ear piercing outing

We have been talking about taking the girls to have their ears pierced for SEVERAL months. We have been wrestling with, is it the right time? should we wait til they can ask for it? will leslee not pass out? etc..

we finally bit the bullet and went for it.

we planned a day and held each other accountable.

albo being a big girl, watching and observing the ladies.

we were fortunate enough that there were two associates working and we could get both ears done at once! kill two birds with one stone :)

even still their little hearts were just broken..

i have to admit i shed a few with them. i am such a sucker :(

ta~da! the finished product! don't they look great!

they cried about 3 or 4 minutes and then totally forgot about it.

reagan's cry just broke my heart. she looked at you with puppy dog eyes like why o why are you doing this to me?

it was the saddest thing ever :(

she started crying as soon as she sat down and shannon held her.

she is no dummy! she knew exactly what was coming! the anticipation was the hardest part!

shew.....

we promised them we would take them for ice cream after the "experience". so off to baskin robbins we went.

this is adorable, them leaning over to pick what flavor they wanted.

we went with chocolate chip!

reagan being such a sweet girl and offering her mommy a bite of her yummy ice cream..

albo sharing with her mama! love both our girls so very much!

im so proud of them for enduring and of us for following through!

deep fried turkey

This was back from Thanksgiving. I forget to tell you guys we got a turkey deep fryer this year. We've had them in the past from our friends house. They are sooo yummy and take a quarter of the time to make. Bryan did so good. He followed the directions thoroughly and made several phone calls to our friend David. It was so delicious!

Most of all we were just trying to remember our first deep fried turkey!

albo and fiona supervising daddy cooking our turkey

in the yard...

hallmark

Every since we had aubree, we have made going to Hallmark and getting her a Christmas ornament our tradition. She got to be more involved in the process this year. I wanted her to pick the "letter's to santa" ornament but she was stuck on the "barbie walking the doggie"

Since it's her tradition we went with the one she liked :)

we came home got into our jammies, unwrapped the box, and looked and looked for the perfect spot.....

this is where Aubree thought was the perfect place :)

santa

we went over to the mall and bryan and albo sat on the big santa chair and we snatched a quick picture :) i told her daddy and sissy boy were her santa ;)

lets wrap some presents :)

I started Christmas shopping a few months ago (like to get it over with asap). I have spent all of my evenings after albo lays down wrapping gifts. I decided to do it while she was awake last night and what I would anticipate would happen, did. She wanted to be all up in what mama was doing and help. I gave her a piece of wrapping paper, a bow, some tape, and a name tag. She created a masterpiece. It was priceless to watch. She took some of her toys and a cookie and wrapped a present. She did it all by herself, even scribbled a name on the gift tag!

thanksgiving dinner with my family

We had Thanksgiving with my family this weekend. My mom, stepdad, and maw came down for a visit. We started cooking Friday night and had a BIG dinner Saturday. It was delicious. My maw made us one of her homemade chocolate pies, it was soo delicious!

Albo and me at the dinner table throwing down on some turkey.

Everyone agreed, this was the best turkey i've made yet!

mom and gerald going around the buffet. mom killed me for this one.

we didn't let her get ready after her shower and she didn't get to fix her hair, sorry mom.

albo having dessert! carrot cake! she loved it, especially the icing!

albo and poppy waiting on the dinner to be ready. aubree loves her some poppy!

my pretty dinner table :)

i picked this carrot cake up at wal~mart last minute. it's my moms favorite dessert. it was so yummy! and pretty too!

daddy carving the turkey! it practically didn't need to be carved it was so moist it just fell apart.

but it's tradition so we waited for daddy to come home to slice it!

mama and baby love :)

the sweetest lady in the world, my maw!

i love her dearly and i'm sooo glad she got to come down and visit with us. albo is calling her maw now too, so sweet.

Awwww!

We enjoyed our first of two Thanksgiving dinner's. We wish everyone back home could be together on such a special holiday :( even though we can't we still think about every one of you!

day of bliss

i had the most amazing day off saturday! i'd been saving my mileage money i get from driving to other walmart's to fill in for this day!

my and one of my best friends went to the Rain Tree Day Spa. it was nothing short of amazing! we got pampered to the MAX!!

we're gonna start saving and go again in a few months!

here we are in our fluffy robes in the tranquility room.

katie enjoyed it so much she fell asleep :)

thanks to my mom~in~law for keeping albo a few hours on her day off so i could have a good day.

when i picked aubree up i felt kinda guilty for having such an amazing time, so i took her out to town.

we went over to the mall and she got an m~n~m cookie and an icee!

everyone walking by had to acknowledge how beautiful she is.

the mall has this big play center set up in the middle of the mall. great for daddy's to let the kiddies play while mommy's shop ;)

but daddy was off with our friend david having a good time so me and albo played it up!

i caught this cute little grin while she was crawling through the tunnel.

after she was finished playing we went and got her a new purse!

she and i both fell in love with it. it's in the shape of an owl.

she has carried it all day long and tells me she needs money to put down inside of it :)

loving my life and aubree's mommy and bryan's wife!

my girls + cheesecake = happiness

so a couple of my favorite girls went out on the town tonight to have some girl time! i enjoyed dinner with my girls. we didn't have to worry about sippy cups and making sure everyone else was takin care of. it was NICE!! we went to the cheesecake factory. shannon and i had never been before. beautiful atmosphere, delicious food, and AMAZING cheesecake.

then we went to the pottery barn kids private shopping event to do some christmas shopping for our girls.

aubree is going to have a great christmas! i'm so excited for her!!

anyway....

girls night out again very soon please katie and shannon!

our first trick~r~treat

halloween at the Hall's was nothing short of a success!

we had a few of our close friends over for a little kiddie halloween party!

we trick or treated, made caramel apples and spiced cider, had some pizza, face painting, and a lot of playing!!

its going to be a "family" tradition for us from now on!

here is part of the gang in our make shift hay ride, i'll explain later.

anyway, aubree wanted nothing to do with it! she said NO!!

she rode in the stroller beside of us and katie was nice enough to push her around.

lovebug aka "jana". she is eating a kit kat from her halloween candy after she had a pumpkin painted on her face.

the bestie being such a good sport and letting MyKayla paint a bat on her face. she so didnt want to do this but we made her!

lovebug, ask her what she was for halloween and she says a Meow!

so sweet.

albo riding in the stroller with her don't look at me, don't talk to me,

and don't you dare touch my candy face!

i got a spider painted on my face. mckayla did such a good job!

and she is so good with the kiddies.

she's a keeper and i think we'll have her around for a while ;)

our friend doug and sweet baby olivia. not sure where katie was for the picture, but we have been friends for almost 7 years and i love her dearly!!

ok here we go. our subdivision is fairly new where the houses are few and far between. not ideal for taking toddlers trick or treating. so i thought! why not hook up the trailer to the riding mower. better yet why not make it festive! so we threw in some hay, tied a cornstalk to the back, stood up a scarecrow, and added some pumpkins!!

it turned out super cute and the kids loved it, well everyone except for aubree. maybe she'll come around next year.

all the lil trick or treaters.

aubree, reagan, jana, alex, and baby olivia...

trick or treat!!!!