Start of Summer 2010!

Well it's been awhile yet again since my last post and as usual there's been a lot happening around here. I finished my co-op at CRA which was bittersweet as I loved working there, but I'm happy to be home more with Hailey. On my last day of work my boss took me out for lunch and gave me a bottle of champagne as a gift. Leaving work that day I thought that this is the start of another transition in my life and *hopefully* soon I will be starting a new job when I'm done school and officially a librarian!

The beginning of the month was busy as May 1st was my friend Ashley's wedding in Walkerton. I was a very nice ceremony and dinner. Mike and I went to the wedding by ourselves while Hailey stayed at Mike's parents. We ended up bringing her to the dinner which she loved and was pretty good for the most part considering how long it was. She loves to dress up and picked out what dress she wanted to wear for the night!

I have tried to get a few spring pics of Hailey and the one day it was really warm and I was able to get a some of her on the lawn. She was ignoring me though when I kept telling her to look at the camera!

Hailey has taken more of an interest in singing the ABC's and I took a video of her singing it. It's now on my facebook page and I will post it here at some point.

Last week was the start of classes and I only have three this term which are on Wed. night and Thurs. afternoon and night. We now have two different people we can call to look after Hailey for the time when I have to go to school or work (at the pub) to when Mike gets home from work. Usually it's just a couple of hours. Hailey seems to like them both (Carrie and Vanessa) and we're glad we don't need to rush around getting home from work and to school.

One last update...I weighed Hailey the last time we were at Grandma's (the battery in our scale died). At 2 years old she is now 24 1/2 lbs and 31 1/2 inches tall. She's still pretty little but has quite the vocabulary!

Hailey's Easter/Birthday Weekend!

I took Hailey for her two year pictures at the Superstore on Wednesday. I was planning on putting her in a new dress I just bought her but after trying that (and several other dresses on) she decided on a different one. Here's a pic of the dress that she was going to wear:

I was worried that Hailey would be sick for the weekend b/c she started getting a cough and runny nose on Wed/Thurs. Fortunately we were still able to have a great weekend. Good Friday was mostly spent in the kitchen (for me) as I was busy baking two cakes and avacado dip to bring to the family parties. I actually found a nut-free cake mix at the health food store in Covent Garden Market. It turned out really well (we tested one the week before to make sure!). Saturday morning we headed to Mike's parents' house early (8:30am) so that we would be there in lots of time to help with dinner (his Grandma had a bad fall and broke several bones and his mom just had carpel tunnel surgery). Hailey had a great time with her Poppi and her cousin Olivia (and everyone else but that's who she paid attention to most!) She also scored some pretty cool presents including her first tricycle!

She knew that she was supposed to blow out the candle on her cake and did a pretty good job too!

On Easter Sunday we went to Grandma's house for dinner. Hailey managed to stay up until 4pm but had to have a nap at that point. I don't even think we got any pictures there b/c she wasn't awake long enough!

Since her birthday fell on Easter Monday this year and I had the day off I kept her home from daycare. We went to the Children's Museum where they had Easter stuff going on still and she got her face painted (like a kitty), decorated an Easter egg and saw the Easter bunny (no pic with him though b/c she was scared of him!) We spent most of the time in the sand box though!

After we got home from that I gave her the big birthday present we had for her which was a water table. She loved it and spent a lot of time out there. It was pretty funny when she decided her stuffed monkey needed a bath. We'll have to let him dry out a bit. I texted Mike a couple of the pics while he was at work.

I only have three more weeks of co-op left and then it's back to school for the summer! I will miss it there but it will be nice to be back in class again. There are so many courses that I wanted to take but I think I have it down to Marketing and PR, Knowledge Management, and Collection Development. Then I'll have my degree! Almost there, now just to find a job...

Major Update!

Ok so it's been a realllly long time since I've posted, but to be fair I've been uber busy. So I'm going to give a bit of a recap of what's been going on around here...

