Happy New Year!

What a great day this was.  Brian and I got away for a very rare, but nice date night. The two of us went and saw a movie (Little Focker's....very funny as were the other 2 in the 'series') and then we headed to dinner at Applebee's.  It was great to be able to sit and enjoy a full dinner and have adult conversation.  After dinner we headed back home to our little munchkin to have some play time and, as Hailey calls it, project time.  Tonight's project was to cover a hand-drawn car (with eyes, of course) with foamy stickers. Hailey's fast asleep, Brian is watching a movie, and I'm blogging.  Only 2 more hours until the new year...what party animals we are :-) This year has been a great year, but I can't wait to see what 2011 has in store for us!

Happy New Year!

Our Vermont Visitor

What a fun afternoon we had. While in town for the holiday, Tonya stopped by for a visit. Hailey was so excited to see her again, as was I (it's been what, a whole 5 months since her last visit!?!?) and she ran up and gave her a hug right away.  Now if you know Hailey, this is a huge success and there was no 'warm-up' period needed this time!  So much different from a year or two ago when she would cling to me or even go running away, lol. Anyway, Hailey had so much fun showing Tonya her toys and bedroom.  She even had Tonya laying in a make shift bed telling her that it was time to go night-night-and me without my camera out! Anyway, one thing led to another and apparently we have a slumber party planned in Vermont-a date still TBD! :-)  There was even an in-home concert-a fabulous duet of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer sung by the light of a mini Christmas tree. Like I said, it was a fun afternoon-short, but fun!  I loved getting to 'catch-up' and just being able to talk-I miss that!

Wacky Washington Weather!

What a day ( or I should say past couple of  months, for that matter) for weather!  Thanksgiving time it was the snow storm, early December it was the severe rain that lead to flooding in the back yard, and then there was tonight's crazy weather. It all started with some light rain and then went to sunny.  Next came some light snow showers followed by thunder and lightning.  The grand finale was a MAJOR hail storm- some of the hail stones I caught were even marble sized!!  When you look out at the street in front of our house, it truly looks like it had snowed.  I wonder what weather phenomenon will be next this winter!?! 

Merry Christmas!

From the Borland family to yours, Merry Christmas!
We had so much fun experiencing the holidays through Hailey's eyes this year.  She was so full of wonder and excitement! The only downfall was that she woke up with a nasty cold this morning.
 We got up around 7:45am and I asked Hailey if she thought Santa had been there.  "I don't know mommy, we have to wait and find out" is the response I got.  I told her that I had gotten up a bit earlier and had see that Santa had in fact come, and he left the Christmas tree lit, just for her.  Her eyes twinkled with excitement as she walked to her doorway to peek out. 

Right as she was running out to look at the tree, Grandma Marilyn arrived at our house and was able to watch Hailey find all of the evidence that Santa had left behind proving that he in fact had been there. Evidence included: snow off of Santa's boots when he entered through the chimney, cookies and milk gone and a note left, and a picture that mommy and daddy had taken when they caught Santa that night. Santa had also left candy canes on our tree since he knew that Hailey loved them so much.

 

Though Hailey didn't feel very well and had gotten a bit overwhelmed opening all of her gifts, she had a blast! Some of Hailey's gift highlights: Handy Manny workbench/tools (mommy and daddy), doll clothes made by Monkey Grandma, air hockey game (Grandma Marilyn),and a gigantic bear from Grandma and Grandpa Mellott (seriously...this bear is almost as tall as I am!) She got so many great dolls and toys from everyone-she is truly a lucky little girl to have so many people love her. And in case you were wondering-Yes, Santa brought her the airplane she was wanting!

We hope you had a magical Christmas-we sure did! 

