A couple of weeks ago my cousin Beka, her husband Bill and their daughter Anika came for a visit.  Hailey was so excited that Anika was coming that she could hardly wait for her to get here!  I think they came for the 4 hottest days we have had all summer.  It was hot but we had fun anyways!

Here are some pictures of the fun we had together:

We started out at the zoo.  Brooke and Hailey enjoyed petting a goat.

The goats were a little bit pushy about getting their food so Hailey wasn’t able to feed them because they kept trying to jump on her.  The goats loved Rich!

Anika and Hailey heading off together.

Rich, Hailey and Brooke pose for a picture.

Rich, Hailey, Bill and Anika on the slides.

Anika and Hailey also spent some time swimming in my parents’ pool.  Afterwards they had a snack and drew with chalk on the patio.

Another day they played in the sprinkler over at our house.  It took them a few minutes to decide whether or not they liked the sprinkler.  As you can see Hailey decided she loved it.

Anika and Hailey playing in the sprinkler.

My dad had to go out and buy the girls a little wading pool to play in- and they loved it!

We had lots of fun together.  When Beka and I were younger we spent lots of time together and I have lots of fun memories from our times together.  I hope that Hailey and Anika will be able to make lots of happy memories together too!

And this is what I see:

An empty bed.

Apparently Hailey has outgrown her nap.  Most days she will not take a nap- and on the days she does take a nap she is up until 10 or 11pm.  But when she doesn’t get her nap she is ready to crash around 5pm and then she is non-stop wild around 7pm.  There are some days when she still takes a little nap- when she gets up too early or has had a really busy morning.  But most days she just can’t sleep.  In place of nap-time we are doing quiet time.  We read together for a little while and then I bring her a big pile of books, set a timer and tell her to stay on her bed reading until the timer goes off. I started out with only 10 minutes and we’ve worked our way up to 30 minutes of quiet time.  She is doing great with staying on her bed reading.  I just thought that most kids took afternoon naps until they were 4 or 5 years old… so I didn’t expect her to drop her nap so soon.  When did your kids stop napping?

Today while we were playing outside Hailey wrote her name on our driveway.  She needed help with the “e” so I drew some dots for her to connect.  We need to work on the “e” but she did great with the rest of her letters!

Back in the beginning of May we took Hailey to her first circus.  I didn’t get any really great pictures of the circus so I never posted any pictures.  But since this was the first time she went to the circus I decided that I needed to post pictures anyways.  My pictures of the actual circus did not come out at all, but here are a few pictures of some of my favorite people.

Hailey watching the circus- she loved the clowns and the tigers.

Rich and Brooke- obviously Brooke was thrilled about having her picture taken.

Hailey loved her light up butterfly toy!

See my pictures aren’t very good- but I had to document Hailey’s first time at the circus.