christmas cookies

hayden loves to help bake, and grandma loves his help. so yesterday after school we headed to her house to help her out with some sugar cookies. hayden loves to help use the cookie cutters and decorate them with sprinkles. and lots of them. we're always telling him not to use to so much. at one point, i was decorating a snowflake cookie with white sprinkles. hayden looked down and it and say "JILL!!!! that's WAY to much white sprinkles!" he listens, he just doesn't obey.
he helped with almost all of them until about the last batch or so when he looked at mom and said "well, grandma, you can finish the rest because there aren't too many more. i'm just so tired." and off he went to play. not before he ate a cookie or two, of course.

fun in the snow....for hayden at least

today was the first snow day of the year. saturday evening and sunday morning we got about 6 inches of snow. most all school districts in the area cancelled school last nite for today's classes. after a busy weekend i was thankful to be able to sleep in a little longer than usual. and then i realized, i'm probably going to have to take him outside for a bit to play in the snow, aren't i?!
i really hate the snow. even more now as a parent than before without kids. snow makes things so much more difficult with kids. so much more messy. the house constantly has bits of salt on the rugs, and is always wet from snowy shoes and boots. getting kids dressed just to go outside to the car is a major pain. and when your kid starts walking and constantly decides to take the snowiest path possible, there's another pain.
anyway. this his hayden's blog, not mine.
hayden loves snow. he was so excited to hear that we could go outside to play in it for a bit while talan was taking his nap. once i put talan down we started the long process of getting dressed up. i realized the the snowpants i had for hayden which he never wore last year, were a size 3t, not a 4t like i was counting on them being. they fit ok so it was no big deal. mittens or gloves are another issue. the are always falling off or the sleeve of his jacket is riding up. but again, i'm complaining.
we got all dressed up and headed outside. i gave hayden a new red shovel so he immediately started digging in the snow and throwing it over his shoulder.
i decided to be a good mom and help him make a snowman, unfortunately, the snow was not packing snow at all. later though, hayden found some chunks of ice that he stacked on top of each other to make a mini snowman. we even had baby carrots that we were able to use. the prefect size for this miniature snowman.
i also tried digging a little fort, but that didn't work very well either. after putting his gloves back on about 20 times i decided it was time to head in. we had been out there for close to an hour i'd say.
here are some pictures from our "fun" time:


it's not so much the digging part he loves:
as it is the throwing part:
"it's getting deeper!":
hayden's first snow angel:
making his very own mini snowman:
the finished product:

we had to relocated and fix it a bit as he built it right where cars like to park:
i think this is a penguin snowman:

hayden and a microphone

this morning was the morning that the monkey and elephant rooms at oak pointe church were to sing in front of the whole congregation for both services. they had two songs they were going to sing but hayden only ever sang one of them for us at home.
we had a busy weekend with dave's work christmas party on friday and then our howard/skiver christmas celebration with my bff and her family on saturday. we made sure to not stay too late as we had to be up bright and early this morning for the singing sensation.
but when we left fenton last nite it was snowing. and i then heard that they were expecting between 6-8 inches by 7pm sunday evening. will the moment hayden has been waiting for be cancelled?!
i woke up this morning to find that we had somewhere between 4-6 inches on the ground and the wind was blowing like crazy. there were church closings scrolling throughout the news cast but nothing for oak pointe. so we all got ready, dave shoveled the driveway and started the car and we headed out hoping the doors wouldn't be locked. even though we left at about 8am and dave stopped to help some lady that was stuck, we still got there around 8:30. i love my explorer. now, i know a lot of the world is all concerned about the environment, but so many of those people live in california. i live in michigan. so i'll keep my explorer and i won't feel bad about it, thank you very much.
the service was pretty much empty other than the families of all the kids singing holding their cameras and video cameras. so at least i wasn't the only crazy parent making my family drive in a blizzard to get my kid up on stage.
for the first service hayden was on top of the world. waving to us all and jumping up and down the ENTIRE TIME. he didn't sing the first song at all. he just jumped. he sang some parts of the second song, but mostly because some of the motions actually called for jumping.
and then it happened. the infamous "booty dance." long ago dave taught him to put his hands on his butt, bend over a bit and shake it. it's always been funny and he's known it. so i guess he waited for just the right time to stop jumping and start doing the booty dance at church. awesome.
i was pretty impressed that he actually got off the stage with no real tantrum. i don't think there were any microphones right there on stage which definitely helped the cause. on the ride in he said "oh no! i forgot my microphone!" so i fully expected him to grab a mic and turn it into the hayden show.
after first service we (dave, me, mom, dad, jessica and talan) waited for the second service to start to see round two. maybe he would actually do a little bit of singing this time.
the teachers start guiding them up on stage and right away i knew something was wrong. my bipolar child had flipped his switch. as soon as he saw me he just covered his face and continued to act as if he was having the worst day of his life. this went on for quite awhile, until he saw himself up on the big screen. then he wouldn't take his eyes off of it.
by the time the second song rolled around he was ok enough to still get the jumping motions in, but that was about it. i started wondering if it was because he wasn't first in line this time. he has a few issues with that sort of thing.
dave picked him up from his class when it was all done and was carrying him down the stairs. as soon as he saw me he got down, jumped into my arms and just started crying. all i got out of him was that he wanted me to pick him up from his class. i think he was a little confused when dave didn't pick him up after first service and thought we weren't coming back for him or something. who knows with that kid.
either way, we got some good video and pictures.


lining up to sing in the first service:
one of the only shots that hayden wasn't jumping in:
he was either pointing to us or actually doing some of the motions, i'm thinking he was pointing at us:

the booty dance begins:
looking right at us as if to say "aren't you guys so proud?!":
just about done:
talan waiting for second service to see for himself:
the bipolar switch has been switched:

and switched again once he noticed himself on the big screen:

oh good. more jumping: