Hailey has started to love playing dress-up. She will get her purse and her shoes and walk away from me and say "bye-bye mama". She has such an imagination, I wish I new what she was thinking when she starts playing. But I do love that I can communicate with her more and more everyday. It is amazing to me how much she has learned in two years.
We had alot of fun with Hailey's birthday parties this year. I decided to try and make her cake look like a merri-go-round cause of how much she loves them. I thought it would be pretty easy, but let me tell you it took me forever!!! First, I made the cookie dough and cut out the horses. Then I had to make the icing to frost and decorate the horses. I made the cake and frosting (that was pretty easy) and then I had to melt chocolate to attach the cookie sticks to the horses. Oh, and I had spiraled ribbon around the cookie sticks and attached gum drops to the tops of the sticks. It made such a mess which was probably the worst part of all. But I got a lot of compliments on the cake and Hailey loved it, so it was worth it in the end.
The night before Christmas I asked Hailey if she wanted Santa to bring her presents and she told me "NO!" Then the next morning she had started watching cartoons while I finished getting ready so that we could go to my parents house early enough for breakfast. After I was done I couldn't wait any longer so I went in asked her if she wanted to unwrap presents and once again she told me "NO!". So after some persuasion, I finally got her to want to open presents. (Seriously, who has to entice their child to open presents?) It was so much fun watching Hailey unwrap her presents. Last year she would just move from one present to the next. This year she would unwrap a present and lose all interest in the other presents because she just wanted to play with the one that she unwrapped. It honestly took us over an hour to unwrap about five presents.
Our Christmas tree is pretty small, but it works well for us cause we don't have a lot of extra room in our apartment. Hailey loved hanging up the snow men and helping me decorate the tree. She is constantly redecorating by moving the ornaments from one branch to another. Everynight she asks for us to turn on the tree lights and turn off all of the other lights. Watching her fascination with the magic of the season has made me appreciate it so much more. I love when she gets excited when it snows or when we drive home from Grandma's house and take the long way so that we can see more houses with lights and she will point out every reindeer that she sees. With all the chaos that Christmas brings it really makes me take a step back and take time to enjoy the small things that make this season so special. So, thanks Hailey for making this the best Christmas ever!
The Cole family Christmas party was a lot of fun thanks to Jason and Amber, who planned everything. It started off with a yummy breakfast of crepes, eggs, bacon and juice. The grandkids had drawn names so after eating they took turns exchanging and opening presents. Jason had brought two bouncers that the kids could play in and they all loved it! We also decorated gingerbread houses, which I posted pictures of below... 
At the Cole family Christmas party we had an intense gingerbread house decorating competition. It was suppose to be a family activity but as you can see, the adults were more into it than the kids were. Hailey was only interested in eating the candy that I put on our gingerbread house.
We started talking about Santa early hoping that Hailey would get use to the idea and like him. We would always talk about "Ho Ho" and she would get really excited. Then it was time for pictures with Santa. She seemed to like him at first, but when I had her sit on his lap she screamed and cried. So, after that I thought it might be a good idea to have my dad dress up in his Santa suit so that I could get a smiling picture of Hailey with Santa. I thought that she would maybe sense something about him that she would recognize so she wouldn't be so scared. (She really liked him last year.) It was actually really funny cause he walked in the room all dressed up and she said "Ho Ho, Butch". She totally recognized him, but she still wouldn't sit on his lap. It's really funny cause now whenever Hailey sees a Santa she will still say "Ho Ho, Butch".
