Max came over and sat right by Hailey while she was practicing her ballet. He really tries to do what they are doing on the video. It's so funny how serious he is about it.

Hailey did really well in her dance class today. When the teacher opened the door to the class, she came over and asked Hailey if she wanted to go to class with her. Hailey took her hand and went right with her. The shades were closed today, but I still could see her through the cracks. She did really good. When she got home she was very excited to teach me some of the dances she learned. She pretended to be the teacher and taught me a few things. She wanted to keep her leatard and tap shoes on until she had to go to bed. And she was still dancing when I came out after putting Max to bed. Here is a video of her practicing. She is doing her favorite dance called the "Buggy Wuggy".

Hailey is singing with a CD of some of the songs we sing at church.

Max finally slept until 8:00, the time he normally woke up before the time change. Hailey, however, was up half the night. We aren't sure why. She just didn't sleep good last night. We let her come lay in our bed with us early this morning. She fell asleep pretty quickly after that. When Hailey woke up, she was excited to see it was snowing. She ran up to the window to watch and then asked if she could go outside later and make a snowman. It's not quite snowing enough for that yet, none of it stayed on the ground. After breakfast, Hailey and Max sat on the couch and watched some TV. It was cute cause Champ fell asleep on one side of Hailey, and Max crawled up and sat by her on the other side. Bruce needed to pick up a few things for the kitchen, so we all decided to go so the kids could play in the play area at Menards. It was close to lunch time, so first we stopped at Burger King. Hailey and Max love that playland cause it has a little slide too. They also like wearing the king crowns. I decided to climb in with the kids and take them up to the top of the playland. Hailey liked going through the tunnels but wouldn't go down the big slide with me. Max went down it with me though and loved it. He also liked pushing his car down the slide and watching it as it rolled down. After that, we went over to Menards. I took the kids over to the play area while Bruce got the things he needed. The kids liked looking at all the Christmas decorations which they have set up right next to the play area. They had tons of fun riding the roller coaster and playing in the play houses. When we got home, Bruce and Hailey went outside to fill the bird feeders. When Max saw them outside, he ran and got Barney and Elmo and put them up on the table so they could watch out the window with him. It's so funny how he has been getting Barney and Elmo to do everything with him. While Max took his nap, Hailey was playing babies pretending to take them to church. She would stand and sing the worship songs with the CD I had playing. She sang all of the songs and knows all the words to them. I couldn't believe how many she knew. She was singing so loud too. It was so cute. She would hold her baby while she stood and sang. After a few songs, she would say that it was time to go to the nursery now. Then she would take her baby to her room and come back to sing some more. When Max woke up, I got out some paper, glue, and glitter. I helped Hailey write her name with glue and then had her trace it with her fingers. Then she sprinkled the glitter all over the paper. She thought it was so neat when we shook the glitter off and she could see her name all sparkley. I helped Max make a star. He liked it too. He kept touching it saying "star, it shiney". Max did a little better tonight with staying up till his normal bedtime. He did start acting up a bit around 7:30 though, getting into everything he's not supposed to. His new thing is to step in the dog water. He was happy to start his routine and read some books. He picked one of his Barney books again, which he's wanted to read the last few nights now and also his Bible. He sang with me while I rocked him. We sang his favorite "happy, happy" (I've got the joy joy down in my heart) song. He starting to sing more of the words with me now. I love to hear him sing. It's so sweet.

Max woke up early again this morning, before 7:00. Bruce got up with him and let me sleep on. Hopefully he'll get used to the time change soon. This morning he went and got Barney, Elmo, monkey, and elephant (which he calls "elpant") and lined them all up on the couch. Then he went and got each of them a truck to play with. As he was putting the trucks in front of each of them, he would ask them "wanna play truck?" Then he got his tractor and sat on the couch by them. He has been doing this alot the last few days, bringing Barney and Elmo everywhere to play with him. He'll even go and get them so they can dance with him and Hailey. Bruce got the rest of the drywall up today. I helped hold the pieces up while he screwed them in. It looks alot better with all the walls covered. Hailey decided she wanted to color while Max took his nap. Then she wanted to get her Barbies out to play with. She sat in the living room and played so quietly during his whole nap. I did some laundry and worked on cleaning up some of the clutter around the house. I sure can't wait till the kitchen is finished so we have cupboard space again. Everything is just piled up everywhere and it's driving me nuts. When Max woke up from his nap, I played hide and seek with the kids. They laughed so hard when I would go hide and then jump out when they got close. Then they would run away screaming, and I would go chase them. Max started getting so tired and grumpy by 7:00. He's been having such a hard time staying up until his usual 8:00 bedtime. Every night since the time change, he starts getting grumpy around 7:00. Tonight, he spent most of the hour before it was time for bed cuddling with me on the couch. He was so tired that he fell asleep while I was rocking him only after a few minutes. I held him for a while so I could enjoy the moment. He doesn't do that very often, and I love to hold him while he's asleep, so peacful and quiet. It makes me wish he wasn't getting so big so fast. I miss the days when I could just hold him for as long as I wanted.

