Vacation at the beach

This past weekend we took a much needed mini vacation to Galveston. It was interesting to see how it is doing since the hurricane. The beaches are in major need of cleaning as there was seaweed everywhere. The Strand was empty and most of the shops are still closed. There is still a lot of work to be done. Not that Galveston was all that great to begin with but it's sad to see the town so down. So on to the fun stuff. Haley had a good time at the beach. She was freaked out by seaweed but as long as we kept that away from her she was having a blast. We visited Moody Gardens on Sunday when the cold front came through. She loved the fish and birds always pointing out "bird".
Matt and I came back home on Monday to get some work done on the house and Haley is staying with Grandma the rest of the week in Galveston. Today the report was they went to the 3-D imax about dolphins and whales. Haley kept trying to touch the dolphins...too bad Matt and I missed out.
On the baby front, I had my 13 week checkup last week. The baby is doing great measuring right on track but I'm on orders to eat more and relax, apparently I have high blood pressure. The dr. wasn't too worried yet so hopefully my next appointment will go better. Guess this is a good excuse to eat whatever I want and veg out on the couch for awhile, at least until Haley comes home on Friday :)
Enjoy the pics.

Haley and Daddy at the beach (which by the way, 2 piece bathing suits are great except at the beach. I have never seen so much sand get in a swim diaper!!!)

Funny faces feading the birds in the morning

Checking out the penguin (hard to see with the reflection)

Hanging like a monkey

Ready for the beach!!!

Haley and Mommy at the beach (yes, that is all seaweed in the sand)

Dance Class

Dance class has been, well, interesting. I was able to go one day and watch but I'm pretty sure I was a big distraction. Haley wanted to show me how she can swing like a monkey from the ballet bar instead of doing her dance...oh well. The next week the report was even worse. Grandma reported she cried the entire time and didn't want to participate in anything except the scarves, and then cried when those had to be put away. So I was beginning to think my girl was going to be a gymnast instead of a ballerina. But then there was this week. While she didn't want to put on her outfit, which is another story I'll discuss later, she finally got it on. This time she did everything the teacher asked and was great! Our little angel was back. So I guess there is hope...we'll see.

So on to my other story. Haley is going through her naked phase. She is in to taking off her diaper and running crazy. Sounds funny until she took it off with a suprise in it. Luckily for us that happened at Grandma's house. Unlucky for Grandma, Haley picked the suprise off the floor and set it on her couch....GROSSSSSSS. Needless to day, getting dressed in the mornings has been a task to say the least. Our trick is to let her dress an animal too. So many of her animals, Duck, Giraffe,Tiger (we have original names for them huh?), have either a diaper on or a shirt. Whatever works.

On the baby front, I've been feeling great, just really tired which is why the blog as been suffering. Today is 12 weeks. I go back to the dr. this week to see how baby #2 is growing. No sickness yet!!

Enjoy the pics from dance class.

Pretty princess

Watch me mom!

Our little monkey

Haley's big announcements

Haley has 2 big announcements. First, she started a dance class last Friday. Grandma took her to the momma and me class (or grandma and me) at the parks and rec center. I didn't get to see it but the report was Haley did great. However, all the other little girls were dressed like ballerina's and Haley was wearing jeans and a shirt. This Friday she will be ready cause I bought her a little leotard with skirt and found her some ballet shoes that will fit her tiny feet. It is so precious! I'm going to try to sneak away from work one Friday to watch. Can't believe my little girl is old enough to dance.
And her second announcement.....Haley is going to be a big sister in November! We had our first ultrasound last Thursday and everything looks great so far. Haley doesn't understand yet but I know she will be a great big sister.

Easter Weekend

So this time I have no excuse why it took me so long to post...just been busy with life. Haley had her 18 month checkup last week and did great. For once she didn't even cry when the doctor came in. She's holding steady at 20.8 lbs, which is in the 5% now. Back to where she came into this world at. The dr. wasn't too worried though. Her height was right in the 50% and her head is still big at 75%. It'f funny because every single time they measure it twice. This time it was three times. I just keep telling the dr. her daddy has a big head...sorry Matt but you do.

On Friday we drove to San Antonio to go to Sea World. We had bought a season pass last year which was good for this year too. Haley did good watching the animals and we think she had a good time. We went late in the day Friday so we came back Saturday too. As far as Friday night, I had reserved a crib in the hotel room but when we got there the only crib they had was broken. So Haley slept with us, if you can call it that. She was so excited and spent half the night talking to us trying to wake us up my poking our eyes out. It was cute, but not too cute at 3am. We knew it was time to leave Sea World on Saturday when Haley wanted to eat her food off the floor, her diaper came apart, it started raining and Matt lost his wallet all during the Shamu show. Perhaps we should have left earlier looking back but at least Haley didn't poop on me with no diaper and Matt's wallet was returned to lost and found!

Easter Sunday we went to church and got caught in the rainstorm walking back to our car....oh well...kind of fun. We ate dinner with my family up at the lake and had a chubby bunny contest...needless to say Nathan won. I came in last as I was laughing way too hard.

Enjoy the pictures and have a good week.

Waiting patiently for the dolphin show

There's the dolphin

At the pool trying to pet the dolphins.

Feeding the birds.

Easter Sunday

Playing in the water in my Easter dress and crocs (i love those stinkin shoes, I want to wear them all the time)

Smelling the flowers with Uncle Mark

Blowing bubbles in the front yard

Chubby Bunny contest......

