Nana's visit

On March 14th, my mom came for a visit. She was here until March22nd. Here are some of the pictures she took while she was here.

On Saturday, March 15th, we went skiing for the last time this year.

This is Halee and Mommy on the chair lift.

Mom brought the girls some easter baskets and new shirts.

As I have mentioned before, Mondays are our busy days starting with gymnastics. Here is Halee doing some gymnastics.

She wanted a picture of me working on my house. Doors are still the current project! I had started the last 4 doors downstairs before she came. Here I am trying to finish them up. Yes, they are done and hanging. Only 8 more upstairs!


We have lakeside property! When you build a house, you have to raise your lot. There is currently a lot between us and another house, which is raised up also. So we have this permanent lake between us. Some ducks were trying it out!

Mom enjoyed finding things to take the girls picture with. Here is Halee in a crazy hat we made for one of Hannah's school projects.

One of the big things is to sleep with Nana while she is here. The each took turns each night. Halee has to have this Dora to sleep with. Mom says she sleeps like this all night long!

One night I put braids in Halee's hair. She wore the braids all the next day. But the day after that, this is the hair style she had!

Another day the girls asked Nana to paint their fingernails. Here is Hannah's.

And here are Halee's

Before the fingernail painting, the girls put on makeup. They have some play makeup I let them put on occasionally. Here is Hannah with her makeup on. Beautiful!

On Friday, we did an easter egg hunt.

On Friday evening, we went to Billings. Mom flew in and out of Billings because it was $400 cheaper! She flew out on Saturday morning. I took these pictures Saturday morning. Gramma has been working on this playhouse for the girls to play in at her house. She got this huge box (it had a lift recliner in it) and went to work.

The side view

Here is Halee inside of it. She was supposed to be getting dressed, but found playing way more fun!

That brings us to Easter, which I already posted! This past week has been fairly busy, but nothing out of the ordinary happened - just back to work and school and appointments! Have a great weekend. We are. Ed is helping Gage put siding on his house and we are staying home - at least for the morning. Hannah has a birthday party to go to this afternoon. But, staying comfy in jammies for a bit!!!

Happy Easter

This is an updated blog. So, if you watched the movie earlier on this afternoon, you'll have to come back and see the pictures!

Halee and her easter basket

Hannah's "Easter dress"

We went to Billings for Easter. It was a two-fold event because on Saturday Nana flew home. She had been here all last week and her flight left Billings at 10:30 on Saturday morning. We stayed for Easter. Ed's brother and family came over. There were tons of eggs for the girls to hunt.

Chloe looking for eggs

Halee found one


That Easter Bunny was tricky and put one in the tree. Hannah found it.

Of course, there had to be a photo session after the hunt. It's not too often all the girls are together, so we have to take the opportunity!

Hannah, Chloe, and Halee

Silly faces

Group hug

And finally, the movie. Josh took this movie of the Egg hunt!

Spring

The first signs of spring are here in Montana! I noticed the tulips are coming up. It was probably around 50 degrees here today. Yesterday Hannah and I went for a bike ride around the neighborhood. We didn't get out much today due to a project I was involved in (more details later . . . ) but it sure was nice!!!

Also, the snow is almost melted and signs of what happened under the snow are now apparent. We had this problem several years ago. I thought we treated the grass so that we wouldn't have this problem again. Well, guess not. I know it is some kind of animal that digs these tunnels under the snow. Can you help me to know more about it and how to prevent it???

Lastly, here is a picture that Hannah drew. I was going to include it in the last blog and forgot!. She is skiing.

Hannah

Why I love Hannah

She's very creative. She loves to craft anything. She makes up all kinds of stories, situations, songs. She likes to build things, draw things, write things, etc.

Hannah made this sledding dude at school.

Learning to sew with Gramma

She loves to play with Halee. She and Halee play together most of the time when they are at home. She misses Halee on the days that Halee is in school.

She loves to sing, play music and listen to music. She has her own MP3 player and a stereo in her room. She will sing songs all the time in the car or while she draws or whenever one comes to mind.


Hannah singing Faithful Love


She's friendly to others. I've noticed that she doesn't have a "best" friend that she plays with all the time. She plays well with boys and girls at school and at church. She just likes to be around people.

She's a people watcher. Any time we go anywhere, so is always interested in everything around her!

She's a "go-getter." She is the youngest in her class and does fine with that. Lately she has been telling me how most people in her class are turning 6. It was special that she actually starting kindergarten when she was 4. She works hard at anything she wants to do and succeeds.

The newest thing is that Hannah is a skier! We have been to 2 ski lessons this year and have 3 more to go. Saturday we took her up 2 mid-mountain lifts and she skied down all on her own and had fun and wanted to go more!

That is Hannah skiing the cones with Gramma right behind her.

She is very silly. She will do anything to get a laugh out of you. She likes to laugh and make people laugh.

Hannah is responsible, loving and I am pleased to call her my daughter!

Happy Leap Day!

Nothing too noteworthy happened this week in our household. Here are the highlights.

On Tuesday, Hannah made this mask. The only thing I did was cut the holes and put the string on. Everything else was her idea. Then she gave it to a friend at church.

Today Gramma and Poppa came. They got to stay home while I drove the bus. Great excitement for all! Halee wouldn't even take a nap she was so excited. (You'll see that excitement in the next picture.) Anyway, Gramma and Poppa brought them a surprise that they got to open after dinner. The surprise included 2 projects each. Right away they had to work on one project. Dad had to help as I was doing the dishes.

When I got home this afternoon, Halee was wearing this nametag. Ed went to a seminar today and had to wear this name tag. I wasn't home when he got home, but I'm guessing that Halee wondered what it was. So, Ed made one for her. I asked her if I could take her picture as she wouldn't take the name tag off. This is what she looked like all evening. (Plus she didn't get a nap and was exhausted and in bed at 7:00 - bath and all!)

And here is what the name tag said - Halee Wilson "Klutz" Extraordinaire. Completely describes her!

We will enjoy a day of skiing tomorrow. I'll try and take my camera and get some pictures!

Jenny

Recently I have learned that a friend of mine has cancer. She is 38 years old with 2 little boys (ages 4 and 1). Originally she thought that she just had breast cancer but further tests resulted in finding that she has stage 4 liver cancer also. She will begin her chemo treatments on Tuesday. Her docter tells her it is not curable, but is treatable and the spots on her liver will respond to the chemo. She is truely amazing me and I am learning so much from her as she goes thru this. I invite you to read what she posted on her blog so that you will understand more about how she is handling this. We can all learn from her! Click to read Jenny's blog(link). Please pray for her.

Sizzix

(This may be a boring post if your not into scrapbooking or paper crafting. However, I found it pretty neat and wanted to share!!!)

Two Christmas' ago, I received this Sizzix machine (a die cut machine) as a gift. I have wanted to use it, but have just never gotten it out. Well, I decided today was the day! I'm so glad that I got it out. Now, I have it sitting on the counter and all the parts in one place that I can use it as needed!

Here are all the die cuts I have thus far. The yellow ones on the left are the alphabet ones I used today. There are many, many more I could get! This is a start.

This is what they look like on the bottom (the cutting side).

You put your piece of paper over the letter you want.

Then turn in over and put on machine.

Then slide it in a cut it by pushing the handle down.

This is what you get!



This is the project I was doing. Basically it is self made letter you can use for anything. The main idea is scrapbooking, but . . . the options are limitless!