For Shannon

I was talking to Shannon last night and she was admonishing me for my lack of videos on this blog. It was finally cool enough for the kids to play outside tonight (only about 108), so I took a quick video of them playing in our backyard. We had a bit of a scare...Grace asked if she could play outside for a bit. Since she was standing stark naked I told her she could go outside once she got her pj's on. She got dressed and out she went (I had just done a safety check of the yard 5 minutes earlier). I checked on Noah who was playing in his room and decided to mop up a spilled drink off of the floor. In my mind I was thinking "this is great! finally Grace is entertaining herself and I can get a few things done!" After mopping up the drink which took about one minute I stood up and decided to open the blinds on all of the windows so that I could watch Grace play while I picked up. I opened one blind...no Grace. I opened the second, and third, and ran to the front door where I saw the front gate wide open. I raced outside, noticed Noah's car on the ground as I ran (he must have opened the front door by himself while I was mopping up the juice) mentally did the math and realized that he must be out here with Grace, and now they were out of our yard. I think I now understand the phenomenon of mothers lifting cars off of their infants, the rush of adrenaline that instantly hit me was huge! As I rounded the corner I saw my two kiddos toddling down the sidewalk. Luckily Grace has a healthy fear of cars and the street, and she was herding Noah, telling him to stay on the sidewalk. I rushed up to them and said, "Grace! What were you thinking!?!" She said "Noah and I wanted to go for a walk." And in her mind it was as simple as that. So.....we now have a new rule for playing outside, no one opens the gate except Mama...and I will be installing a new, much higher latch tomorrow!

Ghiradelli Fudge...the San Francisco treat

Someone is going to have to come to my house and eat all of my fudge because at the rate I am going I will double in width by next week :) We just got back from San Fran and had a wonderful trip! Steve had his seminars, so the kids and Nana and Grandpa and I flew out to join him for the weekend. We had a chance to chat with all of our friends and family that live in the area, visit all of our old haunts, and generally relax a bit. On Sat. we went took a tour of Alcatraz, which, even after living in San Fran, I had never seen. It was interesting to see the prison through a child's eyes as we tried to explain to Grace what it was all about. The conversation went something like this..."mama, where are we going?" "to a place where they used to put bad people." "like, in time out?" "ummm...sure, like in time out." she pauses and thinks this over. "is that the time out island?" "yup, that is the time out island." "hmmmm...and where is the spanking island?" In the end, Curt and I took the full tour while Steve and his mom played outside with the kiddos because Noah figured out that the halls in the prison echoed and ended up yelling "BAAAA" at the top of his lungs over and over to hear the sound. Sat after the tour we had the privilege of having our family portraits done by my friend Shannon Cunningham The kids were pretty much wiped out by this point, and then Grace fell and hit her nose on a rock and things spiraled out of control from there. I am amazed that Shannon was able to get any pictures at all, because the kids were in hysterics most of the time...next time we will schedule the photo shoot at the BEGINNING of the trip...duh! We are home safely and now all that is left to do is piles of laundry :)

P.S. For my family that views these blogs through email, you will want to go onto the actual blog to view this one as I put a slideshow of pictures on it :)

Small Camera

I took the kids to the children's museum today, and they had a blast! Noah is really at a good age now to finally be able to get out of the stroller and play, and Grace is at the PERFECT age for these things. She would have stayed all day! I keep my little point and shoot camera in my purse and pulled it out to take some pictures, and realized that I am always taking a pic here and there and hadn't downloaded them in forever! So here is what has been going on in between the formal photo shoots :)

My goofy boy:


The family at the airport the day we said goodbye to Chris and Chandra:


Pretty Princesses:


Grace's bday dessert (they set it down RIGHT in front of Noah...must not have kids):


And the museum pics: (we went with Grace and Noah's friends Adeline and Lylah)

Breakfast, Noah style

Noah is so funny! He says "mmmmmm" after every bite of food, and makes the funniest faces. He is at the phase where everything is either a car or a train, including his spoon. His belly laugh will melt your heart.

Grace's 3rd bday= PRINCESS!

I never liked pink. I wasn't the sister that loved dolls or girly things. I always said that I would NEVER call my daughter "princess" or encourage the values that often come with "princessy" things such as glorifying looks over brains. I think that God is laughing at me because I don't think I have ever met a little girl that loves the color pink, or anything having to do with a princess, as much as mine. Today was Grace's 3rd birthday. I can't believe she is 3! She woke up today and asked "is today my birthday?" I told her it was, and she got a confused look on her face and asked, "where is the cake? where are the balloons?" Well, she needn't have been concerned, they were coming! We had a princess day, all around! Even Noah got in the mood, loving Grace's high-heeled shoes and her pink baby stroller. Grace wore at least 3 layers of fluff (slips, dress ups, etc) at all times during the day. As I type this she is asleep in her room, in a poofy white slip (the kind I used to throw over my head and pretend was hair when I played dress-ups.) I love that Grace is just as much of an individual as I was. Just much more pink. There are too many pictures to post here, so go to my website (www.lindsayhallam.com). They will be posted there at www.lindsayhallam.com/graces3bday by the end of the night. Here are a couple to tide you over :)

Grace's Swimming Finale

Grace first did swimming lessons when she was about 8 mths old. At that point she basically learned to float on her back if she was to fall in the water. There are so many swimming pools here that it is a huge risk if your child does not know how to survive in the water. Grace and Noah do their lessons through a program called Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) www.infantswim.com. Noah has another week or so to go, and I will post his video as soon as he is done. He is learning to do the same things that Grace does here in the video. Basically they doggy paddle to the edge of the pool, and learn to flip to their back and float when they need a breath. Yesterday Grace swam two laps across the pool and back all by herself. We are so proud of her! This video is more of a demonstration of her survival skills than of her swimming skills, but it is still really neat to see. She normally does her lessons in a swimming suit, but she is fully clothed in the video because sometimes things as little as a jacket or shoes can throw kids off and make it harder for them to survive. Now that we have this under her belt hopefully next year she will be able to do some more actual strokes and things like that. She absolutely loves the water! As you will see in the video, her biggest concern was that her jacket was getting wet :)

Kelly Slater vs. Roy Rogers

Since moving back to Arizona Grace has spent quite a bit of time at her Mema's ranch up in Prescott AZ. We had the chance to go see the rodeo last weekend, and Grace saw the mechanical bull. She said, "I want to DO that!" so up she went,wearing a dress, pink cowgirl boots, and a pink cowgirl hat, all by herself, one arm waving madly in the air. As the bull twirled through the air I saw the look of pain on Steve's face as he realized his daughter might be entering the "cowgirl/horse" phase. Luckily for him, she still doesn't like horses, just bullriding and her boots. In fact, she made him take a picture on top of a stuffed (ALL of him was stuffed....don't look too closely) bull so she could remember the moment forever. Steve says that we need to buy her a surfboard pronto before we lose her to the "other side." :)
Here are a few other pictures from the 4th as well.

Grace and Noah were being silly, she was pushing him around in a doll stroller






Grace and her cousin Cody


Dancing with a flag


All decked out