all our yesterdays

This is simply a photo update before any of these photos get any older...

This is Hazel playing with her friend, Ian. In the background Nyla is playing with one of her friends, his sister Lauren.

This really wasn't that long ago, but Hazel has changed a lot and her hair has really taken off growing since then.

Two of Nyla's favorite things to do - cooking and eating.

 Here are a few pictures I never posted that we took before Uncle Mike went back to Seattle...

Princess Ariel and Princess Belle. I was amazed to see Ariel (Ella) tromp around in those shoes for hours. :)

 Hazel is finally starting to willingly open her mouth for the spoon and swallow the food... sometimes...

Here I believe she's thinking, "Where's the beef?"

For Christmas a few of us wives arranged for our husbands to go on a guys' weekend trip to Winter Park. Tyler is on the right getting geared up to snowboard.

We were so proud they all wore helmets. :)

At Grandma Debby and Grandpa Kenny's house... Recently Tyler was accepted into KLA's Young Stockmen's Academy so he dropped me and the girls off here for a couple of days while he went to his first seminar in Topeka.

This is nothing remarkable, but I thought Hazel looked especially older in this picture. Maybe it's that she's filling out some and the helmet covers up her lack of hair. Or maybe it's simply that she's wearing shoes. :) Regardless I'd say that is a cute, smoochable face.

bags of bear hugs

I decided to use Valentine's Day as a way to do some sort of project with Nyla. Pretend play and games like hide-and-seek are torture to me, and Nyla doesn't play by herself - at all - so we do a lot of painting, cooking, play-doh and crafts.

I saw this idea here and thought it was kind of cute, so we made these Valentines for the preschool class at the daycare, as well as the daycare staff.

 Nyla's main job was separating the red gummi bears from the rest of the gummi bears and counting out the teddy grahams for each package. (We attempted to use rubber gloves to keep things clean, but they were kinda big and cumbersome.) I made the labels on the computer, helped fill, and tied all the sacks closed.

It turned out to be a little more time intensive than I thought it would be so we'll probably do something simpler next year. :)

ode to the potty {part ??}

Nyla's last day to wear a diaper or pull-up was on January 6th and I'm pleased to say that this chapter of our life is complete.

Nyla finally got to have her rainbow unicorn pillow pet which has been collecting dust on the kitchen shelf for quite some time now. She also got a princess doll as her surprise for really really being done with this process. 

Showering her with the above gifts for late completion of a normal milestone may seem overkill to some but at this point I would have considered giving her whatever her heart's desire, if it would have motivated her to be done with diapers.

I'm not sure what made it click in her mind (I think she's been playing a game with me for a long time), but it involved her lifeline, which is fruit snacks, and also using the timer to tell her to try going instead of me or another person. Much of the time she can handle the task herself unassisted and I don't remind her at all anymore, even before bed (I do have her try before we leave the house if we are going very far). The last accident occurred at daycare almost 2 weeks ago and overnight there has never been one.

So that's it. End of story! :)

just fixin' my melon {for real}

For anyone that's wondering, I wanted to make one more update to say that things are going quite smoothly with Hazel's new helmet. 

This past Monday was the best orthotist appointment so far. First of all it was the first time we've gone for a regular appointment rather than going for a problem. Plus, the orthotist was amazed at how much Hazel's head shape had improved in such a short amount of time (she had only worn it overnight 4 days at that point). He made a couple of adjustments to make it fit better and now we shouldn't have to go back for 2 whole weeks! She has been wearing it 23 hours a day for about a week now.

 This is just a cute picture I thought I'd share of Hazel sleeping on Tyler's shoulder during the Super Bowl. It was a kodak moment because it may have been the first time in her life she actually laid her head down on his shoulder and fell asleep. She does that for me every once in awhile, but not very often.

i do my own stunts

I added decals to Hazel's helmet a few days ago. It won't match anything any better than the butterflies did, but I still think it looks better.

I think maybe the helmet wants to sit too far forward on her face right now (we used to see her eyebrows), but I will ask about that when we go to her next appointment on Monday. Last week the substitute orthotist added a piece in the back that makes it want to do this. In some ways it's still better because it stays in place better now (doesn't want to rotate).

I can tip it back like it was before, but then it puts so much pressure on the right side of her forehead that it looks like this. Surely that can't be right! It eventually pops forward anyway.

The back doesn't look quite like I intended because I thought I had too many things on it, and then when I pulled a few off, the others were already stuck in places I wouldn't have put them if I had started out with fewer. Oh well.

I think the monkey is my favorite part. :)

This week I received a pleasant surprise in the mail from a friend (actually the wife of someone that Tyler works with). It was an assortment of bows and flowers that can be velcroed onto the helmet. I thought that was so sweet of her to send. I didn't leave the right spot open to attach the velcro so I will save those for when I take these decals off. 

There have been a couple of red marks but I have been quite pleased with myself as I made a couple of adjustments myself with a thick fingernail file! And they helped! The orthotist may not be too happy about that but my adjustments are much slighter than his are so I at least don't think I hurt anything.

Never would have thought to give Nyla play-doh this young. :)

She has slept two nights with it on so far, so with tonight being the third night we are finally moving beyond how far we got with the first helmet. The first night she had a harder time going to sleep than usual but was fine after that. And last night she actually slept better than she normally even does.

pretty little ladies

When Nyla was 6 months old, I had pictures taken of her at Fine Line Photo Design in Quinter, so I also wanted to do that with Hazel.

 I was glad to get this one because it's similar to the one we still have up in our living room of Nyla. That was why we started without the headband. Good comparison pic.

 Here's Nyla...

I really don't think they look much alike in these pictures. Maybe their size difference has to do with it. If they had the same amount of chubbiness, and if Hazel had more hair, they might look more alike.

 This is my favorite formal sister picture.

I especially think Hazel looks like both Tyler and Nyla in this expression/angle.

We also did a little wardrobe change just for fun.