Christmas!

We had a fun Christmas this year. We spent Christmas Eve with the with the Banks family. Dave and Michelle are gracious enough to host it every year. Each family takes a turn being in charge of the program. Dave and Michelle's family was in charge this year. They did such a great job. It really brought the Christmas spirit. We ate and visited, it was just great.

Christmas day was a little bit hard because Craig had to work, but we still had fun. Craig was able to wait until eight o'clock to go in to work and was able to get off a little early. We went down to Dave and Suz's first thing to open presents. Hailee was asleep for the first 45 minutes, but woke up happy so that was great! We all got some great gifts and had a really good time watching everyone else open the gifts they received too. Grandma and Grandpa W. got Hailee a rocking horse that she wasn't too sure about at first, but really enjoyed it later on. We also got her some books and a little ball popper toy. My parents got her a cute little outfit and a fun book that sings. After opening gifts we just hung out and took a little nap then came home and showered. Then we waited for Criag to get home and showered before we went back down to Dave and Suz's for dinner. We love to play games with them. It was a really fun and laid back day.

Birthday Party!

We had a lot of fun with Hailee's birthday. I had bought this little dress about a month ago and figured I would save it for her birthday. She looked SO cute in it, but she wasn't too impressed with how poofy it was (niether was her dad...). I have tried to keep her pretty comfortable so far with the dresses, but I figured since she is walking it wouldn't be as big of a deal. Well, she still didn't like it. Then there is Craig who thinks that the bows for her hair and poofy, girly things are just dumb. I don't really care, I do it anyway :) It's cute, right!! Anyway, she made it through church. Craig has to take her after sacrament meeting because I teach primary. This is SO good for him. I am glad that he has to take responsibility once in a while. She even pooped at church and I am always really glad when he has to change a poopy diaper or two! I love primary, but it is really hard when Craig has to work or teach figuring out what to do with Hailee. Thankfully, Becca and Craig's parents' ward meets right after ours, so there is usually someone who is willing to take her to sacrament meeting with them.

After church I came home and started cooking! We had dinner at like 4:30 with my family and Craig's family down at Big Horn Federal. It is so nice to be able to meet down there since I don't have enough room for everyone at my house! We just had BBQ beef sandwiches, or BBQ beef nachos. Suz brought salad and mom made a pan of potatoes. It was a little stressful getting to that point, but it was really good. I was glad to have that all over with. Lorraine made Hailee her darling little lady bug cake. I loved it, it was so cute. Hailee was trying to go to sleep right before we were ready to do all of the cake stuff. Craig woke her up and she perked up when it was time to eat the cake. She was a little hesitant at first, but dove right in after a few minutes. Cailee and Lauren got her cleaned up after that while I cleaned up the frosting off of the floor before it got smashed in the carpet. She ended up in the sink to get cleaned up. She is such a little fishy! She absolutely loves the water, she doesn't even care if it gets in her face; it really doesn't phase her much, she is always blowing bubbles in the bathtub and loves the shower! Once we got her cleaned up we moved over to the gifts. She wasn't real into opening them, she just wanted to play with the ribbon and bows off of them. I ended up opening them! She has loved to play with them since we brought them home though. Thanks everyone who bought her stuff!

I can't believe it's been a whole year since we brought our little angel home! She is so much fun and teachs me so much everyday. I feel very blessed to be trusted to raise this sweet little girl.

My baby is 1 year old!!

I can't believe that a whole year has gone by since we welcomed little Hailee Jo to our family!! Hailee was born on November 30th at 5:07 am. It seemed like we waited FOREVER for her to get here. Needless to say, mom was ready weeks before she finally decided to make her entrance into the world. We were so happy though. It took us all day after she was born to pick out a name, but I think it is perfect. Hailee was one of the only ones we could agree on. Her middle name, Jo, is after her great grandma Josie Winterholler. I never got to meet her, but it sounds like she was a pretty amazing woman and hope to meet her someday. Here are a few pictures from the last year!

Well our boutique went okay... We had a few people come. It was fun to get to know the other people there. I got to visit with Tonya and Ramee a little bit and enjoyed getting to know them. If any of you are interested in anything from lastnight, let me know and I can get you in touch with the right person :) Tonya's candles were great and make great gifts for this time of year. Ramee had some really cool home decorating stuff too. Becky had lots of scrapbooking stuff that I am sure she is still looking to get rid of. And of course, Becca has some great modest clothes! The dresses she has are pretty cute! Anyway, I have kind of spent the week preparing myself for that, so now that it is over I am just trying to catch up at home.

Hailee is still growing like a little weed. She'll be 1 on the 30th of this month, I can't believe it. Time just flies, it surely doesn't seem like its been a whole year. She has been trying to start walking for a couple of weeks now, she is getting braver and braver everyday. I am sure she'll be all over the house in no time. She is such a funny girl!

Here is another one of our pictures from a couple of weeks ago...

In Home Boutique

Becky, Becca, Tonya, Ramee, and I are have an in home boutique at Becky's house on Thursday, November 13th from 6:00 to 8:30.

Becca Walker- Diviine Modestee Clothing
Becky Rael - Close To My Heart Scrapbooking
Tonya Olsen - Gold Canyon Candles
Ramee Edwards - At Home America for Decorating
I will have my Mary Kay Stuff there. I have lots of clearance items and great ideas for the holidays!

There will be door prizes and lots of cool stuff!

Becky lives at 9 Benchview Estates here in Lovell, let me know if you need directions. Everyone is invited so come check it out!

Fall Pictures

Gearing up for Halloween

Becca and I took the kids over to Burlington today. We have kind of started a little tradition of carving pumpkins and decorating sugar cookies at Mom's every year for Halloween. We are doing it today since my mom will be gone all weekend to go to state volleyball. I am not sure why we carve pumpkins because we all just pretty much do them for the kids at this point. They enjoy seeing them when they are finished though and hopefully we'll be able to keep up the "tradition" until the kids are old enough to enjoy carving the pumpkins themselves!! Anyway, Becca and I came over early this afternoon and tried to take some pictures of the girls... They weren't real cooperative, but we got a few good ones. I've included one and will put more on when I get a chance.

We have had a very busy past couple of weeks! Craig's grandpa Vic passed away on Oct. 8, so we had a very busy week that week. Craig had already planned to take some time off before that so it was very nice to have him around so much. We really enjoyed spending time and visiting with family that we don't normally get to see. I really enjoyed listening to everyone sit around and reminisce, they really had some great memories. Vic was a great man! The services were really nice. We will really miss Papa Vic, but we are happy that he is in a better place. Hailee got to spend lots of time with the Winterholler's and did so good with all of the "strangers." I was really worried about it because she normally doesn't handle that kind of thing very well, so I am glad that everything went so well! Between all of that and volleyball I feel like we haven't been home in two weeks! There were a lot of volleyball tournaments and regular games going on these last few weeks so everyone was busy. I made some good money though so that was nice... except for the part where I had to get new tags and registration for the car and pickup, so I didn't get to spend any of it :( Oh well, I am glad to have that out of the way.
We are ready for life to slow down. I just hope we don't go crazy being home so much!! I am really a "goer" and Hailee seems to do well "going" with me. It will be nice to have some down time and have a chance to catch up at home though.

Billings...

Becca, Mom, all of the kids, and I went to Billings today. It was the grand opening at Kohls so we figured we would go check it out... Well, we didn't go there until very last, so we were pretty much all toast by then. We went to Target and then the mall and had lunch. Hailee fell asleep in the mall, so I packed her around. Needless to say it wasn't too much fun. Good thing I wasn't looking to do any shopping. So, we got out of there and went to the car auction place to see the suburban that Eric got for Becca to drive and headed to Costco after that. I went to get Hailee out of her seat and decided I should change her pants before we went in there and decided to do it at the suburban real quick... well, she had pooped out of her diaper. I am not talking just a little seepage there was poop everywhere! I pulled her pants of and it was all down her legs, on her socks, and before I knew it all over the front of me. Oh the joys of motherhood! Being the treasure that she is to change lately it took the three of us like 20 minutes to get her cleaned up. Poor kid. I had to run into Shopko and buy myself a new shirt. Once we got out of Costco I rode out to Montana Muffler with Eric (he didn't know where is was) and mom and Becca headed for Old Navy and Kohls. Once Eric dropped me off at Kohls both of the girls were asleep, so we wandered around for a little while and decided to just hit the road. What a day!! Never a dull moment. I swear Hailee always waits until she is sitting in her seat to poop, it never fails!! It's a good thing she is so cute.

Lazy!

Okay, so Hailee is finally sleeping and I should be doing something productive, but I am really lacking in the ambition department today for some reason. I got my bathroom cleaned and my dishes done, but not much else. It seems like we have been really busy again. I have been doing a little more officiating than I had planned. Craig got off call and has been out looking for deer almost every night so we don't usually see him until at least dark.

Hailee is still growing like a weed... she is all over the house and into everything. She is such a little bathroom dweller! I try to keep the door shut, but that doesn't always happen. She loves to take baths so she usually just stands next to the bath tub, but she has discovered the toilet paper and loves to unroll it... She is teething too. She got her first two teeth at 6 mo. and 2 more at 8 mo. and they just keep coming. I am glad that we are pretty much done with the whole nursing thing... I started weaning her a little over a month ago because she basically lost interest. We are both much happier being done though.

So ya, that is about all we are up to... Have lots of reffing to do at the end of the week, so that should be interesting. Thank goodness for Cailee and that Hailee likes her or we would be in trouble! Speaking of, Cailee is going to be turning the big 18 tomorrow! I can't believe it. She is such a neat, talented girl!! She is turning out to be one of my best friends. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAILEE!!

Photo Tagged!

The rules: go to your pictures folder and take the fourth picture from the fourth file and post it. That's it. Then tag four friends:)

Okay, Michelle tagged me. This is Craig on the 30th of August, I don't remember how big this fish was, but as you can see it was pretty good sized one. Craig LOVES to fish!! Okay, the four friends I am tagging are: Becca W., Camie O'Barr, Sue, and Kelly.

Getting So BIG!

Hailee is already nine months old! We went to the Dr. on Thursday for her check-up. She weighs 20 pounds and is 29 5/8 inches long!! Yes, she is a big girl! Dr. J said "she's about as big as they make em." We love watching her grow. She is crawling all over the place and pulling herself up to things, so she is busy busy all of the time. Time is just flying, is seems like just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital.

We feel like we haven't been up to much, but we haven't been home a whole lot either. Craig is mostly fishing or golfing as usual and I have been doing a little bit of volleyball officiating. Needless to say it all keeps us pretty busy.

Swimming!

This summer we have had the chance to do a little swimming. We've been to the kiddie pool a couple of times and out to Dave Rael's a couple of times. The kiddie pool is fun, but hard cause you can't exactly get in with the kids. Rael's has been fun. I'm not much of a swimmer, but it is nice to get out to of the heat (and even nicer that we don't have an audience there). Hailee absolutely loves the water and has no fear. I wasn't sure how much she would like it, but she is a fish just like her dad. In fact, yesterday Becca and I took the kids down to the kiddie pool and she didn't want to get in the little tube... So, we played as much as we could that way. Fortunately, we didn't have to play that game for too long before they kicked us out. I guess the construction guys knocked the power out or something. The whole town was out so the water wasn't circulating in the pool and they made us leave. We went home to smolder in the heat. Luckily, it wasn't out for too long and I was able to turn the air conditioner and fans back on!

Also, I have crossed over to the dark side... I started reading Twilight lol. It is so good though, I am not sure why I held out for so long now. I could hardly put it down and didn't get anything done at all! For those of you who are still holding out, give it up!! It is definately worth reading!

Camping!

Hello everyone! Time has just been flying! I keep waiting for things to slow down and they never seem to. Craig has been off since Saturday. He goes "on call" tomorrow so he had Monday and Tuesday off. It is nice to have him home, but I can't seem to get anything done when he is home, I don't know why that is. Oh well, we'll take him being home and catch up with the house later this week.

Monday afternoon we headed up the mountain for a night of camping. It is so much work to go up! It almost doesn't seem worth all of the work for one night. It was really nice up there, minus the mosquitos! Becca brought the kids up and stayed up there. We set up the tent for Becca and the kids and everything, but all ended up in the camper by midnight... I wouldn't have stayed out there by myself either! Becca and Breanne slept on the bunk and Brac slept in the big bed with Craig, Hailee, and I. It was quite a party.

I just can't believe the bugs up there! The mosquitos were awful. I pretty much sat in the camper with Hailee the whole time. The moths were another story! Becca, the kids, and I were all hangin in the camper after dark. Well, we made the mistake of turning on the little lights while the door was still open... the camper was full of them in like 30 seconds. Well the little creatures absolutely freak Becca out, so that was pretty entertaining. Brac started calling them "freakys"; so we spent the next little while tryging to get all of the freakys out. Breanne even started calling them "freakys," it was pretty funny. The next morning we got up and fixed breakfast. Then, Craig took Brac fishing while Becca and I cleaned camp up and snuck in a little nap. We all made it down safely after lunch. Hailee is not so much fun to camp with at her age, so I am not sure how soon we will be trying it again. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if the bugs weren't so thick. But, it was a camping trip we won't forget anytime soon, I even got home with some "freakys" in my cooler!

Takin' it easy

We have just been taking it easy the last few days. Over the weekend we went and watched the parade in Byron. It was a pretty good parade for Byron. Hailee was more interested in eating her flag than anything, but that is okay. That afternoon we went to lunch with Lorraine and watched Payton play baseball. There was a little league tournament here in Lovell. We got to watch Jacob play too (Craig's little brother). After that we came home and took a nice nap!

Sunday we went to church, took a nap, and went to Burlington for a visit. Becca made fajitas, they were so good! It is always nice to go visit in Burlington. Sundays are always great because we have a better chance of seeing dad, he is so busy with the farming lately.

Today Hailee and I just hung out. We fixed lunch for mom, Becca, and Eric since they had to clean at Oren's and Val's today. Then, we got a little bit of cleaning and laundry done before it was time to start dinner. Craig has been on a diet for the past month and a half and likes to eat dinner around six. He has lost almost 20 pounds, so the running and eating earlier has definately paid off! Nice work Craig. Now I just need to start running and maybe I could loose a pound or two...

Wild Week

Wow, it has just been a wild week. We have been busy busy, but we've been having lots of fun. For the 4th we had lunch with Craig's family and went to David Rael's that evening. Dinner and fireworks at Rael's was so much fun. I was a little worried about Hailee and the fireworks... She went to sleep not long before they started, so I put some earplugs that they had passed out in her little ears and she slept through the whole thing! I was glad. After we got done there we went back to Winterholler's so that Craig could light off some other fireworks with Leanne and Jacob. They had such a great time, Craig was just like a kid again!

Saturday Craig drove up the mountain with me and dropped me off at the family reunion. I was grateful, I didn't really want to drive up by myself with Hailee. He didn't stay so I rode down with my mom. It was nice to see some people that we don't normally see. The mountain is so green this year, it is just gorgeous! I love the mountain and hope that we get a chance to go do some camping this year.

Monday was our 2 year anniversary!! It doesn't feel like it's been that long at all. I rode to Billings that morning with mom and Lorraine. We were home by four. So it was a quick trip, but I had a good time. Craig and I had planned on driving up the mountain for dinner, but they had some things go wrong at work and ended up working late so we didn't go. We all just went to the grocery store and hung out. I was okay with that since Hailee and I were both tired. We drove up the mountain tonight to eat dinner at Bear Lodge for our anniversary dinner (a day late). I've had better food, but it was better than cooking myself so I can't complain! Anyway, that is a little about what we have been up to.

A little history

Hello everyone. We are kind of new at this but we'd like to give it a shot. I suppose I'll start with a little bit of history. Craig and I first met not long before he graduated high school while I was attending school at Northwest. When he started school at NWC we got a little better acquainted :) We dated for what seemed like forever and finally got married on July 7, 2006. That's right our two year anniversary is coming up here in just a few days!!

We added the cutest little girl, Hailee Jo, to our family on November 30, 2007. She is such a blessing in our lives! We are having so much fun watching her learn new things and grow everyday!

I guess we'll give this a try

Hi everyone. I guess this is the cool thing to do, so we are going to go ahead and give it a try. It looks like fun, so hopefully we can get it figured out.