My Little Pigtailed Princess

3 posts in one day, I must be trying to make up for lost time and overcompensating for being gone for a week all in one. I couldn't resist showing off these pictures courtesy of my WONDERFUL daycare provider Laura. She had a light load at daycare today so she took the kiddos to eat lunch and play at Sonic in the play area. Enjoy the pictures, I sure did =)

She may have a dirty face but she's still cute!

Sail Fly Away

So I just thought I'd give you a little eye candy today and let you know that I will be laying on this gorgeous beach for the next 5 days (we leave this weekend). We'll be flying to the beautiful Jamaica and enjoying 5 nights, 6 days of rest and relaxation. Try not to be jealous, I'll do a big long post with LOTS of pictures when we get home. After I love on my girls for a few days first of course! We are going kid free on this vacation with 4 other couples and let me just say that I am SO excited but at the same time SO sad that we're leaving the girls. They will be just fine and will have a blast with their grandparents, I can't help but worry just a little bit and wonder if they'll miss us as much as we'll miss them?! As I type this post I'm totally singing in my head to Bob Marley's 'Jammin'... whooo hooo!!

We're staying at an all inclusive resort in Ocho Rios and are planning on doing lots of fun excursions and just enjoying spending time with some friends and each other. My hubby is the greatest and I love getting some 'us' time like this when we go on vacation.

So I've been trying to get to Hobby Lobby for a week or so now to get the supplies to make some flower hair clips for me and the girls. Everything was on sale that I needed to make them last night when I went and all the material to make 2 hair clips only cost me $6.50, SCORE! I was definitely inspired by a fellow bloggers creativity so I wanted to give it a shot myself since I love fun hair clips for Addaline and after trying one myself I was convinced I need to give it a try. I think they turned out pretty good. The 2ND flower shown is a coral color and the beads are silver and yellow, I don't think I LOVE the yellow so I might try to remove them. I'm thinking about starting up a store on Etsy to sell these, what do you think?

The quality of the pictures is poor because I took them with my cell phone

Next is a hair-do MckMama style. She is always doing super fun pony tails with her only daughters hair and I always think they're so cute so again I thought to myself, Why Not?! What do you think? I think the 3 pony tail thing is really working for Miss Addaline! Please pardon the fact that she has a binky in her mouth, she is off them completely but found one hiding under her changing table before I snapped this picture, guess what's going in the trash later tonight?

Well I hope you all have a FABULOUS upcoming week. I'll be laying on the beach tanning my cares away, with sunblock on of course, this girl is no fool!

Show Us Where You Live Friday- Nursery/Kids Room Edition

Welcome to this weeks edition of 'Show Us Where You Live Friday' over at Kelly's Korner... I LOVE this week because it is of my 2 favorite rooms in the house, the girls' bedrooms. I absolutely adore bright colors and decorating and really put a lot of energy into these 2 rooms, probably too much into but oh well.

**We'll start with Macie's room since she's the oldest and all, I think we might have gone a little overboard with the polka dots but she LOVES her room and spends lots of time playing in there.

I added a piece of artwork above her bed a while back, this picture is a little old

Macie loves Hannah Montana and insisted on hanging this poster and a few other pictures on her door

I made this piece of artwork to hang above her bed, I also made Addaline one as well

**Next is Addaline's room. Her room took a lot of work as well with striping the bottom half of the walls, I was going for a 'shabby chic' look so that's why the stripes aren't perfectly measured or painted and I love them that way.

View from the door. I made the letters above her bed

Her closet that is ridiculously full of clothes, and probably 1/3 of them are in the dirty clothes hamper, can we say ADDICTION?!
I made the pictures with her initials above her changing table with cheap frames painted white and scrapbook paper and letters
I made this bow holder as well, the body was pre-made (courtesy of Hobby Lobby) but I attached the ribbon
This is the artwork I made for Addaline that is the duplicate to Macie's
The lamp on Addaline's dresser is also handmade, love it!

Thanks for checking out my children's bedrooms, I hope you enjoyed them. To check out more awesome nurseries and kiddo's bedrooms head on over to Kelly's Korner and get inspired...