 ~The Borland Family

Christmas Eve

Hailey is so excited for Santa to arrive. For the last week she has been asking me to pretend or play Santa with her, including talking like Santa and playing sitting on Santa's lap.  She even told daddy that he wanted a puppy for Christmas and mommy wants a teddy bear. Hmmmm...not sure I remember asking for that, but oh well, in the spirit of child play, I'll play along :-) We have been cutting a chain link every night to count down the days until Santa comes and, well, tonight is the night.  Today was quite the busy days.  It started off by getting ready and going to Brian's Dad's house in Burien to exchange gifts with all of the cousins.  (forgot to take pictures while we were there-so unlike me!) Unfortunately Hailey's Uncle Johnny couldn't be there, as he is currently deployed, but it was great to see all 6 cousins together again. Then we headed home since Uncle Chris was stopping by.  Hailey absolutely LOVES her Uncle Chris and was very excited for him to come over.  In fact, her exact words were "I'm so excited to see him, I just love my Uncle Chris!" He ended up getting her 2 small airplanes, which she loved!  They played airplanes for a short time, and then he had to start out for his long drive to Eugene.

 Tonight we went out to dinner (Sizzlers) and then drove around looking at Christmas lights.  Hailey was impressed with the Redondo lights and was oohing and ahing the whole way.  Then we made a mad dash to the grocery store since I had forgotten to pick up a much needed item for a Christmas dinner salad.  First store was closed already, so we went on to the second.  We made it just in time, but were not very lucky in finding the red hot candies needed for the salad.  Let's hope the cinnamon disk candies will work just the same. We finished looking at lights on the way home, and then we were in full gear to get ready for Santa.  Hailey and I sprinkled her reindeer food on the lawn, cut the last chain,opened our new Christmas pj's, and got Santa's milk and cookies (plus carrots for the reindeer) ready.  Then it was a quick reading of Twas' the Night Before Christmas and off to bed.  Hailey keeps asking if Santa will bring her the airplane toy she asked for.  Guess we'll have to see in the morning ;-) I love seeing the magic of Christmas through Hailey's eyes.  So much fun!

  

I almost forgot.....Hailey got an email from Santa today.  As she watched it, she smiled and her eyes were just so big and full of excitement.  When the video ended, she kept saying "Santa said my name!"  It was so cute :-) Below is a link to her email video from Santa...enjoy!

Email from Santa

Baking: Part 2

Today's baking included Christmas cut-out cookies and reindeer food for all of the reindeer to munch on while Santa is putting presents under our tree. The cookies were interesting to decorate with Hailey, to say the least.  I think she ate more frosting and sprinkles than what ended up on most of the cookies.  Oh well...she had fun!

Flour face :-)

I see you

 

Reindeer food recipe (though you don't have to make this much of it):

1/2 cup of oats
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup green or red (or in our case, both) sprinkles
Mix together and sprinkle on your lawn to attract the reindeer to your house :-)

"Amazing!"

Since there was no imminent threat of rain tonight, we decided to go to Zoolights at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. Hailey is very fond of Christmas lights while we are driving (think 3 year old making finger glasses in order to 'spot the lights) so we figured she would absolutely LOVE Zoolights. Boy were we right. Hailey was able to sum up her experience in one phrase (and did multiple times throughout the zoo!!!0: "This is Amaaaaaazing!!!" :-)

Baking: Part 1

oday we decided that we would finally make cookies for Santa.  Hailey insisted that Santa wanted chocolate chip cookies (like she saw in a book), so we headed to the store to get all of the necessary ingredients to make them from scratch.  Hailey had so much fun, and even got a bit messy in the process-something she never would have done in the past!  She decided that the cookies had o be "fancy" for Santa, so we added red and green sprinkles to them :-)

checking in on her cookies

Holiday decorating

 Now that the tree has been "cut down" and brought home, it was time to get it decorated.  Only problem: the tree was too big to fit in our house!!  So we chopped off about a foot or so off the top and got it inside.  Next problem:  the angel wouldn't fit on the top because the tree just fit.

I guess it worked out okay though since Miss Hailey said that we had to have a star on the top since all of her books we read have stars on the trees.  Sheesh! Off to the store we went.  Who knew it would be so hard to find one simple star: 3 stores later and we found one that we could live with at a decent (read- cheap) price.

Hailey being silly...

...and then laughing at herself! :-)

Hailey's "pattern" that she made with Christmas bows

Final product to be revealed later.  For now though- it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!