So Excited!

This is the first year in my whole adult life that I am not making a new years resolution regarding my weight. In fact, I'm not making any new years resolutions! How cool is that? I'm pretty content with my life, and the direction it's going. I'm thrilled with my 63 lb weight loss, and while I would love to lose 20 more, it doesn't dictate my life or food consumption. I don't drink or smoke, so I don't have to give those up. I'm happy. I have 3 beautiful, healthy children. I have a husband who adores me and loves me like crazy. I'm blessed with friends who realize how wonderful I am!! LOL!

L.G. baby, L.G.

Hello, Hello, Hello!

I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas! We had a wonderful holiday here at the Hallock house. Christmas Eve I woke up full of the Spirit! We baked and wrapped, and hung out. Then went to the Christmas Eve service and drove around looking at Christmas lights.

Christmas morning the kids woke us up announcing that Santa had left them new bikes!! We opened gifts, had breakfast and baked a Pumpkin Cheesecake(so good!) to take to Grammies. We had a great time at Grammies. The kids and Jason played Ryan's new Wii, while Harrison and I hung out with Grammie and helped with dinner. Jonathan and Savannah ended up staying the night, so Jason and I came home with only 1 kiddo!

Saturday night we went to a Wichita Thunder hockey game. Talk about a good time!! It was crazy fun. Ryan and Jonathan were up doing the YMCA, and begging for the players to fight. It was more fun than I thought it would be. I had never been to a hockey game before and it was neat to watch.

We haven't been doing much since then. Hanging out, enjoying each others company and being lazy!! Today, we slept in, went for a walk and now we are waiting for Jen and her kiddos to come and hang out.

The table before dinner-I love grammies orange square plates!!

My orange Rachael Ray cookware from Grammie-My favorite gift this year fo' shizzle!!

Harrison in his new froggie high chair from grammie!

My mini bubba's first Christmas!

The kiddos before Church on C-mas Eve!

Merry Christmas!!

More tomorrow!

The Official Christmas Party Photo

I wish we would have gotten this sooner I would have put it on a Christmas card!

This-N-That

SAD-Almost all of Harrison's newborn clothes don't fit. Sleepers, onsies, anything with "NB" on it is too small. He also comfortably fits into size 1 diapers! Do you hear me sobbing? I'm constantly looking at Jason saying..."I thought we agreed we weren't going to let this one grow up?" I have decided to continue updating his blog with his milestones and memories. The Good Lord knows that if I don't blog it I'll never remember it when it comes time to do his scrapbook!

EXCITED-Christmas is only 3 days away!! Can you believe it? The kids have been really good about not attacking the tree. They have only fondled their gifts a few times :O) I have had to tell them several times that I am done shopping b/c they are still adding to their lists!!

TIRED- I know that J and S didn't sleep near as much as H does, yet I don't remember being this tired with them. Perhaps it's my old age!! H only wakes once per night( most of the time). Which should be a dream come true, but I still wake feeling exhausted. I need to get us on a schedule. I'm a schedule person, so it would help me a lot if I woke at the same time everyday, and had certain tasks to accomplish each day as well.

HAPPY-Although I haven't done any sort of "real" scrappin in ages(by ages, I mean years!) I am making it a priority in 2009. I want to start attending crops at the LSS here in Derby. Scrappin is always how I made new friends when I moved to a new area, so I need to get out there and get some friends!! Not to mention finish some scrapbooks! I'm excited to start cropping again. I have no idea about new trends products or styles so it will be like I've never scrapped before. I also plan on doing more digi stuff too. I enjoy making stuff and often use photoshop to make my myspace backgrounds and tags. Fun stuff!

Humbled

Sometimes the good Lord smacks you with a dose of reality when you need it the most. In case you guys don't go back and read comments, this is a comment my good friend April posted to my last blog entry:

It's all about prospective. You can choose what mood to be in. Like me... normally I am rushing Christmas past, but this year someone close is not expected to live into January - so why wish away time that you can never get back? ewww... that was pretty hairy for me...LOL! Just hang in there AJ. luv ya and hope you do have a Merry Christmas. and hope to see u soon.

What a wake up call. I know and love the person she is speaking about. I'm devastated at her impending loss. I no longer want January to come. I want April to be able to savor every minute she has left with her dad. I want her to enjoy every single day God is blessing them with this Christmas season. And with that, I want to enjoy my own family. I want to not rush Harrison to grow up. I want to enjoy the days that Jonathan and Savannah are on vacation and home with me. I want to savor the family time that is coming to us over the next few weeks. There are some things I just can't change, and I have to stop letting it effect my Christmas and accept it. I am determined to make the remaining days of 2008 fabulous!!!

