Back Again (with news!)

Hello there! We are back and hopefully able to consistently post again on this laptop we are using while we figure out our computer.  I am really missing being able to update everyone on a regular basis and I can't wait to get back to sharing with you.

We have BIG news in the Duffin family this week...we are finally able to share that we are expecting a brother or sister for Hayden on April 7th!  We are almost 10 weeks along now and already got to see this beautiful baby on an ultrasound last week.  It has a great heart beat and was moving all over the place!  Hayden is beyond thrilled to be a Big Brother and he really wants a brother, which would be just fine with us.  He's already picking things out in stores to add to our baby registry and he even has name suggestions...some of which are Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Baby.  I am looking forward to making it as fun as possible as for him and having him involved every step of the way.

I will be VERY closely followed by my wonderful new Doctor for the whole pregnancy to prevent preterm labor.  We will be getting an ultrasound every 4 weeks and I will be on weekly progesterone shots to keep my uterus relaxed from 15-37 weeks.  In short, me and my Doctor are going to be best friends by the end of this.  She is such a sweet and wonderful lady and I can't wait to have a healthy pregnancy this time.

Matt is loving his new position at work and he is so happy with his new duties. I have never seen him smile so much after work in my life, so I am very happy for him.

Hayden is loving school so far this year.  He has already learned a lot and he's made a ton of new friends. He enjoys being a veteran from last year and being Mr. Bossy as he is, he loves to help the newer kids with the rules.  I love being his teacher and watching his interaction with other children.  He's also getting too smart for us now.  He remembers EVERYTHING and I also taught him last week how to read some words by sounding out the letters.  Smarty pants!

I am going to take some photos today of Hayden playing with his friends at the 2 BBQ's we are attending and I will post them with the ultrasound photos today or tomorrow afternoon!

Love to all!

We're Back (sort of!)

Well, hello there! It has been way too long since I have been able to update you all! Our computer is still in bad shape and is currently being worked on by an awesome friend.  Another awesome friend lent us his laptop to use in the meantime but I unfortunately can't upload photos on it.  So, instead I'll just post some updates for right now until we can catch up on photos!

Our visit with Becky and Alan was an absolute blast and we really enjoyed having them here.  We are also currently missing them terribly right now.  Hayden fell in love with both of them and he had a great time learning how to use their iphones.  He actually figured out all on his own how to navigate the menus and get to the games.  They were so sweet and patient to allow him to play with their phones, even when he sneezed ALL OVER Becky's phone.  It was so funny to see her face!  We did lots of fun things with them such as Apple Annie's for apple and peach picking, The Pima Air and Space museum, Mt. Lemmon, etc.  We also ate all kinds of fun things and shopped until we dropped.  We love having visitors and can't wait for Sid and Di to come to us!

On Matt's front, he started his new position as a buyer at work and he is extremely happy with it.  He loves the interaction and he can't wait to see all of the great things this position brings him.  We are all very proud of him!

I've gone back to work as of last week and I'm really enjoying the new school we are at.  It's a very nice classroom and the school has a great feel about it.  I also have an awesome group of kiddos so it's going to be a super fun year!

Jane is still enjoying her new store and is plugging along just the same!  She misses Becky and Alan a lot, but Hayden always makes that better!

Speaking of Mr. Hayden, he's up to all kinds of awesome things!  He just gets smarter ans smarter as the weeks go by and he's such a joy!  He is loving the new school year because he is no longer the youngest.  Since he was with us last year and we have so many new kids, he's loving being able to tell the new children the rules and show them how things work.  It's so cute to watch him say "here I'll help you" or "look, you put your stuff over here".  He's speaking more spanish and sign language than ever so I am liking learning new signs along with him since he knows most of what I know already.  Hayden also got a little taller again and he's actually taller than one kid in the class this year! He's about 37 1/2 inches tall now so I'm so happy for him to not be the littlest anymore.  He's also got Matt's imagination and makes up such fun games.  I am so proud of my little guy and I can't believe he's almost 4 months away from being a 4 year-old!

Let's see, I suppose that's about all for now so I can make dinner really quick, but we love everyone and I will do my best to start posting every couple of days again!

We're still here!

