December Continued

Early in December, Robert's brother Brian came for a visit. It was so great to see him. Halie had never met him and I hadn't seen him in about 5 1/2 years so it was great to have him here for a few hours. Halie took to him right away and just loved him immensely.


The Cantrell clan, Brian, Robert, Halie, Gina, and Bob

Little brother isn't so little anymore. : )

Story time at the library hosted a Christmas party so we took some cookies to share and Halie wore her Santa hat and Christmas shirt.

Miss Mary had all the stuff for each of them to make a jingle bell necklace.

She also gave everyone a reindeer headband. Here she is with her friend Shooter. His dad is a cowboy also and sometimes works as a dayworker with Robert here on the ranch.

My friend Kristi and her little man Cooper. They live about 10 miles down the road from us so we are relatively close neighbors for these parts.

Snack time! Everyone brought cookies to share.

Miss Mary runs the library and also does story time. She does a great job and Halie loves her.

Our neighbor, Luis, has a lot to do with the different crops and vegetables that they grow here on the ranch and recently it was corn harvesting time. He brought us a few bushels of it and man is it ever the best corn I've ever tasted in my life! I cut some of it off the cob and it was so sweet and tender we were eating it raw with no seasonings. Here's Halie helping me get it cleaned and ready for blanching and freezing.

Here's our sweet girl on the 3rd Sunday of December. Great Grandma Staffa had given her this dress last year, but it was too big so we just stored it away for this year. She looked so adorable and I got so caught up in taking pictures I made us late for church. The only reason we were only a few minutes late is that my battery died, lol! Otherwise we might have never made it.

This is one of my favorites of the morning! I just love it! I think this one was actually after church and after my battery had charged back up. You can see her curls have relaxed and softened up.

Another favorite!

Online shopping was definitely a big lifesaver this year. Living as far out as we do makes it difficult to get Christmas shopping done. Halie discovered one of the shipped boxes full of packing peanuts and started playing with them. I told her it looked like snow and she began to throw them up in the air and yell, "look it's snowing!" She had the best time with them while I was busy wrapping presents.

My friend Naomi, from North Carolina, made this cute little dress for Halie. I think it's just adorable.

I took Halie to Bass Pro to see Santa, hoping to get her picture done. We never did do one last year so I wanted to be sure to get it done this year. She doesn't really know much about him other than that he's somehow associated with Christmas. But she was so excited to go see him and I told her to go to sleep in the car and take a nap and when she woke up we'd see Santa. She was very excited. But..........when we got there she wasn't so excited. She was very timid and shy and wouldn't sit on his lap for anything. She shook his hand and told him Merry Christmas, but wouldn't go near him without me. I can't really blame her too much, he wasn't very friendly. So I ended up holding her and we just took the free photo just to say we'd done it. Maybe next year.

: )

After the picture was done she got a free candy cane and then she was happy and let me take whatever pictures I wanted. Little stinker!

She absolutely LOVES the big fish tank there at Bass Pro. She would stay there for as long as you let her. Other kids are done and moving on after a minute or two, but she is just fascinated by them!

Stay tuned for more to come from December.