Grace got to go see her very first movie in a theatre tonight. She was SOOOO excited! Nana, Mama and Grace (or in her words "just us girls") went to see "the Princess and the Frog" which turned out to be really cute. Great music and a sweet story (I only cried once...darn that romantic lightning bug who finally gets to be with his true love.) I am always disappointed that Disney seems to feel the need to bring in some really evil stuff (scary voodoo and evil spirits in this one!) in all of their princess movies (Cinderella is the only exception that I have found.)I mean, c'mon Disney, your target age group is 3-7 year old girls, you could definitely tone down the scary stuff and they wouldn't miss it a bit! During the scary parts Grace decided that she needed to go potty so she wouldn't have to watch (proof that she is her father's daughter). She was so good,and watched the whole thing without talking. Whenever the other little kids laughed and talked she would get this frustrated face and say "why are they talking? People won't be able to hear the movie!" (proof that she is MY daughter!) Grace's favorite part? The "cool chairs." Overall a great experience and further proof that my girlie is growing up way to fast.


These are movies, so you will need to go onto the actual blog (http://hallam4.blogsot.com) to watch them

Deliquent Blogger

First, for those of my friends and family that usually just view this blog in email format, you will want to go to hallam4.blogspot.com to view the actual blog as this post contains a slide show and some videos. I can't believe how much has happened since I last blogged! I guess it has only been a month but during the holiday season a lot gets packed into that small amount of time! We had a great Thanksgiving with all of our friends and family (22 people, 37 lbs of turkey and 16 pies consumed- the turkey and pies not the people. Noah had a great birthday. I can't believe that he is 2 years old! Mema and Papa gave him a bouncer (Grace calls it a "jumprine"..I guess like trampoline?) so the kids had a lot of fun on that. Noah usually loves them, but he was nervous, perhaps because he isn't used to seeing this big thing in our backyard, so he chose to watch from the outside. He thoroughly enjoyed eating Doritos and laughing at the other kids while they jumped. Noah is in to "Geotrax" (a train/car/plane system) in a big way. Our living room is filled with all of the tracks that he got from his birthday and the early Christmas we celebrated with my Dad's side of the family. We have been doing lots of Christmas baking, and a few days ago we had our annual gingerbread house party. Katelyn made an elaborate Victorian house that blew all of the others out of the water as usual. Steve made a gingerbread surfboard which he intends to submit a picture of to his surfing magazine (just don't include your age Steve!) The next morning the kids made their houses which turned out super cute.
More photos of the houses to come, they are still on my camera :)
Tonight was Grace's Christmas pageant at church. She was a sheep. I had a cute sweater and leggings picked out for her to wear, but Nana and Mema bought a poofy dress and I got out-voted. Grace, of course, loves the dress and says it looks JUST like a sheep.


I am looking forward to Christmas next week, and I promise to do a better job keeping up with the pictures and videos so all of our family can be included in our holiday.

Bespectacled Ballerina

After failing two vision screenings at school we took Grace to the optomatrist (we learned really quickly not to call him an 'eye doctor' as Grace has developed an intense dislike for doctors). It turns out that her vision is really pretty bad. She is very far sighted, which I thought meant that she couldn't see close up, but apparently has to do with the shape of her eye more than anything else. We were told that without correction most children develop a lazy eye, but that since her vision is so bad, she would have most likely developed two. Sooooooo we definitely got her glasses, which was a whole other ordeal. They brought out these glasses and said "these are the newest in child eye glass innovation, lightweight, and practically unbreakable." After taking one look at the huge coke bottle glasses that the girl was holding I responded "and could you show me your slightly breakable pairs?" Unfortunately,the lenses needed to correct far-sightedness are the kind that give kids that "bug-eyed" appearance, so we also asked to get the special (more expensive, thanks nana and grandpa) lenses that don't do that quite as much. Then we had the discussion about "transition lenses" (absolutely not!) I have to give my girly a fighting chance :) Anyways, all that said, she looks adorable in her PINK (for Grace) Nike (for dad) frames. It has been rough for her today, but they said that after her eyes learn to relax (usually a day or two) she will see much better and won't mind them as much. We were also told we should bring Noah in, so we will see what happens on Friday at that appointment.


On a lighter note, Grace and her friend Adeline started "fairytale ballerina ballet" classes at the local rec center. They were soooo excited! In the video we asked them to show us what they learned...this is what got :)

"Fall Festival Day" aka Halloween

I think it's great that so many churches are providing safe alternatives to trick or treating for the kids. It drives me crazy when they don't call it Halloween. It's not like we just happened to have our Fall festival on the same day as everyone else is celebrating Halloween. It reminds me of growing up in the Unitarian Universalist church and they would have a "spring celebration" on Easter morning....really? I think we should just all agree that these are fun holidays to celebrate and that we don't all hold to the same meanings behind them. Anyways....the kids had a lot of fun dressing up and especially bouncing in the bouncer. I am seriously considering renting a bouncer for Noah's bday present and just letting him jump in it by himself for a day. He LOVES them. The kids went as a Dragon and Cinderella, along with their friends who where Sleeping Beauty (Adeline) another princess (Lylah, noahs buddy), and a Knight (Dallas.) Everything was great...we had a slight snaffoo when the Knight tried to slay the Dragon but it all worked out in the end. After the Fall Festival we went back to our neighborhood for some old fashioned "trick-or-treat"ing. Hardly anyone was home handing out candy! It's crazy. Growing up I remember swarms of kids going house to house...I guess most parents just figure it is so much safer to do the trunk or treat/fall festival thing. It's too bad that is the way it has to be. It was nice not having to design a costume around a snow suit like we had to do growing up. In fact, Noah got hot as the Dragon and ended then night in his super hero pj's. He really had the hang of things by the end of the night. He would say "trick or treat....PUUUUULLLLLEEEEEEAAAASSSEEEE" and then hand you a piece of candy to open. I think that is the first 4 word sentence he has used.

