Tooth Proof!

Here is a picture of Hayes' tooth this morning. Sorry that it's nothing more than a tiny little point at this time... you can barely even see it in the picture! It looks like the other one is going to pop through soon, though! The little thooth bud is swollen!
By the way, take a look at that belly! Impressive!

First....... Tooth!

Tonight we were eating dinner with our friends Maghan and Hal (who are expecting baby Addison in a month, yay!) and Hayes shoved my finger in his mouth. He's been chewing everything in sight for months, so this is nothing new... I am his favorite chew toy. He was chomping away when I suddenly felt something sharp. I rubbed my fingers across his gums, and sure enough, A TOOTH!!!

Mom picked him up from the babysitter this afternoon and noticed that his tooth was close to the surface, but it apparently broke through the skin sometime during dinner! I must admit that it took me a little by surprise! He has not been noticeably fussy, feverish, or restless. He's just been normal, happy Hayes! What a big boy I have!

I'll have to take a picture tomorrow... I took a few tonight, but they have mysteriously disappeared from my memory card... it's the strangest thing.

Below is a tooth chart I'm going to use to keep track of Hayes' teething.

Okay Moms, do I start brushing his teeth/tooth now? I've never had a cavity and I'm terrified of them! I want Hayes to have nice pearly whites, too!

Picnic on the Porch

Hayes and I had dinner on the porch tonight because Daddy came home from work late. Hayes got sweet potatoes all over his outfit so I stripped him down to his diaper for his bottle. Here he is all relaxed enjoying the weather and sucking down his favorite thing ever - MILK!

Discovering Dad

Daddy and Hayes got some good play time tonight when Justin came home from work!

My boys

Mommy is behind the camera saying, "Nose, Hayes, can you say nose?"

Sweet kisses and cuddles

My little munchkin. I love this kid!

Monkey-ing Around

There was no special occasion to dress my son up as a sock monkey... just some spare time in the evening post dinner and bath, pre bed. No better time, in my opinion!

Isn't this just the cutest little monkey you ever did see!

A walk to ummm... NOT remember

Well, I know at least one person who won't remember it!

Pretty Boy

My mom made this little outfit for my brother 27 years ago when he was a baby. Now, Hayes gets to wear it, and doesn't he look so cute!
Ummm, do you think my dad is in love with his grandbaby or what?!

My tummy's in knots...

Some of y'all know I’ve been in a bit of a weird place with work lately. Well, we found out today that all of the sales agents are going to be having 1 on 1’s with the owner of our company. He’s very nice, but VERY intimidating to me, and I feel like I NEVER answer questions the way he wants me to. I’ve spent most of the day today preparing for my meeting tomorrow at 1:00.

Would you mind asking God to guide me and give me wisdom to know what to say and how to handle the responses? And if you happen to think about me after lunch tomorrow, say another prayer then. I’m just really nervous.

Thanks, friends!

"Woof, Woof?!" Translation - "What about me?!"

Lately, the blog has been all about our little #1 - Hayes Scott Hardy. So much so, that I've barely even mentioned our first children, Rez and Adler. Now you may take that to mean they have been in some way demoted to sleeping on the floor or banished to a permanent existence in the backyard, but no. They are still the little princesses of the Hardy home. Their ranking has slipped just a little with the birth of our prince, but they still hold high status in the royal family. Yes, folks, we still have an EXTRA 135 pounds sharing our bed at night (Rez is a petite 55 pounds and Adler, the heavyweight, weighs in around 80), sitting on our sofas, eating breakfast in our laundry room, going through our waste baskets, and checking out Hayes' toys. We are fortunate that they are such good dogs, though.

Justin and I were curious about how they would react to Hayes, and so far they have been relatively oblivious to his existence. They come up and sniff him on occasion, and every now and then they give him a little kiss on his cheek, or clean spit-up off the exersaucer. Other than that, it seems that we have successfully merged our dog-children and our human-child.

So this post is a tribute to the best two dogs on the planet -

Our first-born, Rez, a sweet, spunky Vizsla.