For Hallowe'en this year Hailey went as Winnie-the-pooh. Mike's sister Julie sent us the costume in the mail. The great thing was it was super warm and we put pajamas on underneath so she was good to go. It was so cute taking her trick-or-treating and I was surprised how into it she was! Every time someone gave her a candy she would say "that you buddy!"

Co-op has been going really well. I was invited to attend the zone meeting in Toronto in early December and meet the rest of the team (I have only ever spoken to them via teleconference). It was really nice to put everyone's face with their voice and to get to know them a little better. I also enjoyed staying at the Fairmont downtown and thankfully it was only a few minutes walk to the office as the weather starting to get pretty bad the first day that I was there. I met up with Amber on the Thursday night too and we did some Christmas shopping at the Eaton Centre.

Mike has been enjoying his job and got a nice break at Christmas. He had about a week and a half off. I went to the staff Christmas luncheon on Christmas Eve day, and my boss also took me out for lunch earlier in the week. Everyone at work was really into the holidays and it made it fun to be there even though we couldn't wait for a holiday!

Mike and I stayed at home on Christmas day this year. This was the first time I had not woken up in my parents' house on Christmas morning! It was really fun to see Hailey all excited though. She needed a bit of help with her stocking, but after that she was totally into ripping her presents open!

Hailey was pretty excited about her new easel!

The most shocking news recently was when we were all home to celebrate Christmas at mom and dad's. We all got home on the Sunday night (Dec. 27th) and we opened our stockings but decided to leave the presents until morning. Long story short the next morning at about 8am the house started to fill with smoke and we all had to get outside. It was so sad seeing the house we grew up in burning, especially with all the work Mom and Dad have put into it. There were a couple of news articles in the Lucknow Sentinel and Kincardine News about it. Mom, Dad and Doug have been staying at Grandma Husk's house since it happened.

There is so much more I could add but I'm exhausted and still have four more days of work this week so I'll have to update more later!

Here is one more recent pic though, this one was taken on my birthday.

Busy Busy Busy!

Well it looks like I really suck at keeping up with my blog, that's probably why I stopped writing in a journal when I was a kid. Anyway, the rest of the summer was fun but really busy. Classes ended two weeks before Amber and Mark's wedding and there were still things to get ready for that as well as get things organized before I started my co-op job at the Canada Revenue Agency (as an Assistant Research Specialist! I hope I live up to the title, lol). The pic on top is a shot I finally got of Hailey with a barrett in her hair! It's surprising that she 1) let me put something in her hair and 2) didn't rip it out before I was able to take a picture! Her hair is growing, but sadly still not enough for a pony or pigtails :(

We managed to cram in as much as we could in the week before I started to work full-time. Hailey saw the beach for the first time when we took her to Port Stanley. As you can see in the picture she was a little surprised by the amount of water! She loved it though and we played in the sand, but thought that next time we should remember her sand box toys. She ran through the water a little bit and thought that was pretty funny, but it wasn't too warm that day (about 20C) so we didn't let her go in past her knees.

Hailey and I went with Lindsey and Olivia to the Children's Museum here in London. It was pretty cute and there were lots of different rooms that they saw, but it did seem to be for older kids (under 2 yrs old is free for a reason I think!). They had fun in the sand boxes and Hailey had fun pretending to ride the snowmobile and pushed a mini shopping cart around (there are a lot of different exhibits if you're wondering why those two things have nothing to do with each other, lol). Sorry no pics of that b/c I forgot my camera!

One of the last day trips was to Storybook Gardens. We went on Labour Day weekend which we knew would be busy but we were running out of time to go and the weather was awesome that day. Here's some pics....

Hailey was pretty anxious to get into the park!

With daddy in the mist!

Playing in the sandbox!

Next week we're going to Oshawa for a combined b-day party for Olivia, Sarah, and Natalie (our nieces).

Back from the hiatus!

