal in the blog world.... people stealing pictures and using them as their own for fake profiles. Some just over look it. They are not stealing their identity, just merely their pictures. I contacted a couple of people who have private blogs now because of this very reason to see if they did anything about it. Besides turning the pages in to Facebook, which I did, there wasn't anything else that could be done.

I decided to go private that very minute because the Facebook pages had been taken down, and I didn't want them to come steal more than they already had. They had TONS of pictures. Some 5 years back to as recent at our beach pictures. I felt terrible that they had one of the wedding pictures of A&As. Those are their pictures. Not even mine to share. I might have took the picture, but it was of their day. I just feel so horrible about those.

So most of you asked how we found out. I swear this is going to sound crazy, but it is completely true! :)

So my mom is a county official for a county in Oklahoma. She gets a call one day at work. The lady asked, "Is Grammie there?" (I am not going to use my mom's name.) My mom tells her that she had the right person. The lady says, "This is Suzy (not going to use her name either.). I know this sounds crazy, but someone is using your picture on their Facebook." My mom asks for the person's name, looks it up and sure enough. My mom was so mad that she didn't hear much of what Suzy said after that.

Once my mom calls me, I was mad that she didn't have more info. What if 'Suzy' was the one doing this? Or had more info? My mom knew Suzy was friends with these people so we did some searching and found Suzy. My mom friended her and messaged her asking for the story again.

I guess Suzy got a friend request from one of the fake accounts saying they went to high school together. Suzy didn't think so, but she accepted anyway to look at the person's page. As she looked through pictures, she knew all of the different pictures were not adding up. One of the accounts happened to have a picture of my mom in a parade, seen my mom's name and the county, looked it up and found her work number... which is how she contacted her. Suzy said if this had happened to her that she would want to know... so she knew she needed to track us down. I am very thankful 'Suzy' did track us down.

So I have a new outlook on 'stealing' pictures. As a photographer or a parent, I NEVER want someone to steal my work. Those are pictures I took. Pictures of my baby girl to share with my family and friends.

Blogging is something I LOVE to do. I love to share stories about Hadlea or share what is going on in our daily lives. I LOVE going back to old posts and seeing how much we have all changed. I have met some of THE greatest people in the blog world. Some I email for advice. Some have children the exact same age as Hadlea, and I can see what their kids are doing. The blog world also reminds me I am NOT completely crazy and losing my mind as a first time momma. :-) From reading some blogs, I know my house doesn't always have to be clean, I do not ALWAYS have to cook supper and it acts as a reminder that I should relish in every moment of Hadlea's life and spend more times making memories and worrying less about the material things in life.

I will go back public. For one, I love this too much not to. Two, if I do not, Grampie may cut off Hadlea's college fund if he has to log in to an account everyday to see his granddaughter! :)

So with that, I need a new blog name! I think I will feel better if our last names are removed. I think a little anxiety I had came from knowing that the people who stole our pictures also had our full names.

So all of you creative people out there... start thinking and leave a comment or email with your ideas for a blog name for us. I have a couple ideas, but nothing is just jumping out at me! I think the things that define me most are LOVE and being a MOMMA.

And thanks again to all that wanted to follow. I think I have around 50 that send their email addresses to follow. I honestly didn't know some of you even followed. I am thankful you do.... but I would be more thankful if you would start your own blog and let me follow you too! I promise... it is so therapeutic sometimes! ... SOMETIMES. When people are not stealing your photos! Ha!

a week recap...

I am having the hardest time getting into blogging. I guess my blog being private and creepy people deciding to steal my pictures has put be in a blogger funk! We have had a really fun week at home so I do want to share. But I do still owe alot of you the post telling you how we found out someone stole the pictures. I promise that post soon since so many of you have asked!

But onto my most prized possession... {and I guess who wouldn't want pictures of her! If she were someone else's, I might just steal their pictures too! Ha! jk.}

Monday of last week, I got Hadlea out an outfit of this black shirt, some little shorts and sandals. The shorts were too tight so I went to trade them for something else. She came out of her room with these jean shorts (which have pink and orange on them), socks and these leather shoes, which I think should be winter shoes. She put her own shorts on, wanted help with the socks and then put her own shoes on. She was READY to go! I swear she looked like a little hobo kid! And because she was SO proud of herself, I wasn't about to cause a fight! I just let the daycare girl know I DID NOT dress her! Ha! {And yes, I will be THAT mom that will let her wear her princess dress to Target, if she wants. I just do NOT think there is a need to fight it! :)}

And picture number two is from Tuesday's daycare. I dressed her in a cute dress, sandals and a BIG bow! Just to make myself feel better about Monday! Ha!