Hey everyone,
I REALLY apologize for not catching up and posting everything from Becky and Alan's trip.  I have at least 50 pictures I want to post.  Unfortunately our computer is in a VERY fragile state right now.  It crashed several days ago and Matt spent hours fixing it.  We luckily saved all of our THOUSANDS of precious photos and all of our music.  We are currently waiting for out new external hard drive to arrive this week before we upload anything else or do anything to fix the computer further.  I will have so much to report, including our first day back to school tomorrow and I promise to catch up!  Hayden is wonderful as always and brilliant as ever and we can't wait to post everything.  So, much love to all and we hope to be on the mend by the end of this week and up and running again!

Having A Blast

i apologize for the lack of posts this week so far.  We are having an absolute blast with Alan and Becky and so far we have already done Tombstone, Apple Annie's and a ton of shopping and eating.  Tonight, Matt and I are taking them out to Desert Diamond Casino to play around a bit and the next week we have a ton of plans including Mt. Lemmon, Sea Life Aquarium, bowling, more shopping, a few movies and lots more cool places to eat.  Tomorrow is very special because they get to watch Hayden play T-Ball.  I am going to wait on the photo posts until after they leave, but trust me, I'm taking loads of cute photos and trying to remember cute details.  Much love to everyone!

Flashlights

It must be a "boy thing" but Hayden is really into playing with flashlights.  He has his own Buzz Lightyear flashlight and MeeMaw recently brought home 3 others from one of the shoe reps at work.  So far we have played flashlight tag, shadow puppets, flashlight faces, and done hours of "exploring" in the dark.  Not too long ago, he was afraid to go into a dark room, so I am glad he's getting over that and is actually willing to play in the dark now.  I'm not a huge fan of being in the dark so I hope he doesn't end up with my fear if he doesn't have to.  Buster looks at us all like we're crazy and usually follows Hayden around in the dark, probably to make sure he's ok.  It's cute actually, he doesn't want his baby to get lost in the dark   :)

Here's some pics of the fun last night before bed.  Of course they are blurry but you get the idea!

*Adorable Alert*

I went down to the NYS office yesterday to pick up our team's photos for this season of T-Ball.  Their photographers really aren't the best usually, but Hayden is photogenic so they are usually decent photos.  When I saw these, I cried.  They are sooooo adorable and I love them.  Look at the Daddy/Hayden photo and how Hayden has his little chest all puffed out...so so cute!

I passed Pike swim class!

Hayden is so excited that he passed his first level of swim class at the YMCA, the Pike level.  He was able to go under the water for 15 seconds, show elementary backstroke with support and he can do front crawl with belly support.  I am so proud of my little guy for getting in the water with his teachers and learning so much in just 4 weeks.  The next level is Eel, where they learn to swim with less support from the teacher and build confidence when under the water.

Since we have Becky and Alan coming the first 2 weeks of August, I didn't want to be tied down to going to swim class Tuesdays and Thursdays with them here, so he starts Eel in September.  He loved his teachers Sam and Victoria and he was sad to hear Sam is going back to school but as soon as I said he gets Victoria all to himself, that totally made up for it.  He LOVES her and tells her every time he sees her that she has pretty hair.  She requested that he stop by to visit during August so I think I'll have to make that happen!

Today, the focus of class was all about fun and all of the instructors put on a "pirate" play for the kids and also showed them how to help someone out of the pool by laying on their belly and pulling them to the edge.  They also dumped them out of a little boat to show them how to float if they ever fall off a real boat or off a raft in the pool.  Hayden DID NOT want to wear the life jacket around his neck, but good old Sam got him to do it and helped him float to the edge.  I got some cute photos of the little play and Hayden's reaction to "sword fighting" so up close.

We will post a lot this weekend since we may be VERY scarce the next 2 weeks since Alan is staying in the computer room and we want to focus on having fun with the family, not the internet.  I am so excited to have Matt home for the last 2 weeks of our school break.  We are going to have a ton of fun!

Imagination

Going back to my post a couple of weeks ago about Hayden definitely being a future actor, he also LOVES to dress up when he puts on little plays for us.  Here he is pretending to be a "Potty Pirate" and singing a song that went something like this...
"We're sitting on the potty with our pirate swords
I'm the potty pirate and I go potty with my sword
I'll let you use my sword if you need to go potty
We're going potty, oh yeah yeah yeah yeah"

He makes up at least 1 or 2 songs a day and most of the time they actually have a decent melody and he remembers EVERY word to sing later.

Here he is being Valentino Rossi in his costume Grandad and Grandma gave him last year...He went around the house finding his stuffed animals and action figures and "racing" them for the championship! Aren't you glad it still fits Grandad?  It's got lots of room for him to grow still too...not to mention it brings out those beautiful eyes!