Randoms

I haven't blogged in almost a week and can't hardly believe it, I was asked today if I was sick since I haven't blogged?! Our lives have been pretty hectic this past week so I'll try to give a quick update to let you all know yes indeed we're still alive =)

Last week one of the most inspirational bloggers I've come across approached her due date with her sweet baby girl still in utero which is truly a miracle that only God should be credited for. Her daughter April Rose was diagnosed with a few birth defects and was told their only chance of meeting her was to induce immediately and hope that she survived the birthing process. Here they are MANY weeks later and she is still alive in utero and has a strong heartbeat which was once not looking too well either. Last week was 'Hoping in Pink' day in honor of 'B' (April's mom) making it to her due date, anyone who reads her blog took pictures of themselves wearing pink so here is my picture. God bless this precious baby girl and her mother and father. To read April Rose's journey please click here.

This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend and we definitely enjoyed the extra day off. Our neighborhood garage sale was this weekend which we participated in and did wonderful for only having it open one day. I got rid of lots of junk that was laying around, quite a few clothes of mine, a few of Gerrad's and Macie's summer clothes from last year that no longer fit her since she hit a HUGE growth spurt this winter. She grew a little over 2 inches in a matter of month, grew 2 1/2 shoe sizes in the same time as well, and about 4 lbs. She will be taller than me in NO time. We are only about 5 shoe sizes away from each other, I can get on her flip flops and my heels only hang off a LITTLE bit, SHEESH! The rest of our weekend was spent working on our privacy fence that blew over on the North side of our yard a few months ago. We are almost finished and I can honestly say that I have put just as much sweat equity into it as my husband which makes me pretty proud of myself! We had a BBQ at my in laws house which was a good time spent with family and GREAT food as always. My camera has been acting up so that is why I have a shortage of pictures lately.

Gerrad and I are officially on the home stretch of getting ready for our Jamaican vacation that is quickly approaching (4 days but whose counting?). I have done so much laundry that I'm questioning myself of why I always do this and wait until the last minute to do all the laundry in the house. Not only do we have to pack everything we need, we have to make sure the house is all ready for the grandparents to come and stay with the girls there. Washing sheets, towels, grocery shopping, it never ends! I'm going to NEED this vacation by the time it arrives. Please pray for our safe travels and for our girls to adjust for the week while we're away. I'm sure they'll have a blast partying it up with their grandparents but this momma will be a blubbering mess and missing them like C.R.A.Z.Y!!

So that's the latest in the Hall household. What have you been up to lately? Do you have any exciting vacation plans for the summer?

Wordless Wednesday

Victory is MINE Kris Allen's

**This is a side note and TOTALLY off the subject of American Idol but I'd like to announce a giveaway of these AWESOME engraved tiles done by Kaye. Head on over to her site to get registered to win one if you like them. I absolutely love them and have been contemplating buying one for months!**


So as you all know I've voiced my opinion loud and clear subtly on my blog about how I feel in regards to the contestants on American Idol. You all know my love for Adam, NOT! Let me just give you some dialogue from last night at our house real quick so you get the vibe... I paused the show right before they announced the winner...

Me: So who do you REALLY think is going to win tonight? Think long and hard before you answer that question.

Gerrad: I'm not really sure, want to make a bet about it?

Me: Sure, bring it on! I'm CERTAIN that Kris will win, how sure are you?

Gerrad: I bet you a million dollars that ADAM wins!

Me: WHAT? You are SUCH a TRAITOR

Ok now flash back to the show as I press play... The next American Idol is....

KRIS ALLEN (in Ryan Seacrest's radio voice)!!!!!!

I then LEAPT off the couch, over the huge ottoman (yes I'm apparently a hurdler) and into the middle of the family room and was squealing with delight. I was shaking my groove thing all over the place, actually jumped on Gerrad on the couch and was saying 'WHOOOO HOOOOO' right in his ear. How immature so very mature and age appropriate am I?! If only my husband really had that million dollars that he bet me, I'd be RICH!

I was SO happy for Kris Allen and his family. His dad really captivated me when they did the home town tours and his dad was crying like a baby when he talked about how proud he was of his son. To see a grown man crying tears of joy and beaming with the love and pride for his son definitely brought me to tears, DUH! So congrats Kris Allen, once quoted as 'A dark horse in the running' has now captured tons of Americans with his singing and wonderful personality, oh and not to forget his love for God and passion for worship! Can't wait to see what's in store for him next! Victory is mine Kris' and it feels GREAT!

