Dancing Queen

So You Think You Can Dance?
Hailee was pretty shy when she first got to the church, but by the time we had finished eating dinner and started on dessert she had warmed up to most everyone. She loves showing off her great dancing skills, this is just a brief clip of some of her moves! -I expect to see you all learning them and trying them out soon enough! Just wait till I catch her doing her "turtle rock" dance on camera! Man she's can groove!

Happy Turkey Day

Just a few highlights of our Thanksgiving Day, sorry I didn't get the last picture rotated.


Carter and Hailee sportin' the hood!


Grandpa showed Hailee this cool trick of walking on the wall, and then jumping off! Aren't grandpa's the coolest!


Addi and Hailee had so much fun playing together. They played ring around the rosies, the balloon pop game and they both loved the slide-and the suckers!

so much to say...

I have plenty of things to blog about, but this is going to be a short one.
This weekend was lots of fun for us, we went to Plain City on Saturday and again on Sunday. Saturday morning we Hall's got together to film the first (next generation) nativity. So all the little cousins were running around the gym and mostly the stage-not really singing the Christmas songs-maybe because none of them are old enough to know the words, but that just made it all the merrier-right?!
Well all in all I think it turned out quite nice for the first try, and I'm excited to see the final product! Which brings me to my next point-I didn't bring my camera which is fine, cuz I think I would have been too busy with Hailee to take pictures (and since its old and slow I wouldn't have gotten too many before we were all finished!)-BUT I know there were several of my cousins out there who did take pictures...Alyson (I would really like that one of Hailee at the piano) would you please send some my way? Thanks so much!
Sunday we went back for Grandma Greats birthday party. Happy Birthday Grandma Great! I LOVE getting together with the Halls. You guys are all so friendly and nice. The only part I hate is that there never seems to be enough time to talk to everyone I want to, or for as long as I want to.
It was strange to me to go to a family party and watch My little girl run around with all the little kids. She seems to small to be doing that. I still remember asking Santa for a ring for Christmas, now I have that, a wonderful husband to go with it, a beautiful little girl and a very active little boy on the way! I have so much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving.
So Thanks again to such a wonderful family for welcoming me in, and making me feel included and loved!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. (I promise I'll take my camera to THanksgiving and update you all-with all these holidays so close together, I might have to start blogging more!)

HALL- oween fun

We had a great Halloween. Last week we went up to Grandma and Grandpa Halls for a Halloween Party. Grandma worked really hard to make it a fun time for Dustin and Hailee. There was a fishing pond, coloring contest, playdough, pinata-by Taryn, pumkin walk and lots more.
Hailee would have been content with just the swings and feeding the animals, but there was lots to do.
She was supposed to be a pink poodle for Halloween but as you can see it wasn't her favorite costume...yes she was tired in this picture, but I got the same reaction just about everytime I tried it on her.
SO, my neighbor Megan had extra costumes and we tried the butterfly costumer. At first she wasn't too into it, but I put it on her at preschool when all the kids had costumes on, and she did much better. I would tell her to "fly butterfly" and she would run around the preschool. Last night, after a bit of practice, she figured out the trick or treating business, and even tried to say trick or treat. She really liked it when someone would knock on our door.
By this morning she was all excited and found her costume again and wanted to wear it all morning...she even got mad at me when I took off the hat-which was the part she hated the most! What a funny girl!
Thanks Grandma for the Halloween socks-Hailee loves those too-she won't take them off! And now she says 'bat'


A sad sad puppy


Fly little butterfly-p.s. she now LOVES the butterfly song on signing time. She gets so excited, pointing and talking all about the caterpillars and butterflies!


Aunt Taryn taught Hailee how to make a mustache with her playdough


Grandma took Hailee on a bike ride-She had a splendid time and didn't want it to be over. She walked back to the garage to get back on after Grandma took her out.


The Pumkin walk in Logan was really neat, I've never been before. People get pretty creative with their pumkins and gourds.


My little melting witches-they turned out pretty cute (Thanks Chelsea)



Our preschool party-decorating cookies

It's a BOY!!!

Hailee is going to be a big sister to a cute new brother! We are sooo excited. Heath was convinced that cricket would be a girl-he really doesn't want to have to buy new clothes when all of Hailee's are still in style!
The ultrasound went great the little guy seems to like staying curled up in a little ball with his knees-or feet up to his face. He has plenty of room to move around, but he seemed content to stay curled up tight. Measurements and vitals all looked good and strong so we are happy that things are going well!
We're not sure of names yet, boy names seem to be harder for us to agree on, but we have time to think of some-any suggestions will be taken into consideration.