The last one I have today is his Superman costume from 2 YEARS AGO.  Aside from the arms being a little tight, it actually still fits him.  I couldn't believe it when I put it on him and he could still wear it!  This time he flew to Buster and saved him from a bush full of cookies.

I love his imagination!

Playing in the Back Yard

Hayden has always loved his back yard.  He enjoys watering the flowers, sweeping, his version of "organizing" the rocks and of course he loves to play with the hose.  It maybe took him 3 days after he started walking to figure out how to turn the faucet on and he would drag the hose around "watering" things.  He asks every morning to go out back and water the plants and he is very careful not to over-water them...it's very cute.  We have been trying to beat the heat by playing in the hose and baby pool once a day to take some of the edge off of how hot it is.  Here's some photos of Matt and Hayden splashing around today...yes, Mommy got soaked 2 seconds after I set the camera down!

All Ready For School!

With Becky and Alan due to arrive next week for a 2 week visit (the last 2 weeks of our summer break) I decided to get Hayden mostly ready with supplies for our return to school so it won't be on my list with company here.  Hayden loves going to "Big Kid School" in an elementary school because all of the kids have backpacks and folders for their stuff.  He thinks they are just the coolest and he loves wearing his in every day and putting his little drawings and such in his folder.  I decided to go with our usual tradition of getting a new lunch box each year and I also figured a new backpack was in order as well.  I took Hayden shopping and he was absolutely thrilled to see the Batman backpacks hanging there.  When he realized there was a matching lunch box, he was so happy to get the set.  Of course, the fact that both of them have capes on them is a huge bonus!

I also let him choose a folder for his little papers and he thought the robots on the Star Wars one were awesome, so he chose that.  I love letting him make his own choices and he is so happy with his decision.  I have hidden them in the closet until we go back to school so he will be able to rediscover them the day before we go back.

Hayden is so excited to be going back to school soon and keeps asking me who from last year is coming back and what the new kids names are.  I am going in to help set up the classroom Monday and Hayden gets to come, so he will love seeing all of the toys he hasn't played with all Summer.  I definitely think it is great to only go to Preschool 9 months of the year and have the summer off.  This has been such a blessing and I am so glad I am able to do it.

Here's some photos of his supplies and when I buy his school clothes, Ill post those too!

Thank You Grandma and Grandad!

We walked to the mail box today and found a surprise inside...a special package addressed just to Mr. Hayden Duffin.  He was so excited to read his name on it and he couldn't wait to get in the house to cut it open.  He immediately dumped the contents all on the floor and was so happy to see the awesome Preschool books he received.  Mommy was of course happy to see some cute little clothes that are the perfect size for him to wear to school in a few weeks!

We immediately got the crayons, pens, markers etc out and started working in his books.  He did about 10 pages this evening and he was so proud of everything he did.  His control with his pencil when he writes is amazing at his age and I really enjoy watching him concentrate.  MeeMaw is on her way home to read her Grantham Journal and to do some more pages in the book with Hayden too!

Thanks soooo much to Hayden's awesome Grandad and Grandma...he just adores those packages and gets the biggest kick out of the fact that he has something cool from so far away.  His clothes will forever be his "Grandad and Grandma from England" clothes when he wears them to school  :)

Thanks again and we love you both so very much!

Rain!

Well, it finally happened...RAIN and lots of it on Saturday evening!  It has been a brutal few weeks waiting for some sort of storm to hit us and we got a great one on Saturday.  Down the street at our friends' house, there was a trampoline in the road, that's how hard the winds were blowing.  The house got completely pummeled with the storm for over an hour and we all loved it.  We sat by the window, playing games and watching the storm together and when the lightening passed far enough away, sat in front of the house to watch the tail-end of it all.  Hayden got to get a little wet in the puddles, so he was thrilled about that.

Sunday morning, Matt, Jane and Hayden let me sleep in and they went to the park together.  They came back with a muddy 3 year-old, a muddy Buster, and lots of cute pictures of their adventure (running through puddles of mud).

Cuteness from today

I realized today that I haven't posted many pictures of this season's Tball games.  It has been so hot at the games that pulling out my camera is usually not something I even remember to do.  Today, Matt brought the camera and got some really cute photos of Hayden's game.  Hayden has made absolute leaps and bounds at tball in the past month or so.  He can properly catch the ball in his glove now, and can throw really far.  He's also making great contact with the ball when he bats and he is still the tiniest one out there and tons of fun to watch.  Here's some of the photos of the fun in the sun!