Happy Birthday Delaney!

Yesterday, our baby girl turned 3!  I can't believe she's already 3, where has the time gone?  I look at her now, and it's so to believe how tiny she was.  Time flies!  We had a little family birthday party for her on Sunday, so all her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins came to town.  It was a great afternoon full of love for our little girl! 

Of course, we had a Minnie Mouse themed party since Delaney is loving Minnie Mouse these days!  We got this adorable cake from Super Target!  We served a brunch of biscuits & gravy, Mickey (or Minnie) Mouse-shaped pancakes, blueberry muffins, bacon, hash browns, and frozen fruit cups.  We had cupcakes & cake for dessert!  Delaney was completely spoiled by her family with a new Spring wardrobe, a new CD player with a new Disney Princess CD, a couple books, and much more!  She loved her party and was super sad to see everyone go home! 

At age 3, Delaney is still topping the charts for height & weight.  We had her 3-year checkup this morning, and she's measuring pretty square these days.  She weighs 38.6lbs (97%) and is 39.75in. tall (96%).  We are buying size 5 clothes for spring & summer, and I think we'll be moving on to size 9 shoes very soon!  She is fully potty trained during the day, but we're still working on the nighttime dryness.  The pediatrician said there is no need to push it, so we'll just keep doing what we're doing for now!  Like everything, she'll figure it out when she's good & ready to.  I fear our days of naps are dwindling.  Holly says she only sleeps for about an hour over there each day.  I don't think she's quite ready to give them up, but I think that day is inching closer!  She still goofs around a bedtime, and takes a long time to fall asleep.  I think this is just a function of her stubborn personality! 

Delaney has many loves these days!  She loves to eat...her dinner choice on her birthday was spaghetti!  She loves to dance, as we frequently have random dance parties at home.  She also has a new-found love/addiction to the iPad.  She can navigate that thing better than me.  She can watch PBS videos, play ABC games, and all sorts of other things without any assistance from us!  She even managed to Facetime call Lauren the other night while we weren't paying attention.  She loves books has even started to memorize them to "read" to herself.  She can recognize and identify most letters, so we're very excited about that!  She loves her baby dolls, and we can see reflections of our parenting when she plays with them!  She loves to talk & sing, and she has even started telling stories!  Dress up is also a big favorite right now, and she almost always has an option on what she wears any given day!

We are so proud of our little peanut!  This picture sums her up pretty well...she is adorable, sweet, with a big side of flair and a touch of crazy!  She is the smartest, funniest, sweetest little girl we know, and we can't believe how much she has blossomed over the past year.  She is full-on little girl, with no sign of baby or toddler to be found.  She is the light of our lives, and we love her to pieces!  Happy Birthday Delaney Jo!  We love you to the moon & back!

Behind the times

Wow, I'm a little behind with this ol' blog!  The last 6 weeks have been a little bit nutty.   After a long year of struggle, my grandmother (Grammy H) is finally at peace.  She was the strong, stubborn, matriarch of our family.  I am so thankful for the time we had with her.  I'm most thankful that she got to know my husband and my daughter since none of my other grandparents were given that chance.  I find myself missing her and thinking of her often.  The smallest little things will bring her to my mind.  She was a shining example of what being a strong woman is all about.  She didn't have a "easy" life, but she handled it all with grace and tenacity.  She was a straight-shooter, and you never had to guess what she thought about you (or anyone else for that matter!).  She was our whiskey-drinking, card playing, cussing, praying, crocheting, brownie-baking Grammy H., and none of us would have traded her for the world.  I find great peace in knowing that she is finally reunited with Grandpa Joe & Uncle Neil (and the other two babies she lost Michael & Mary Beth that none of us got to meet) after all these years.

This isn't a great picture, but it's the last picture of Grammy H with two of her three Great Grandbabies!  (Mom has a better copy!)

One of the highlights of the last few weeks was my little BFF retreat to Kansas City with my lifelong best friend Amanda!  We hardly ever see each other any more, and we were both in dire need of a little getaway.  We hit a great weekend for weather between snow storms, and spend a couple day shopping, eating, catching a movie, and lots of catching up!  I think we need to make this a regular occurrence at least on a semi-annual basis!  Craig and Delaney had a great weekend of bonding at home, and don't worry he's already working on a little "boy's getaway" coming up here really soon!

I don't have a picture of the two of us handy, but here's a picture of our little ones last summer.  Aren't they cute?!?

Let's see, what else have we been up too?!?  Did I tell you about my DIY husband of the year.  He caught the "Home Improvement" bug and has successfully completed two wonderful projects.  The first was some serious storage shelves in our storage room.  These shelves have changed my life I tell you!  A weekend of complete clutter insanity and mess, left me with these beauties....

Amazing, right?!?

