Temperature Check

So... I have not been blogging lately because I am having laptop issues with my USB port and my cell phone has all my videos converted to MP4s and this blog site says it cannot recognize it???

I will be hopefully enlisting help from my brother to help his silly sister out with fixing it! :)

The temperature outside the Haley home may be FREEZING... but inside... it is all WARM and FUZZY!

The three of us have been adjusting to our new lives very well! I SERIOUSLY cannot complain about ANYTHING!?

So here is the Haley's Temperature check break down:

"School" update: Maddison still LOVES "School" and all of her friends! Every time I mention we are going to "school", she claps and either says "YEEEEEEY!" or Claps and says "Yesssssss!" as she jumps and pumps a fist up in the air. (LOL) I get notes home daily on things she made, did, or excelled at... and yes, I am one of those Moms... I have saved EVERY ONE! And I will just admit now, my refrigerator is covered with her BEAUTIFUL artwork. :) The only issue at school is that they struggle with getting her to take a nap. I do not have an issue at home, but at school she has too many distractions and they give her books to read on her cot if she doesn't nap... this for Maddi is seen as a reward because she LOVES books! So... I dunno how they are gonna get her to nap when they do that... we will see! :) 

How has "everything" been the last month: Well, I do have to say that the "honeymoon" is over, and my daughter is very comfortable in her new surroundings. She does test the limits, as any normal 3 year old would, and we talk about consequences for making bad choices. We talk about following directions and not telling Mommy, Daddy, and her teachers "NO" when she needs to follow their directions. Maddi is a very smart girl, and you can see the wheels spinning when she is about to test the limits, and usually I can make a quick statement to help put positive reinforcement behind what she is currently doing well at the moment, so she doesn't have to feel like she needs to make a bad choice (act out for attention) when she sees and hears me notice she is being good. This has only been a slight issue over the course of the past month with her,but she's THREE!? What three year old doesn't test their limits, right!? :o) 

Has she met everyone in your family yet: Mike and I have been very blessed to have our Mom's throw us a "open house" so everyone close to us could meet Maddi. I will admit that my Type-A Personality did struggle with not obsessing about details and aspects of the party... but I think I did pretty good??? We really appreciate our Mom's for not only wanting to throw the party for us, but for doing such a great job with it! Maddi was OVER THE TOP happy that they threw her a party! Mike and I do have pretty big families on both sides, and we did try to keep it kinda small-ish so she would not be overwhelmei with the shear mass of people wanting to meet her, but its still ended up being around 50-60 people. I will blog about this party once I get my computer back up and running. Maddi had some funny moments there, and her responses before and after the party were priceless too!  *Side note, if you were not able to make the party or unfortunately were missed on an invite, please reach out to me and we can set something up! I hope nobody takes it personally, we just didn't want to overwhelm her too much, as this is ALL SO NEW for BOTH her and us. 

What has she been up to: She had a pretty bad cold when we had some warmer weather earlier this month, so I kept her indoors... however on the last day before the temp dropped, Mike and I did bundled her up and let her go outside for about 30 minutes to ride her 4-wheeler and make a snowman! We are now suffering from cabin fever with this cold weather, however we have been doing some creative things to help! She is still in love with her play dough, and we play with that often, she now has a small TOTE full of it and tools. (spoiled) She is really into stickers and coloring. She had gotten lots of really cool coloring tools and books for Christmas from family on all sides and she gets better daily with her coloring and relaying her colors to me. (she knows her colors, however she thinks it's funny to tell me the wrong ones- working hard on getting her to be truthful so I can tell if there REALLY are any colors she doesn't know) She also is obsessed with helping us clean!? AND I FULLY SUPPORT THIS OBSESSION! :o) She loves to help us vacuum, sweep, hold the dust pan and dump it, put away all of her folded laundry, wipe the table down after meals, pick up her toys, and her new obsession is pushing Mike and my hamper to the laundry room! She says "OOO Mommy, you cart is sooo heavy!? Toooo many clothes for me to push.." (as she is grunting and pushing it just fine) LOL 

Fun Facts:

