Wax Museum

For Mikkele's book report for November and December she had to choose a biography on an influential person who is no longer living. During November she had to read the book, and during December she had to work on a speech and a poster to display at the wax museum they would have to show off which person they chose. The person she chose was Princess Diana. It was a lot of fun to go around to each of the kids and hear what they had prepared on their person. Each person would be in a pose until you pressed their button. At that time they would stand and recite their memorized speech.

Mikkele's friend Anna was the first woman to swim across the English Channel.
(I can't remember her name...whoops)

Her friends Kamrin and Gracie were Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller.

Levi was Elvis

Sophia was Amelia Earhart

There were many others, but I didn't take pics of everyone. It was fun to walk through all three 5th grade classes and listen to each of the kids. They all did a great job!

Grant's Christmas Concert

Grant's class put on a cute Christmas concert. They sang a couple of Christmas songs and then we watched a really cute slide show that had pics of the kids throughout the year so far. His teacher, Miss Ellinger, sang the song "Angels Among Us" during the slide show. Talk about tear jerker! The kids all did a really good job. Super cute!

Miss Jane helping Grant during the Jingle Bells song.

Gallier Family Christmas Party

We had the extended Gallier family Christmas party early on in December before it got too busy. We had dinner, a little talent show, and then had a nativity with the cousins. Mikkele was Mary, and Jaden was Joseph.

Jaxon was baby Jesus.

Mikkele sang the song "Mary's Lullaby"
All the other cousins were shepherds, wiseman and Hallie was an angel.

Well she was the naughty angel. LOL. She kept taking the straw out of the manger. Some of the other kids kept telling her no. At one point she hit Lane for telling her no. This child has an attitude problem. I need to get a copy of the video it was actually kinda funny. Sorry Lane!

The kids did a great job portraying the story of Jesus' birth!

Volleyball

Mikkele had the opportunity to try out volleyball for the first time this fall. The city starts offering it in 5th grade, so she's been anxious to get to the 5th grade so she can have her go at it. She has done many sports in the past, but they haven't really been up her alley. She's definitely not a tom boy like her mom was growing up. I do, however, think she needs to be introduced to all different kinds of sports so she at least knows the basics, even if she doesn't excel at them. And if she does well, great! If not, oh well. At least she tried and put forth her best effort. All that being said, she did great! I think this is one sport that is up her alley. She improved so much during the season. Her serve is getting stronger, and she is getting more and more aggressive as she goes toward the ball. We had a little joke toward the end of the season. I kept telling her the cheer "Be aggressive...be be aggressive". She hated it when I would chant it to her, but helped her to remember to go toward the ball. She is excited to play again in the spring after my volleyball season.

Some of her cheering section

18 Months Old

The last month with Hallie has been both a blast and a stress all at the same time. This girl is hilarious! She is constantly doing things to make us laugh. While at the same time on the go constantly and getting into everything and making her mama nuts. But she sure is cute!
This is a common scene in our house lately. She has been hitting like crazy! So into time out she goes. Too bad she still thinks it's kind of funny rather than being disciplined. And no she didn't learn to fold her arms from being in time out ;) After she hits Grant or the cat (who are her usual targets), she'll say "be nice to bubba, or be nice to kitty". Which is what I feel like I tell her all day long. She is quite the little copy cat right now.

Some of her other new words are pretty-which is anything from a bracelet, to a necklace, to a hair bow, to a shirt, etc. Lots of things are her pretty's. Other words are car, shoes, bapa-for grandpa, nice, ball, go, and tickle.

She is up to 29.11 lbs. and about 33 inches tall. I thought she had surpassed Grant in the weight department, but it looks like he's put on some weight since his surgery in June and is still a few pounds bigger than Hallie. I think he might have somewhat of a complex about his baby sister outgrowing him, so he's trying to pack it on. ;)

She is a wild sleeper. I usually cover her up 3 times or more before I got to bed, but she always ends up on top of her covers and sideways. And most of the time, and arm or a leg is sticking out of the bars.
She is mostly down to 1 nap a day. Once or twice a week she will still take 2 naps, but for the most part she is down to 1. I've been trying to stretch it to the early afternoon, but she is usually down by 11 or 11:30. And she will usually sleep for 3-3 1/2 hours.
At night she goes to bed around 7:30 and she will usually sleep until 7. She has to have one of her fleece blankets around her face and another blanket on top. And she also has to have her songs on in her little glow worm toy.

Mikkele has taught her how to throw a ball this last month. Which has turned into-throw whatever you can get your hands on. We are trying to teach her to just throw balls, but so far it hasn't worked.

She has had a hard time with the change of weather. She loves to be outside, especially since we've been outside working in the yard a lot. So she gets all bundled up and comes out to be our big helper. She doesn't like to have her coat, hat, or gloves on though. As soon as they go on, she tries to get them off. She's quite the pro at zippers now.

We have finally started introducing eating utensils. I don't know what is messier, eating with her hands, or learning how to eat with a fork or spoon. She isn't doing too bad, and she sure loves the new trick of eating like we do.

Her hair is getting long enough to be able to pull into piggy tails. They didn't last very long in the back, but she sure looked cute in them.

She is now officially old enough for nursery! She had a bad ear infection that first Sunday, so she didn't get to go, but she will be going tomorrow! I am one excited mama! It has been 5 1/2 years since I haven't had a kid with me during class. Maybe I'll actually be able to get something from the lessons now. :)

It's so fun that she is growing up and learning new things every day. While she makes me crazy sometimes with how busy she is, I am truly grateful that she is able to do all the things that sometimes we take for granted. Love you Hal!

Fall Cleanup

Our yard has 4 large trees. Each fall there are a TON of leaves that need to be raked up. Over the summer, the electric department had some tree trimmers come to cut back some limbs of a few of the trees that were close to the electric lines. Once they were done mutilating the trees, our poor trees looked horrible and sunlight was coming through in parts of where our yard had not seen sun in a long time. I decided at that point that I would just rather take them out completely and put in a bigger garden area than what we have. Jeremy and Mikkele had a different plan that included a dog and a dog run going in place of the trees. I think we'll compromise and make both fit. I told Jeremy that we needed to get the trees down before all the leaves fell so we only had 2 trees full of leaves to clean up instead of 4. Well that was a great idea, and the process was started before they fell, but it took a few Saturday's to get it all done because of weather and Jeremy being on call 24/7. And what a mess it turned out to be. But it all has been cleaned up and ready for winter-minus the stumps they still need to be taken out, and we have a ton of firewood that we'll be able to use in a year or so once the wood dries out. More work will need to be done in the spring to get my garden area ready. I'm pretty excited to have a bigger garden this next year though.

Jeremy had a little bit of a Tim Taylor power trip as he was using the chain saw.

It was a whole family affair to get the yard cleaned up. We even recruited some friends and neighbors. :)

Never too young to put them to work right?

And of course you have to play in the leaves a bit. That makes the clean up part worth it. (And that's why the neighbor kids come to help :))

Grant even got in on "jumping" into the leaves. He didn't love it when big sister threw some leaves on him though.

Brace Face

Since I have been in the dental field for 14 years, one of my obsessions is teeth. Because of that, I have always wished my teeth we straighter than they are. I have always talked about doing braces, but it just has never happened. In September, Jeremy called and set up a consultation for me with an orthodontist here in Springville. And we were able to work it out so I could do it. So on Nov. 5, I got braces!!! I get to feel 14 again for the next year or so. Here are some very unattractive pictures of the process.

Got to love the cheek retractors.

The finished product.

One added bonus of starting this process, is that I also have had the opportunity to start working with Dr. Warren. I am working on call, as needed for him. It will be fun to learn a new specialty and increase my knowledge of the dental field. I'm always up for a new challenge.

Halloween 2010

Halloween was more than a day this year. It was more like a whole week of celebrating. The girls went as cheerleaders. Mikkele a Springville High cheerleader, and Hallie a San Francisco 49ers cheerleader. And so we decided that Grant needed to be some sort of a sports player. After talking with some friends we came up with a Texas Rangers baseball outfit. Which was perfect since the Rangers were in the world series during that week.

Monday we went with Holly, Dillon, Jan, and Connor to The Utah State Hospital employee Halloween party. The kids always have fun time with the little carnival they put on there. That is where we found out that Hallie is a candy freak! Every time she would get a piece of candy she wanted to eat it that second! And if she didn't get her way she threw a fit. Needless to say, the candy has been put up out of site. Grant had one costume change if a lion.

Thursday the kids got to dress up for school because they didn't have school on Friday. They had class parties, and Grant had a parade.

Grant used a baseball batting helmet as his candy bucket.

Grant with one of his friends at school.

On Friday we went and did the Springville Main St. trick or treating and then we went to our ward Halloween party.

Dee as Medusa, Holly as a barrel of monkeys, and me as a nurse.

Saturday is when UT celebrates Halloween when it falls on a Sunday. We went to a Halloween party at Reagan Academy in the morning and then we were able to fit in a quick trunk or treat at Grandma Dorene's ward before it started hailing. We didn't get to do any door to door trick or treating, but by that time the kids had plenty of candy. That evening we had a birthday dinner for Dorene.Dillon, Mikkele, and Connor at Grandma Dorene's ward trunk or treat.

Mikkele showing off some vampire teeth she got trick or treating.

A costume change for Hallie. I wore this same costume when I was her age.

I was kind of a lame mom this year and didn't buy or carve pumpkins. I kind of feel bad that we didn't do this, but for one reason or another, it just didn't happen. Oh well. There's always next year right?

We had a fun Halloween!