Wednesday morning as she was waking up! I LOVE waking Hadlea up in the mornings. It is probably my favorite part of the day. We spend about 10-15 minutes just playing in her crib. She has to get the last few 'sucks' on her paci before leaving them for the day. Can you count the paci's in this picture?! Ha!

I picked up Hadlea early from daycare on Thursday. There are just some days I miss her so much during the day that I CANNOT wait to get off and get her. As busy as she keeps me, she is definitely my sanity! I feel like half of my body is missing when she isn't around. We stopped at Sonic for some ice cream. YUM!

 Thursday evening, Grammie arrived and I headed off to say good-bye to my sweet cousin, James. He was the current Offensive Graduate Assistant at Tulsa University and was offered the same position at LSU under Les Miles and Steve Kragthorpe. Coach K was James' coach at TU when he was the QB. I know this is a great opportunity for him, but I will definitely miss having him in Tulsa! 

Me/Stephanie, James/Alan, James/Stephanie, Alan/Amanda

Friday while I worked, Grammie and H hit the splash park! This is her new 'cheese'.... arms stretched out as far as possible. Where does she come up with this stuff?!

Saturday morning, Justin had a fishing tournament so Grammie, H and I got dressed, played with LOTS of babies and then headed to the Affair of the Heart, which is a giant craft/gifts/clothes show. It has tons of handmade things, vendors, etc. (...and I think there is a reason this was my first one to attend after living here 10 years. Those woman are CRAZY! And taking a 1 year old to fight through crowds of those women is just as crazy!)

Hadlea has ALWAYS been in to babies, but I think in the last month, they have started consuming her every moment! Like she can barely get dressed/eat/drink/bathe without one in hand! She spends every moment that she is awake putting her babies to sleep, feeding them, swinging them, rocking them and reading to them. And she says, "Oh nigh-nigh babies" about a million times a day! I gave her some of her baby blankets, but I think they are too big for her to spread out so she steals ALL of my kitchen towels and our wash cloths. I now get to wash every single kitchen towel, hand towel and wash cloths every couple of days! But hey... whatever keeps her occupied! :) Plus, her dadda and I CANNOT get enough of our little mommy!

After the Affair of the Heart, we headed to lunch!

And then back to our new favorite spot, the Country Club! I just love the beach front of the pool. It allows Hadlea to walk around and play, and I do not have to fear her falling in with each step she takes! (Thanks to A and A for allowing us to go!)

Saturday evening, Grammie said she would watch H if Justin and I wanted to go out! Of course we took her up on it and headed out. We had planned dinner and a movie, but by the time we were done with dinner, the movie didn't start for an hour. We drove around looking at new homes and then headed back home. Hadlea was already in bed... I was secretly hoping she wasn't! :) We ended up watching a movie my SIL had let us borrow, Just Go With It featuring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. It ended up being pretty good. A typical Adam Sandler movie, but I love him. He can really do no wrong in my book!

Sunday morning, Grammie was up and gone before we all got out of bed. Once we were all up and had breakfast, we got ready for church! More of Hadlea's 'cheese' expressions...

After church, we grabbed lunch and came home to play and rest. After all, it was 106 degrees. One time I opened the back door to get something, Hadlea stuck her head out and said, "no. hot" and shut the door on me. If this little girl doesn't want to go outside, you know there is a problem!

But she had no problem sitting with dadda and buying music on iTunes! She would start jamming out to anything he played!

And after naptime, it was more time with her babies! I had picked them all up during naptime so she loved to snuggle up with them when she got up! She looked at the pile and said , "oh. silly babies".

Later in the evening, we met Aunt Amanda to look at something, made a Lowes stop, picked up dinner and headed home to.... you guessed it, play with babies!

Hadlea is becoming more and more like a little mother each day. Well, besides the times that she throws the babies on the ground yelling, "ouch. babies", but then her motherly instincts kick back in as she starts kissing their boo boos. Silly little girl she is. So many times she about makes my heart explode clear out of my chest. I just love her more than there are words to express... and her dadda and bubba too.