Week 51: Babyhood Bites the Dust!

Howdy ya'all! Imma BIG boy now!

Rayler left babyhood behind this week. "The pitter-patter of little feet" has taken over my house, and I'm loving it! Tyler wondered "What makes him want to walk? He can get places faster when he crawls." I don't have an answer for that. But he does. He still takes a few spills but his rambles are getting longer and longer. He walked half the length of the house yesterday.

The only thing that Bugs loves more than walking is swimming! His cousins, Dylan, Hannah and Madison came to visit this week and he got to play and go swimming with them. He had a ball! He would very happily live in the pool if we would let him.

He doesn't like floating so I was surprised that he let me hold him like this

Dylan making big splashes!

I'm not sure what this face was about, but it's funny!

Left to right, Hannah, Madison and Dylan. (I think, lol, I still can't tell the girls apart)

Cannonball!

He loves it when the kids make big splashes

Gonna go get Dylan

Hey you! Yeah you!

Showing off the pearly whites

This is my favorite picture to date. You can tell how much he loves the water.

I want Grandma!

Grandma Linda and Rayler

She got him to float too!

There's Dada!

Catching a ride with Madison

And this is why Bugs will be enrolled in swim class this fall.

Something the Hailey's like to do is have joint birthday parties in the summer. July's birthdays were my sister-in-law Lynette's on the 14th, mine on the 21st, and our other sister-in-law LaBreeska's on the 29th. So we had a nice get together on Saturday. Our Mother-in-law Linda knows us so well! She gave us girls money to go out for lunch, and gift cards and coupons to go shopping at Hobby Lobby. While we were shopping our little hearts out the guys and the kids went swimming. Tyler said that Rayler didn't want to take a nap, but he was so worn out that he just sat in the pool until he was super wrinkly and then fell asleep just as Tyler was getting ready to get out.

And then when we girls got back we had ice cream cake and thought that our birthday fun was over, but Linda had more surprises up her sleeves.

Me, Rayler and Aunt Nette

Rayler and Pa

Me, Lynette and LaBreeska

Man, did the jokes fly from the guys about "hot air" on this one!

More presents?

Yay! Extra cheesecake pans. I am always needing to make two cheesecakes and now I can!

Each of us got a scrapbook entitled "Life as a Hailey", spanning from our dating years till June of this year. She worked on them for a year and a half! We laughed a lot, cried a little (over loved ones gone on) and sighed a lot over our super-skinny former selves.

One of the best and most thoughtful gifts I have ever received.

So all in all we had a fabulous birthday party! And a scrapbook full of wonderful memories to treasure for years to come. Now I have an excuse to scrapbook cause I have to keep adding to it!

Now for the random weekly fun!

I decided that Bugs needs some more sensory toys so I made him colored rice bottles this week. It's super easy and fun. He likes me to line up the bottles and then he knocks them over with his fire engine. You can find the recipe here http://thebakerbee.com/2011/09/28/crafts-for-toddlers-rice-noodles/ I thought it was funny that she calls her little man "Bug" too. Now, she says that you can use this for rice and noodles both, but I tried it with noodles and the colors came out ever so unlovely. So I stuck with rice and got beautiful, bright colors.

I LOVE how brilliant the colors turned out!

This was my first batch. I ran out of rice and had to wait to do the other colors.

A couple days later I cleaned out my cabinets and found a bag of rice hidden in the back! So I made pink and purple.

Attempting to use a spoon to eat his spaghetti-o's

I couldn't convince him to use the other end of the spoon

He had refused to eat eggs for a while so I finally put them in a breakfast burrito and he ate them! As you can see, he had to take it apart to investigate what it was.

Playing ball with Dylan

Eating spaghetti and garlic bread at Grandma Linda's

I noticed this week that Rayler has started making a "rommmmrommmm" noise when he plays with his cars. Neither Tyler nor I taught him that. Must be that Y chromosome.

He gets so dirty exploring the fire station. Maybe now that he's walking he'll be a little less dirty.

Trying out pizza pockets. I think he likes them. Just a little.