"come on out of there, baby hayes!!!"

so, sarah kate is already bossing her little sis around.....and little sis is listening!!

sk and i went to whole foods this morning to grocery shop.  her appetite is out of control these days so i'm trying to make sure her snacks are nice and healthy.  i've just never had to worry too much about snacks.  until the past few weeks, i've never even heard her say, "i'm hungry."  can't keep the child full all of a sudden.  so anyhow, that doesn't matter except that it's something new about sarah kate.  she likes to eat!

of course i have to run straight to the bathroom when we get there, never mind the fact that i went right before we left the house which is about 5 miles away.  thank you, hayes!  while i'm using the bathroom, sk pulls up my shirt and touches my tummy and says, "hey there, baby hayes.  i love  you.  you come on out of there, baby hayes!! when is she coming, mama?!"  first time she's ever asked the baby to be anywhere other than her mommy's tummy.  "she'll be here soon," i said.

fast forward to my appointment today at 2:30.  i learned that my amniotic fluid is no longer on the "low side of normal."  it's just plain low.  not good to let hayes go much further just in case i run out of fluid.  without any hesitation, my dr. said that she wants to deliver hayes THIS friday.  not at all what i had expected to hear!  i'll be 37 weeks this friday.  hayes was measuring around 5 pounds, 10 ounces today.  that could be off 15% in either direction.  so anyway, sarah kate spoke and hayes listened.  we check in friday morning at 5:45.  induction starts that morning.  i'm praying that hayes's lungs are nice and healthy.  she's going to be such a tiny little thing - and i thought sk was tiny at 6lbs.13oz.!!  prayers are welcomed!  i'm nervous, but excited. this is not unusual at all. in fact, my dr. herself had to deliver her youngest 2 sons at 35 and 37 weeks for the same issue.  i'm already dilated one cm and am 70% effaced so maybe the induction will go smoothly and a c-section will not be needed.  whatever gets her here safe, but it would be great if she just came really fast like her big sis did!

needless to say, we've been running around like crazy doing last minute things.  luckily, sk and i made the trip out to north charleston yesterday to our babies-r-us and got alot of necessities like diapers and such.  my mom will be here sometime late tomorrow - it is actually very very nice having this plan in place so that i know sk is taken care of - no middle of the night phone calls or frantically calling friends to watch sk until my mom could get here. she'll definitely be here to take care of sk - relief! ashley had told me that of all the things that her friends worried about the most when going to deliver their second babies was their first babies - wanting peace of mind about their care and happiness.  and since we don't have any family near us it is certainly something i've fretted over, so this will be great in that regard. *praying for safe travels for mine and trey's parents this week!*

so that's it!  we can't wait to meet our sweet mary hazel=)

old friends....

are the best kind!

so glad 4 of mine and lauren's college girl-friends were able to come visit us this past weekend!  so wonderful to catch up, spend time together and enjoy the beach together.  

sunday lunch - saying goodbye!

missing jamie - she had to catch an early flight back to atlanta.

friday night dinner - pretty sure none of us have matured a bit.....

sk loved having all the girls here!  they all took turns hanging out with her in the tidal pool - she was quite demanding of their time and attention!

mrs. ansley - sk's grownup playmate.

trey came out to the beach about 3 on saturday, went for a swim with sk and then took her home while the girls & i stayed out there till about 6.  then he grilled burgers for us and we ate over at our house before they all went downtown to enjoy the nightlife=)  

i miss them!  it was a fun weekend and went by too fast.

come back very soon, georgia friends!  baby hayes will need to meet her "aunts" very soon!

our fish and our a+ patient.

well, we'll continue to work with her alot, but the girl can swim!  her instructor has deemed her a "fish."  

last day....
swimming from the stairs to "mrs. lindsey" while lindsey was taking her pic with the camera underwater:

look at those little legs kicking.  so sweet.  they worked hard on her kicking this week - getting those legs out behind her.

practicing some strokes.......she's not really ready and willing to use her arms correctly with any big strokes quite yet.  she can do the "icecream scoop" strokes pretty well=)

we are supposed to say good bye to our good ole trusty puddle jumper:(  lindsey recommended the power swim swimr training system for her when we are not in the water working with her which will allow her to still be able to swim flat on her tummy with her legs out so she can kick and use her arms.  it will also allow her to put her head under. hopefully, trey will be able to continue spending time with her in the pool without any floatation device after he gets home from work in the coming weeks.  i only have a week or 2 left before it's not really a good idea for me to be in the pool - apparently if my water were to break in the pool i might not know it.  ha!  i read that in my book.
anyway, we are very proud of her and she certainly is proud of herself!