• Maddi is now in a 5T and size 9 shoes. She has grown a whole inch since we welcomed her home on 12/14/13.
• She really does not like to watch TV or Movies. She will watch for about 5 minutes and then just likes it on for background noise. If you try turning it, she requests you turn it back. LOL
• She sleeps to my Nora Jones CD (Nora's 1st CD) We tried to let her listen to other CDs, but this is the only one that she sleeps through the night with. Don't ask me why, it is what it is???
• She is IN LOVE with Tinkerbell... and yes, you can blame Mommy for this! ;)
• She sings all the time... and her new song that she learned is "Jesus Loves Me". Her favorite part is "They are weak, but he is strong".. she squishes her face and pumps her muscles to show how strong he is while she growls the words at this part. Makes me giggle every time!
• If you offer Maddi a piece of candy or a cheese stick.... 99% of the time she will choose the cheese stick.
• We STILL cannot say the words "McDonalds" or "Chicken Nuggets" without her going crazy. In fact, we try not to drive past them to avoid any confusion or excitement. LOL
• She now can peddle her bike, twirl on one foot, jump on one foot,and loves to "help" Mommy "exercise". We do stretches (she thinks it's funny that she can put her feet together in front, legs bent into a diamond, and lean forward and put her nose on her feet... while Mommy cannot do this anymore. LOL She giggles like a hyena!) we do jumping jacks while counting, I had her doing burp-es but I got to laughing too hard at her rendition that I had to stop, and we "march" around the house high stepping. (She leads) It's actually one of my favorite activities to do with her before school.
  We are so very in love with Maddi that we barely remember what it was like not to have a 3 year old ruling the roost! Every day is an adventure in her eyes, and it just reminds me how lucky I am  to be her Mommy, as it makes every day an adventure to me too!
  
  

Miss Maddi Manners

 Miss Maddi Manners

One of my favorite things I have taught Maddi are her MANNERS! I love it when a child uses their manners and knows that they need to use them all the time. But the key is, Mommy and Daddy have to use their manners too!
Maddi would point to stuff, grunt and say "give me that." or "Maddi have that."
Now (about 80% of the time unprompted) she says "Please" "Thank you sooooo Much" "Yes please, thank you." "No, Thank you" (this one is inconvenient when I ask her to do something and tells me that...lol) "Thank you for helping me" "Can I please have that..." 

Here are some examples of how Mommy must be very repetitive and Maddi is my little copycat....LOL:

* The other night I was playing Barbies with Maddi, here is the conversation we had*

Maddi's Barbie: "Would you like some water, Barbie?"
Mommy's Barbie: "Why... yes please!"
Maddi's Barbie: "There you go Barbie!"
Mommy's Barbie: "Ooooh, thank you very much!"
Maddi's Barbie: "Oh Barbie... you good manners!? Thank you for you manners!"
[*** My Heart Smiled***]
Mommy's Barbie: "You are very welcome, Barbie. I like to use my manners."
Maddi's Barbie: "Uh huh..."


* Mike filled Maddi's vaporizer before bed and spilled some water ALL OVER on her dresser*
(she knows that she is not allowed to touch or play with it)

Mommy: "Daddy, were you playing with the vaporizer in Maddi's room???"
Daddy: "Uh...yes I just filled it up?"
(Maddi now has run to my side to see what I was talking about and I showed her the mess Daddy made)
Mommy to Maddi: "Look at this big mess!? We don't play with this do we?"
Maddi: "Oh no! What a mess!"
(Daddy is now at her side to see what I am talking about)
Maddi to Daddy: "Look you did!?"
Daddy: "Oh, no.... I didn't mean to"
Mommy to Daddy: "Daddy you know you are not supposed to play with that." "Go sit in time out!"
Mommy to Maddi: "Maddi, go take Daddy to time out and tell him he needs to sit there and think about what he did."
(Maddi pointed and followed him to the corner in the other room)
Maddi: "Daddy, you sit right here. You not play with that again."
(She comes back into her room to watch me clean it up...while Daddy is sitting in the corner still)
Maddi to Mommy: "Ugh, Daddy need learn to listen to directions and not touch that no more."
[*** My Heart Smiled***]
Mommy to Maddi: "Should we go check on Daddy and ask him to say he's sorry?"
Maddi: "Yes, please."
(Maddi marches over to Daddy in the corner)
Maddi to Daddy: "You done time out?"
Daddy: "Yes."
Maddi to Daddy: "You sorry and not touch no more?" 
Daddy: "Yes"


*Playing with Play Dough*
(Maddi makes a imprint of an elephant from one of her tools)

Maddi: "Oh, look Mommy.. this is so BEAUTIFUL and PERFECT!" (lol)
Mommy: "Oh, that is BEAUTIFUL and PERRRRFECT"
Maddi: " Oh and that ASH-UM!" (Awesome)

(apparently we say "perfect" "beautiful" and "awesome" too much???) LOL

I have been working REEEEEALLY HARD to catch her on video saying "MAY I..."

 I FINALLY GOT IT!!!

I actually had to fake cough at the start to get her not to hear me turn on my video

 
  


 









 

Off to School

Off To "School"

So... I have to say... Mommy was sad today. Today was Maddison's first day at "school" (daycare)... and Mommy was surprised how consumed she was by the whole process. I was super sad dropping her off and was a bit worried how it would go. I really hoped she would love it... but the the other part of me hoped she would not like me not staying with her.

I researched 2 different daycares a few weeks ago and the one I chose has a preschool that they will bus her to preschool at the elementary school. (she will go to 4 year old preschool next year and do kindergarten when 6) I thought this would be a good choice as then she will have "less" of a transition when she goes to kindergarten. (seeing how I think she has had enough "transitioning" for awhile)
They seem to be really nice and have lots of kids for Maddi to play with.

So, Mike and I had been talking to Maddison about her new "school" for over a week, and I even took her there when I dropped off her final paperwork last week. When we went I took her down the hall and showed her all the rooms, where the potties were, and even showed her a picture of her "teacher". She was EXCITED and was SUPER MAD at me when I told her we were not actually going into her classroom to play. She was up super early this morning and EXCITED TO GO.

When we got there, while walking in I reminded her to use her manners, remember to share with her new friends, and to listen to directions from her teachers. There were only 3 other kiddos there when we got there. Maddi's eyes lit up as she looked around the room and she said "LOOK!" (She saw the little closet full of dress up clothes) And... she was gone. I had to coax her over to give me a hug and kiss good bye... :,(
She grabbed a dress she wanted and took it right over to her teacher and asked her to help her put it on.
The teacher just looked at me and smiled because she knew I was a little sad by this. LOL So I just said goodbye and walked out... not that Maddison even noticed!? LOL

The view from the window of Maddi getting right to work playing!

All day I was a bit sad... but mostly happy that it appeared she was going to take well to "school".
When I picked her up at 3pm, they were reading at circle time and I watched from the window.
She was sitting right in the middle of the kids and listening and responding. She raised her hand and was smiling. I felt a lot better. The director came out and told me that she was in there a little bit with Maddi today, and she said she seemed to adapt well! She said they did have a funny moment with her at lunch time. Maddison was overwhelmed at their style of lunch. At lunch they all sit around the table and serve themselves family style. Maddi appeared to never have done this and "let them know" this. When Maddi gets overwhelmed/ ticked off (LOL) she clinches her fists at chest height, scrunches her face, and shivers her body a bit. But they talked her through it and she did just fine once she realized that once she passed her bowl her firend next to her would pass theirs to her. LOL

 Her daily schedule

I asked Maddi all about her day... and she said she wanted to "go back to school and her friends there". She said they sang their ABC's, read books, and had snacks. I asked her what she had for lunch, and she said M&Ms??? (LOL okay... NOT!)
She said she took a nap, and she said she did with her Mr. Duck. (her lovey)
When I told her she is going back to "school" tomorrow, her eyes lit up and she clapped and said "YEY!!!"

So Mommy was sad... but now she is happy that Maddi has such a great day and is excited for tomorrow!