Happy New Year!

Wow! What a year! Its hard to believe that 2008 is over. As I sit here and contemplate the events of the past 12 months I can hardly wrap my head around the wonderful changes to our lives.

The year was really divided into two parts for us, before Hayden and after Hayden. The before Hayden part of 2008 was full of busy preparations! We didn't have long before Baby Hayden was going to make his debut into the West household. We had new jobs to start, the baby room to paint, furniture to put together and dog shows to attend!

In January Ray started his new career at Health Markets. It was a great opportunity for him professionally AND only about 15 minutes from the house - how great is that? He can still make it home for lunch to play with the dogs! We also started work on Hayden's room, we opted for an underwater theme and I have to say the room turned out beyond expectation.

In February and March we competed in our final dog shows before Hayden's birth. (By we, I mean Ray ran both pups, because I was roughly the size of a house and was not going to run ANYWHERE!)

In February, our friends Jenn and Peter had a wonderful get together with all of our dog show friends to celebrate the baby, it was so great to see all of our friends outside of a dog show (its always neat to see everyone cleaned up and in 'civilian' clothes!) Great food and great friends!

In March, my dear friend Pam threw us an amazing surprise shower. She did a wonderful job keeping things secret, including having The Moms; Muriel and Karen, both fly in and surprise me - and boy was I surprised! Pam had an entire underwater theme to go with the new baby room. It was so wonderful to see everyone and having the Moms here made it even more special - something I will never forget.

Then April.... the month we were all waiting for! On April 24th we welcomed our 'little' boy Hayden Lee West into the world. He came bouncing into our lives a little before 2p.m. - weighing in at 8# 12 ounces and 22" long! A big healthy boy.

We were lucky enough to have both Mom's here for the two weeks following Hayden's birth - I don't know how we would have done it without them, I threatened to never let them leave.... The only reason I did allow them to both go home though was that Hayden's Great Grandma Dorothy was coming in for the 2nd shift and stayed with us for 2 weeks. I don't know what I would have done without all that help! We are so lucky to have family who could come out and stay for an extended time.

Hayden's first few months flew by with lots of visitors, in addition to the mom's and great grandma, we had Great Grandma Rita, Great Papa Tom and cousin G all make visits. Hayden is one very lucky boy!

My original leave was for 12 weeks off, but as we approached July, I decided I just couldn't leave my precious little boy at daycare yet, so we decided to extend my leave an additional 3 months. I am unbelievably lucky to have a great boss who let me take the extra time off.

Hayden has grown by leaps and bounds over the summer and fall - seeming to develop new skills every day! From his first time sitting up, starting to crawl, pulling himself up on everything, cruising around, and his first teeth. It is hard to believe how fast they change!

Hayden's first Thanksgiving and first Christmas have been very memorable! We were lucky enough to have family here for both holidays. Christmas was fun, Hayden was much more into the gifts than I would have expected. He loved all of his new toys (of course that did include the boxes and wrapping paper!)

As we roll into 2009, we are so thankful for the loving family and friends who have in one way or another been part of this amazing year with us. We wish everyone a Happy New Year!!

With Love,

Shannon, Ray, Hayden and the four legged kids - Tawnie, Remi, Nemo and Taboo

Do You Ear What I Ear?

Well, the adventures of new parenting continued last week. When I picked Hayden up from daycare on Thursday he just didn't look quite rite... and sure enough by late night he was running a fever - which resulted in my first panicked call to the pediatrician after hours. After the doctor calmed me down we got Hayden taken care of for the night and we all managed a fitful nights sleep. Needless to say, Hayden and I stayed home and headed over to the pediatrician on Friday. We ended up with Hayden's first ear infection. Luckily by Saturday morning Hayden was almost back to normal!! YEA! Crisis averted!


Earlier last week, we had our first 'cold' front here in Texas that required some bundling up in the morning when Hayden was headed to day care... Couldn't resist taking the picture - though I don't think Hayden was as amused as I was!

Then on Sunday with Hayden feeling much better, we ventured out to buy our Christmas tree. Hayden had a great time! He thought the trees were just way too fun!

It was then time to bring the tree home and start decorating!! Hayden had a great time getting into the spirit of the holiday (ok, by getting into the spirit of the holiday, I really mean he had to put up with mom and dad's crazy antics!) The poor kid is doomed!

Turkey Day!

Well, Thanksgiving vacation is officially over... Though I think I'm still full from Thursday!



We had a great time here. Grammy and Grandpa Dude made the trek to Texas to spend the week with us. We had a great visit though, it wasn't quite the same since Grandma Karen wasn't able to attend this year. But we did the best we could to fill in during her absence. There was plenty of wine and beer to go around! Santa made a special early visit and had something for Karen :-) More on Santa's visit later!

Hayden has made some more big strides over the last couple of weeks. We are now working on teeth 2 and 3, and I think these two are proving more painful than 1 was, but we are surviving! Hayden is now not only crawling all over the place, he's also learned that pulling up on any and everything is way cool... In fact, we even had our first 'incident' at school, he pulled up on a crib, fell and bumped his head - poor thing had a little bruise on his forehead, I'm sure the first of many to come!

He's also learning that stairs are WAY cool, and trying to figure out how to get up them... I fear the fun is only just beginning!


Thanksgiving day was a wonderful combination of great food, wonderful family, great friends, and FOOTBALL! Pam was an absolute life saver and split the cooking with me again this year (I don't know what I would do without her!) She is an amazing cook and an amazing friend! And thankfully, Grammy was here to pick up my slack this year and helped get everything whipped into shape - Hayden was an unusually fussy boy with his new teeth and kept me way too busy! Then after the wonderful feast, Ray, Mikey and Dean all stepped up and did the dishes! How awesome are they?


On Friday we had some very special visitors, Santa and his little elf buddy.

Hayden wasn't too sure what to make of them, but he sure liked playing with Santa's beard and the Elf's hat. That was the best fun ever!!

PLUS Santa brought an early Christmas present from Grammy and Grandpa Dude... Words can't exactly describe the gift, so I'll just have to let the picture speak for it:

Its Bernie a ginormous Bernese Mountain Dog. Hayden LOVES him! Finally a dog he can crawl on and pull its hair!

Hayden also got to play with Grandpa Dude's new hat - how cool??

(hey wait - is that Mikey doing a Superman pose??)

We wrapped up a great week with a Sunday lunch with Great Grandma Rita.

We had to cut Grammy off from the wine! hahaha (She's going to kill me for posting this picture!)