After that project was all wrapped up, he decided to build the closet in the guest room we've been talking about since we moved in.  The room is a HUGE bedroom with the required windows, so now that we have officially added a closet it's a bedroom instead of a +1.  This project took about a week start to finish, but it is sooo nice.  It will be especially helpful if we ever decide to move Delaney downstairs! 

A closet is a hard thing to photograph, but if you've even been in this room it's a big change.  He built an entire wall from the studs up, and even built a few shelves in the closet it self.  We are all about the added storage! 

At the end of February, Delaney had another "first".  She finally got her first haircut!  After months of dragging my feet, I finally decided she needed a little trim.  Most people wouldn't even realize we had it cut, but it looks and behaves so much better.  She was very excited about it before & after wards, but during she was pretty timid and stonefaced.  She somehow equated haircuts to candy, and swindled Holly out of candy before we headed to the salon and Allison out of a sucker before she even sat in the chair.  Allison has been doing my hair for the last couple years, and she does a great job so I knew Delaney was in great hands!

She would NOT smile during the cut!

We have had a couple bigger snow storms this winter, which have actually been pretty fun since Delaney has really enjoyed playing in the snow.  Even Izzy got into it a few times!  Thankfully, Craig is a good sport and will play in the snow with her.  I like the supervisor, photographer role much better! 

Have a ball, while I was freezing!

Craig has been busy at work these last few weeks.  They seem to have jobs all over the midwest, so he's had a lot of windshield time lately.  He's been coming home a little banged up too.  One week a couple weeks ago, he managed to chip the end of his elbow off while tearing down a ceiling, and then slice his calf open while tearing out some carpet.  After our favorite nurse practitioner neighbor, Dr. Katie, took a quick peak she sent us to Urgent Care for what she thought would be stitches.  If you know Craig at all, he HATES needles, so this was not a good outcome.  Luckily for him, it had been too long since he did it, so it was too late for stitches.  He got some pretty sweet steri-strips instead and a tetanus shot instead!

He knew he was off the hook for major needle usage at this time, so he was feeling pretty good!

So that's the major highlights of the last few weeks.  We are gearing up for Delaney's big 3rd birthday next week, and her party this weekend so you can expect to hear back from me much sooner this time.  Can you believe she's going to be 3!?! 

2012 Month by Month

I thought I'd do a quick annual recap of 2012 before January ends.  So, here goes the trip down memory lane...

January marked the start of Potty Training Boot Camp at our house.  Now a year later, I realize that we likely started a little bit too early even though she caught on fairly quickly!

February was pretty uneventful!  We continued with the potty training and a little fun in the snow!

We had crazy warm weather in March, and had a wonderful 2nd birthday party for Delaney!  It was 80 degrees and we were all outside in shorts and tshirts in Mid-March!

April meant Easter, and Delaney thoroughly enjoyed all the festivities from Easter egg dying to the egg hunts!

May was a busy month of weddings, graduations, and traveling, but Craig still managed to plant a nice little garden in the back yard!

June marked our big trip to Vancouver!  It was an amazing trip to a wonderful city! It really was a trip of a lifetime!

We spent a quarter of July in Okoboji!  It was hot and steamy but a great vacation!  Delaney took her first swim in the lake, and nobody had to go to the emergency room this year! 

August was a long, hot, dry month here.  I think the highlight was when we invaded our neighbors house for a little payback prank!

September brought football season, so we all broke the Red out!  Craig ventured down to KC for a game, so Delaney and I headed North to see Papa & Chase!

October started the debate of what to be for Halloween.  In the end Minnie Mouse beat out Spiderman, and Grandma Tekamah whipped up a wonderful costume!  Don't be surprised if you see it again for a certain birthday party coming up in March! 

November is really all about the food!  Probably 80% of all the pictures from November were of Delaney eating something...

December brought the big girl bed to our house, and she LOVES it!  Now, if we could only get her to calm down and actually fall asleep in it within an hour, we'd  be set!

As you can see 2012 changed our little baby into a big girl...she changed so much this year!  I can only imagine the changes we'll see is 2013!

Christmas 2012-Recap

Holy smokes!  I'm a bit overdue for an update.  We had an amazing Christmas holiday this year!  We were all sufficiently spoiled, exhausted, and stuffed by the time we made it back to Lincoln after our whirlwind weekend full of family, food, fun, and festivities!  We started off all the festivities by getting a couples massage the Saturday before Christmas.  In previous years, Craig and I have exchanged pretty insignificant stocking stuffers, so this year we decided to try something different.  Craig had never had a professional massage, but definitely needed a little R&R so we decided on a couple massage in lieu of traditional gifts.  In hindsight, although we both really enjoyed the massages I think it would have been a better Valentine's Day or Anniversay gift instead of Christmas.  I was a little sad when Christmas came and went and we didn't really exchange any gifts!  Live & learn....

