Hailey vs. the comb

The one day the kids go to daycare....and look at what happens!! :) I walked in to pick up the kids and one teacher sees me and says "It isn't as bad as it looks." I see Hailey sitting on the counter with a red face (from crying) and a comb STUCK IN HER HAIR. Okay...that is tough not to laugh at!! :) They said that she and another little girl got 2 combs and were "playing". Hailey told me that she was trying to put a braid in her hair. Doesn't matter...her hair was in a KNOT around that comb! I took her home and attemped to get it off, but it wasn't working. Poor Hailey was crying "I don't want to go to the hotel with a comb in my hair." (we were leaving for the hotel weekend the next morning) I ended up taking her to the hairdresser and believe it or not, but she got it out without cutting a single hair! Not sure how that happened, but happy it did! :)

The before--->
And after --->

Christmas Day

MERRY CHRISTMAS (okay...I am trying here!! :))!!! Christmas Day was sure fun-filled, present-loaded, and just an all-around great day!! We started the day by waking up, going downstairs and seeing that Santa came!!


Of course, no time for breakfast...time to OPEN PRESENTS! The kids loved looking through their stockings to see what Santa brought them. Hailey actually took her time a little too! :) Ryan was very serious that the oranges at the bottom of our stockings needed to go in the fridge and the candy needed to go in the pantry!!


Hailey's favorite gifts were her Island Princess Barbie (first picture) and her new pink camera. Oh my... it was a "mini me"!! :) She was taking pictures of everything...people opening gifts, breakfast, snowmen on the walls, etc, etc, etc. I am glad Santa got her a 1 GB card for her camera!! :) Look at her in the last picture...right in there taking a picture!!


Ryan's favorite gifts were his Bronco helmet and of course his toy gun. The boy was trying to get bucks all over in the house!! :) He was sure fun to watch!!!


After all the Santa gifts, we finally had breakfast. The kids were remembering that it was Jesus' birthday, so we all sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus at the table! :) How cute is that?!?! :) After Chris and I got ready, we finally got to open the remainder of our family gifts. The kids sure didn't care since they had toys to play with!!!

Hailey had fun sorting the gifts...she wanted to READ all the tags!! It was great, but we had TONS of gifts to go through. Here they are all ready with their piles of gifts at home :


Finally it was time to go to Grandma & Papa's house!!! First thing Ryan had to do was shoot the deer in the front yard!!


Here is a picture of all the cousins (Owen, Mason, Ryan, Hailey). Actually turned out good! :) Then, Hailey got a "Baby Alive" and Ryan and Owen got guitars! Crazy, but fun!! :)


They all got late naps, woke up to have a yummy supper, and then we were off to our house again to have Tim's bday party (it was a surprise). It was a loooong day, but we had a lot of fun!!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was sure a BUSY DAY!!! We woke up at the cabin, had a yummy breakfast, then everyone went straight to Billings and to the mall. No...not for last minute shopping. Doug & Doran wanted to take all the kids to Build-A-Bear workshop to create their own animal. Of course the kids LOVED it. And, surprisingly, it wasn't even busy in that store!!

Here are 3 of the 4 kids ready to get their animals done!! And, Hailey with "Arianna" and Ryan with "Puppy Buck". The kids named their own animals (if you had any doubts :) ).


Owen with ??? (see...I shouldn't have waited to write this!!) and Mason with "Harley". We didn't get a group picture...the kids were ready to get home and NAP!


After Build-A-Bear, everyone went to their own homes and had lunch and napped. Then, we got up, quickly got dressed, and headed to Carleen & Rich's to say Hi and Merry Christmas to the Pilcher side. It was a quick visit, but still fun. Then we raced back to this side of town to get to church by 4:00! :)

After church, we came home and had supper. During supper, we were able to SEE SANTA flying above Billings. The kids always LOVE that!! Poor Ryan...he wasn't eating his supper and had to go to time out for a little bit. So, we had "Santa" come outside the front door (where Ryan was sitting) and Ryan FREAKED! He didn't want Santa to see him in time out and not eating his supper. He RAN to the table and started eating. It was so funny...he was really scared and didn't want Santa to come in. :)

After supper ... there was some playing of course! Look at Hailey and Owen...they were ROCK STARS....Hailey was singing and Owen was playing the guitar. Ryan wasn't interested in singing that night. :) Then, the kids all decided to jump on Tim. Look at Hailey...poor Tim!! :)


I did get a picture of the kids (don't they look ADORABLE??!?!) and a family picture. Chris is just too speedy to get out of his "church clothes"!! :)



Before we left to go to look at lights and then go to Clay & Marjie's for snacks, drinks and fun, the kids were able to open their ONE PRESENT on Christmas Eve. They both got a new toothbrush and toothpaste (Hailey's were both Barbie, and Ryan got a Shrek toothbrush and Cars toothpaste). They were very excited and I hope they continue to use them more regularly!! :)


After we got home (late), we had to get cookies and milk ready for Santa. Then, we always read "The Night Before Christmas" book....Ryan's favorite! It was a late night, but SO MUCH FUN!