Nathan the winner!

Matt was 3rd

I'm back!

Sorry it has been so long since I updated the blog! Let me catch everyone up. Grandma & Grandpa Vara and Unlce Michael came to visit for two weeks over spring break. Haley had a great time with her grandparents and we went to the museum, butterfly center and the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo during that time. I was at work but Matt reported she really liked the animals at the rodeo but he was getting nervous that she was always trying to get too close to the big cows. She has no fear!
This past week we have just been getting back into our routine. I think Haley is going to be a girly girl. Not sure where she gets that from but she loves purses, shoes and anything that glitters. Grandma Jean bought her some "bling bling" sandles and Haley wants to wear them all the time. Today I took her to the mall and she was helping me push the stroller. Well, that was until she saw the purse display. She got so excited and ran over to it and wanted to pull all the purses down. I pulled her away but next was the shoes. We quickly had to leave Dillards :) At least she knows where Daddy's credit card is too!
She's been trying hard to say new words. This week she said banana, juice, McDonalds. Today is was "mouse" all through the mall when she saw the posters for a new movie coming out with a mouse in them. I didn't even know she knew what a mouse was? Oh, and I can't forget her new favorite body part to say..."boobie". Yep, she points to them and says it....nice. Well, no big plans for this week but everyday is an adventure with our little one.

Enjoy the pictures from the last 3 weeks.

Eating my cookies


My face after a peanut butter and jelly sandwich....who wants a kiss?


Trying on Mom's shoes...what fun. Later in the week I found her high heels


Trying to wake up Uncle Michael by poking his eye out

Checking out the rodeo in my boots!

Helping mom "prune" the flowers before she even had a chance to plant them. I kept taking them out of the pot and putting them on the other side of the deck. Carrying the flowers is much more fun then planting them.

Last Sunday we went to take pictures in the bluebonnets in Montgomery.

Daddy and Haley

Mommy and Haley

Trying to figure out how to get out of the flowers

Pretty girl (it was windy this day...can you tell by my hair)

I'm so silly

Haley's New Class

Yesterday I saw first hand how crazy some parents are for their kids! We decided to register Haley for day class at a church between my mom's house and ours. I had heard it was hard to get your kids in and they only had 3 spots for Haley's age so get there early. Registration started at 8am on Tuesday so I thought I was early showing up at 6:00am, which for me is REALLY early to be somewhere. Anyways, I walked in and was #24 on the list!! Some CRAZY people started camping at 6pm the night before!!! I love my child but I don't see how any school is worth that. Turns out 6am was fine for us as Haley got a spot. It wasn't the days we wanted but that's ok and we are waitlisted for the other days. So starting in the fall Haley will go to class 2 days a week from 9-2. It will be good for her to get around other kids so we can't wait to see how she does. I guess that was my introduction to crazy parents and I'm sure more will come.

Also yesterday was Matt's birthday but as luck would have it, he ended up coming home from work sick. He feels a little better today so hopefully we'll get his birthday celebration in soon. Other then that, life has been busy and fun. Haley has been blabbering away and every once in awhile you can actually understand what she is saying. Today she went to Weight Watchers with Grandma, I know...what an experience!...,and she talked the entire time. Oops....good thing she is cute so not too many people cared I was told. Enjoy some of the catch up pictures.

Haley and Grandma at Grandma's birthday

Uncle Mark and Haley

Haley playing hide and seek with the soccer ball. She kept putting it under her dress hiding it.

Superwoman Haley using my jacket as a cape

Throwing gang signs already???



Pushing her baby in the baby stroller. This was supossed to stay at Grandma's but Haley wouldn't get in the car without it and even cried the ENTIRE way home since she couldn't push it while in her car seat. After she went to bed I had to hide it in the trunk in order to get it back to Grandma's without the same sceeen. All for a baby doll stroller!

What a day

Well, I'll start off with the good news. The week up until today has been wonderful. We celebrated Grandma Jean's birthday on Monday and had a good time. I'll post pictures later. Then yesterday Matt and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary with an AWESOME dinner at Perry's. That was my first time their and it was delicious. So at least the first half of our week was good.

And then today....I went to check my checking account online and found that someone had decided to have a nice Valentine's day on my dime! Yep - $1200 worth of counterfeit checks were written against my account using fake checks. All within 4 hours on the same day. Luckily it was my Woodforest account and since I work there, I marched downstairs to our fraud department and the money was back on my account that day. It looks to be local as they were all local places but they have my drivers license number, date of birth and expiration date. So far they have only created checks with my info, no credit cards yet. For the next several months I'll be on the lookout for identity theft...fun! So I had to leave work early to go file a police report, which is an experience all by itself. I finished that, walked out to my car, started to drive away but before I even got out of the parking lot I saw a woman laying on the ground convulsing and a guy holding her. So I stopped, asked if they needed help, then ran back in the police station for help. While they were calling for help inside, I was helping the women on the ground trying to make sure she didn't get up as she was really confused and dazed. Long story short, she had a seizure for some reason and once ems came I left. What a day. Oh, and I left out the part where I spilled my lunch all down my shirt and had to go change at lunch....ahhhh.

But, we were reminded these past couple of days how precious life is. My mom had a friend pass away on Tuesday and Matt just found out an old neighbor of his that was his age passed away this week as well. So, even with the bad day I had, we are reminded everyday how fortunate we are and things could be much worse. If all I have to worry about is someone writing checks with my name, my life is pretty good :)