And our middle child, Adler, an exuberant, goofy German Shorthaired Pointer.

Love

Tonight I rocked my sleeping baby and felt his sweet breath on my neck. I love this child.

5 months young

Well, today is my little Hayes' 5 month birthday and I can barely remember life before my little stinker. This boy is B-I-G! He has some serious thunder thighs. So big, in fact, that we have a hard time getting him in and out of his Bumbo! My mom thinks we should invent the "Jumbo Bumbo" for plus-sized babies. ;-) Hayes already wears size 9 and 12 month clothes, and size 3 diapers, but I will be buying size 4's next... the size 3's are quickly becoming little bikinis on him.

Hayes loves his milk! I nurse him in the mornings and at night, but he is now mainly drinking formula during the day. You all have read about our unsuccessful attempts at rice and oatmeal cereal, and we will be introducing something other than applesauce this week!

Hayes has always been so strong since the day he was born, and at 5 months has almost mastered the art of sitting up. He can sit for a while until he either gets bored with being upright, or decides he wants to play with his toes and bends over too far to get back up.

His laugh is contageous and we're hearing more and more of it lately! He LOVES to hear me sing! His favorite songs are "Father Abraham" (with the motions), and "I'm in the Lord's Army" (with the motions). He pretty much loves me to sing ANYTHING as long as I look him in they eyes and bounce him around a bit.

Hayes still loves his bath! I've started taking a bath with him in the big tub in our bathroom where he has fun playing with the rubber duckies! He goes to sleep (still on his belly) around 8:30 each night, and wakes up around 6:30 or 7. He rarely wakes up in the middle of the night (thank you, Hayes!), and in the morning, he wakes up so happy! One of my favorite things is going into his room each morning and watching the giant grin appear on his sweet face when he sees me.

He can roll over in all directions, and is reaching for EVERYTHING! When on his belly, Hayes tucks his knees under his belly, but hasn't yet made any other progress toward actually crawling. He started his new babysitter this week (we were sad to see Erin go back to college), but Mrs. Lynn says he is doing great! She says he doesn't ever cry unless he's hungry. But when he's hungry, Hayes will certainly let you know! He can hold his own bottle after he drinks about half of it, but I hear he holds it better at the babysitter's than he does at home.

Between 4 and 5 months, Hayes lost almost all of his baby hair. He was born with a head full of dirty blonde hair, but his new hair is coming in almost white! He looks bald, but I promise he has fuzzy white hair all over his head! And if you look closely, you can see his white eyebrows and eyelashes. He didn't have much of a chance to be anything other than a tow head considering his mommy and daddy.

I love hearing Hayes talk. Justin says he likes to hear himself talk just like Mommy! ;-) This child has brightened our lives in so many ways and I thank God every day for my little blessing!

Just a swingin'

Hayes went to the swings at our neighborhood park for the first time today! His surrogate aunt Tarayn joined us and Hayes had such a great time. He snuggled with his Lovie and started falling asleep toward the end. What a little stinker!

Okay, so I had a hard time picking one picture to post, so here are a few cute ones for you to see. :-)

Hayes & His Momma's Love

Yesterday we met our friends Hal and Maghan at Momma Goldberg's - Inverness. Hal opened the restaurant about a month or two ago, and we've been so proud of how well they're doing!!! Hal ordered these baby onesies to sell at his restaurant, and Hayes was the first baby to get to wear one! For those of you who arent familiar with Momma Goldberg's (heaven forbid!), they are an Auburn trademark, and have recently opened 2 locations in Birmingham (Homewood and Inverness), and in a few other cities around Alabama. They offer a variety of sandwiches with names like Momma's Love, Big Momma, Big Daddy, etc. All very delicious!

See, Hayes thinks so, too! He really enjoyed his first Momma's Love sandwich - hold the meat, cheese and condiments.

Don't worry moms! VERY little, if any at all, was digested. My almost-5-month-old does NOT eat bread yet. Still working on the cereals, remember?
You can purchase your own Momma Goldberg's onesie at the Inverness location, and probably the Homewood location, too. If you're in the Inverness store, say hi to my friend Hal!

