Who's Your Boyfriend?

We were eating breakfast this morning and Matt asked Hayden if she had a boyfriend. Her immediate answer was "no." But then she said, "I have a boyfriend, Daddy! I have a boyfriend!" When we asked who her boyfriend is she said "CHATAH!"

Oh Chatah! We didn't formally introduce Chatah to the readers of this blog so let us explain. The night we put up our Christmas tree we introduced Hayden to "Elf on a Shelf". First let me say that whoever created Elf on a Shelf is a genius. We bought a box set that comes with a little elf and a book. You read the book to your kids and tell them all about an elf that comes down from the North Pole to keep an eye on them for Santa. Every night their elf goes back up to the North Pole and reports to Santa about whether they've been good or bad. When the elf comes back in the morning he's in a different spot. The Elf is magical and can't ever be touched so he typically sits up high. The Elf has to be named by your kiddo and Hayden decided on the name Chatah.

She loved looking for Chatah every morning. It was the first thing she wanted to do and would typically find him within 30 seconds of looking for him. He moved around between the tv room, the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room.

Christmas Day was his last day with us this year. He sat perched on the Christmas tree and watched Hayden open her presents and then went back up to the North Pole until next December. She still asks about him from time to time, as I'm sure she will for the next few weeks. And now it looks like he is Hayden's first boyfriend.

Cardiologist Appt

On Tuesday Anabelle and I drove to downtown Phoenix and had our monthly visit with Dr. Papez. The appointment was good and he said that Anabelle looks great.

They took her weight and measured her height and she grew 2 pounds and 2 inches in the last month! We noticed that she's definitely filling out lately and becoming less and less like a newborn. But seeing the difference in pounds and inches really proves that she's growing like a weed!

Then they hooked her up and did an EKG. She really is such a great baby. It doesn't hurt her at all, but she doesn't seem uncomfortable or phased by it at all. She was a little wiggly so it took them twice to get the readings, but she was all smiles.

Because she's growing they've increased her medicine to 1mL every eight hours. We'll go back in for another holter monitor testing in a few weeks. The last two that she's done have come back without any SVT episodes (hooray!) so we're hopeful that will continue to be the case.

Sweet Face

I took Hayden to her ear doctor in December. She has continued to have ear infections (even with the tubes we had put in a year and a half ago) so her doctor wanted to do a follow up. He said that the reason she continues to have ear infections is due to her adenoids. Unfortunately, if you remove adenoids before a child is older than three they typically grow back. So for the next several months we will continue to give her ear drops and hope that we don't have to do additional surgery.

While we were there she was such a good girl. We waited for almost an hour and she didn't get fidgety until the very end. While we were sitting in the exam room I noticed that she had different colored socks on. It's hard to tell in the picture but she had one pink sock and one white sock. She must take after her Pop in that regard, as he likes to wear one red shoe and one blue shoe. I also managed to get this beautiful close-up picture of her sweet face.

Don't Open Until Christmas!

Zoo!

The weekend before Christmas was Matt's annual Aces Bowl trip in Nashville. Don't get me wrong, I love that he has that special trip with his college buddies every year. But I think that the timing this year was an interesting choice.

I tried to get most of our holiday shopping done online this year but there were still a few things that I had to go out and purchase. The only problem was that I decided to do that shopping the weekend that Matt was going to be out of town. I was whining about it during my Book Club meeting that week and my friend Holli offered to watch Hayden so I could go out with just one kiddo. Holli and Shaun have a daughter named Taylor and she is just a few months younger than Hayden. They've played together several times and love hanging out. I immediately accepted her generous offer.

I dropped Hayden off on Saturday morning and Ellie and I went out for a marathon shopping adventure. Hayden, Taylor, Holli, and Shaun went to the Phoenix Zoo for the morning. They saw monkeys, tigers, an elephant, and giraffes. The girls walked around together and even held hands. They also shared lunch together before heading home. Ellie and I got all of our shopping done (we were able to hit 6 stores) and then picked up Hayden right before naptime.

Thank you to Holli and Shaun! We owe you a playdate! :)

Christmas Eve with Nana

Nana sent these outfits to the girls for Christmas. They wore them a few times before Christmas and also wore them on Christmas Eve. They were both very excited to wear them.

Going to a Football Game!

The other night we went to the Insight Bowl at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. A day or two leading up to the game Hayden was getting excited, "We going to a football game!"

Thanks to Jake Nero who hooked us up with the free tickets.

The game pitted Iowa and Missouri and it was a great one that went down to the wire...of course we left at halftime to get the girls home and in bed. All in all it was a great night and we had a good time.

Click to See Slideshow

Last Day at Work

Ellie has been coming to work with me for the last two months and it has been wonderful. She is such a relaxed baby and I have really enjoyed her 'company' in my office.

On Monday she will go to daycare full time (same place as Hayden) and our mommy/daughter work days will be over. It's a bittersweet change. I'm excited to get back into my work and not have to worry about her fussing while I'm on the phone with a client or think about nursing timelines. But I'm going to miss her sweet little face and big smiles.

Thanks for a great couple of months Anabelle!

Aces Bowl XIV

Another great time was had by all in Nashville, TN at Aces Bowl XIV. Highlights included:

• Attending the Garth Brooks flood relief benefit concert where he played more songs than usual, then came back out for a 2nd encore and took requests from the crowd (just himself on acoustic guitar without the band). He also finished with American Pie which was legit.
• Eating brunch at Monell's which provides a ludicrous amount of food in a communal setting.
• Having Cyrus hook us up getting a suite and club level access so that we could partake in the free breakfast and hors d'oeuvres.
• Playing Euchre in the room.
• Hanging out at 43 honky tonk bars, with each of them having live music (and sometimes 2 or 3 different stages and bands per establishment. They don't call it Music City for nothing.
• Hearing Greg talk about this "amazing" game called Icing which is simultaneously lame and fantastic. It is lame when it happens to anyone else other than Greg Pronti, that is when it is fantastic.
• Eating delicious barbecue which included ribs, kielbasa, chicken, onion rings, and pulled pork.
• Going to the 14th annual football game and being able to buy 8 seats together for $25 per (plus fees) 2 hours prior to kickoff.

Click to See Slideshow

Ellie's First Two Months