Gingerbread Houses

The first Sunday in December, the Gallier family all got together and decorated gingerbread houses. I forgot to get my camera out until after we were already done decorating and most everyone had already left, but here are a few finished products.

Mikkele and I and our houses.

A close up of Kell's.

A close up of mine.

Mikkele's, Mine, and Grandma Dorene's

Jones/Heiselbetz Family Reunion

The Friday after Thanksgiving we had a family reunion with the Jones/Heiselbetz family. It was fun to get everyone together. It has been quite a while. There have been a lot of new members added to the family in the last few years because of babies and weddings, so it makes for quite a crowd. We had a ton of yummy food, had some good visits, and of course some quiet, non-competitive games. And people wonder where my competitive nature comes from, it's in the blood.
We had a tournament of a bean bag toss game or "Corn Hole" as Adam calls it. Everyone teamed up with a partner and then the smack talk started. Alisha and I were up first against Megan and Gage. We lost. :( Since it was a singe elimination tournament, that was the end of our awesomeness, or lack thereof. Adam and Albert ended up in the finals with Emily and Jenna. And who do you think won??? The GIRLS! Way to beat the boys! Here are a few pictures that I thought were funny and show a little of how the game's played.

Ashlee and Tom playing against Brendan and Jeff

Grandpa and Cal turned out to be a pretty good team and knocked Tyler and Ashley out of the tournament. Only later to be beat out by Adam and Albert in the semi finals. Grandpa has pretty good form. Thanks to all the years of playing slow pitch softball. And is this a victory dance that Cal is doing???

Neil and Beau were partnered against Brandon and Bryan.

Jenna's game face as she try's and is successful at beating out Adam and Albert.

What's with the fairy dance Adam???

Next came Turkey Bowling. This was a game that Cal put together. It consisted of 20 2 liter bottles, 2 frozen turkey's, and a tarp to help protect the gym floor. I don't know if it helped though. Some people thought we were playing basketball with the turkey's and not bowling. It was hilarious! Since the turkey is NOT round, even the best of bowlers had a hard time getting it to go straight into the pins.

Grandma and Grandpa Jones giving it a go.

Alisha and Albert ended up being the winners of the adults.

We decided that Grant needed to have a turn with all the other little kids. He held the turkey, and I pushed. He had so much fun with it, we let him do it twice. :)

Thanks to Cal and Adam for catching him before he crashed too hard. He knocked over quite a few though.

The happy little Turkey Bowler.

6 Months Old

These last 6 months have just flown by with Hallie. She is at such a cute age right now. I love it. She is just full of personality, but not mobile yet. LOVE IT! She is such a joy to have in our house and brings so much happiness to all of us. Here are some of the things about Hallie at 6 months:
*20.3 lbs 95%
*27 inches 90%
*44 cm 90%
She is such a big, chunky baby! I love every one of her rolls! 6 more pounds and she will catch Grant. With her average of 2 pound per month, she should have him by February or March. Holy cow!!!
*She has started sitting up and has really good balance
*She continues to be a happy baby. She only cries if she's hungry or tired. She has had ear infections twice in the last month and you wouldn't even know she's sick. She hardly makes a peep. It is such a blessing that she is such a good little baby.
*She tries to give you kisses...SO CUTE!
*She tries to mimic sound and actions.
*She is starting to get more vocal. She is still really quiet, but will occasionally have a lot to say. Mikkele and Hallie have had baby talk conversations back and forth. It's really funny.

*Still not sleeping very good. We have good nights and bad nights. She has been sick quite a bit lately, so I think this has something to do with it. I feel too bad making her cry it out again while she's sick. We'll be trying it again here soon though.
*We finally got her crib up. She has been sleeping in her pack-n-play because I couldn't find the bolts to the crib. Come to find out the bolts were in the crib the whole time. I was looking for a bag of bolts. Woops. Oh well.
*We have started to feed her solids finally. I have been dragging my feet on this one. It feels like I have twins because I'm spoon feeding 2 kids right now. We're still a little inconsistent with the feedings, but I try to feed her cereal in the mornings and a mixture of cereal and a vegetable in the evenings. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it feels like a huge task to get done with everything else that is pulling at me for my attention. She still struggles a little bit with getting the new swallow down. It'll come...I just need to be more consistent and then she will do better.

*Her little hands are always wandering and trying to find something to grab onto. She likes to try and grab the spoon from me when I'm feeding her. So I usually will give her one to hold onto to occupy her while I'm feeding her. She has even grabbed the bowl one time and tipped it over and spilled the cereal. Silly girl.

*We have been trying to teach her how to hold a bottle. She is doing pretty good. She does better with a shorter bottle than the longer bottle. With time she will perfect it.

A Lesson From the Queen of Dough

My mom makes the best rolls, cinnamon rolls, and home made bread. Her bread has even won contests. So while my mom was here I had her give me lessons in roll making and cinnamon roll making. I have her recipes, but every time I have tried to make them something happens to my yeast and it doesn't rise. So I figured I needed a lesson from the expert. I also was signed up to bring rolls to Thanksgiving dinner, and I didn't want store bought rolls, so I definitely needed some pointers. We spent 2 different afternoons on our lessons. It was more of a visual lesson than a hands on lesson, but we wanted this batch to taste good too. :)

The cinnamon rolls of course turned out wonderfully, and so did our rolls. (I forgot to get pictures of that process.) I haven't made cinnamon rolls again yet, but my rolls for Thanksgiving turned out pretty good.

Thanks for the lesson Mom!!! I hope I don't let you down. But I'm sure it will take some time to perfect my skills like yours.

Inspirations Assembly

I got a call mid November from the Inspirations committee (similar to Reflections) at school telling me that Mikkele had placed in the photography category that she had entered, and there was going to be an awards assembly on November 19th. They didn't want me to tell her so that she would be surprised during the assembly. She saw me when she walked into the gym for the assembly and she sure was surprised...but then the gears started turning. She knew something was up since I was there and I had my camera. They called all the kids up to the front that had participated in the Inspirations contest, then went through each category and age group.

Mikkele ended up placing 2nd in the Photography category for the 3rd-5th grade age group. Come to find out, 1st and 2nd place gets to go on to Regional's as well. I don't know when that will take place though.

The group of kids from the Photography 3rd-5th grade age group that place 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, as well as 2 honorable mentions.

Excited and comparing awards with other kids that received one.

Tienna and Mikkele showing off their awards and certificates.
Tienna Sabin also placed 2nd in her category. She made a sculpture about recycling. Rietta and Gunner also did sculptures and received honorable mentions.

All of the kids that participated in Inspirations received a doughnut after the assembly.

Mikkele is quite the artsy child. I don't know where she gets it from. Neither Jeremy or I are very artsy. Whether it's photography, singing, dancing, etc...she does really well. We are so proud of you Mikkele! Good job!