Halle is 7 years old today!!

Some of my favorite things about Halle:

* She will try anything and most of the time she is good at it. If it has anything to do with her hands and creativity, she will try until she can master it.

* She loves to draw and color-I think she gets that from her parents. Her dad is an artist and I love to color. She won 1st place last year for her art.

* She has found the joy of music. She loves music. She's a great singer, she's learning quickly on the piano, she loves to dance around-basically anything with music-Halle loves.

* She is such a good sister to Lizzie. She sets a good example for her. She always has her back. She sticks up for her sister when needed and helps her out when she struggles.

* She likes to spend time with me. She loves to snuggle and "just chill" with me.

* She is a hard worker. She actually likes to help me clean when I am in the cleaning mood-she gets in it too.

* She always is helping others. She is so caring and everyone loves to be around her because she is so nice to them and cares for them.

* Halle loves to read. She has always been interested in books, but even more so now that she can actually read. She is quite advanced in her reading. She loves it.

* I love her laugh. It's the best when she scrunches her nose up when she's laughing.

* She is honest. She will admit when she does something wrong-even though she knows she may get in trouble.

*Halle is just a happy person with alot of talents! She's just wonderful and we all love her!!

Happy Birthday Sweetie.

"Love ya SO much"

More like my mother

I am becoming more like my mother every day. I remember that there were days that my mom made us stay home from school in the mornings until we got the house clean.

By the time I get home from work everyday, I am so tired and sometimes I just don't feel like cleaning up. Because I am an early riser now, I accomplish alot in the mornings. This morning was one of them. The girls were up around 6am on their own. I was up and ready for work by 6:30-which meant I had an hour before we had to leave for school.

Instead of letting the girls watch TV once they were all ready, I made them help me clean. They hated every minute of it. They were SO worried they were going to be late for school. It just made them clean faster. We got the house a little cleaner and we still made it to school on time. As we drove into the school parking lot and the girls saw their schoolmates hadn't gone into class yet there were two little sighs or relief.

A little glimpse of heaven over the weekend

This weekend I decided to take the girls up to Steve's grandparents cabin up in Overgaard which is about 2 1/2 hours north from our home. We stopped and enjoyed McDonalds Cuisine. Then stopped at the only walmart in AZ that has my husbands caffeine free Dr. Pepper & picked up a few cases for him.



We made it up to the cabin and grandma and papa were waiting for us. We visited, played games, colored, and sat outside in the cooler temps. Grandma and I took the girls to the park. They loved it! They were so excited they got to wear their "hoodies". Can ya tell we like the cooler weather?



Later that evening the BYU game came on. It was a must that we watched it. Good thing we did because our Cougars won!! It was so cute to have Halle and Lizzie doing High Fives to each other and cheering.



We watched a movie with Grandma and Papa and headed to bed. Sunday we all got up and the girls and I went to church with Grandma. Because of all the visitors, they only had sacrament meeting, but it was an hour and a half. The girls were actually pretty good, but near the end, Halle was really ready to go home. We got back to the cabin and had a suprise waiting there for us.



Annie Anne, Uncle D & Blake came up, but they also picked up a hitchhiker-my husband :) They came up just for the day to get out of the valley. It was a suprise that Steve came up because he needed to be home Sunday evening for the Fantasy Football draft. Luckily he had his cousin do his team so Steve could suprise me. We spent most of the day outside enjoying the cooler temps. We even got the ranger out and the crew took some rides. The girls LOVED it.



The girls and I somehow managed to get in a little nap in-which was needed. Steve and I took the girls over to Bison Ranch and we got to see the the buffalo and we had some icecream. The rain started to pour down which was the best. I love rainstorms!! We sat out in the rain in a little covered gazebo and just goofed off and took it all in.



We headed back to the cabin and had some dinner. We even got a few games of BS in before the 4 of them headed back home. Uncle D never won....hahaha. Just one more game, just one more game.....I guess we will have to pick up some more games next family get together.



Steve and Uncle D's family left near the end of another rainstorm. The girls and I played more games as Grandma and Papa dozed off on their chairs. I think the girls were loving the one on one time.



Monday we woke up and just hungout. The girls played while I made us all pancakes. Yummy Yummy. After breakfast I packed all up and we played some more until it was time to head out. I didn't want to come back down to the heat. Papa told us we could just move up there. Oh how nice that would be. We left the 50 degree temps and headed back home to 98 degrees. The drive home was a little slower than normal because it was bumper to bumper almost the whole way. Good thing we have a DVD player for the girls :)



We had such a good time and we really glad that Grandma and Papa have this cabin where we can all go escape to. The girls were so helpful and good the whole time we were up there! I definitely think we need to go up again here soon!