yes, i'm still crying

so this evening jessica came over and was going to give talan his first hair cut and then give hayden and dave a trim. as always, dave asked hayden if he wanted to shave all of his hair off. this time, he said yes. and he kept saying yes. no matter what i said to talk him out of it he just kept saying "it's ok mom. it'll look cool. it'll grow back. let's do this dad!! make all my hair go away!" after me standing my ground for about a half an hour, dave eventually gave hayden what he wanted. with me crying the whole time. then i had to get down on my hands and knees and pick all of that hair up. i felt like i couldn't keep enough of it.
he still hated having hair fall in his face or on his back or hands or anywhere else for that matter, but he loves his new haircut.
me? it'll take some time.
some kid that i've never seen before just came down to kiss me goodnite and said "mom, just be happy about my hair." and the crying continues....

making sure he really wants to do this:
he kept saying "let's do this dad! make all my hair go away!":





jessica making sure the hair didn't get in his face:

spring break in royal oak

years ago we went to a church called the bridge. we met some great people there whom we remain close with to this day. unfortunately with busy schedules, kids in school, and some driving distance between some of us, we don't get to see each other often. many of us had kids around the same time and we have pictures of them all together back when they were babies.
hayden, and most of his friends, are on spring break this week so we decided to plan a little play date. we headed over to the bossenberger's house so that hayden could play with charles. joining them was estalla loudon and redding martin. samuel loudon, evelyn bossenberger and talan were also in attendance. the kids seemed to have a great time together and hayden cried the entire drive home (until he fell asleep, but then woke up saying it again) saying "but i'm going to miss charles. and he's going to miss me."
it was great to get the kids back together again and get some new pictures of them all grown up.
thanks for having us all over, jen! we had a great time and hope we can do it more often in the summer!

charles as a pirate. the boots were hilarious...and he walked better in them than i could:
first attempt at a group shot. shockingly, hayden wasn't having it. estella, redding, charles, hayden:
samuel and evelyn:
second group shot. this one went much better:

letting it go

in recent months i have come to realize that i am a bit of a control freak. i think i've always known this to an extent, but maybe not to the degree that i actually am.
i recently took a personality type test that told me my number one trait was control and my number two was perfectionist. i don't agree with that one at all. i really don't consider myself to be a perfectionist. maybe about certain things, but not most things.
hayden has taken on a lot of my traits. his strong will, stubbornness, anger, and the control. oh how he loves to control everyone and everything.
this morning i had to learn to let go of my control a bit. every nite we (an by we i mean usually me) lay out the clothes that hayden is going to wear the next day. that way as soon as he gets up he can get dressed so he's ready to go. it mostly started out because his dresser is dave's OLD dresser that doesn't even have tracks on the drawers. i was always afraid that he'd pull the drawer all the way out and hurt himself. but let's be honest...i also wanted to make sure he wore what i thought he should wear.
so last nite, apparently dave put out his clothes. his camo pants (of which i only have about 2 or 3 shirts that i put with them) and for whatever reason a short sleeved blue t-shirt with shark teeth on it. i wasn't aware of what he had laid out because i obviously would have changed that.
so i get up and hayden is playing downstairs. when he comes up the stairs i was like...did your father lay those clothes out for you?! and he tells me, "no...i got out the sweater because the shark shirt had little sleeves and i need long sleeves." apparently he put on the camo pants, he put on the shark shirt, and then he realized it was still winter and he needed something to go over it. so he goes into his closet and gets his blue and red striped sweater.
i asked him several times if he wanted to put some jeans on with it instead and he just kept saying "no." when i told him it didn't match he just said "awww, come on mom. i like it. it's beautiful!"
so i thought i'd ask him one...or maybe two more times and if he didn't give in, i'd have to let go of that control and know that him going to school while not matching was not going to kill him. or me....at least i don't think it will.
he declined and he went to school like this:

i did make sure to tell him, however, "make sure you let everyone know you dressed yourself today, ok?!"

happy march 5!

god bless michigan. we woke up this morning to yet another snow day from school with about 6 inches of snow on the ground. i told dave that if he could make it to the car, not to worry about it as i would take hayden out to and i would shovel once talan went down for his nap. i figured it'd be a nice second workout for me this morning.
so at about 8:30 i headed down to the basement for my morning workout, headed upstairs, got talan ready for nap and hayden ready to go outside and out we went. as soon as i started shoveling the pathway i realized i was in trouble.
i was out there shoveling for close to an hour i'd say. the good thing is that it's pretty warm out there with the sun shining. i even had to take my mittens and jacket off i was so warm. by the end i was pretty cranky and i was sick of having to readjust hayden's mittens as snow kept getting inside of his jacket. but i had promised him when i was done we'd make a snowman.
of course, it wasn't great packing snow again so we have to improvise. when he asked "is this going to be the biggest snowman EVER?" i couldn't lie when i said "nope. we're going to make whatever we can out of what we've got." he couldn't wait to put the face on him but didn't like my suggestion of grapes for eyes. so when i ran inside to get the carrot i realized we had crunch berries. he told me very specifically we needed 2 buttons on the medium snowball and 3 on the large one.
and then we were done. hopefully for the rest of this year.
we hope all of you in florida and texas and wherever else it is warm are enjoying it and pitying us.