The One Where I Complain

So how many of you faithful and secretive blog readers have had an experience lately when you were out in public and could seriously have wrung the neck pat the back of a small child that didn't belong to you? I'll go first.... I HAVE!

Last night Gerrad and I decided after dinner that we wanted to take the girls to a park to play. It was a B.E.A-utiful evening and we didn't want to waste it sitting inside watching TV or doing any other chore inside. We went to a nearby Lake and played on the playground for just a little bit, why just a little bit you ask? Because we were surrounded by foul mouth little kids that had NO business speaking the way they were and I did NOT want my children around them. At one point I recall uttering to myself loud enough for them to hear, how rude and disrespectful that it was at how they were speaking to each other or at all for that matter. There was one little girl probably around 10 or 11 talking about kissing her boyfriend, EXCUSE ME WHAT? Lord please help me to raise 2 daughters in this new, filthy, perverted day and age. There was another little girl around Macie's age (7-ish) saying every cuss word in the book, CLASSY right?! NOT! There was a little boy calling his little brother every name under the sun, it was literally making me sick to my stomach to hear these potty mouth little children talk to each other so I quickly snatched Addaline off the swings and stormed out of there. I was wondering to myself the whole way home how a mother and father would allow their children to talk like that and do nothing about it? There were quite a few mother's sitting at a picnic table at the park talking just like that themselves so I'm assuming (it's a long shot, NOT!) those children belonged to these women. I was really pretty ticked off that I had to cut MY children's play time short because of such ignorance...

I am very strict with my children, my 6 yr old is not allowed to say many words such as hate, stupid, shut up, etc... let alone cuss words. What is wrong with parents today where they think it's alright for their children to talk like that? How do you explain rationally to a 6 yr old that we had to leave the park because mommy didn't want her to learn all those bad words those naughty kids were saying? It was rough! I am no angel and I will be the first to admit it, I swear sometimes, I try really hard not to and I NEVER do it in front of my children.

How strict are you with your children? Would you speak up and say something if you were in a public situation where profanity was being used in front of your child? I just wanted to complain...

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Friday night we did NOT have a fabulous time with our friends at dinner discussing all the fun things we are NOT going to do on our approaching vacation to Jamaica, we would never get everyone together to talk about such exciting things. Nope NOT me!

Saturday morning I did NOT get a little giddy when Macie got all of her dance recital costumes and tried them on for us.

Saturday night I did NOT enjoy a piece of brownie sundae cheesecake for dinner and did NOT practically drool just thinking about it on the way to Kansas City. I also did NOT laugh hysterically and almost wet myself laughing at one of the opening acts for Dane Cook as he talked about macaroni and cheese, who jokes about macaroni and cheese?!

Gerrad did NOT pull out one of Macie's top teeth tonight with a pair of pliers and I would NOT ever post a picture about it. My daughter is NOT brave and did not beg her dad to pull it out with the pliers, what a goof ball!

What have you NOT been doing this week? Don't be shy!!

Date Night and Sunday Fun Day

Here is a picture of my love and I from our date night this past Saturday night. My hubby is the greatest and I just adore our date nights and look forward to them when I know we have one planned. I think it's VERY important for every couple to get out every month or so without the kiddos, to have adult conversation and enjoy each other's company. This weekend we ventured to Kansas City for a dinner and a show. We went to my all time favorite restaurant The Cheesecake Factory, that place is what I would consider my own personal heaven, seriously! Then we went to see Dane Cook's comedy tour at the Sprint Center and let me just tell you it was a BLAST, I have not laughed that hard in I don't know how long, WOW! My camera was not charged up unfortunately so this is the ONLY picture I got from our night out =(

Sunday...

Sunday morning we went to church and listened to a fabulous sermon, as usual! Then we decided since it was going to be such a gorgeous day out we would take the girls to ride the train at Gage Park. Addaline and Macie LOVE the train and could ride it over and over, Addaline just squeals in delight when she sees it pull up and we start to load the tiny train. We also discovered a new favorite for Addaline, the Carousel... she was a bit nervous to try it out but once it got going she couldn't be happier. Macie LOVES it as well and just laughs and laughs. I'll let the pictures do the talking of our wonderful family afternoon...