Haley and Daddy goofing around

Haley and her pool

Memorial Weekend

We had a really good weekend with Haley. Friday she got to meet some more great-grandparents. Tommy's parents were in town, and got to spend some time with Haley Friday afternoon and evening. They adored her as much as she adored them! Saturday Haley and I ran some errands in the morning, and then came back to a house full of boys. Sean had some friends in town, and they crashed at the house Friday night. They all love Haley so it was fun to see them hold her and play with her. She seemed to like them too. She's quite the little flirt!!

Sunday we went to church with my mom, sister, Tommy, and Tommy's parents. It was an outdoor service at a park in Arlington. Haley had so much fun being the center of attention(as usual!). She almost made it through the whole service without getting fussy. It was getting close to nap time though. Aunt Sheena volunteered to walk Haley around until church was over. Well, I look over to see where they are at, and Haley is smiling and getting her picture taken. A woman who takes pictures for the church saw her, and asked if she could photograph her. I've actually had this happen to me a few times before. People see her, and ask to photograph her. She of course is just grinning, eating up all the attention. It was pretty funny. Sunday evening she was in such a good mood. Sean and I played with her for a few hours before bedtime just laughing and rolling around on the floor. It's very cute to watch Haley and Sean interact. You can see that they are going to be best buddy's!

Monday was kind of a lazy day. We all finally got moving at about one o'clock and ran some errands. We got Haley an inflatable pool for the yard, and thought we'd try it out. It took a little convincing, but she finally got in it. I think it was a little too cold, so we let the sun hit it for a while. Once she got in she loved it. She splashed and splashed, and played with her duckies. I think she's gonna be a little water baby!! We had so much fun watching her play in the water.

Check-up

Haley's doctor appointment went great today. She's right on track developmentally and physically. They gave me great advice on a schedule to get Haley on. It's going to be tough for a few days to break some of her habits, but I know it needs to be done. Everyone in the office commented on what a happy baby she is. They just thought she was so cute. I agree of course! I'm so glad we have a happy, healthy baby. Sean and I feel so blessed everyday.

Need more sleep!

Haley has been waking up a lot during the night lately. She goes through stretches where she only wakes up once or twice. Her most recent trend is to wake up every hour. She did okay Friday night, but Saturday she woke up at 11 and didn't fully go back to sleep until 1. I've stopped feeding her when she wakes up, and only rocking her back to sleep. She still fights that a little, but it had seemed to work all last week. Sunday night though, she was up at 11 and almost every hour after that. Same thing on Monday, and same thing last night. It's a real struggle to get her to even take a pacifier when she wakes up. I fear I've become a human pacifier for her!! She has a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so I will get some suggestions from him.

Other than the sleeping she's been real good. She's trying to crawl really bad. She can push her self backwards, but can't quite pull herself forward yet. She's just moving all around. She's sitting up pretty well on her own, but still topples over when she reaches too far for a toy. She's still talking up a storm and making new sounds every day. I love to say "mama" and "dada" to her and watch her smile. For some reason she just thinks those words are so funny. I started feeding her some baby food as well. So far she's tried carrots and bananas, and liked them both.

I finally entered Haley in a photo contest yesterday. It's for the cover of 'Babytalk Magazine' and it's a contest in conjunction with GMA ('Good Morning America'). They pick 8 finalists to come out to New York for a photo shoot, and then they narrow the winners down to 3. The winner is then voted on by America. They will announce the 8 finalists on June 13th I believe, so I'll let you know how she does. If you want to look at some of the babies that have been entered you can go to the "babies" link above. I think she's the cutest!!

Happy Friday!!

Blog Pictures

I hope everyone has been enjoying the Haley blog. (I know most of you have, because you've told me). A lot of you have been asking to get copies of the pictures on the blog. I have the pictures in an online account that people can go to and print out the ones they want. You can click on the word "photos" below (in pink), and view all the photos.

Haley has been doing really well. I think we finally have a routine down. (I say that, but today she wanted to wakeup early and then we fell back asleep until 9:45!) Usually we get up about 8 and go downstairs, and she plays for about an hour. She usually gets hungry around 9. Then she'll play a little more before she takes her morning nap, around 10:30 or 11. She usually sleeps an hour, but sometimes it's shorter. She wakes up and she's usually hungry so I feed her rice cereal, which I still have to trick her into eating. Hopefully she'll enjoy her baby food more than the rice cereal. After she eats that we play a little more. If it's nice we go on a walk or go sit outside. She loves to be outside. She takes an afternoon nap around 3:30 or 4. She sleeps for about an hour or so and then wakes up wanting to eat. I feed her and then we wait until Sean gets home. She gets so excited when he comes home. They play together for awhile while I cook dinner. About 7 or 7:30 we give her a bath, she says her good nights, and depending how much she ate the last time, I'll feed her again. We then put her to bed around 8, and then she becomes unpredictable!! Her nights are still a problem area. She usually will wake up around 11 wanting to eat. I've been real firm in not feeding her, and just rocking her to sleep. It usually works. She'll go back to sleep, but and hour or two later she's up again. I try not to feed her at night, but sometimes that's all she wants. She'll wake up around 4 am for the last time before we get up at 8. I'm hoping that being on baby food will help her sleep better.

We just wanted to say before we go that Papa Cook, you are in our prayers. Hope you get to feeling better!! We love you!!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!! I hope you all had as great a day as I did. I had a wonderful first Mother's Day yesterday. Sean and Haley gave me an amazing bouquet of flowers, 2 very sweet cards, breakfast in bed, a yummy Italian dinner, and total possession of the remote control! It was great. I feel so blessed to not only have an amazing daughter in my life, but an amazing man as well. : ) I'm so lucky to have a beautiful, healthy baby. Considering all the things that can go wrong with newborns, I think I take that for granted sometimes. I thank God everyday for her. She is the most perfect little girl in the world!!

Haley turned 6 months old yesterday as well. She is rolling around everywhere! Every time Sean and I turn around she's half way across the room. She seems to really love her new sense of freedom. She just does her own thing. She loves to talk these days. She gets louder and louder everyday. She's laughing more, and smiling more, and making faces she's never made before. I know I say this a lot, but she really is growing up so fast. It's such a joy to watch her changing personality everyday.

Guess who rolled over??

Haley has finally started rolling over! I was at the computer yesterday with Haley playing behind me, and when I turned around she was on her stomach. I missed it! I was so mad. So I put her back on her back, and a few minutes later she had rolled over. I was so excited! She looked very pleased with herself as well. She can roll over when she's on her back, and when she's on her tummy. She tries to crawl when she's on her tummy. She can't move just yet, but she moves her little knees and pushes her butt up. She's just growing up too fast!!

First Tooth!!

So my intuition was right about Haley teething. I felt her first little tooth coming in a couple of days ago. After months of her gnawing on everything her little tooth is finally here (well, sort of). It doesn't seem to be bothering her that much, but I've been giving her teething tablets pretty regularly. She's just getting so big. I can't believe how fast the time has gone by.

We were out and about all day Saturday, and she did really well. She loves to people watch! It's so funny when we have her in restaurants and get her out of her seat and watch her look around. She waits for people to look at her, and then smiles and laughs at them as they walk by. She's such a little ham. She just eats up all the attention. We were at lunch and she was standing in my lap just grinning at the people behind us, and the lady said to her husband, "Doesn't that just make you wanna have another!" : ) I feel so blessed to know that Haley makes people want to have babies!! Haha.

Sunday we did a little shopping, but mostly did stuff around the house. We did go to Grammy's for dinner, and Haley enjoyed that as usual (as did I!). She got a little fussy after dinner, but as soon as Grammy started rocking her, she fell right to sleep. She's been sleeping really weird lately. She doesn't sleep as well as she used to at night. She wakes up, and only wants to eat. She still just needs that comfort I guess. She also has been wanting to wake up at about 6 am everyday. It's been real fun! Hopefully we can get on a better schedule soon, and she'll start sleeping through the night again. I wouldn't know what to do if I got good night's sleep though!

New home

We are finally moved into our new home. We all love it!! Haley is already sleeping better. I think she just needed her own room, and own space. Well she has plenty of space for sure now!! It makes me so excited to know this is the house Haley will grow up in. She'll take her first steps, learn to crawl and talk here. The neighborhood is full of children, so Haley will have tons of kids to play with when she's old enough. It's the perfect place for raising children.

Grandma and Papa Cook came up this past weekend. It was so good to see Haley laughing and smiling with them. She's going to be a spoiled little girl, because so many people love her. She was really good all weekend, and loved seeing her grandparents. We can't wait to take her back to Houston to try out the swim floats they got her. I think she's going to be a water baby. She loves taking baths. She wants to sit up and splash the water the whole time (which makes it difficult to wash her!).

She still hasn't rolled over yet, but she's soooo close. She gets practically all the way over, and then rolls back on her back. She's likes to spend more time on her tummy these days. She's strong. She can push her body up with her arms and hold it for a while. She moves her little knees like she's trying to crawl. She gets a little frustrated though because she can't move. She took a few steps when her papa was holding her arms. She was pretty pleased with herself. She's making new sounds everyday, and still discovering new things as well. It's so much fun to experience this time with her. I'm so blessed to be able to be with her as much as I am. Being a mom is more amazing than I ever thought it would be. I have the most beautiful daughter in the world!