We started off the marathon that was Christmas with the annual Hassler Family Christmas celebration consisting of Southern Comfort punch, homemade chicken noodle soup, grab bag gifts, and general shenanigans that inevitably ensue when you get all the Hasslers in one place at the same time. 

Craig started growing his "Stick it to the Man" beard on Thanksgiving, but we were pretty surprised to see the beard trend had infiltrated the rest of the Hassler clan. 

Delaney received some great gifts!  One of the best was a tote full of dress up accessories from cousin  Hannah!  She loves that stuff, and is in the tote almost on a daily basis!

Delaney also had a lot of fun with the catnip-filled rate toy Kayla brought for the kitty "Princess".  Something about seeing a little girl playing with a toy rat puts you in the Christmas spirit!

Since the Hassler shindig was in Lincoln, we had a sleepover that night with Grandma & Papa and Jess & Chase.  We love to have our house full of family...even if nobody gets much sleep!  The next morning we all got up early to head to the Bryant Family Brunch in Omaha at Aunt Jeanne's house.  We hadn't gotten everyone from the Bryant side at Christmas together in about 4 years, so this was a big deal!  All the second cousins got along pretty well, and we all had fun catching up! 

Delaney got a super cool magnetic dress up doll set!  It's pretty genius compared to the paper dolls of the past!   She has a lot of fun dressing up those girls!

Delaney is a little outnumbered with the "Bryant boys".  We grow them big in this family!  Nolan is 5 and Leo is 2 (he's about 5 weeks older than Delaney), so it's fun to see them all together once in a while!

Delaney wasn't much into the whole picture thing, but she warmed up at the end! 

As naptime neared, we hit the road again to continue our journey up to Tekamah for more festivities!  Sunday night was our only chance to be all together & alone with my immediate family.  We had a delicious meal of grilled steaks and twice baked potatoes, and then we exchanged gifts.  This year we tried something new by drawing names for all us siblings and spouses/spouse to be.  We drew names and the gift had to start with the letter "N", and Nebraska Husker stuff was off limits!  I think everyone had fun with this, so I'm sure it will evolve more and more over the years!

Chase is always such a smiley guy!  If you know his parents, this will be no shock to you!

I found this hat for Chase on Black Friday, and I made Grandma get it for him!  Isn't it perfect!?!

Thanks to some wonderful eye scratching I had endured, I was in glasses for all of Christmas.  Acutally, I just got back into contacts this week...no fun!

This was the year of the iPad.  My parents generously gave all of us iPads so we could all stay in touch more!  As you can see, they were a big hit with the boys (and us girls too whenever we get to play with them!)

Auntie Jess wanted a picture of her and Delaney's matching pink outfits.  Delaney was less than cooperative...surprise, surprise!

Once he got over the shock of the beard, Chase buddied up to Craig for some video viewing!

The annual sibling photo!  Yes I'm the oldest, biggest and shortest...

At this point Delaney was a walking zombie hopped up on all sorts of sweets and presents!

The entire sibling photo!

The next day was Christmas Eve.  We spent the day out at the farm trying to squeeze in a few naps here and there.  I watched White Christmas with Jaccie while Craig, Steve, & Delaney took afternoon naps!  After nap, we got ready and headed up to Tekamah for Christmas Eve Mass and more fun!  We had another yummy dinner...Nick made chicken cordon bleu, and it was wonderful! 

Jess and I dressed the kids in matching plaid without planning it, so pictures were a necessary evil.  Grandma & Grandpa coordinated nicely!  This was the best picture I had of this attempt...I hope Mom's camera or Jess's had better results!

A little quiet time with Papa and the iPad.  I swear these kids can work those things better than I can!

Papa and Grammy saved the kids big kids for Christmas Eve.  Delaney got a really neat kitchen set, but she was so tired by this point that she could barely stand!

We said our "Good-byes" and headed back to the farm to prepare for Santa and the Christmas Day festivities!  More food, fun, and gifts to be had!  Jaccie made the traditional feast of turkey and ham with yummy pies for dessert!  Talk about a food coma!

Here are Delaney's Santa gifts!

The theme with gifts this year turned out to be dress up and Princess.  This Princess castle is too cute and a big favorite of Delaney's!

Out happy girl on Christmas morning!

More castle time before the cousins come! 

Snuggling up with Grandma!

A family photo on Christmas!

Delaney adores her cousin Sydney!  I keep trying to convince Brent & Buffye to let Sydney move int our guest room!

Delaney has Papa right where she wants him...opening and playing with baby dolls!

Delaney and Sydney snuggled up in the too-small toddler bed!  Cousin fun!

Delaney was having no part of the cousin photo!  At least Brent's kids look cute!

So, as you can see we had a very full Christmas, and I wouldn't trade it for the world!  Thank to you all those that made it so extra special this year!  I hope you're was a amazing as ours!  Thanks for reading the longest post in the history of the blog!