=big girl and bowling=

We converted Hailey's crib into a daybed this weekend. She LOVES it! She calls it her "pretty bed". She does amazingly well too. No falling out and no getting up. She goes right to sleep and sleeps through the entire night. However, she hasn't quite figured out that she can get up when she wakes up in the morning. She still cries for us to come get her. ha ha. She's so cute!

Loving her new bed!

Pretending to sleep
theres a smile! lol She's so cute!

That same night, we went out. We went bowling first, then to get a few drinks. Our friend Curtis Bucshor is home from Iraq on R and R, so we needed to celebrate. It was a lot of fun and now, all I want to do is go bowling! Lol.

My oh so classy bowling socks!

Chocolate cake shot....okay, so I sipped on it...what?

Curtis, Me and MichaelUs

It was a good night.

=advice please=

I had a good friend come home for a couple of weeks over Christmas and New Years. While she was home, I tended to stay up a wee bit later than normal....by a couple of hours. Add that to the stress and craziness of the holidays and you'll get one tired Stephanie. I've been absolutely exhausted lately and can't seem to catch up. Of course I don't try to go to bed earlier lately...so it really is my own fault. I can't not have my hour and a half to two hours to myself after I put Hailey down for bed. I just can't. It's a necessity. So, I'm exhausted. And looky here...it's 11:00pm and I'm still up. You think I'd learn. Oh well. I'll just be in "bitch mode" for another week! :o)

I've been having a rough time with Hailey lately. She's DEFINITELY in the terrible twos. She hits, screams, throws tantrums and pushes whatever buttons she knows exist....but only to me. It's driving me absolutely nuts. She doesn't listen to me at all and tells me no all the time. Or some times, she just doesn't respond.....all night. I'll talk, ask her questions and she just stares at me with this glare, as if she's saying "why the hell are you talking to me". I'm the only one she does this too. I can't handle it. I'm, to be quite honest, having a REALLY hard time with it lately. Like today, I had a hair cut at 1:00 and I left at 12:15 just because I had to get out of the house and away from her. She was so frustrating. Another senario: I was blow-drying my hair today and she was playing in the closet with my shoes. No big deal, whatever. However, she took all of my shoes out and started sitting on my cheap, flimsy shoe rack. It was bending horribly and I didn't want her to break it. So, I said, "Hailey can you get off of mommy's shoe rack please? It might break." She said no of course, so I threatened going to get daddy (she actually listens to him). She then proceeds to get up, walk over to me, I'm sitting on the toilet (closed of course) blow-drying, and hits me. Just like that. What the heck!? This kind of stuff happens all the time. So annoying and extremely hard not to get angry with her. Oh! Sometimes, I tell her no for something and she asks for time out....ASKS! She knows what she's doing....Ugh....does anyone have any ideas of how I can handle things differently, in hopes that she'll get a little bit better? I know she's going through a stage, but does it have to be THIS bad? Please...any advice would be helpful.

Alright. I'm off. Night all!

=merry christmas/happy new year=

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted. We've been having some issues with our internet. Actually, with our neighbor's internet. Ha ha! We steal, but they are aware. :o) Their modem has been having some issues, so the internet has been off and on. We're looking into getting our own internet...soon. Ha ha!

So, lets start with our exciting Christmas Eve. Michael had to work..surprise surprise. That left me to get things ready for santa. Santa left Hailey a play kitchen for Christmas. I opened the box knowing there would be some assembly required...however, I didn't expect this...

Everything was in pieces....and not only that, they were attached like model airplane parts are. I had to pry every single thing apart from those sheets of plastic. Every door, knob, utensil required like three separate things to be screwed together. I was so annoyed...you think santa's elves would have been a little more prepared! Well, one and a half A Christmas Story's and 3 1/2 hours later....I created this....

Turned out to be pretty cool huh?

Well, Michael didn't end up getting home until 9:30 Christmas morning. He slept most of Christmas day. Which is understandable but it sucked. Never the less...it was a decent Christmas. I got the best present ever! A beautiful necklace. I need to take a picture of it. Here are a few pictures from our Christmas's (yes...we had three) lol.

Now moves onto New Years Eve. Michael once again had to work. I went to the Olive Garden for my sisters b-day dinner and then headed to a friend's house for the rest of 2008. Michael barely made it in time...11:30pm. I'm so glad he did. We had fun. It was a small group, but laughed a lot and was childless for the night. We went to bed around 5 and woke up around noon. Actually Michael got up at 11:30am and straightened up a bit and let me sleep. I came out around 12:30 and he had just finished breakfast. He almost made me go back to bed just so he could bring it to me in bed like he had planned...how sweet! We had a great time.

Happy New Year!!!