Fall!

Sorry it's been so long since I have blogged! I got hit with the swine flu/ pneumonia one two combo and have been in bed for most of the last three weeks. I am finally able to leave the house but am still really weak, so I have had to enlist help documenting my families fall adventures. Grace had a fall harvest festival at her school for which her Aunt Kate got to be the designated chaperone/picture taker. She had a blast "picking" apples (which were hung by a string in a tree) taking a hay ride and looking at the animals in the petting zoo (she would only touch the duck, and even then only with one finger.)





We continued the fall theme today when we went to a pumpkin patch near here. The kids had so much fun running around. They got to ride on the cow train (and so did I, lucky me! since Noah is still too small) and the explored a hay-maze as well. There were lots of farm animals to look at, Noah got close and personal with a pig (it snorfled his face before we could move him...he loved it) and the kids took their first ride on a teeter totter. (They pretty much weigh the same so they balanced each other out.) Dallas and his Granny Dee joined us as did Aunt Kate and her friend Sam. (The pumpkin patch was his idea!) After all the playing we picked our pumpkins (Grace's is massive, of course. She calls it the "MAMA pumpkin...perfect.) We then came back to our place and carved them up. They are pretty impressive if I do say so myself.








The kids carving pumpkins



The adults carving pumpkins



The finished products

Sleepover!

Grace had her first official sleepover tonight. Her best bud Dallas got to spend the night so that his mommy and daddy could split up between their newborn twins (born yesterday) who are in different parts of the hospital tonight. One should be coming home tommorow, so then they will just have to divide two ways, but when trying to figure out how to divide three ways tonight the math just wasn't working :) Every time Grace tried to boss Dallas around and he wouldn't do what she wanted she said "Dallas, you're breaking my heart!" to which he would say "sorry Gracie girl!" but he still wouldn't be bossed around. (Two first born's!) We built a cool fort, we read a ton of books, we brushed our teeth in tandom! Grace chose "Hey Dallas your so fine, your so fine you blow my mind" as her goodnight song and Dallas chose a story about a Knight named Dallas and a princess named Grace as his goodnight story. He then told Grace that he was so brave that if a t-rex came he would save God and then save Grace and wouldn't be scared. She told him to close his eyes, apparently not impressed.

The plumber's toilet has a leak...

Ok. So you know the saying about how the plumber's toilet always has a leak? No? Well, it rang true for me today! All I wanted was a picture of my two kids, together. Preferably smiling, but that was not even necessary. As an aspiring professional photographer, I take pictures of other peoples kids all the time. I can always capture that special picture of them looking totally enamored with each other that just melts their parents hearts. Is it too much to ask for ONE of those of my kids? I don't even need the enamored look, just the two of them sitting within five feet of each other without a totally weird or goofy expression would work. Preferably one with no Cinderella panties showing. I had a few extra minutes today with the kids before Steve got home and we were getting a bit stir crazy so we decided to take a walk on the greenbelt behind our house and try for a couple (let's not lie, ONE) cute picture(s). Got lots of cute individual shots:




But the shots of both of them together were another story.


Here I got Noah to sit down, he is ready for Grace


He takes one look at her



and books it.



Probably because this is usually what she does to him (her hugs are ALWAYS around his neck)



He's no dummy. By the time we got home, they were so thirsty that they wouldn't let go of the water bottles long enough to take any pictures without them in the shot. This is the closest I got to a picture of them together...at least it really does capture their life together with each other :)

3 year olds...

Enough said

Labor Day at the Ranch

What a whirlwind weekend! Grandma Terry and Aunt Erin flew in to visit us, and Sat morning we drove (in torrential rain!) up to mom's to spend the weekend on the ranch. I have never seen so much rain. It was noon when we got there, but it was completely dark. Grace was confused and kept asking if it was bedtime. Luckily the rain quickly passed and we got to spend a fun weekend with family and friends. The Smith family joined us and Grace and Noah had a blast playing with their two daughters who are around the same ages. We saw a javelina (which we named Julio), and probably close to 50 hummingbirds. Grace rode a horse for about 2 seconds, but at least she isn't terrified of them anymore, although she still prefers cows. Noah is talking up a storm, and now says that things are "coool." He will see something and go "ook, ook (look)...cooool" It is really funny to see what a 21 month old boy thinks is cool. Mostly cars, trucks, trains, etc. although dad's gym bag also got the "cool" seal of approval!
You can visit www.lindsayhallam.com/laborday for a slideshow of all the pictures from the weekend (I know, it's hard to believe that there could be more than the bazillion I posted here :))

First day of school

Grace started preschool today. She was SO excited! I was worried that she might not want me to leave, but when the time came she walked over to the kids table and started drawing circles with the other kids. She said "mama, isn't it time for you to go?" I asked if I could take one picture and she responded "moooooommm" in that embarassed voice you don't expect to hear until they are 13. She and Dallas go to the same school, Bethany Learning Center, but are in seperate classes. This didn't even phase Grace, she was just so excited to go. Noah and I have had a relaxing morning. He seems really happy to get undivided attention!
One down one to go....










Grace learning how to draw a circle with Ms. Tressa