Things here are wonderful. Our first Christmas as a family of three was amazing… everything we’d ever dreamed of. Hayden was showered with gifts from all directions and now has more toys than the child could ever dream of needing. We are truly blessed to have such a generous group of family and friends. Our living room now looks like Toys R Us. We spent Christmas morning here at home, opening gifts from Santa and spending time together. We headed to my Parents house later that afternoon to spend time with my side of the family. The next day, we headed down to GA to spend time with Patrick’s side of the family. Hayden screamed for an hour and 45 minutes on the way down there… and 2 hours on the way home. If I knew how to upload video, I’d put a video of her on here. I recorded a little of the madness on the way home… just to show her when she’s older. Ha.

Our New Years Eve was pretty eventful. My mom & Dad offered to keep Hayden over night, and of course Patrick & I jumped at the opportunity of a full nights sleep. We took her over there around 4:30, and about 6:30 the phone rang. It was my mom; Hayden had been screaming like a lunatic since the minute we left. She’d tried EVERYTHING she could think of, and couldn’t get her to calm down. We headed over there, and when Patrick picked her up she stopped crying and turned to look at her Nanny…and SMILED. WHAT A LITTLE STINKER!! Sooo… we decided to bring her home and put her to bed. Mom followed us over in her PJ’s and slept on our couch until we got home. It wasn’t the full night sleep we were hoping for, but at least we were able to have an evening out with friends.

It’s hard to believe that Hayden will be 6 months old in 5 days. She is constantly learning new things, and finding new ways to make us laugh. She really keeps us on our toes. She LOVES to eat, but insists on slouching in her chair with her feet propped up on the tray. She grabs her bib…and wipes her face in between bites. She has officially found her voice, and loves to jabber and squeal. She gets really loud sometimes and then makes herself laugh. She mimicked me for the first time today; making a funny noise after she heard me make it… it was too cute. She is still having “separation / stranger anxiety”, but seems to be getting a little better with it. She lets other people look at her and talk to her now, as long as they don’t get too close or try to hold her. Then she screams like a crazy person. Haha. She’s also become an expert at rolling; she gets herself into a corner and gets frustrated because she can’t figure out how to move. She’ll roll into the entertainment center and look at me all mad like she wants me to move it for her. It cracks me up! She’s become very affectionate; she lays her head on us and nuzzles, and will pat our arm. She also presses her face up against ours. It’s so sweet. She LOVES her baths, and LOVES to spend time on her changing table. We still have a constant struggle with getting her to sleep at night. She’s finally napping during the day; pretty consistently actually. But, still has not figured out that she’s supposed to sleep longer than 4 hours at night. She’s up several times in the night, and SCREAMS for as long as you leave her in there… until you go pick her up and rock her back to sleep. We are working on getting her to go through the night without waking up for a feeding, hoping that will get her to sleep through the night. We just can’t figure out why she doesn’t like sleep. I love sleep. I miss it. It’s like a long time friend who’s moved far far away.

I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow. The connection is being weird and slow... and wont upload anything right now... stay tuned. :)