Applesauce Ain't Bad!

Tonight, I fed Hayes applesauce, and it's the first thing he's tried that he didn't completely reject!!! Now, I'm not going to say it was a success, but at least he was interested! Mr. Independent wanted to feed himself as you can tell!

Are these smiles I see?

As many of you suggested, I added rice cereal to the applesauce at one point, but he could tell I had slipped that nasty stuff into his yummy applesauce and it was all over. It was nothing but bottle from that point on. Rotten boy!

Praaaaaaaaaay...

I am not above asking God to help me sell a house (or two). And I am not above asking you to pray, too! There are two families who are very seriously looking right at the lofts I'm selling in Ross Bridge. Please ask God to guide the Heilmans and the Wells to buy here. I truly think it would be a good fit for each of their scenarios.

Thanks, friends!

Oatmeal Cereal is WORSE!

Drama! You'd think that I was trying to make the baby eat brussel sprouts! Hayes actually pressed his lips together in prostest of the foreign goop I was trying to feed him. Awesome.

Hope this will not be the picture of every new food we try! He STILL won't eat the rice cereal, but we moved on to oatmeal tonight anyway. I'll try this for a week or so, and then try fruits and veggies.

This week, on vacation, I let Hayes suck on a slice of cantelope and he LOVED it! When I would pull the cantelope away from his mouth, he would grab my hand and pull the cantelope back into his mouth. He also tried one of Ava Claire's Mum Mums, a rice snack that dissolves in baby's mouth. He seemed to like those, too, although he was a little confused by them at first. Hopefully that's a sign that he will like more interesting foods in the weeks to come. Right now he seems perfectly content with his milk.

Tonight, we came home from a vacation to The Grand Hotel in Point Clear, AL with our friends Matt, Amy and Ava Claire Anderson. We had so much fun! Stay tuned for pictures and a full recap!

Weagle Weagle

Last night, Justin went to the Auburn Alumni Fall Kick-Off Party with our good friend Hal Craig, owner of Momma Goldberg's-Inverness and corporate sponsor of the event. Hal got him a great VIP pass. Justin and Hal were the first people new Auburn head football coach, Gene Chizik spoke to when he entered the room!

Justin came home with this little jersey for Hayes. Look to the left of the #1 - it's a note to Hayes from Coach Chizik!

Coach Chizik is now the proud owner of a brand new Birmingham Home Theater t-shirt! Think he'll wear it on Game Day? Probably.

Now, let me clarify. I am still a devoted Alabama fan. Justin, as you may know, is an Auburn alumnus. I am of the opinion that Hayes can choose which team to cheer for when he is old enough to make the decision for himself. He cannot, however, choose which political party he will associate with. That has been pre-determined.

I'm hoping that Hayes will make a mascot association and pull for my team!

But I will be fair...

A Message for Papa Rick...

And a message for Dad...

Happy Birthday, Dad! I'm sad that I won't be able to see you today, but Hayes and I will be thinking about you ALL DAY! I hope you have fun in Baltimore playing golf with your friend! You're the best dad a girl could ask for and I miss you being in Birmingham to spoil me! :-) Come back soon, PLEASE! I love you so much!

Nature Calls

One of the forgotten joys of pregnancy and early motherhood is the absence of the monthly visit from Mother Nature. I nursed Hayes exclusively for the first 10 weeks of his life, but soon after I started back to work, I started supplementing one formula bottle a day so I didn't have so much pressure to keep up with his growing appetite (the boy started drinking 8 ounces per feeding at 9 weeks!). We are 4 1/2 months in, and I am so glad I've been able to maintain his "diet" so far. I've been wondering when Mother Nature would pay her next visit, and at my annual exam this week I asked Dr. P when I should expect to see her. She said every woman's body is different and it might not even appear as long as I'm nursing! Well, Mother Nature showed up this morning unannounced after a 13 month break. So much for natural child spacing!