Yeah for Cousins

Halle is pretty much always a happy, outgoing soul but when it comes to hangin with her cousins she REALLY comes to life. Calling them by name, jumping and dancing when they walk in just loving them from head to toe.  At the end of May we celebrated a three cousins birthday party because they were all born the first three days of June, what a treat! Then a few days later we celebrated Robbie-Kates birthday on her birthday and it was a fun Fairy Princess Party. Gina and I made the girls' costumes, our first attempt at homemade wings....oh boy! But it was worth it they look adorable.

YEAH!

we don't have the internet at our house yet but i am determined to make a better effort to keep up on blogging because i love hearing about everyone and what you are up to. the bank accepted our offer in december and after closing, cleaning and painting we moved into the house in the middle of january. we are LOVING it, even after making the mortgage payment. we weren't sure how long it would take Halle to adjust, but she hasn't had any problem, she is comfortable and happy. here is a sneak peak.

Halle Meets Santa Claus

She was literally shaking when I picked her up off of Santa's lap, but she must not have been too disturbed because she still took the candy cane he offered her.

The white beard must have traumatized Hal because a day or two after meeting Santa Claus Halle walked into the bathroom, started screaming, ran away and found Mom... 

because Daddy had just started shaving.

if only she knew how to read

or maybe she does...?

Rrrrooooaaarrrr!

The Boise Zoo opened up a new African Safari and Halle's cousins Robbie-Kate and Ronnie loved it so when all the cousins were in town around Thanksgiving we decided to go check it out. After a warm lunch we bundled up tight and headed out to the zoo. As we were finishing up taking some pictures at our favorite tree we heard the biggest roar ever, it was like we were right next to the lion....but we weren't. So we got all excited about seeing the lion and hoped that he would roar again once we were by him. About ten minutes into being in the Safari sure enough he did it again, I couldn't believe how loud it was, it was awesome, and how beautiful they were. We also got to see the new giraffe, there is only one now because the other got sick and passed away. Halle had a great time checking out all the cool animals, hanging with her cousins and sliding down the big giraffe slide.

gone fishin'

uncle dave and uncle "nark" invited us to go fishing before the boys' flag football game a while back and we hadn't ever been fishing together so we gladly accepted, and there was no doubt that Hal would love it. Dan had received a new fishing pole for his birthday and had to try it out, it was a new kind of reel that he had never used before so it was an adventure, a tangled adventure. Halle had a great time with uncle nark and splish splashing in the water. it is definitely something we will have to do more together as a family.

"the worst first date"

so Dano and I went on a date the other night and since we are obsessed with those paint your own pottery places we decided to try a new one downtown that we have never been to called Ceramica. it took a while, be we (Dan) eventually picked out what we wanted to paint and sat down at the cutest little mismatched tables. they lady that worked there brought us our paint and i sponged away as Dan plotted out his lines. we painted coat after coat all the while not really saying two words to each other. i discovered a while ago that Dan doesn't converse when painting his pottery, he is just concentrating too darn hard (he does usually do a lot of wonderful detail). so i found myself listening to the other painters conversations as they drank their 6-8 glasses of wine and discussed religion, children and how they planned on getting home. as we finished up our paint jobs and headed up to the check out desk the worker asked us if we were paying seperately, we quickly looked at each other funny and said no, together please. she rang up our ticket and proceeded to ask if we were going to pick them up seperatly. again, we looked at each funny and said no, together please. we got our ticket walked out the door and Dan said, "She must have thought that was the worst first date ever."