House Projects

In true Hay fashion, home improvement projects dominated our weeks before Christmas, with wonderful results! Here is a close-up of the crown molding Dan and his dad put up in the baby's room, along with the fabulous new coat of green paint done by his mom and sister.

The green matches our neutral baby decor, and in years to come can either be accented by blue or pink. And the crown molding adds a touch of class to the room.

While we're installing crown molding, let's just do the chair rail in the upstairs hallway too! We accented the bottom with the same gold color in our foyer.

Love it!!

A "Real" Haircut

Madeline's hair has been such a puzzle to me lately. No matter where I put rubber bands or clips it just always looks messy. The cold dry weather also does her fine, static-y hair no favors.

So I decided it was time for a "hair style". Here are the "before" photos...

...and a good picture of the semi-mullet that has resulted in growing out baby hair!

Ahhh... and here we are after. Very cute toddler hair. I'm thrilled. :)

One More Birthday Celebration...

We celebrated Madeline's birthday once more at Grandpa & Grandma Hay's house with more family. Unfortunately, Dad had to go out of town unexpectedly for work, so he missed this celebration.

Here she is with another life-size stuffed animal, which she loves!

Grandpa helps her get the toys out of the impossible packaging.

Taking pictures with her new camera with Great-Grandma Luzinski

Look at all these toys!! What a lucky girl! :)

Madeline LOVES to help out in the kitchen. Here she is helping Grandma make whipped cream for the cake.

"Happy Birthday to You!"

Fun at the Circus

Madeline celebrated her birthday with Grandpa and Grandma Schmitt and Uncle Mark at the circus.

Her favorite part was seeing the elephants, which she talked about for days!

Then after a nap, everyone came over for pizza and cake & ice cream. Here Madeline is playing with some new pretend food. She's really getting into pretending now- it's so neat to be included in her world.

And she's loving stuffed animals- especially the ones that are bigger than her!

... spending time with "Uht Maat".

My Baby's Turning Two!

Here's the Birthday Girl holding her cupcakes for her little party with a few friends!

Playing in the basement with Bode, Erin, and Rory.

We had some pizza and snacks, and of course the cupcakes!

And Madeline loved it when all the kids sang "Happy Birthday" to her. :)

Halloween

The thing I love about Halloween for little ones is that it is not a one-day affair, but rather a week-long celebration! Madeline got a chance to wear her costume no less than 6 times that week. We definately got our money's worth out of the costume, and fortunately, she loved being that little butterfly!

The Sunday before Halloween we kicked off the week with some Trick-or Treating at the businesses downtown Naperville.

It was a beautiful day, and Madeline quickly learned that she liked this "trick-or treating" thing.

On Tuesday we got to wear our costumes to music class. Madeline loves playing the bells

and using the hoops to sing "Pop Goes the Weasel"!

On Wednesday we enjoyed our Playgroup Halloween party!

Here's all the kids in costume...

and we enjoyed delicious homemade soup, bread, and other treats with good friends.

On Halloween Eve we stopped by Grandma Schmitt's school to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes.

Trick or treat! Then, later in the evening we visited Great-Grandma Luzinski and got lots of treats!

Madeline inspects the candy with Aunt Marie

and enjoys time on the couch with Grandpa and Grandma Hay.

Finally, on Halloween, here's Madeline with her next-door buddy, Cooper.

We all went trick-or-treating together, but only made it to a few houses before landing at another neighbor's house for the evening.

Uncle Mark even stopped by to deliver a treat!

Phew... what a week!