big girl bed

Hayden moved up to a big girl bed this weekend!  She was super excited to be in a bed like Bubba's.  She had been complaining that her covers were falling of her in her toddler bed.  When she started waking me up in the middle of the night to tell me so, I decided she needed an upgrade.

Having a "sleepover"

Liam and Hayden sleep in twin beds that used to be Will and his brother's.  Hayden looks so cute tucked in that big bed.  She will be 3 years old this week! My sweet middle child.  Most of the time she's scared to try new things but wants to do everything her brother does.  Tonight Liam cheered her on as she cleaned his whole room.  Bless her heart.

September 2011

November 2011

She has a deep love for shoes, juice, mac-n-cheese, lip gloss, and her mom.  She's a pleaser, helper and whiner.  She cries everyday when she doesn't get more juice and complains everyday that her underwear bothers her.

A little lip gloss
April 2011

Queen of taking her time
May 2011

She's very sensitive and intuitive.  Yesterday she peed on the floor in her room.  When I found it an hour or so later I was NOT happy.  I was storming around the house to get paper towels to clean it up.  She looks up at me with her giant brown eyes and says, "Mommy are you mad?"  She does that all the time!!  And the answer is "YES!  I am mad.  Quit peeing on the dang carpet!"  But instead I  said through clenched teeth, "Mommy is not happy with you right now."  And right away she said, "I'm sorry Mommy."  And then came the waves of guilt for being angry over a little pee on the carpet.  

Killer brown eyes
June 2011

Hayden and Harper
July 2011

She's still working on her big sister skill with Harper.  She loves her, but is surprisingly too rough with her.  She's starting to get frustrated with Harper for picking up her toys or crawling into her space.  Let the games begin.


Hayden talks alot but can be hard to understand.  She struggles with consonants - mixes them up or just doesn't say them.  Example:  "mommy can I have a gink and a gack."  would be her asking for a drink and a snack.  We had her speech evaluated last month.  The speech therapist said that she is above average in her vocabulary but barely in the average range for annunciation.  She said we shouldn't worry too much yet but suggested trying to pick key words to work on especially when she's asking for things.  Already in the past month we've noticed her annunciating more.

August 2011

Right now she's into coloring, doing puzzles, and reading Pinkalicious over and over and over.  She loves to run errands and go shopping so most of the time she's my little sidekick.  Love my Hayden Alisa.  We are planning to have a little birthday celebration this week.  I asked her who she wanted to invite.  She thought about it and said "Liam."  More to come... 

November 2011

Update on Captain America:  He was discovered under the couch.  Spared the misfortune of Harper's diaper.

A Minnesota Christmas

Truly sometimes I still think, "I can't believe we live in Minnesota."  We celebrated our third Minnesota Christmas this year.  Time flies...sorta.  

 We actually did not have a white Christmas this year!  We've barely had snow so far this winter.  These are pics from a dusting we got in early December that melted off shortly after.

I can't believe Hayden fits in this snowsuit.  We bought this for Liam our first winter here. 

 Our tree.  We went fake this year.  No regrets.

 Liam and Dad after Liam's pre-school Christmas program.  He was the best one.  And I'm not prejudice.  

pretty girl 

 another pretty girl

 Visit to Santa.  Liam asked for a Spiderman Squinkie dispenser.  Hayden asked for dolls like Ruby.  She was so brave.  And if there's a Santa, this dude is it.

 tiny baby Jesus

 Sisters exchanging gifts on Christmas Eve - Hayden gave Harper bath toys and Harper gave Hayden Pinkalicious dress-up shoes

 Pops and Nana were here!! Liam had just opened his gift from Harper - super hero cape and mask.  He liked it.  :)  This picture was taken right before we left for our Christmas Eve service at church.  Let's just say Liam and candlelight services are not the best combo.   

 Decorating cookies for Santa

 Hayden and Nana

 Hanging stockings

 Christmas morning

 Santa pulled through

Baby's first Christmas

 Harper's first stocking

 the girls

 Stockings for the grown-ups

 Kinda crazy that we are the Mom and Dad at Christmas now.  If I could choose between being the Mom or being the kid at Christmas I would choose.... I don't know...the kids have it pretty stinkin' good...ok fine... the Mom.  

 Harper's big gift from Santa

post Christmas tea party - thanks Mimi (Will's grandmother) for the tea set!

This was the year of electronics at our house.  My parents gave us a Wii, and Will's parents gave Liam a Leapster.  I should have saved my money.  Liam thought the bucket of Legos we got him was totally lame.  He was, however, totally stoked about the Angry Birds t-shirt we gave him.  What is it with Angry Birds?  Hayden's favorite gift was this little Hello Kitty bag with a necklace and two lip glosses that Will's parents gave her. She didn't like at all the totally awesome leg warmers I got her.  :(  But the Big Sister Dora doll we gave her was a hit.  I got some leg warmers for Harper and she rocks them.  

It really was a great Christmas.  My top 3 favorite moments:

We celebrated advent as a family and I love those quiet moments of family time - talking, singing and reading scripture.  

The kids and I made treats for our Bible class teachers and pre-school teachers, and I love the excitement on the kids' faces when they get to give someone else a gift.  

And I love sitting back on Christmas morning and just taking it all in - the fruits of my labor!  Totally worth all the work and preparation.   

And this was the picture that was on our Christmas card that never got sent out.  Oops!  Merry Christmas from the Copeland family!!

9 months

Nine months ago sweet Harper Claire entered this world.  I'm telling you, this girl is precious.  

And where in the world did she get those blue eyes?  She stands alone in our family with those eyes.  Someone asked the other day where her blue eyes came from and Liam said, "The mailman."  We've got to stop telling that joke in front of him.

Here's a look back at my other babies' pictures from the same age.

Hayden at 9 months old (please excuse the hiney in the background)

Harper at 9 months old

Liam at 9 months (he's been intense from the day he was born)

Harper 9 months

Harper is an easy baby.  Loves to nurse, loves to eat, loves to sleep, loves to play.  She LOVES Liam and laughs at everything he does.  Hayden tries to make her laugh but mainly just irritates her.  Harper is crawling and pulling up on everything.  She is busy busy, into everything and finds every little speck on the floor to put in her mouth (and there are lots of specks).  Her favorite things to go for are Liam's Squinkies.  If you don't know, Squinkies are these squooshy rubber action figures about the size of a baby's airway.  Thanks for that gift Nini.  Here's a perfect shot from today:

Harper has a radar for them and the minute Liam pulls them out she b-lines for them.  Captain America has gone missing. Something tells me he'll show up in a diaper in the next 24 hours.  I'll keep you posted...

I'm loving being at home with my kids.  Three is a lot, I'm not gonna lie.  Time to myself is close to zero.  The house is mostly dirty and there's not enough of me to go around.  Suddenly I feel sentimental about my days at home with them because my oldest baby is going to kindergarten in the fall!  It can't be time already!  Have I done enough?  Will he be a good boy without me looking over his shoulder?  Does he know that he's loved by his mom, dad, and God no matter what other kids say or what grades he gets?  I told Will last night we better bring our A-game in parenting this summer.  So that's the plan...  

resolutions

Happy New Year everyone! It's time to resolute.

1. Revive the Copeland story blog - check
(1b.  keep blog alive...watch and see)

2.  Read my Bible every day.
(no reading plan, just opening the Word and keeping it simple)

3. Consume less - meaning spend less, use less, waste less, and of course eat less.
(I know this is kind of vague.  Therefore, no one will be able to hold me accountable to it.)

4. Let my parenting/wifeing be defined by LISTENING and LOVING.

(as opposed to tuning-out and being irritated - anyone else feeling me on this one?)  

5.  Organize my closets.  

(This is one from last year that I'm rolling over.)

And I'll stop there.

We had a family New Years party this year.

The invite list:

Daddy
Mommy
Liam
Hayden
Harper
Lucy (dog)
Moses (cat)

Liam is all about some exclusive family time, like his dad.  The kids chose dinner for the occasion so we had hotdogs and mac-n-cheese.  We played a little Wii (the hot Christmas gift from my parents) and talked about our favorite memories from 2011.

Liam said his favorite memory was what we were doing that night -  playing the Wii and eating popcorn.



Hayden said holding baby Jesus.

This was at a birthday party for Jesus that a friend of mine hosted at our church before Christmas.  Harper tried to escape the manger.

I said Harper Claire's birth and bringing her home for the first time had to be my #1.



Will said his favorite memory was the same as mine.  So typical.

We also all agreed that flying to Texas for Uncle Ellis (Will's brother) and Aunt Heather's wedding was on our fav list too. (Liam was the ring bearer and Hayden one of the flower girls.)


We toasted with sparkling grape juice at 9:00 (preschool midnight) and tucked most of the party guests in bed.  Then Will and I partied it up til midnight.  Actually, we watched a movie and then at 11:45 I washed my face so that I could get in bed right after the ball dropped.

Here's to a happy and healthy 2012!

Inspired by preschool

I've returned to blogging, inspired by Liam's first day of preschool.  My first-born started preschool today!  Several people have asked me if I am teary or sentimental and, honestly, I'm not!  We've been talking about him going to school all summer and he's been super excited about it.  He's so independent and ready to jump right into everything with gusto.  If you've met Liam even once, you know what I mean.  So his gusto makes it easier to let him go.  He is so ready.  He is a social dude and also loves to learn.  It will also be good time for me and the girls to be together. The days that Liam is in school will be good opportunity for Hayden to rule the roost a little bit.  Under the queen's authority of course.  :)

Liam will be in school all day Monday and half a day Wednesday.  On Mondays he will go to school in the morning, stay for lunch and then Junior Gym in the afternoon.  It will be a full day from 9 to 3.  Then on Wednesdays he will just do school in the morning and come home at 11:30.  

We took the token first-day-of-school picture before we left this morning and Liam squeezed in a bike ride. (He started riding on two-wheels a couple of weeks ago!) He's in a fleece because it was in the forties this mornig!!

I don't think I was fully prepared for the stress of getting to school on time.  I felt like, "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, we can't be late, we can't be late, we can't be late.  If we are late the teacher will think I am a bad parent who can't even get her kid to school on time and then she will have negative feelings about my child and then his first day of school wont be perfect and if it's not perfect then he may not like school and if he doesn't like school then his learning will be stunted and I will never forgive myself for ruining his education just because I was late!!!!!!!!!"  All the while, I am trying to act like I'm totally chill so that Liam will be relaxed about going to school too.  Ahk!  I really like his school but the parking lot and hallways are nuts in the morning.  And they don't have drop-off so I have to cart H & H in with me.  The school is only about 5 minutes away but I buffered about 15 extra minutes to be safe.  Even with the extra time Liam walked in at 9:04 with one minute to spare before 9:05 circle time!!  Ahk!

The kids were asked to bring their favorite stuffed animal this morning.  Liam chose his ground hog that Pops gave him.  He hung his back pack and jacket up and walked right into his classroom with his ground hog and all the confidence in the world.  Love that boy.  He's one in a million.

Here he is home from school.  He was pumped about wearing his new tiger shirt to school.  

Liam only had good things to say about his day so I think it was a great start!  He told me about all the stuffed animals that the other kids had brought.  He had crackers for a snack and played with his friend Lucas at recess.  He came home with a handful of pictures that he had colored, "for his dad" he said.  Very sweet but what about me?  Didn't I walk through fire to get you to school this morning?  :)

Cherishing these days...