Well I've been super busy the past month doing final projects and assignments for school so the blog was a little ignored. Here's a pic of Hailey at the computer. One day I wondered where she went and checked in the computer room to see her sitting like this - she climbs up by herself! Amber's wedding is in a couple more weeks and I have had a bridal shower and the bachelorette party to go to as well. We're looking forward to the wedding and hoping that Hailey won't be too freaked out to get down the aisle in front of all of those people (she's the flower girl!)

After my co-op interviews I discovered that I got the job at Canada Revenue! I'm really excited (and nervous) to start in September. I think Hailey will transition really well into full time care as she's been going 2-3 days/week for a year now and has four little friends to play with! Mike and I are also looking forward to having a dual income again and are planning on doing some home improvements around here. Nothing too big, but we're hoping to reno the bathroom, paint our bedroom, and build a new shed outside.

Hailey is talking LOTS lately and putting so many words together! She started doing this a few weeks ago when she said "mommy's toast!" when the toast popped one morning. One night I was feeding her a bottle in her room and she was super tired and said "mommy, go to bed" and pointed at her crib. The funniest one so far was when she really wanted a timbit and we were in the drive through line which was taking awhile. She thought we were purposely not giving her a timbit and said "baby good!" wondering why she wasn't getting it, lol.

Yesterday was Mike's Grandma's 80th birthday party in Port Elgin. It was a great turn out and we saw lots of family. The weather was nice, but pretty hot. Luckily we were able to get all of the kids together for pictures before anyone had a meltdown (Hailey was close though ). Then later we stopped in at mom and dad's for a visit.

Hailey had her first popsicle a couple of weeks ago and we discovered that she loves it! Probably feels great on the gums too as she is still teething like crazy (no new teeth yet, but she's been having teething symptoms for a couple of months again). At the birthday party though she had some popsicle and then was grinding her teeth together after which sounded really gross! So we think her teeth might be too sensitive for that much cold and might not let her have too much.

Found the camera!

Well after wondering if we'd lost our camera forever (but not really looking very hard) Hailey found it this afternoon in a gift bag! I forgot the memory card on it was full so I'm sending off a bunch of pics to Costco so I can finally free up some room on it. Hailey has really been growing lately and we definately need to get some new pics.

School is really busy right now and I have two co-op interviews next week. If I get one of the jobs it would mean that I would be working full-time for a semester instead of going back to school! I think this would be great for our family and I'm hoping for the best!

Tomorrow I have a field trip to go to in Toronto. Our children's materials class will be visiting two special collections libraries for children - maybe I'll be able to take a few pics! I'll most likey end up buying something for Hailey as it always seems to happen when I go anywhere :) Mike has the day off so he can look after her and spend some quality time together. Our home daycare provider has taken the week off for holidays so today my sister Ashley came to look after Hailey in the morning while I was in class. It's great that we have family close by that can help us out!

Here are some pics of Hailey in her robe that is still a little big for her. She loves cuddling in it after her bath while she gets a story read to her!

Finally started my blog!

Well I thought it was pretty sad that I'm in a social software class where I have to write a weekly blog about academic related stuff and I haven't even got around to making my own personal blog yet! It would likely have made it a little easier to archive Hailey's first year (well now 15 months) of life but I have a feeling I will reminisce and post pics and stories anyway. I realize the name of my blog is a little misleading as I don't have a hyphenated name, but I just can't seem to cut the "Husk" ties yet and have kept my last name. Some day I'll change it, I told Mike it might be a future anniversary gift :)

I don't have any really recent pics of Hailey as I *think* we might have lost our camera, but this pic is from the London Public Library website when they took pics at Baby Storytime when Hailey was there with friends at daycare. I just randomly noticed it one day when I was on the LPL website and thought, um wait a minute, that's my kid (the one holding the book).

This is a more recent pic of Hailey the first nice day of the summer showing off one of her cute sundresses. It's crazy how many clothes this kid has. I think here she was still really wobbly walking, but now she's full out walking/trying to run and she also repeats alot of words.