Bed Time and The Manipulator

My sweet Halle has learned how to manipulate her parents. Last night this is how bed time went:
8:45 - we read stories, say prayers, hugs, kisses, cuddles, and as I walk out I always say something like, "Stay in your bed, lights off, door closed, and go to sleep. What happens if you get out of bed?" Halle's response is either "You'll take [whatever stuffed animal she's sleeping with] away" or "Go to time out."

She almost always gets a courtesy get out of bed free card and we threaten one more time. The next time, we follow through.

9:00 Watching American Idol and I'm thinking, "Wow! She didn't even get out of bed!" Door opens.
Jared: (Goes upstairs) Halle, go to sleep
Halle: I'm reading to my giraffe! (stuffed animal of choice that night)
Jared: Okay. Well, go to sleep.
(We do our best never to get mad when she is simply reading quietly in bed.)
Door closes.
9:30 Door opens
Jared: Halle, what do you need?
Halle: Mommy
Me: Halle, what do you need?
Halle: I need cuddles.

Seriously. How do you resist that? I can't get mad at her for that. She's really learned what to say when that door opens. Usually it's just that she needs water, or needs to go to the bathroom. But last night she brought manipulation to a whole new level. But, that's okay. Because I think it's great that she enjoys reading so much, and I absolutely love that she wants some cuddle time with her mommy.

On another topic, have you seen Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs? It's a must see. In the movie when the main characters kiss they puff out their cheeks, pucker up, and close their eyes. This is now how we are required to kiss in our household. Halle puffs out her cheeks, then we do the same. Then she says, "close your eyes, close your eyes." We close our eyes and puff our cheeks and she gives us a kiss. What a silly girl.

Christmas 2009

This Christmas was one of my favorites. Halle is a great age to really be excited for Santa, open her presents, and enjoy her presents. She didn't just rip through them all, she opened them and wanted to play with each one. My parents and grandma Kline spent the night and we enjoyed Christmas Eve together, and we also got to spend time with Jared's family and enjoy dinner with them. On Christmas Eve Grandma Joan, Aunt Janae, and Uncle Jason came over to decorate cookies with Halle.

Then we enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner with my parents and grandma.

After dinner my parents opened their presents from Grandma Kline. You see, Grandma bought them a Wii so that when there are family get togethers we can play it at their house. In the past when Dustin and his family would fly in they'd pack the Wii with them, now they don't have to. Well, when my mom walked in the door Thursday morning she puts a Wii on the counter and says, "Look what I brought for us to play!" My reaction? "OOH! Cool. Grandma, let me take you to your room." Where we decided they should open their present that day (which Jared and I had already unpacked and played, just to make sure it worked of course). So, Jared, Halle, and I got early birthday presents, the Wii my mom had bought! Cool. Anyway, Grandma had bought (via us) all 4 remotes, and a game, so we could actually play. Had we not had that and only the one my mom bought we would have one remote and one game. Not quite the family game. This is my mom's reaction while opening the gift.

I'm pretty sure she wasn't expecting a Wii. She asked, "Is it really?" as she was looking at the Wii and all it's accessories in the Wii carrying case.

Then Halle opened her Christmas Eve gift which was from Mutti (for those of you who don't know, Mutti is my other grandma, we've just always called her Mutti). It is break the ice and oh man does Halle love this game.

I love that she's sticking out her tongue concentrating so much.

Jared opened his present which Halle thoroughly enjoyed.

We hooked up the Wii and Halle had a blast. She now plays the game for hours, and we actually stayed up until 10 last night playing. Am I a bad parent? You may think so. But if you played games like the bike riding and tennis you'd find that riding a bike and shaking your arms like that makes you want them to fall off, and tennis is a real shoulder work out. So I say I'm building her endurance and hand eye coordination. You believe what you wish.

Here is Radar as high as he can get on the couch, while still being protected by my mom. He's sleeping, but still has that one eye open on the look out for Patch. (Little does he know that Patch can jump over the couch.)

