The Day of Love and Winter Weather

Here is a run down of Valentine's Day this year. The girls and I made Valentine boxes at home one weekend and had fun getting ready for their school parties.

Working hard on Valentine's.

Abi's finished product.

Makayla's

Olivia's

We had cabin fever from staying in the house during all of the snow/ice days. So we were brave and ventured out. We went to a friend's birthday party. One of the days we went to Best Buy, out to eat, and grocery shopping. The girls and Alex are playing the Beatles game at Best Buy in the picture above.

We had some crazy weather around here. As I'm sure most of you did too.

The birthday part for Abi's class mates was fun though. The kids ran around like crazy.

My posts are all out of time line of events order, but the next one will hopefully be Christmas at our house! Bear with me.

She's 3!!!

I have been anxiously counting down to Olivia's 3rd birthday. Those of you who know me, know that I live to plan, organize, and decorate for the girls birthday parties. We had decided a long time ago that Olivia's 3rd would be an M&M party. And so, I began searching for decorations forever ago and couldn't find anything! I looked online for what other people had done and found some really good ideas.  Last Thursday, the 18th, I took cupcakes to Olivia's daycare with Mrs. Lisa and celebrated with her school friends.

Olivia had a good time sharing her cupcakes with her friends. I was thankful to be able to be there for her.

This was her barrel full of M&M's birthday cake. It was probably one of the easiest cakes I've ever made. And she was super excited when she saw all of the M&M's. Lots of people asked if there was a cake in there, and yes, there is. It is just covered with a thin layer of M&M's.

She had such a great turn out at her party! We are so blessed with wonderful friends and family.

The party was at Larry's Pizza. Larry's is delicious! We had loaded baked potato pizza, cheeseburger pizza, honey mustard chicken, Fat Larry's Supreme, and of course good ol' cheese and pepperoni.

Olivia got lots of great gifts and thank you to all of you who came. We enjoyed our time with you all.

Christmas Continued

We usually spend Christmas morning at Nana and Poppa's house. Everyone got lots of great gifts. Poppa ended up with a fire pit. It will be fun to get to use it this summer with the kids. We had a great Christmas and are so thankful to have our family. And, of course, Nana made the traditional chocolate gravy breakfast. There is MORE Christmas to come in future posts. We still have pictures from our Christmas at home. Christmas is always a very busy season. We went to Alex's parents, my parents, my Memaw, and my Granny's through out the month.  I just realized a fun game would be to see if you can find the kids amongst the Christmas boxes and toys. Ha.
See ya soon!

Lots Has Been Done and There's More To Come!

I know this is ridiculous. It is February. And I just came across some pictures from Christmas. So, that's where I'm going to start.

December 2009-Saline County Court House Drive-By

My wonderful friend Debbie at the girls cheerleading practice.   

Christmas at Grammie and Papaw Truman's

Table Talk...looks juicy

Christmas at Nan and Pop's...and the Gingerbread Disaster

Everyone tried to help with that stinkin' gingerbread house. It was my first attempt and my last! It looked terrible. The roof kept sliding off. Anyway, I'm going to quit talking about it before I get all worked up again. DISASTER!

That's Livi's "Good Morning!" smile.

I will quit with pictures for now (due to the fact that uploading has taken 45 minutes tonight). Next time, the conclusion of Christmas 2009 and Valentine's Day boxes for school!

Have a great week everyone!

Sweet Treats

Things are going pretty good around the Hill home. Abi and KayKay have cheer practice on Monday nights and games every Saturday. They are also still doing gymnastics on Thursdays. Those activities aside from work and daily life have been keeping us pretty busy. Olivia is on the brink of turning three and we will probably be enrolling her in gymnastics sometime soon as well if it is at a reasonable time.

The last few weeks are pretty much a blur. We have had some issues with Makayla while she is at school. She has been to In School Suspension twice within a couple of weeks. Alex and I have been worried about where these behaviors and feelings are coming from. We often have to take a step back and realize that Makayla had a very different life before she came to live with us and typically, no matter how bad the situation was, a child usually has a desire for what they knew. I think that Makayla went through a lot before coming to live with us but she is not very verbal about any of it. I worry that she holds a lot in and then all of a sudden it begins to pour out of her in ways that she doesn't understand. So, please keep KayKay in your prayers. She is good most of the time but those rare outbursts are coming more often and more drastically.

Abigail got her report card and...drum roll please....she made all A's. We are so proud of her. One of her favorite things is to get a chocolate milk shake from Chick-Fil-E. I took her out for a special treat and got her one for all of her hard work.

Olivia is doing good. Her new favorite word is to say "what?" after everything that you say to her whether she heard you or not. She still loves M & M's, Minnie Mouse, Elmo, and pizza. She loves her baby "Lucy" that Nana got her for Christmas. Lucy is a creepy little doll.  She reminded me of Chucky. We named her Lucy, short for Lucifer. Olivia also got a little 4 wheeler for Christmas and she rides it all around the house. When her sisters start chasing eachother, Olivia hops on her 4 wheeler and takes off after them.

Picture Time!!!


Makayla cheering at her first basketball game. She's the loudest one on the team. We are so proud of her!

After their game, we treated them to the Purple Cow. They love purple shakes.

This was her first Purple Cow purple shake.

                                                And the verdict is.............  
      Ha, that looks like a Bill Clinton thumbs up.

Check this out, Olivia had the Elvis Special, a peanut butter and banana sandwich with honey. It was fried in a ton of butter too. Oh, and don't forget the potato chips on the side.

And to top it off, we went to Cupcakes At Kavanaugh and had a cupcake! It was delicious.

This last one was at Nana and Poppa's this weekend.

The days fly by and before I know it a whole month is gone. I wish I had more time to keep this blog updated. I don't think I have even posted Christmas pictures yet!

The girls are out of school tomorrow and I am off as well. We are going to do some grocery shopping and try to enjoy some time together. I hope you all have a very safe and happy week.

We are still alive!

I know. It has been a while since I have posted, but, man! Doesn't life just get in the way sometimes?

I don't even know where to start with reviewing the end of 2009. Work has been nuts. The kids have been even crazier ;o).

I remember Christmas at my Memaw's was wonderful. We were all together and so glad to be! We played MadGab. That game is always a great memory.

I had to work this year up until Christmas Eve, which was a first for me. I have always either been in school and on break for a couple of weeks or at my old job we would close down for a couple of weeks during Christmas and New Year's. But not this state job! So the holidays have felt a little different for me this year.

I took Abi and KayKay to see Alvin and the Chipmunks the day before Christmas Eve. They enjoyed it. I think Makayla got a little bored (as did I). But it was nice to get to go. I let them pick where we were going to eat and they picked IHOP. They had crazy pancakes and I had blueberry pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns, and sausage (which they got half of). And some warm hot chocolate. It was pouring down rain. We had a good time though.

And to include Olivia in this story, she was super hacked that I left her at home with daddy. So he had to pacify her with pop pop (popcorn) and M&M's. She is something else these days.

We also celebrated Christmas with our good friends from Arkadelphia. We love those ladies!

We went to Newhope on Christmas Eve for Christmas with Papaw Truman and Grammie Retta. The girls had a great time as always and then we went to my Granny Gloria's for Christmas with my dad's side of the family. We play Chinese Christmas every year and it is always a hoot. It's especially fun when Uncle David and Aunt Edith come and bring some of the most outrageous gifts. Every year this chess set gets brought back and all the men fight over it. I don't think anyone ever uses it once they get it. It's just something fun to bicker over.

We had Christmas at Nanna and Poppa's on Christmas Day and came home on Saturday. We then had Christmas at home.  And back to work that Monday. It was a wild holiday.

I have a ton more pictures to post but not enough time to do it right now. Hopefully I can get on here soon and finish up the Christmas pictures. I hope you all had a happy and safe holiday season!

Keep It On The Sunny Side Of Life

I have not posted in forever it seems like. Life has been insanely busy and the times that I have been able to sit down and work on a blog, my computer has been acting ridiculous. This entry will not contain many (if any) pictures due to the fact that my computer acts up.

So much has been going on that I don't know where to start.
Olivia had bronchialitis a couple of weeks ago and she scared us to death! She ran a fever over 104 and it would spike all of a sudden. The nurse that I spoke to said that this was typical with bronchialitis and told me what to do to keep the fever from rising. She still has a bad sounding cough so I took her back to the doctor yesterday and was told that she more than likely has asthma. I was not really suprised to hear this due to her sister's both having asthma when they were younger. She is now on a liquid steriod and a steriod inhaler. They want her to continue to use the inhaler until spring and then re-evaluate from there. She does really well with medicine and the breathing treatments. She acts like she feels great but her cough sounds awful. Olivia got a visit from Santa Clause at Mrs. Lisa's earlier this week. He brought her a Cabbage Patch Doll that has hair extensions. The doll's hair is blond and curly. Olivia has been talking about how Santa brings presents all week. It sounds like he is her new best friend.

Makayla is doing great. She is loving school and has recently started cheerleading. I got to go watch her on Monday for the first time and she made me so proud! She was the only child that followed directions and yelled loud when it was time to cheer. I think she really enjoys the cheerleading too. She gets to wear her pajamas to school on Friday and watch "The Polar Express" at school. When I told her that she needed to bring $2 for snacks on that day, she ran straight to her piggy bank and dug out the money. She couldn't wait!

Abigail is doing good as well. She feels so grown now that she gets to cheer lead. I have to tell the story about her first week of cheer practice though. Both of the girls were very excited to get to go to their first cheer practice. Alex brought them home from school and told me that Abi had gotten in trouble at school. Abi was sitting by a little girl named Sophia and had written on a piece of paper that Sophia was a brat. Sophia began to cry and Abi quickly erased the sentence and wrote "I like Sophia". Sophia told on Abi and Abi's teacher sent a note home. As punishment, Alex decided that Abi could not attend her first cheer practice. Abi was really upset. Later that night, I was cleaning up the kids toys after they had gone to bed and I found a magna doodle that they play on all the time. Abi had written "I have not had a grate day". I laughed so hard! Alex posted a picture of it on facebook.  And the latest Abi story is so darn sweet. The Elementary school has "Santa Shop" where the kids can bring money and pick out a gift for their parents, grandparents, or siblings. Abi shopped on Tuesday and I had sent her $10 to pick out gifts. I asked her who she bought for and she said "mom and dad". I asked her if she spent $5 on each gift and she said, "No, I spent $9 on one and $1 on the other." This made me laugh. Later in the night, when it was just the two of us, I asked Abi what she bought for Daddy. She lit up and said, " I bought him this pen. And it says "Mom" on it." I giggled a little and gave her a puzzled look. I said, "Abi, why did you buy Daddy a pen that says "Mom" on it?" and she looked at me like I should have known the answer to that and said, "Because he loves you." She melts my heart.   And on top of all of that, I got a look at the pen tonight. It's flaming hot pink. I can not wait to see Alex taking notes at work with his hot pink Mom pen.

On another note, I have had a heavy heart this week. My job can be very demanding and it is showing me what I'm made of. Please pray for my family and that I will make good decisions when it comes to work and family. I know that God will guide me to where I belong and to accomplish what I am meant to do while on this earth.