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.



Randomness from July

I realized that I had a lot of pictures from July that weren't anything specific necessarily, so I've just lumped them all together for your viewing enjoyment.

A pretty new dress from Meemaw and Papaw Cantrell (and new
sandals that matched perfectly, found on sale at Payless for $3!!)



His hair never knows if it wants to stick up or lay down.  : )



 Our church had it's VBS in July, and they did a "Gold Rush" cowboy/western theme.  All of the scenery was handpainted by Sherry Mims (and helpers) and it all turned out superbly cute!



Robert let them use his saddle as part of the scenery, and it was also
the prop for the individual photos you'll see later.



Each night they did a segment of the skit, and the kids found it hilariously funny.  Ok, so did the adults.

Part of my job was to go around to each activity and take pictures of the kids in action.  Then the next night we ran a slide show for them to watch as they were waiting for things to start.  Burl tagged along in the stroller while I did my thing.

Halie and her friend Olivia

Robert was able to come one evening and he took care of Burl for me while I took pictures.  Here he was having fun with Daddy's hat.

Getting ready for craft time!

A lady in our church is a photographer and she brought her equipment and set up a little studio area and took a picture of each child sitting on Robert's saddle.  They put them in cute little frames that matched the theme, and on the last night of VBS they gave them out to each child.  Cute idea!

I hadn't even thought about Burl getting his picture done, or I would have dressed him more appropriately.  But someone was watching him for me while I ran the power point and they slipped him in for a picture.  He wasn't too thrilled with it.  : )  I still think it's an adorable picture.  You did a great job Wendy!

Halie had a BLAST and I'm sure she'll be excited for VBS again next year!

On another note, we love to play with Burl's hair during bath time.  He loves the attention and all the laughs he gets because of it.  : )

One Sunday morning none of us were feeling well and we all stayed home from church.  Robert watched the kids for me while I went back to bed for some extra healing sleep.

This is what happens when Daddy's given free reign while Mommy sleeps.  : )

The two of them had a good time being silly and playing dress up.  Apparantly Robert was lookin' quite silly too, but mysteriously there are no pictures to prove it.  Imagine that.  : )

So there ya go!  Now that pretty much fills in the gaps of July.  I still need to do a post about our trip to the Columbus Zoo and then July will be finished up.