hayden's snow angel...it was actually really good:
the snowman. the branches have buds on them...i guess they are on the same page we all are, ENOUGH ALREADY:
too sunny to not squint:

happy march 5th from our house to yours!:

happy valentimes day!!

today hayden had his class "valentimes day" party at school. even though he had a total meltdown at his halloween party when i volunteered, i decided to try again. i was informed that he had a little bit of a problem earlier in the morning before i got there but the rest of the day he was as pleasant as he could be. shocking...i know.
his teacher, mrs. bauman, just had a baby so from now until may, ms. hornyak will be his teacher....lucky her. when i got there i was informed i would be at the "math table." i guess they didn't pull my school records to find out that i'm really only at about a preschool math level. the kids came to my table and sorted out the different colored candy hearts and counted each color and then they counted all of the hearts together. after working with his whole class i realized that hayden is even smarter than i originally had thought. scary.
there is a little boy named justin in hayden's class. they apparently are enemies. i'm guessing that little justin is just very much like little hayden. they have been known to push each other and just get at each other. they are now not allowed to play in the blocks area together. so today, while i was sitting behind the circle and all of the kids went around and said what area they wanted to go to, justin said "blocks." hayden looked over at me, looked at justin and said "ok justin. you can go to blocks now." as he stuck out his arm as if to show him the way.
i was in charge of helping most kids write their names, count the hearts and write the numbers on their paper. then we would put the candy into a bowl and get it ready for them to take home. hayden wanted to try it more than once as he loves numbers and candy. i ended up making quite a few little friends and one of them even asked if i would sit next to her in circle time. when she asked me my name and i told her, hayden looked at her and said "that's my mom!!" that's right, i'm the cool mom. for now at least.
there was a cookie decorating table which hayden didn't really want to go to. he ended up going there very last, but he did it at least. he was mostly busy playing at the sand table and playing musical chairs.
snack was passed out and hayden surprisingly ate his whole cookie, even the parts with the frosting on it. usually he won't decorate the cookies at school because he doesn't want the frosting to "ruin it." what a weird kid.
the kids put their valentines into everybody's "mailbox" in their cubbies, they got their coats on, lined up, and headed down the hall towards the bus.
hayden came home and was able to open his valentine's day present from grandma and papa and from me and dave as he sorted through all of his valentines and asked to eat just about all of the candy that was given to him.
tonite as we left the bowling alley he asked me "is it still valentimes day?" yes. "after we go nite-nite and wake up will valentimes day be over?" yes.
so i guess it was a pretty good valentimes day for hayden. hope it was for you all too!

the math table:
musical chairs. why am i not surprised this was hayden's favorite?!:

the decorated classroom:
circle time:

last day of bowling

i've been preparing hayden for the fact that bowling is coming to an end. i think he believed that for the rest of his life he would be going bowling every thursday. he took it fairly well and yesterday was the last day of hayden's bowling league. they had a big party for the kids and they were able to bowl 2 games (well, 1 1/2 since it takes SO LONG with kids this age) they had pizza, they were given goodie bags with candy and before we left they handed out trophies.
when we got out of the car hayden said "i can't wait to eat pizza! my stomach is growling!" this was note worthy because hayden doesn't like real food. not even pizza which most kids his age enjoy. we got into the bowling alley and he was so excited to see that it was decorated with balloons.
dave left work early so that he could come up and be a part of hayden's last day. it was the best day for him to attend since hayden had a record breaking score. his highest score before yesterday was 102. his average has been around 81 or 82. yesterday, his first game, he got 3 spares and ended up with a score of 107. he ended up not doing that well for the second game but he did end up getting a strike before they turned the lanes off once the pizza arrived.
hayden actually sat with some other kids and ate almost an entire piece of pizza. it was amazing. more amazing then the 107 he bowled.
hayden is quite the little encourager. he made some friends during the past 15 weeks (two of the are the kids of a girl that i went to high school with ironically) and he always the first to cheer them on and give high fives when a strike or spare is bowled.
i went back and forth as to if i should sign him up for the next session or if we should take a break and sign up the next time. his teacher told me that day that every thursday hayden would announce to everybody that he has bowling tonite. if it's a tuesday, he'll announce he only has 2 more days until bowling. he loves it. it gets us out of the house and gives us something to do once a week so i figured we'd sign up for the next session starting february 7th. this way it will get us through the winter months and leave our summer open to do other things if we want. he was so excited to hear that he'd be going back for more bowling in just 3 more weeks.
before we left they called each child up one at a time by name and gave them a trophy that even had their name engraved on it. hayden was so excited to get his very own bowling trophy. he even posed for a few pictures with it.
3 more weeks and we'll be back at it again.


on his way to 107:
his "i missed the last 2 pins" dance:
dave and talan were happy to be there too. you can even kind of see talan's teeth:
hayden eating pizza!:
the trophy ceremony:
he loves it:
devon, nathan and hayden after getting their trophies:
hayden, jonathan, isreal and david:
the trophy:

5 year photos

on december 28th i took hayden to have his five year pictures taken. there were many threats to make him behave as he's usually really bad at getting his picture taken. the threats seemed to work as he did whatever the photographer asked him to do and we were out of there in no time.
hayden is at the stage that he usually smiles "silly" at the camera, but even when he tries to smile normal it comes out all goofy looking cuz he just doesn't know how to smile on command. he did pretty well with these pictures though. i was quite impressed.
here they are: