My Hailey is so patient...

This first video is just another cute one of Hailey in the morning. It is definately her happiest time, so that is when I like to get videos of her. Sorry if it's kind of like the last video, but I still think it's cute so I'm putting it on anyway.



The next two videos are just to funny not to share. Hailey is so patient with her sister Callie. Callie is always kissing all over her, jumping around, and sweet talking her baby sister. I love that she loves her so much, it really is sweet. And Hailey is so laid back she just sits there and lets Callie do whatever she want to to her. I always think she will start crying, because most babies would but she just looks up at her big sister Callie like "Who is this crazy girl?" I love it ;)

Our Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday. Well, as wonderful as it can be being so far away from my family. Thank goodness I have Brad's wonderful family that all live here, to share our Thanksgiving with. And it was nice because Karren drove down to spend our weekend with us too. We had our big feast over at Brad's aunt Evelynn's house. There were three new babies that were born the last few months so it was fun to see the new little cousins together.

Here is a picture of all of Grandma Ray's great grandchildren. It's hard to believe that just four years ago she had none and now she has six!


The rest of the pics are just random ones of our family, enjoy!

HOLY MOLY!

I shot one! I shot one! Can you feel my excitement? I can't believe I actually shot a deer! And it was fun. Okay ladies, I never thought that I would like hunting, but the adrenaline rush was awesome, and it was really cool to be able to do something with my husband that he loves doing and to find out that I like it too. Now I am excited for many more hunting trips in years to come. Next year I'm going to hold out for a buck ;)



At first Brad saw a little one walking through and he told me to look in my scope. They were pretty far away (there was actually two of them), and I was so nervous because they were moving and not at a good angle and so I decided to just let them go. Well immediately after I let them walk into the woods, I was thinking, crap, I should have just taken the shot. While I was thinking this I see a big one go by so fast that I can't even look through my scope and he's gone. This time I stayed looking in the scope and I decided right then and there that if one more walked through the lane, I didn't care how big it was, that I was going to shoot. Sure enough a doe followed right then and I told Brad "I see one" and before he could even say anything I had already fired. Ha ha... I just didn't want another one to get away. Anyway, it was a good shot, because she dropped right there. Brad ended up measuring it out and he said it was 160 yards, which is really far for a shot. So I was excited that I didn't mess it up and shoot it in the nose or the hind end or something like that. And what was even cooler was that I shot my first deer with a 308 rifle that used to be Brad's grandpa's, and Brad said it was the same gun that my father in law used to shoot his first deer. So that was kind of special. Anyways, I'm glad that I went and ya'll should try it sometime ;)

All tagged out and Winning Chili recipe

Brad is officially all tagged out. He got his buck on Tuesday. I can't believe he got three deer by November all with his bow. Great job honey! Anyway, we are glad to have him back home, I don't like it when he is gone even if it was only for a couple days. Now I just have to get mine.

Also, last night we had a Chili cook off for our Lonoke Branch. It was a lot of fun. We had chili, cornbread and pies. I ended up getting first place out of about 14 chili's, but I can't really take the credit since it was my mother in laws recipe. Anways, for those of you who might want a good recipe I thought I'd include it.

2 lbs. cooked ground beef
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 packet mild taco seasoning
1 can original rotel
1 can kidney beans
1 can pinto beans ( I put in an extra can too)
1 can or bag of corn ( I cooked up a bag of frozen sweet corn)

I just throw it all in my crockpot for a couple hours, but you could cook it stove top too.
Enjoy!

A week for firsts....

Well this week we had two new firsts for our family. I went on my first hunting trip and Hailey had her first few bites of rice cereal!

I had to post a picture of me in my camo, since Jennifer requested one.
I actually had a lot of fun. Brad and I went together while uncle Craig babysat the little ones. I have to admit, I never even saw a deer on our hunting trip, but at least I got a great back rub out of the deal ;) Brad had to stand in the tree stand right behind me while I sat, so that is why I got one. Even though, I didn't see a deer, I held my gun the whole time and made sure I could see out of the sight in case one came. I even took my safety off once because I thought a deer was coming, but it just turned out to be a dog, ha ha! Oh well, maybe next time.

Now on to Hailey's first. Haily is turning 16 weeks this Monday, and that is when I like to start my babies on cereal if their ready. So since she has doubled her weight and is sitting up in a chair, I decided that I'd give it a try and see how she did. I only started out with 3 spoon fulls last night (just to make sure it didn't upset her tummy) and she did great. She ate everything I offered her and didn't spit any of it out, and had no problems digesting any of it. In fact, she even slept a little longer last night.
It was funny because the very first bite that I went to give her, I wasn't sure what she would do but she just opened her mouth when I put the spoon up to it. I wasn't expecting that! With my other two, I had to kinda push the spoon in at first because they didn't know what I was doing, ha ha ;) Here is a video of her taking a bite. I love the face she makes right after it's in her mouth, she looks like she doesn't know if she like it or not, then decides it's okay.

My little copy cat

Kayla is really excited because they just started a Faith in God activity program for our church Wednesday nights. Before, she was playing in the nursery with Callie while I did the Young Womens program, and she was always sad she didn't get to join in on the activities. But now she is going to be having an activity on Wednesday nights too. Here are some pictures from Wednesday:
(They played "Get to know you" Jenga.)
(These were the kids and some of the adults, Sister Sage and Sister Thompson were there as well).

I also wanted to add some very cute pictures of Hailey sleeping. (Don't you just want to kiss her sweet little cheeks?)


Callie has also been going through an interesting little stage. I would say that out of all three kids she is definitely the one that requires the most of my attention right now. She has been VERY energetic lately (and somehow that seems like an understatement). Maybe envision the tasmanian devil and that will help give you a picture of what her energy is like ;) Ha ha, I love it though, because she is always just so happy singing, dancing, running, and talking away. I usually get a comment from someone every time I go shopping about how friendly and talkative she is. People get quite a kick out of it.
She has also been going through a little stage where she loves to copy me and Kayla. I've noticed this when I've been talking on the phone, she will be in the background repeating everything. I also noticed it one time when I was eating my dinner and I thought "I am going to use this to my advantage".
*Side note: Callie still makes me feed her at meal time. I know that I shouldn't be doing this because she is three years old and she knows how to feed herself, but I get so tired of fighting her on it. Honestly, if I just told her she had to stay there until she ate, she would probably sit there for a couple hours. Right now I have to tell her to eat another bite every time her mouth is empty or she won't do it. I would say each meal takes her about30-45 minutes with me feeding her half the time and her feeding herself a little. *
Anyway, so once I noticed she thought it was great fun to copy me I started doing it at meal time. Now I will say: "Don't you copy me!" and I start to take a bite and then so does she. If I take a drink, she will as well. I love this game, because she eats so much faster ;) Anyway, I had to take a pic of this this morning because I was looking at a magazine and drinking my hot chocolate when I noticed that she had pulled up beside me with her "magazine" and drink. What a silly girl (please ignore the fact that I look like I just crawled out of bed, because I did).
I love my little copy cat ;)

Maybe getting a new vehicle

This past weekend was another fun one. Wednesday night I planned an activity for a joint Young men/Young Women mutual. We played "Faith Factor" instead of "Fear Factor". Basically, I would ask a gospel related question that they had to find the answer to in either the Scriptures or "For Strength for Youth" handbook. The winning team that answered got 10 points and the two teams that missed the question had to compete in a challenge to win the remaining 5 points. The challenges ranged from basketball challenges to pie eating to jump roping. We had a lot of fun. And although it was a lot of work to put together I think it is great for the kids to have something extra special to do once in a while.

Thursday night Kayla had a special date night with her uncle Ross. Debbie had bought some tickets for her and Ross to attend a talent show (a VERY good talent show) and she ended up not being able to attend last minute. So she had Ross take Kayla instead. I think it made Kayla feel really special because she got to get all dressed up, and then have a sleepover at grandmas house that night since she didn't have school the next morning. I had a relaxing night at home, so relaxing in fact that I totally forgot parent teacher conference! Ha ha.. oh well. I actually remembered an hour after I was supposed to go, but by that point Callie and Hailey were asleep and I couldn't bare to wake them.

Friday all us girls went shopping with Grandma Debbie and Grandma Ray. I got some much needed church shoes for both girls and found a couple things for Christmas as well. Saturday Brad and I went and looked at a 2002 Toyota Sequoia that we will probably be getting today. I am excited. Brad has wanted one for a long time (for the third row seat), and although I am happy with my trailblazer, it is a great deal that we really can't pass up on. Right now we fill every seat in our trailblazer, so if we ever even have one extra person with us we have to take another vehicle. So I guess we better jump on this deal while we can, because if we ever decided to have any more kids than we would need to get something bigger anyways. It also has a V8, leather interior /woodgrain dash, and tons of room. It doesn't have the greatest gas mileage, but neither does our trailblazer so we aren't really changing much there. They are going to trade us for our trailblazer plus we give them $400. So it's a pretty awesome deal. Our trailblazer is two years newer and has less miles, but we will be gaining a Toyota (better brand) and a third row seat, so I think it's worth it. Here is a pic of what it looks like.

Who does this remind you of?

Believe it or not, these are pictures of me. I asked everyone in my family who it was before I told them and they all thought it was Hailey!

Hailey's favorite sleeping spot...

I first have to say that I don't have a baby that is hard to put to sleep. I have heard about moms that need to take their babies out for a drive in the middle of the night to relax them. I have never had to do that, but one thing that I noticed is every time I am doing laundry, the sound of our dryer puts Hailey right to sleep ( I usually set her in there with me while I fold clothes).

So for those moms who do have a little one who is hard to put to sleep, just try putting them in the laundry room. Hey, if nothing else, you'll save on gas and maybe get a little laundry done in the process ;)

Halloween weekend

We had a lot of fun this past weekend, with my sister and her boyfriend Scotty coming down for a visit. Saturday we finally got around to carving our pumpkins that had been sitting at our house since Monday. Callie picked out our pumpkin carving templates, so Karren and Scotty carved Cinderella's castle and I carved Cinderella. Kayla decided to make a witch out of a gord.




Then we all had to go test out the pumpkins in the garage where it was dark. It was pitch black when this picture was taken, but you can't tell because the flash lit the picture up really good.



Callie decided to be Cinderella and Kayla was a Vampire. I woke Callie up from her nap right before this picture and she was not in the mood to be wearing a dress or being taking a picture. She snapped out of it by the time we were ready to leave.




Then we all headed off to a Halloween Carnival in Sherwood. It didn't end up being as big as we had hoped, but the girls still had fun going on a hayride and playing some games.




I know these are a little out of order, but Hailey was Winnie the Pooh for Halloween. I procrastinated a little on picking her up an outfit and by the time I went to get one they didn't have any infant ones left. So we settled for a Winnie the Pooh hat and blanket (I still think she turned out pretty cute.)


After we went trick or treating Craig, Jillian and Ross came over for a little visit. Here is Hailey and her new cousin Charlotte in their Halloween costumes.