Oh it's your Happy Birthday Baby!

I love this video. for many reasons... ONE: Hailey school is hands down THE BEST. Every Friday they do a "Celebrate (insert name of her school)" They sing Happy Birthday to all the students having birthdays that week and recognize students that have done good things during the week. Each class takes turns putting on a little skit throughout the year. They sing their school song, the Texas song, do the pledge and have a moment of silence. Yea, it's an incredible school. TWO: I love the googlie eyes of her buddy sitting next to her. He's one of the boys that got in trouble for saying inappropriate things to her. He was in tears after getting in trouble and told his teacher he was just trying to tell Hailey she was pretty. THREE: I love how Hailey "plays it cool" She is like her father when it comes to stuff like that. She acts like it's no big deal.. but on the inside, she is excited as can be! (Me and Livy on the other hand... you know when we're excited!!) And FOUR: It's a super cute birthday song!!

Man-O-Man, I can't believe my Hailey girl is 7. This little girl makes me look good! She is sweet, obedient and just an all around amazing girl. She is a peace maker and an angel. She never says unkind things about anyone and is honestly one of a kind. Her teacher says she wishes she had a class full of Hailey's. She is beautiful inside and out. I hope all these characteristics stay with her forever! I thank my Heavenly Father that I was the lucky one he chose to take this little girl and call her mine! I am grateful he trusted me enough to teach this precious child all that she needs to learn to make it through this life. I love her with all my heart!! Happy 7 Hailey!!

Ahoy!

We had Hailey's birthday party this weekend and it was a blast! I love throwing parties. I finally talked he into letting me throw a pirate party... and she was glad I did!
We played X marks the spot on the treasure map... (This was an old poster my dad had made for a Primary Sharing time I did before Hailey was even born!)

We had sword fights with bread sticks!

Painted and decorated treasure boxes...

Had a treasure hunt and found lots of treasures! (Not sure why the picture flipped)

And had cupcakes and ice cream...

I can't wait until Livy's birthday in April!!!

Thanksgiving Break...

Hailey had the entire week of Thanksgiving off from school... we took a road trip to AZ and NM. This is how Kenney feels about driving... And this is how Liv feels... snacks and movies 12 hours straight? Who wouldn't love it?!!
Both my brother's families were able to come and it was so good to see everyone! And we missed our sister Heather!

This year for my parent's Christmas gift to us they took us for a ride on The Polar Express. It was so much fun. Anyone in AZ... I highly recommend it!!

With grandma and grandpa...

They had fun activities for the kids to do while waiting for the train!

Sitting on Mrs. Claus lap...

Holding their tickets!!

On the train we rode thru a magic tunnel that got us all the way to the North Pole! After the train ride Hailey said to Kenney, "Dad, you can really tell me... did we really go to the North Pole or was that just pretend. You can tell me... I won't tell anyone!" I love the innocence of children. I cherish every moment of it while I can.

We sang songs!

All Aboard!

We even got a visit from the man himself! He gave all the kids bells.

We had so much fun doing that. Thanks again mom and dad!

The rest of that week was a blur... Livy got SO sick. I spent my time cleaning and doing laundry... poor girl. (not me, her!!)

After we left AZ we went thru Albuquerque on the way home and got to see Kenney's parents. I always love to see them.

They did a little birthday celebration for Hailey!!

We played Wii and it was so fun watching Ray and Dorothy do the boxing game!! I really wanted to put the video's on here... but it was taking way too long. You will just have to trust me when I say... they are so great!We got home on Sunday night and the rest of that next week is a blur too... the rest of the family got hit with that nasty bug. I am telling you I have not been sick like that in forever. It was bad... and we were all down for the majority of the week. It was so good to see our families. I adore them so much and wish they all lived closer. It is always so tough to say good bye... but always so good to see them. We love you all!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Alright, alright. It is way too early to have all our Christmas decor out and about already, I agree... but I had to get it done this year. We will have a very eventful and busy holiday season this year. Some good, some bad and some ugly! I wanted everything in order before Thanksgiving because shortly after I will be having BOTH my flippin knees operated on. Apparently I have fantastic knees and my doctor needs to redo the bad job on both my ACL's that was done a long time ago. I have been in so much pain with them and found a really good doctor who will help me stay "in the game" if you will. He is a sports medicine ortho who will help me with a speedy recovery. I am having the left knee (that ACL is really bad and ready to blow at any given moment.) done at the very beginning of December and the right one done at the beginning of January. (If all goes as planned) Blasted knees this will be surgery 6 and 7 on them and it BETTER be the last.

NOW onto better things.... So YES it is mid November and we had a blast decorating!!

A view from the kitchen.

The stockings are hung. And just so you know... I don't like the word hung. But I said it anyways. AND I'm super excited to get our family pictures done this week! The ones we have are a few years old...

And while we're at it... I'll take you on a little tour of the rest of the place. I have had so much fun decorating and painting. (Kenney won't let me say "we" because he doesn't think it was fun at all.) 9 gallons of paint... too many cans of spray paint to count and lots of curtains sewn.

Here's our (Blurry) Dining room...

Playroom...

Sorry for the blurry picture again...I am awesome at taking blurry pictures. Also never mind the black blob in the corner... it was a spider from Halloween!

One of my favorites... the frames were old frames from my grandma's house. I painted them black and hung them from a curtain rod. I cannot for the life of me figure out what pictures to put in them though. I will leave a few of them empty...

When we lived in Virginia we got an email from our church email list asking if anyone was interested in some free bedroom furniture and we jumped on it. All we had prior to this was a $20 Walmart 4 drawer dresser... the kind you nail the cardboard on the back of! I told Kenney I didn't care what it looked like. It was drawers to put clothes in and most importantly... it was free. Last weekend was spent sanding and spray painting and I'm very happy with it!

I am still trying to figure out what to put on the walls in place of the square thingy's the lamps need to be replaced and the stuff on the nightstands and more pillows and blah blah blah... it's all just a work in progress! Kenney just informed me that he hates the bed skirt. I think I like it. With a few more pillows to bring it all together and it'll be perfect. Plus his opinion doesn't count anyways, right?

Kitchen...

The girls room...

Olivia is always doing something fun at school! They had a Thanksgiving feast and were supposed to dress up! Hailey made this little dress in kindergarten and it worked great! The morning of the party Liv came to me and said in all seriousness... "Mom, I have a problem." I ask what her problem is and she proceeded to tell me they are having potatoes at school and she doesn't want to have any because there won't be any ranch at school and she doesn't like potatoes unless there is ranch on them!! We packed a little container of ranch for her.

Hailey won an award at school... she was recognized at an assembly! What a good little student she is! I love that toothless grill!!

Hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Halloween!!

Here's our Halloween recap...

Hailey carving her pumpkin. She loved scooping out all the guts! So did Liv... for about 2 seconds and then she was tired of it!!
Hailey's is in front! She did most of it all by herself!! Her little hand got tired while cutting the mouth so dad helped her finish.

My two beautiful queens.

This is at our neighbors house. They had the best decorations out!!

Gotta love the eternal attempt for a good group picture!!

With daddy...

Hailey's teacher who lives in the neighborhood across the street had a Halloween party. They had all kinds of games a bounce house and lots of food.

Olivia couldn't get enough of the bounce house!

Hailey's teacher and the girls. (Never mind the red eye... I'm too lazy to fix it right now!)

We had a fantastic Halloween this year!