I don't have a scanner so I can't add pictures but I have a dvd of the event. Anyone is welcome to come over for movie night and watch! He's a cutie!

We're going to the ZOO, ZOO, ZOO!

Hailee, Dad, and Mom went to the zoo on Saturday. We had a great time. Hailee liked the monkeys...how do you measure up?

She also saw the giraffe's and signed giraffe (I taught her that one-no signing time required!)



She liked the rhino-she called it a cow.



I'm not sure who likes the zoo more...Hailee or Dad? She is trying to mimmick me more and more with what I say, and on a good day I can get her to say zoo. She is also good at telling what different animals say, she knows; sheep, cow, horse, snake, lion, dog, elephant.
She is also a very good pretender. She loves to pretend that she is a dog. She gets down on her hands and knees and pants as she crawls around the room. This morning her and daddy pretended they were monsters and were roaring as they crawled into my bedroom to "scare" me out of bed!
What a fun little girl we have. We love her so much and we can't wait for another bundle of joy to come our way...stay posted to find out if it is a girl or a boy, my appointment is today!

The long lost blogger has been found

I want to apologize for not blogging for so long. I have checked up on a few blogs, but I haven't taken the time to post, I've been too busy enjoying my summer I guess! I want to thank all of you who have on your blog how recently your contacts have updated...it helped motivate me, the one month mark was a pretty sad sight!

July 24th- The Allred Family Reunion
What a great time in Flaming Gorge.(sorry no pics) Our first day Hailee did pretty good on the trip out-until the last hour. After the rainstorm we all rafted down the green river, a nice relaxing trip, I haven't been rafting for awhile, so it was fun. Then the rest of the weekend was spent with family sharing stories, eating great food, trying to avoid the afternoon rainstorms and just vacationing. Too bad Hailee isn't that fond of camping-I mostly feel bad for Jeremy, Taryn, Dustin and Nathan who I'm sure were annoyed by Hailee's frequent wake ups! Thanks Karol for planning a great reunion. My family never did long reunions like that (that I remember) so I love having family reunions!

August 6-8 Girls Camp
What a different experience to go as a leader rather than a girl! Thanks to all my leaders who put up with me back in the day! Really it wasn't all that bad, but it was a lot of work! Thank you Emily G-the bestest camp director ever- she made it wonderful! We went back to Flaming Gorge and camped on the beach near Manila. Our tent was 15 ft from the water-how relaxing to fall asleep to the waves! The girls spent most of the week in the water. We had plenty of food. On Friday we rafted the river-two trips in two weeks-fun stuff! We had afternoon rainstorms everyday, but I don't think it made it any less fun for the girls, they seemed to have a great time. We had a great turn out-15 girls, the most ever attending a YW function-that I've been in charge of!

Aug 11-12 Hall Family Reunion
I'm really glad that Reed and Nadine have decided to have a family reunion, I think it had been a great tradition. We a great time. On Tuesday we went on a "short" hike to coldwater lake...a lake that only Reed found. A hotdog roast at a nearby park. A luau with games and prizes for all. On Wed we went up the canyon and shot 22's and shotguns, with a picnic afterwards. I haven't been shooting much, and I didn't do that great, but I had a great time. That evening we went to Willow Park zoo where Hailee practiced hopping like a Wallaby-it was so cute! She crouched down, grabbed her pants and tried to hop, but really just stood up, it was so funny! Then we had a great dutch oven dinner made by 'Grandpa Hall'
Hailee loved Grandma and Grandpa's new swing set, and of course she fed the cows with Grandpa every morning!

