Baby Maelie is here!

Maelie Ann Carter joined our family on Friday, June 28th at 3:58pm. She weighed 8 lbs 10 oz and was 21 inches long. Big baby! We think she is absolutely adorable, and we are so glad that she is here. And we are thrilled that she is healthy! Labor and delivery were quite rough. I might blog about that later. For now, enjoy a few pics of our newest cutie pie!

We love our sweet Maelie so much! And we are so grateful that she is part of our little family! :)

Hannah's 1st real haircut

When Hannah was 6 months old, she had her first semi-haircut--meaning that we just cut of a few strands that were left of her dark baby hair as her blond hair was starting to grow in. We hadn't cut it at all since and had been thinking about doing it for quite some time in order to straighten her hair out and help it get thicker. We found the perfect person to cut her hair--a lady in our ward who cuts hair in her home and is great with kids (she has 7 of her own and is our Stake Primary President). We finally made an appointment a few days ago, and we are pleased with the results.


Some before pics:

 Here's Hannah right after her bath a couple of nights before. (I love the cute owl jammies she picked out for herself at CostCo.)

Her hair was getting pretty dang long but scraggly.

 One last before pic right before her haircut. Hannah freaked out about sitting alone on the chair, so I had to hold her. But the dum-dum sucker she got is what really cheered her up.

During pics:

Hannah happily sucked on her sucker throughout her haircut.

She also warmed right up to Laurel and loved chatting with her. Unfortunately, Hannah had to turn her head to look at Laurel every time she had something to say, which made things difficult at times.

 But Laurel was incredibly patient with Hannah and didn't seem to mind.

And Hannah ended up having a lot of fun. :)

After pics:

 Hannah's hair ended up a couple of inches shorter and much straighter across.

She continued enjoying her sucker long after her haircut was over. (She doesn't take after her mommy with that--I'm a sucker biter.)

 When Hannah's hair dried after her haircut, it kind of flipped out on its own.

But by morning, Hannah's hair had decided to curl under on its own.

And it's still long enough to put in ponytails. Cute!

We are proud that Hannah did so well with her 1st haircut! She sure is a cutie!!!

weird-ish weekend

This past weekend definitely had it's ups and downs. We started the weekend having lots of fun, but we ended it being sick. Here are some pics of the fun...

On Friday night, we took Faith, Cole, and Clay with us up the canyon for our first campfire of the season to roast hot dogs and make s'mores.

Hannah loved the marshmallows and seeing the river and, of course, being with her cousins.

Hannah and her mommy.

Hannah's cousins slept over and then went swimming with her in the morning. Fun times!

Saturday evening we went to Orem Summerfest, and Hannah really wanted to ride on the boats.

Before the ride started, she had a blast ringing the bell and steering the boat.

And she didn't even seem to mind sharing the boat with random kids...at least for the first half of the ride.

But then something happened (no idea what) that made Hannah completely change her mind about the ride.

This super cute, sad girl spent the 2nd half of the ride crying. Poor sweetie.

Hannah eventually cheered up after we met up with Aunt Jana and Saul. She kept telling us that she really wanted to "ride the pony" on the carousel. We weren't convinced.

 But we decided to give it a whirl, and Hannah really did love riding the pony up and down and making circles. :)

 After the pony ride, we walked across the street to watch the fireworks with some friends. Scott's face cracks me up in this pic. I'm sure he was trying to convince Hannah to not be scared of the loud fireworks.

In the end, Hannah mostly liked the fireworks and thought it was especially cool that she could see the moon behind them.

Hannah got to bed super late that night, and then she woke up at 4:30am on Sunday to have a puke fest. It was really bad, and it was super sad. None of us were feeling well enough to attend church at 9 that morning. I had only had one hour of sleep, and I felt nauseated. Scott felt nauseated too. So all 3 of us mostly just lounged around all Sunday not feeling well. Happy Father's Day to Scott, huh?

 Scott did get some gifts and cards from me and Hannah, but we missed our celebrations with both families. It was a pretty yucky way to end an otherwise fun weekend.

Hannah felt much better on Monday, so we took her to the park.

 She loves playing with her daddy.

 And she really loves swinging for long periods of time.

 And here is a picture of Hannah with her daddy today, on her half-birthday. I can't believe my baby is 2 1/2 years old! She is growing and changing so quickly! Here are a couple of funny Hannah-isms from this week...

--When Hannah's cousins slept over, we were all taking turns reading a few scriptures before bed. We always give Hannah a few words to say at a time. When I said "and I knew" to Hannah, she repeated, "I knew" and then added "trouble, trouble, trouble." She's quite fond of Taylor Swift's catchy tune. :)

--Hannah still loves singing, and lately she loves to combine songs and/or make up her own words. Last week while we were watching Clay's baseball game, Hannah ran around in circles and repeatedly sang (very loudly), "I'm making circles baby bumblebee. Won't my mommy be so proud of me." The people around us seemed quite amused, at least for the first few repeats of the song. :)

--This past month Hannah has learned all of her letter sounds, thanks to the Leapfrog Letter Factory dvd from her Carson cousins that she asks to watch almost every day. She especially loves singing the song on the dvd, "The B says 'buh,' the B says 'buh.' Every letter makes a sound. The B says 'buh.'" But lately she has been swapping out the real lyric for the lyrics to "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock." It's pretty stinkin' hilarious. :)

And now for a nesting update:

These past 2 weekends, I have washed all of our newborn and 0-3 months baby clothes. We have a ton of clothes! There is not enough room in Hannah's (and baby's) room for both of their clothes, so we had to hang the majority of the baby's clothes in the closet in our spare room which is basically our utility/storage closet (the rest of the clothes fill 3 drawers in the other closet). Seeing all of the clothes all ready has made me more and more excited to meet my new baby, to find out what she looks like, and to see her wearing the adorable clothes Hannah once wore (it's hard to believe Hannah was once that small!). And Hannah seems to be getting excited too. She talks all the time about her baby sister and all of her things and when she is coming. Cute. :)  Oh, and I even packed my hospital bag today--something I never got around to with Hannah.

So, we had a good but weird-ish weekend. And we are getting closer to being ready to have this new baby join our family. :)