Rameses resting his head on Patch's back. They do this a lot, I was thrilled I finally got a picture.

Rusty relaxed on the couch.

I'm pretty sure that's a smile I see on this face.

Radar and his momma.

Momma and her daughter. (Note: this picture is not posed. We really were laying as exact mirror images on the couch.)

Then it was time to leave milk and cookies for Santa and head to bed.

Then Halle drank Santa's milk.

Cute milk mustache though.

(Don't worry, we got him more.)

THEN Santa came!!! We got these pictures after he left and before Halle woke up.

Halle and daddy were excited to see what Santa brought.

Radar was quick to discover the hamster and really wanted to eat her.

Grandma Koren enjoyed the hamster too.

We ended up naming her Flour. She's pretty like a flower, and white like flour. It was quite random though, Halle walked up to the cage and said, "Hi, flower" and so the name stuck. I have no idea why she would have thought to call her that.

Santa's elves made Halle a wooden train set.

Santa brought Tinkerbell stamps for Halle.

We opened our presents from Halle (Grandma Koren drove her to the store to find them).

When Halle handed Jared the box she could hardly contain herself and started yelling, "It's a tie! IT'S A TIE!" Yes, it most certainly was. And she clarified for Jared that it was a Charlie Brown tie.

Then it was my turn. I love this sweater she picked for me. My mom said it was actually the second choice. The first was a tshirt with hot dogs on the nipples, my mom didn't think I would wear that. Thanks, mom.

Grandma Koren got Halle a shopping cart.

Halle enjoyed some artsy time while we ate breakfast and cleaned up.

Then it was time to go to Grandma Joan's where we took no pictures except these of the deer outside their house.

When we got home we fed the dogs. My mom forgot this rolly ball thing she feeds Radar with (to slow him down so he doesn't scarf). We let Patch use it (since he scarfs) and he ate while we unloaded the car. We came inside from one trip out to the car to find him with this bag over his head. He had rolled the ball into the bag and managed to get his head inside one of the handles. Hilarious! Here he is tripping over the bag while walking.

Then since Jared was taking pictures he looked at me and said, "Momma! Help me! This is humiliating." I couldn't help. I was too busy taking video.

So he decided to just put his head in the bag and make sure he hadn't missed any sweet morsels of food.

And so that was our Christmas. We enjoyed much time with family and loved the 4 day weekend together. We look forward to this 4 day weekend together for New Years.

Halle's Christmas Concert

First, here is Halle in her Christmas dress infront of our tree.

She had her Preschool Christmas Concert on Thursday the 16th. She had been sick the three days before with a high fever, and luckily her fever broke that night so we decided to take her in. She had been looking forward to it and practicing so hard. The kids sat up there for a while and Halle started getting nervous. Sad.

Once they started she was perfectly fine and by the end of the first song had actually started to sing all of the songs! It was amazing she knew so many of the words. They sang about elves making toys. I'm pretty sure she was the only lefty up there.

This was the only glimpse of a smile we got while she was up there.

In other events. We made a gingerbread house.

(Her shirt says, "Dear, Santa, I want it ALL!")

I also have finally gone through my pictures from the past few months. Cute.

We went to the zoo a few months ago.

We saw the baby elephant who apparently was very itchy because she scratched her back and belly on anything she could.

Penguins are Jared's favorite and he couldn't go, so I took some pictures for him.

We went for a drive and took pictures of the leaves changing and pictures just don't do it justice.

Sometime during all of this was Halloween.

Halle likes to sort her candy.

And when I wasn't watching she painted her face.

She painted a pumpkin with her hands.

She likes to do our hair.

That picture reminds me of when she was a baby and liked to look at herself in the mirror.

Patch discovered how to get on the counter.

This reminds of Doug in the movie UP when he goes "POINT!".

Both of our dogs most definitely are Greyhounds. There are many times we've found them laying in the exact same position.

It feels good to be caught up!