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!