The weekend BEFORE Christmas

Okay...sorry for not keeping up with the blog over the holidays. There was just no time, and with being off of work, the last thing I wanted to do was sit at a computer!! :) I am going to try to document a high level of our time...not sure how long this will take me! :)

Hailey, Ryan, Chris and I went to the cabin on Friday 12/21 and made it up there by 1:30 I think. We had a nice afternoon playing in the cabin, and just relaxing. Then, on Saturday 12/22, Ed, Rainya, Hailey T. and McKenna came up to go sledding, have lunch, and exchange gifts. We all had a great time having them there...but the time went too quickly. The kid of course loved the gift exchange....and just having kids there to play with too! It was a little chilly outside, but all the kids still went sledding and had a great time. We spent the night alone...watching the "Elf" movie and just being together.

All the kids ready to eat lunch!! (McKenna, Hailey T, Ryan, Hailey P) Ryan acting silly (like always)


Practicing push-ups with Daddy. They even had him doing them with each of them on his back!!!


Then on Sunday, Tim, Kendra, Owen, Mason and G/G Pilcher all came up for the day and night too. We had fun playing and relaxing again (while Tim & Chris went skiing). There was more sledding and 4 wheeler rides and even a little bday party for Tim.

The kids doing a craft on Sunday morning and one of Hailey holding Mason (she was so excited to have him there finally and getting to hold him). And, Hailey acting all goofy too!

And a little song from Hailey & Ryan. They were quite the singers this year. This is from Saturday night when they did a few songs for Chris & I. Sunday night they were singing for a good 30 minutes for everyone!! It is fun that Ryan is singing it too....since he was learning it watching Hailey practice at Sunday School. He loved to sing this song...and we encouraged it too since it was so cute and fun to watch. :)

Dear Santa

Tuesday night we wrote our letters to Santa. I was so proud of Hailey...she wrote it all. Most letters she knew right away, but a few I would "write" in the air and then she would do it. This is her first real letter!!! She asked for barbies...nice, huh!?? :)

The finished letter, ready to go in the mailbox. Click to enlarge! :)

And a little video of Hailey. She is talking about a few weeks ago she sent a picture to Santa (with a dollar and and piece of gum :)), and left it in our "Santa mailbox". When Santa takes the letters, he leaves a treat in there for them. So, on Tuesday night we checked and there were 2 Hershey kisses in there and she was excited about that as well (as you will see).

Chris helped Ryan with his letter to Santa. When Chris asked him what he wanted, Ryan said "a gun to shoot a buck." Oh come on!! I told Chris he better "help" Ryan out a little more with his Santa letter! :)

Ryan is so silly! Here he is playing with his guitar and microphone...pretending he is at church (he loves watching Allen with the guitar at church and talks about it ALL the time....that and we had to talk about Auntie Kari and her band kids again last night and he asked when we got to go see them again). Not too much to watch, but the ending is funny! :)

Ryan's 3 year pictures

Yesterday I took the kids out of daycare to have their hair cut, and Ryan's 3 year pictures taken as well at Sears. I was hoping the pictures would go better this time (at 18 months and 2 years he was NOT interested in pictures at all!!). Well, the same thing happened..."no smile. no sit down. no stand up. NO PICTURES!!!" So...we got what we could. Not terrible, but he does so much better when it is my camera at home. We might need to experiment with pictures at home from now on. :) Anyway, here the best ones...enjoy the preview.

Gingerbread House

Monday night we spent the night working on decorating the Gingerbread house. I couldn't believe it...but Ryan was really "into" it and even Chris helped with the frosting too (then he was done and had to go watch Monday Night Football :)). Hailey was concerned with getting our house to match the one on the picture, but soon gave up on that!! :) It was fun, and we had a lot of candy left over too.

Chris was going to "eat" the house!!! Hailey & Ryan did not like that ;)

Helping decorate the house :



The finished product --->