Newest Professional Pictures of the Girls

My daycare provider has a company come to the daycare every year in January and take professional photos of the girls. I love it because I get yearly photos of the girls that I can hang on the wall and share with family and friends. It also saves me the hassle of going to a studio to get good pics of the girls. So, here are the latest pictures. I love Lauren's expression in the photo with both of the girls. It looks like she is saying, "Why are you touching me?".

My Husband is Awesome!

Our seven year anniversary was yesterday. Dennis surprised me at work two days early with a beautiful bouquet from a place called Edible Arrangements. This business just opened up in town over the summer and I kept commenting on how cool it was because you can eat your arrangement. He had it delivered to my school and it looked like a bouquet of red roses but it is actually an arrangement of chocolate covered strawberries. He also sent a balloon and teddy bear along with the arrangement. I loved showing off my special delivery and I'm enjoying the strawberries even more! It was a wonderful start to our anniversary weekend.

Sister for Sale!

I had to share a comment that Haley made tonight. It was one of those comments that I will remember forever. Lauren is hitting the terrible twos already so for the past two nights we've had to endure some screaming fits that could shatter eardrums. Tonight Haley said, "Mommy, I have to tell you something. I don't want a baby sister anymore because she throws fits. I think I want a baby brother." I laughed and told her that if she had a baby brother he'd throw fits too! She didn't like that answer. Gotta love the thinking of a three year old.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TREVOR MICAH!

I love this picture of Trevor Micah

A good picture of Micah with his tattoo like Uncle Bub's

Trevor, you are always in our hearts and in our thoughts! Not a day goes by that we don't miss you. I wish that we could be celebrating your birthday with you. We love you very much.

More Christmas Pictures

It's hard to believe another Christmas has already come and gone. Haley keeps saying that Christmas will be here again in another four or five days. We had a wonderful day together. The girls just enjoyed spending time with mom, dad, Grandma Lynne, Uncle Jerry, Eric, Aunt Pat, and Aunt Bert. They also got to visit with purple grandma and papa on Christmas Eve. They got lots of new toys for Christmas so they have been very busy playing with their toys. It's nice to have something to keep them preoccupied for a little bit.

The weekend before Christmas, we went to a shopping center in town and made an unplanned visit to see Santa since the line wasn't very long. Lauren was not a happy camper but Haley jumped right up on Santa's lap. It's amazing the difference a year makes since Haley was afraid of Santa last year. It's just so much fun to see how the girls respond to all the different Christmas customs. It's also a wonderful time of year to reflect on our many blessings. We are so thankful for so many things. God is great!

An AWESOME version of The 12 Days of Christmas!

My friend Tracy sent this to me in an e mail and I thought it was so AWESOME that I had to put it on the blog, enjoy! Thanks for sending this one my way Tracy : )

Christmas Joy

Putting ornaments on the tree

Christmas Rocks!

Dennis took a week's vacation the week after Thanksgiving and took advantage of that time to put the Christmas lights on the house, put out our yard decorations, put up our two trees, and decorate the inside of the house. Every day when I would come home from work, I couldn't wait to get home to see what Dennis had put up that day. The true joy was watching the girls' faces light up as the house looked more festive!
The most exciting moment for everyone was putting the ornaments onto the family tree. We have a million ornaments! I have a ton of ornaments from my parents because it was a tradition to get an ornament each year for each of us Hall kids so that we would have ornaments for our Christmas trees when we started families of our own. I love seeing the ornaments from my childhood every year. Dennis also has ornaments from his childhood but not as many. Mine have a tendency to dominate the tree because I also have received countless ornaments every year from students and friends. We're also carrying on the tradition of buying ornaments every year for the girls so we just keep adding to the number every year. The girls have also started receiving ornaments from grandparents and close family friends. Needless to say it's hard to find a spot for every ornament.
The second Christmas tree in our home is Dennis's Star Trek and Pepsico ornaments tree. Dennis started collecting the annual Star Trek ornaments about two years after they started the series. He's very proud of his tree but Haley insists that it is her tree and she has decided that daddy's tree will hold her handmade ornaments from daycare.
The final touch for Christmas decorations was the four nativity sets. Dennis always saves these for me to put out. This year was the first year for Haley to help me put up the nativity sets. I have a big nativity set, a Precious Moments nativity set, a miniature glass nativity set, and a miniature Mexican nativity set. Haley helped me put up all four sets while asking me many questions about who everyone was, what was baby Jesus doing, and why didn't baby Jesus have a birthday cake since it was his birthday? I loved spending that quality time with Haley carrying on a Christmas tradition that I know that she will always cherish. We'll include Lauren in the tradition in two more years.