Aug 13-16 Hall (extended) Family Reunion
We just staying in Logan on Thursday and headed up to Bear Lake that afternoon for the next reunion. We actually stayed up a canyon in Paris and spent just one day at the Lake, but what a great reunion. Jessica & Blake did an amazing job of planning and executing this massive family reunion. We went to Bloomington lake for the Polar Bear Plunge-which was amazingly quite warm. I even jumped off the rope swing! Reed told some great stories about Grandma and Grandpa Great and their kids around the campfire. Hailee slept through the night the first night!!!! On Friday we headed to the lake, it was a windy day, but it was still fun. I have never ridden a wave runner, so I tried that out with Mindy. We tipped once and couldn't get back on until Stephen came a saved us in his boat, after that, I gave up and drove back to shore-I think I bruised my ribs trying to climb on so many time! Hailee loved the water. Heath held her hand and she waded out until the waves hit her neck, then she turned around and said "G-ma" and walked back toward the shore. She was constantly shivering from the cold, but didn't understand that it was the water making her that way, because she cried when we took her away from it. Then we took her for a boat ride, she had a pretty sea sick look on her face most of the time. She never cried, but I'm not sure that she enjoyed it too much. BUT she hadn't ever signed boat until after that trip, so something good came from it!
Saturday was the "BIG" day...Heath left Friday night so he could catch a flight to Denver. He got invited to the Denver Broncos game on Saturday-who can pass that up? Hailee and I stayed at the reunion and had a great time. Most of the extended family was there and for good reason. We had fun games and great food, what a great way to celebrate G-ma and G-pa Great's 60th anniversary.
There was a ball pit, which Hailee absolutely HATED until her cousin Dustin showed up, then she kept walking over to it and wanting in. There was a fishing pond for prizes, a tug-o-war with all different kinds of teams some honest, some not so much., and there was the MONEY PIT! Hailee loved the sawdust, she found money and threw it back in, I managed to keep 55 cents of it. The adult contest was gonna be a small crowd until word spread that Uncle Jerry put in a $100 bill. After that I barely had any room to look, I was smashed between a bunch of greedy boys! I came away with the $10 bill-the next biggest, about 14 dollars total- so not too shabby. After that week of reunions Hailee came home and slept!
Highlight of the trip: Flat tire at Bear Lake-so we drove to Montpiliar and bought 4 new tires-it needed to be done, we just were planning on doing it this fall, rather than in the middle of the reunion!

Aug 28
My 25th birthday! I convinced Reed and Nadine to stay for dinner on Wednesday to celebrate my birthday. I made tiny spicy chicken and chocolate cake- who would refuse! Then I sent Heath and Reed to Lowes and had them hang some sheet rock in my basement to get me more ready for preschool-thank you sooooo much! My birthday was a pretty simple day. My neighbors took me to lunch and I shopped for chairs and preschool stuff at IKEA-what a fun big store.
Heath brought my home a huge bag of Reese's-yummy. My real present is coming this weekend. Heath and I are spending the night in Midway and shopping the outlets on Saturday. I've never been to the outlets-so I am excited for this shopping trip-too bad i'm inbetween sizes so I don't know what end to buy for-I guess a little of each! and some for Hailee too! She gets to spend the night at Grandma Gardner's while I go play! Thanks Grandma!

Aug 30 Labor Day weekend
We ended the summer camping season by camping at White Rocks out by Roosevelt. It was nice to be able to visit Grandma Allred for awhile and to just relax in the great outdoors. Hailee loved the dirt and just wandering around. We went on a walk/hike and she loved getting down and choosing her own path! She was covered in dirt and happy as can be...until the sun went down and we closed her in a tent! It was still fun to go camping at one of Heath's favorite childhood campgrounds. Maybe one day she'll learn to like a tent!

Sept 2 Preschool begins!
My first day of preschool went extremely well. I almost cried when at 8:45 I only had one student (we started at 8:30) but people just didn't realize what time it started. So after three days, I think it's going to be a lot of fun to have a preschool. It will be A TON of work, but I'm excited to be doing something that I've wanted to do for so long. I have a neighbor on either side of my with kids in my classes, so I love hearing feedback from them that their kids had a great time! One week down, and so far, so good! If anyone had cute arts and crafts or preschool ideas, I'm always open for suggestions! Anything to help improve the preschool!

Sept 4th DUDE!
Wow! I made it to today. With only the basic highlights of summer you can tell it's been busy and fun! I had a great summer and tried new things. Hailee has grown so much this summer. She is learning so many things and mimicking people all the time. Today she learned a new word. My neighbor Megan finished cutting Colby's hair and Hailee heard her say "Dude" then she repeated over and over again. I heard about it after preschool and asked her to say it-it sounds sooo cute. Her first slang word!
I'll try and be better about blogging, but I make no promises! It would be easier if I had internet during the day, but we're cheap-so I take what i can get-and that is what I give to you!
Oh yeah-an update on the pregnancy. I have felt really good, so it's hard to remember that I'm pregnant. Now that I'm four months my pants are starting to feel tight- I guess maternity clothes are coming sooner this time. I have a bit of a baby bump now. Hailee's nickname in the womb was "pickles", this babies nickname is "cricket". So I have felt cricket more a few times, mostly at night, but it's still a cool feeling! We find out if cricket is a girl or boy on Sept 19th, so we'll let you know soon. Heath is positive it is a girl. I'm not really sure, but I'm excited for either one!