i can't believe what a big girl she is becoming! 
another reason we're proud of sarah kate: she just sat in the chair like a big girl this morning at her dental appointment.  she let them clean, floss and polish those little teeth!  her first appointment was about 7 or 8 months ago and at that point she would just let them look around and check her teeth.  my how she has grown!!  then she sat in a little chair and watched me have my teeth cleaned.  ha - i sound like i think i have the perfect child!  she is a toddler - no doubt we have our moments and some days are way better than others.  but she has just done so well this week with her swimming (NOT including monday) and then her dental appointment so we are calling this whole week a big huge success=)

 

sarah kate: you need to stop sucking your thumb sometime in the next year! 
dr. chelsea said that her front teeth will continue to push out as long as she is still sucking her thumb at night but that if she stops before she's 4 or 5 then they will settle back in.  if she doesn't stop then after 4 or 5 there will be permanent damage and we'll be looking at braces and all (but let's face it, what kid doesn't get braces these days? besides my cousin dean, seriously i think we all wore braces growing up.)  i've got to come up with something good to get her to stop.  i'm accepting ideas=)  a trip to disney?  hahaha!  we also need to floss between the teeth that are touching.  that's it! 

and because he deserves some blog love:

and then we are back to what we do best: being cinderella.

father's day weekend iphone pics.

after sk's party on saturday the rest of our weekend was quite relaxing!  lala and dougie stayed here until monday morning.  on saturday night we just ordered mellow mushroom and let sk open her gifts from lala and dougie.  i don't think i took a single pic saturday!  trey was our party photographer and after the long day i was spent!  but anyway, she loved her presents of course.  she got a kid's digital camera, a big daisy duck, slinky dog from toy story (she LOVES him) and lots of new art supplies....in fact, we just finished doing some painting with some of her new supplies.  lala and dougie got her a new swing for her swingset - one of those 2 person swings which will be perfect for when her friends are over here playing.  i'd say miss sarah kate was quite spoiled by all her family for her big third bday and it's not even her actual birthday yet!  trey and i will give her a few gifts on the 6th of july when she turns 3.  our may trip to disney was her real gift, but we have a few little things that we want her to have.

on sunday we skipped church so that we could just stay home all day and so that lala and dougie could get to spend some quality time with sk.  saturday was a wash with all the parties and then on monday sk didn't get to see them so we knew sunday would be the day for them to play.  trey set up sk's bouncy house and some water toys for some backyard fun.

sunday night we went to hometeam bbq (sk's favorite!) for our father's day dinner and then stopped by yobe for our sweet treat on our way back home.  it was yummy and fun=)

 with her daddy on father's day.  he is the best dad - a perfect dad for sarah kate and hayes.  they are lucky girls!  these 2 are super tight=)

a few things sk has said about her dad lately:
at a cookout with friends she walks over to the grill and on the way over says, "i'm going to go check on MY daddy!!"
sk asked me to close the bathroom door while she was using the potty and i told her that nobody was even here so we'd just leave it open.  she said, "you're here, i'm here and beau-beau and bella are here.  daddy is not here, but he'll be home soon.  that stinky ole man will be home soon!" ha!
every day when we hear the garage door go up, "daddy's home, daddy's home!!!!" as she makes a mad dash for the door.  she loves when he comes home!
"daddy and i like jelly beans!  mommy doesn't like them.  just the two of us like them." (like it's some special jelly-bean club.  and to her, it kind of is because she sure does like to remind me about it all the time!)

and with her dougie on father's day.....she adores her dougie!! we are lucky to have him, too!

what a fun weekend! 
 

nesting.

*a post from over a week ago, but i never actually posted it.  thought i'd post it now.  there are pics of the nursery below - we are about to do more work in there over the next week!*

my nest is not completely ready for baby girl to arrive, but we have been working on it.

what do you see below?  a living room - who cares, right!

what i see is a living room!  i care! it's MY living room minus a big pink kitchen, huge doll house, art cables and many bins of toys.  all of those wonderful things still exist - they've just found their own spot, either in the sunroom or sarah kate's bedroom.  a few things remain like her chalk board and bean bag, but for the most part all toys are housed somewhere else.  

we are making some progress in hayes's room.  her curtains are in but need to be hung.  i still need to get her shelving and her artwork.  we have a timeline for these things=)  we need to hang her mobile. 

the green storage bins are going in the attic tomorrow!

her tissue paper pom-poms for her mobile. 

rock-a-bye hazie may!  that lamp is being replaced!

i loved having a bed in sk's nursery so i'm glad hayes's room is big enough to have one, too.  perfect changing station=)

and the sunroom is still coming together.  i think we are going to bring sk's glider down for the corner where her art table is.  we'll slide the art table over.  we don't rock sk anymore - we lay in bed with her to read to her before bed.  we need another seat in the sunroom and i think it will be nice to be able to rock/feed hayes in the sunroom while sk plays.

play area

we are slowly buying those banana leaf baskets from target to fill up all the cubbies!  they only have a few at a time for sale so i go by and grab what they have.  got 2 yesterday=)  we are going to hang a t.v. above the cubby shelf.

