Family Pictures

Hey everybody!

We just got some new family pictures taken. They are awesome! Thanks Jo for doing such a great job. Here is a link:

Jo Alldredge Photography Blog Spot --You may need to scroll down a little to see our pictures.

I wish we could've gotten Jace to smile. :( He wasn't feeling very good. But the kids were wonderful!

Summer Is Here!

Tomorrow is the kids' last day of school. They're so excited for Summer. We're going to try and do some fun things over the next 3 months. We have quite a few Family Reunions to go to so that will add to our fun!

We've had a lot going on over the last few weeks. We moved The Ribbon Retreat to a new location. It's a brand new building and we're loving it. We'll actually have Air Conditioning this summer. Here are a few pictures:

An empty shell:


Just starting to fill it up:


DONE! We're back in business. We started moving Friday late morning and were finished by Saturday at Noon. Everyone did an awesome job of helping.


Today we were invited to attend Amber's Award Ceremony at school. She didn't know that we were coming and we didn't know what award she was going to be getting. She ended up receiving one of the Merit Awards. It was pretty cool. Only 14 kids out of 3rd-5th Graders received it. She was pretty excited because she got to ride in a Hummer Limo. Here are some pics:

Amber's Award:


Niiiice!


The Inside:


Amber Inside:


Amber's teacher had to fill out a nomination paper in order for her to be considered. She let Amber bring it home. It'll definitely be something we keep. Her teacher had a lot of good things to say about her.

I couldn't resist these pictures of Seth. I got home from work pretty late last night -- after the kids had gone to bed. On the kitchen table was a pile of little papers. When I took a closer look I realized it was a bunch of mini paper airplanes. ha ha Seth LOVES to make paper airplanes. He always makes an airplane out of the sacrament meeting program every Sunday.





Here are some pictures of the kids just being silly:

My New Canon EOS Rebel

This camera is wonderful! I've been having fun taking pictures all day today. The kids were more than happy to let me take pictures of them, too. :)

Spring Break/Easter

Okay, so it's been awhile since I've posted. So this post is dedicated to catching up over the last couple of months. :)

This year was Amber's first year at Festival. She got a Superior and did such a fantastic job! Her judge wrote a lot of great comments on her score sheet. She played "Amaryllis" and "Silly Monkeys".


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For Spring Break, we went down to Utah. On our first day we went to Eccles Dinosaur Park. It was awesome. The kids loved it.


It was the coldest day of our trip, but we still had fun. The Park was full of fossils, full sized dinosaurs, and tons of cool rocks and gems.

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The first few days of our vacation we stayed in a hotel down in Provo, UT. Shirley just had her baby and we wanted to be able to see her. Here is a picture of her little 1 week old Baby Ryan and 5 month old Jace.


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Amber and Ethan have both had Music Concerts this month. They both did a great job!



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DECORATING EASTER EGGS


The kids looked SOOOO cute Easter Morning. I have a weakness for matching the boys' clothes. :)


I couldn't resist this picture of Seth "smiling big".



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Here are a few other fun pictures....


Seth can seriously fall asleep just about anywhere. I have a ton of pictures of him sleeping in weird places.


This is a picture of Jace (in the middle) with his cousin Brock (born 1 week before Jace) and Noel (Cherie's sister's little girl who was born 3 or 4 days before Jace).


Jace is such a smiley little guy. He is so much fun!!

Happy Birthday, Seth!

Seth is now 5 years old! Crazy! It's amazing how quickly time flies. He wasn't feeling very good and didn't even eat any cake or ice cream. :( Since Ethan got his Nintendo DS for Christmas, Seth hasn't wanted to leave it alone. So that's what we decided to get him for his birthday. He was VERY surprised and excited!

Look how excited Seth got when he opened up the piece of gum Amber gave him for his Birthday. :)
Other than being sick, Seth had a great day. He also got a 3-D puzzle from Grandma & Grandpa Mortimer and a Memory game from Grandpa Hale. Oh...and a game for his DS.
My sisters have been wanting me to put more pictures of Jace on my blog. Here you go...... (Smiling in his sleep)

He really is a "huggable" little guy! We are having a lot of fun with him!

Christmas 2008

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! It has been so great being home and spending time with family! Here are some fun pictures of our Christmas season.....

The kids and I had fun decorating the Christmas Tree. I think Jarom's eating a candy cane. :)

CHRISTMAS EVE was so much fun! We've had a lot of snow -- perfect for sledding. While Justin was "rigging" up our lawn mower for sledding, our next door neighbors had pity on the kids. There yard is AWESOME for sledding - especially when you have a 4-wheeler. The kids had a blast. Ryan (our neighbor) made sure the kids biffed it a few times. LOL

I'm afraid the lawn mower is nothing in comparison with a 4-wheeler ha ha. But....I had fun!!

Oh yeah, baby....heading down the street! Amber kept saying, "Go Faster". Yeah, right LOL! I had the pedal to the metal!

Shortly before the kids went to bed, we did a Nativity Scene. It was a little thrown together, but the kids had fun.

Okay, so we didn't want the kids to come upstairs in the middle of the night. So Justin put together this little barricade. It was hilarious!!! The kids still managed to get through without making noise!! They were pretty determined. I don't think they slept at all that night.

Christmas Morning --- about 6:15 a.m.

Amber got an American Girl doll from Santa.

Ethan got a Nintendo DS from Santa.

Seth got a Transformer from Santa.

Jarom got a CARS Magna Doodle from Santa.

Seth and Jarom got a Train Set from us. Jarom hasn't stopped playing with it. He loves it!

I bought Justin Guitar Hero. Kayla was right, it's awesome!!

Jace was 8 weeks old on Christmas day. He's getting big so fast! He's starting to smile now. He is so much fun!!!

I couldn't resist putting this picture of Seth on here. The first few days after we brought Jace home, Seth was obsessed with this little baby doll. When I was taking pictures of Jace, he wanted me to take this picture of him.

I hope you all have a WONDERFUL New Year!!

Baby is here! * Halloween * Birthday

Jace Thomas Hale is here! Yay!!! We are so happy to have that done! I went in to the Doctor on Thursday at about 10:30. I was dilated at a 5. The doc said to come back in a couple of hours to see if I had progressed any further. We went to Toys R Us and to lunch and I told Justin we should just go to the hospital because I was feeling some pressure. So we went to the hospital and I was dilated to a 6. To make a short story shorter, we had the baby at 3:59 p.m. with very little effort. It was the best labor ever!! Jace weighed 7 lbs. 0 oz. and was 19 1/2" long -- my biggest baby yet. He tested Coombs+ which means that some of my blood got in him and vice versa and we have two different blood types. Basically it just means it causes jaundice and they need to keep a close eye on it. So he's on a billi blanket and he glows. :) Hopefully we'll be able to get rid of it soon. It's kind of a nuisance. Here are some pics:

Jace had to go under the "light" and so had to have a cover for his eyes. Cute!! I couldn't stop laughing when they brought him in with these on.

Here we are at home. I took these pictures today. He's been a little more awake today. Let's hope this trend continues. He's been waking up like every hour to hour and a half at night.

I couldn't resist this picture. Jarom was helping "Grandma" mop the floor.

The night Jace was born, Amber had a Piano Recital. She was so worried that Justin wasn't going to be able to take her. :) I told her not to worry about it -- he would be there. LOL

Ethan's Birthday was on Halloween. He had a good day. He got to go see the new baby, go trick or treating, open present, and have cake. :)

Amber (Fairy), Ethan (Knight), Seth (Pirate)

Jarom (Cowboy) with Grandma.