First 1/2 of December

December started out with the making of the kids Advent calendar.  This year I made it out of toilet paper tubes wrapped like little gifts with treats inside.  If you'd like to see more details on how it was made you can see that here.

The cammo hat was starting to get too small for Burl so I had to snap some shots with him wearing it.

They reminded me so much of the ones I took of Halie and Robert wearing the same hats (she was 8 months old in these pictures).

Halie and I made Christmas cookies for a cookie exchange and some extra to share with our neighbors (and some for us of course).

Santa's Favorite Cookies - yum yum!

She loves to help out in the kitchen.

An incident that made me laugh - I had put together this little centerpiece for our coffee table.

But apparantly Halie thought it needed some revising because later I came in and it looked like this.

She had added her Nativity set to it, lol!

We made reindeer pancakes one morning for breakfast.  I found the idea on a blog and thought it was too cute not to try.

A cute sweater dress I found at Goodwill.  (I love it, she hates it.)

More Christmas goodies to share, Cookie Dough Truffles this time.

And homemade candy.

She LOVED finding a present on the little tree everyday and seeing what was inside.  That's the first place she went as soon as she got up each day.

Our tree all decked out in vintage ornaments and bubble lights.  I can remember my Granny having bubble lights on her tree and being so fascinated with them as kid.  I really enjoyed them this year.

Halie had a small part in the church Christmas play.

And did pretty well singing songs with the other kids.

Robert also had a part in the play as "The Gentle Man."  He did really well, though he doesn't wish to ever do it again.  : )

Santa's little helper.  He melts my heart just to look at him!

The kids have two Christmas recordable books, one from each set of grandparents and they really enjoyed listening to them.

Halie still loves to dress up as Pinkalicious, though these days she's catching on to this whole "princess" thing more and more, and it's more about being a princess than it is about being Pinkalicious. 

She loves to sing, and still loves being silly and crazy.

Okay, so now we're caught up to right before Christmas. 

Next chapter coming soon.

Catching up from November

Whew!  Long time no blog.  I have some serious catching up to do!

We'll start with November.

I got this cute outfit for Halie at a consignment store, but she did NOT want me taking her picture in it and would NOT smile for anything.

Lazy ol' Gretchen snuggled herself up in the blanket and caught some zzz's.

Halie and I made some cookies to contribute to a bake sale.

We took a few pictures of the kiddos one Sunday before church when, by pure coincidence, we were all dressed in similar colors.



Such a handsome little cutie!




Such a typical expression for him at this age...."Oh!"



I celebrated my 31st birthday.  Robert got me some beautiful flowers and a yummy ice cream cake.

We drove down to Lebanon, OH and celebrated Thanksgiving with some of my extended family.



Aunt Sheryll, Mandi, Me, and Uncle David




Uncle Bob (whom I hadn't seen since I was a little kid) and his girlfriend Charlotte




Aunt Kay and Paul

Halie had a blast playing with all her cousins.



Jaxon




The kid's table.



Robert keeping watch over the two little ones, Burl and Lucas.

This was Halie's "thankfulness turkey."  I drew it out for her and she did about 98% of the cutting out all by herself!  About 10 days before Thanksgiving we put the body up and one feather, and then each day she told me another thing she was thankful for and we added on a new feather.

She was quite proud of it!

I enjoyed some relaxing "me" time in the crisp, cool, Fall weather on the swing while the kids were napping.

Burl learned to crawl up the stairs all by himself.

He was quite pleased with himself.

Late in November he took his first steps!

We had a fun afternoon of playing in the leaves in the backyard.

Can you spot Robert?  : )

Halie had so much fun jumping off her picnic table into the big pile.

We had our first snowfall.



My beautiful little snow bunny.



Burl wasn't too impressed with the snow.

 

And last, but not least, Robert's sister Stacy had their 4th little girl - Karalee.

That pretty well sums up the month of November and pretty soon I'll start getting up the December happenings.