Max woke up around 7:30 this morning. We got ready, and went to a few stores after breakfast. Then we came home and ate lunch before we had to leave to take Hailey down to the children's hospital for some of her yearly tests. On the way there, we stopped at our favorite donut place, Crispy Cream. Max had already fallen asleep, so Bruce just took Hailey in with him while I stayed in the car with Max. Hailey liked watching them make the donuts. We got a bunch of donuts and some juice boxes. Hailey needed to drink twelve ounces of fluid an hour before her ultrasound, and we thought she would drink the juice boxes better than her drinks we had in the cooler. She loves juice boxes, so it wasn't too hard to get her to drink them. Max woke up as soon as they came back to the van. He was excited when he saw the donuts, and he liked his juice box too. When we got there, they had fun playing in the little play area in the waiting room. They said one of us could go back into the room with her when she got her ultrasound, so I went back with her. She did really good doing everything the lady asked her to. She liked getting the blue "belly jelly". The lady drew a smiley face with it on her belly which made her laugh. When she was done with the ultrasound, she had us stay in the room until she showed the doctor to make sure they didn't need any more pictures. We played with all the different little activity boxes on the wall. When the lady came back she gave Hailey some stickers, and then we headed over to see the doctor. She was seeing the urologist today. Hailey and Max both ran straight to the play area. It's their favorite play area because it is a huge fort. You can climb up the stairs to the top and play up there or you can play underneath in the play kitchen. There is also tunnels to go through under the stairs. Max loved going to the top and looking at all the kites they have hanging from the ceiling. They only got to play for about 10 minutes before they called us back. Max cried cause he didn't was to stop playing. Hailey did really good for the nurse when she got weighed, measured, and her blood pressure. Then the nurse asked her to lift up her tongue to take her temperature, but Hailey could not make her tongue go up. She tried so hard. It was so funny. We were all laughing so hard, even the nurse. She ended up having to get the ear thermometer instead. The doctor said that everything looked so good on the ultrasound that they didn't even have to do the other test were planning on doing which was good cause Hailey is scared of the special toilet that they have her use for it. It's just very big and has a big machine hooked up to it. It does look pretty scary, and she is just getting used to the normal public toilets. I was very glad to get to skip that test this time. Since they didn't get to play very long in that play area, we decided to take them to another play area before the long drive home. Hailey made a long train with all the little chairs. Her and Max pretended to ride the train and took turns driving (she had put the first chair up to a steering wheel on the wall). We went to the Boston Market for dinner. It's our favorite place to eat when we are in that area. We didn't get home until 9:30. The kids both fell asleep in the car, and they didn't wake up when we moved them to their beds.

Max woke up an hour early again this morning. I guess he's just not used to the new time change yet. It was nice though cause I got to spend some time with Max before Hailey woke up. We played with his train, and then he went and got Barney and Elmo to play with us. He said "Barney, Elmo play train too" and carried them over so they could sit right by us. Hailey wanted to watch Barney when she woke up. Max ran and got up on the couch by Hailey when he saw me putting the video in. Bruce started working on the kitchen right away this mroning. After Hailey was done watching Barney, the kids and I painted the little pumkins and gourds. They both loved it. Max doesn't like fingerpainting very much, but he sure was into painting with a brush. After a while though, his hands did get pretty dirty. Actually they were covered in paint by the time we were done. When he finally noticed, he held them up and said "I dirty". And he wasn't happy till I cleaned him up. He just hates his hands dirty. I got alot of laundry done while Max took his nap this afternoon. When he woke up, I got out the Noah's Ark tent for the kids to play in. They were so excited when I brought it out. Hailey got her dolls and a bunch of stuff to put in it. She layed little blankets down for beds. She made one for her, one for Max, and one for her babies. She had it set up pretty neat too. They played in that the rest of the evening until I started getting things ready to give them a bath. Then they came running to the bathroom and started taking off their clothes. They were in such a hurry to get in. They played in the tub for a while, and then it was time to start their bedtime routines.