Hailey: 3.5 years

Hailey is just getting too big. Like seriously. I feel like every time I look at her she is acting and looking older!

At 3 1/2 years Hailey is a girl who loves to have fun. She loves friends and has many of them. She loves playing with anyone and everyone. I just love that about her. I hope it sticks.

 

She is becoming increasingly independent. For the most part it's pretty nice. We still have our struggles where she wants to do something herself and I have to try to restrain myself from helping because it would be so much faster. Hailey orders her own food when we eat out. Actually she's been doing this for a long time, pretty much since she was 2 and started talking in sentences. If she wants a box to save her food, she asks for it. We won't do it for her. Hailey also insists on checking out her library books herself, washes herself in the bath or shower, picks out her own clothes and dresses herself, opens the car door and gets herself into her car seat and buckles the top buckle, checks the mail almost daily, makes pb&j sandwiches... Really I could go on and on.

Hailey gave her first talk in primary a few weeks ago. Just for my sake of documenting it, here's  her talk:

When I turn eight years old, I am going to be baptized just like Jesus was. When I get baptized I am going to make promises to Heavenly Father. I will promise to always remember Jesus, to always keep His commandments, and to always be an example like Jesus was and to do what He would want me to do. I know Heavenly Father and my mom and dad will be very happy when I am baptized. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Hailey is a great big sister. She just loves Keira. She loves to talk to her and play with her. When I walked into the girls' room this morning she was sitting on the floor next to Keira's bed, talking with her. Keira just loves Hailey. Hailey loves to make her laugh, and I love to watch it.

I'm so lucky that Hailey still naps. Not everyday, but I can quite often get her to take a nap for an hour or two. I've found her asleep with her hands behind her head like this on more than one occasion:

It's funny to me that she lays there chill-axing until she zonks out. She likes to take naps in the big queen bed in our spare bedroom in the basement. I don't blame her, it's nice and cool down there.

Much to Kyle's demise, Hailey isn't big on coloring. She is just not an artsy-craftsy person. No matter how much I try, she spends about five minutes on it and is done. In nursery she would often come home with a paper with one or two Hailey scribbles on it and some additional coloring help from her teacher. She has just recently started to spend a little bit more time coloring and drawing pictures. I took a picture of her best picture, in my opinion, so far. She told me it is a dragon and fireflies.

Recent Haileyisms:

scene: Kyle and Hailey driving in the car.

Hailey: Dad, there's a sticker on the window.
Kyle: That's not a sticker. A bird pooped on our window.
Hailey: He didn't make it to the potty.

I don't know where it comes from, but Hailey is good at coming up with lame excuses to not do something. The most common are:

• "I can't talk right now."
• "My legs/arms/hands don't work."
• "I don't have any legs/arms/hands."

She has also recently taken to flat out telling me she just doesn't want to. Usually when I ask her to clean her room. She is really good at procrastinating and doing nothing instead. I can't totally blame that o her, I'm pretty good at it myself as well. I remember getting distracted and playing in my room instead of cleaning when I was a kid. I guess it's coming back to bite me.

Kyle and Hailey drew with sidewalk chalk outside while I was inside feeding Keira. Kyle drew a big pirate ship and Hailey was so excited to share it with me. Due to her slight mispronunciation of certain key words her conversation with me went a little like: "Mom, come see my pile of sh*t (pirate ship). Mom! Look! A pile of sh*t! (Pointing outside) A pile of sh*t!" She said this over and over while Kyle and I very immaturely giggled.

I recently took an interview with Hailey that shows off her personality pretty well. Enjoy.