 4 more weeks!  lately sk refers to herself as "baby bird." and i'm "mama bird", trey is "daddy bird" and tonight she went over to give beau a goodnight kiss and said, "night night beau-beau bird."  hayes is "little tiny bird." so we're all birds for now (she's pretty darn adamant about it!)  can't wait to add another "bird" to our nest.

party time!

sarah kate still has until july 6th before she turns 3 but we had her little party this past weekend since her actual birthday is so close to my due date.  her best friend, alden, turned 3 on june 3rd so we had a joint party for the girls at monkey joe's - a jump house playplace.

on friday night trey grilled burgers for us and our parents.  later jonathan, ashley, ava and bryce came into town.  sk was thrilled to have all of her family together!

since my whole family planned to leave right after the party on saturday (and we didn't do gift-opening at the party), we let sk open a few of her gifts from mimi/papa and her gifts from ava, bryce, jk and ash on friday night.  the 2 gifts that got the biggest smiles were her new cinderella dress (wedding edition complete with veil, bouquet and high heels) from mimi & papa and her new merida doll from ava/bryce & fam.  she was actually wearing her old "messed up" cinderella gown when she opened her new one and i've never seen a kid undress themselves as fast as she did!  and she has worn it everyday since.

some friday pics:

sk and her princess helpers.  she was so excited to receive the merida doll and her first ever little train from the thomas series.  she loves trains more than she actually loves the show thomas but we are getting her a little track for her birthday and the thomas trains will be perfect for it!  

digging into her new piano/princess vanity.  very exciting!  

  

realizing her next gift is a new cinderella gown.....the undressing begins! and that blue smocked dress she has on was a gift that mimi let her open earlier in the day.....she also basically ripped off whatever she was wearing to put that on.  sk has even learned the term "smocked" and is glad to tell me everyday, "i want to wear a smocked dress.  not a play dress - a smocked dress."  thank you, mimi for giving us another option! 

here is a pic of her in the new gown yesterday morning.  mimi had considered taking it back because she thought maybe it wouldn't be long enough for sk's taste (sk really likes her dresses to touch the floor!)  we are sooooo glad she didn't!  it actually is plenty long and sk is obsessed with it.

who do you want to marry, sarah kate?  "i want to marry mommy, daddy, ava and bryce." 

her party was saturday morning at 10.  at first, sk was overwhelmed by the jump place - it had been a long time since we've been to one.  and apparently she was starving.  poor thing, we were cracking up at her and taking pics because she was holding her face and saying how scared she was!  nothing like laughing at your kid and taking pics of her misery=)  sorry, sk, but you are all-girl and full of drama - we love you!!  i told her to get in there and have fun or else she couldn't have her presents.  so.....in she went!

i realize that a long smocked dress is not the best choice for a jump house party, but guess who chose it??!!  sk walked right into shrimp and grits with me, browsed the rack and after ooooing and ahhhing over all the smocked dresses she picked this one out and said, "i have to have it!"  and it is precious and SOOOO sarah kate.

precious ila gray

the beautiful and spunky stella hayes!  she is a girl on the go!

 the "big girls" - greer, charlotte, ava and bryce

brycie!

greer!

charlotte

pizza, cake and icecream time!

anytime sk and i talked about her birthday cake and what she wanted she would say, "i want one with ALL the princesses."
i found one on-line, got sk's approval and sent the pic to a girl from my hometown who created the perfect cake for sarah kate:

and all that whining during jump time, "i want to go eat cake!!!!".....this is her piece after she was finished - no surprise here......

ha!  she was hungry though...she ate TWO slices of pizza.  and she enjoyed her icecream of course.
and naturally, after she was full and energized she wanted to jump more, but we had a busy day ahead of us with 2 more birthday parties to go to.  i was surprised that she was able to keep going and make it to 3 parties in one day, but she did it.

i'll do her 3 year post when she actually turns 3.
i'll also do another post soon about the remainder of our weekend.  trey's parents were here for the whole weekend and we celebrated father's day together on sunday and had a nice afternoon together.  she also started swim lessons this week!  boy we had a rough first day on monday but today she was swimming like a fish.  we are so proud of her and so is her instructor!  all those things i will want to document on here soon.  i'm tired though and have reached my blogging limit for tonight.  tomorrow is the 20th of june.  hayes is due on the 20th of july.....yikes!  and yay!  9th month of pregnancy: please be kind to me.

ending with a pic from the pool this evening.  trey and i have taken her to the pool the past 2 afternoons to work with her (sans puddle jumper).  she is loving her new found freedom - perhaps a little too much!  she's a fearless fish and is willing to push off the steps whether an adult is waiting to catch her at the end of her swim or not!  scary.