P.S. A- let me know if you are not comfortable with your info out there, I'll take it down. Love you too! Thanks for the wake up call.

The Sour Mood is Baaaackk....

I can't wait for the holidays to be over.

I'm not feeling it this year.

January please hurry and get here!!

Wow, What a change!

Now granted that is not the most flattering picture ever, it is still what I looked like last Christmas. I like what I look like this Christmas better :O) I'm still losing weight, just not as quickly as I was the first few weeks after Harrison was born. I haven't been able to work out like I want to b/c it's SO cold outside! Today it was 21 degrees, 2 with the wind chill. Somehow I still managed to lose almost 3 pounds this week though. My goal is to lose 3.8 more before the end of the year. THANK YOU for all the comments on our Christmas party pictures. I love that dress and would wear it every day if I could. I felt so good in it. Several times I walked by the mirror at the hotel and stopped in shock b/c I couldn't believe it was me!! My stomach was *almost* flat! What's up with that?? I love it!!



Dec 24 2007


Dec 12 2008

P.S. Ya'll need to update more! I know you have 5 minutes a day to do it. If I can post 6 blogs in 7 days, you guys can too! Don't tell me you have nothing to blog about, everyday life is fine with me. I hate checking the blog list everyday and finding that NO ONE on my whole list has updated!! It's so depressing!!! You don't want me to be depressed do you?? Remember you like it when other people have new posts to read, and we like it when you have new posts too!!

Christmas Party

Tonight was Jason's company Christmas party. My mom bought me a new bra, dress, and shoes for Christmas. I had been looking forward to it. Then yesterday a sour mood like no other swept over me, and it continued into this afternoon. By the time Jason got home from work(1:30) I had zero desire to go to the party.

It's amazing what a long, hot bath can do for the spirit. After my bath I felt SO much better!!! As I started getting ready for the party I actually started getting excited. By the time it was time to leave I was super excited b/c...well..I looked HOT!!

We ended up having a really great time. Jason got out and did a little YMCA, while I did a little line dancing. Then of course we had the obligatory slow dances :O)

Grammie kept the kiddos while we went to the party. Harrison ate TWO 4 ounce bottles while we were gone. Crazy! Once was breast milk, one was formula. Glad I got that second one ready just in case! Grampy brought McDonald's for dinner, and Jonathan got to hang out with uncle Ryan for the night. I think everyone had a great evening :O)

Being the mother of a newborn isn't all sunshine and roses.

Sometimes it really sucks

Last night was one of those nights that if offered at the right moment I would have traded my sweet baby Harrison for a handful of magic jumping beans. Yes, we have all had those moments. He slept peacefully for an hour, but as soon as I laid down and rolled over he was fussing. Ok, I wasn't asleep yet so it wasn't that big of a deal. After about 20 minutes of head rubbing and constantly putting the paci back in his mouth he back out. Yay! Only to wake up 30 minutes after I fell asleep. I can handle no sleep, but 30 minutes?? That's just mean and makes for an instantly crabby momma.

I get up to nurse him and about 5 minutes into it, he has unlatched and is snoring. What!! AGH. It just gets worse from there. It was a night of little sleep. After Jason got out of bed for work I brought Harrison into bed with me. We stayed in bed snoozing, nursing, and snuggling until about 1 this afternoon. In Harrison's defense this was only his 2nd "bad" night in his 6 weeks of life. I'm pretty blessed that he is normally a good baby, but when he's bad, he's real bad!

And to make matters worse, I think I'm starting my period!! How come every other breastfeeding mother gets a few months off and mine starts damn near 6 weeks to the day after birth????

Two Ounces Baby!

That's how much I pumped tonight! An easy ounce from each side. It was quick too. Maybe I'll get a hang of this pumping thing yet!

I know a few children who could have drawn this....

Feelin' Great!

So much I want to say, but I will have to break it up into a couple of posts! I must share that last night Harrison slept in two increments of 5 hours!! I know right!! I feel awesome today! He ate at 10, went down about 11 and didn't wake up until 5! Then he ate, went back down and didn't wake up until about 9:45 this morning. I can handle this. You think it will happen again?? Me either...lol.

My sister finally sent me her breast pump last week.... It's not working well for me, the pumping that is. I'm not sure if it's the pump or me, or both, but it took 5 pumps to get 4 ounces! AGH! I was only able to get 1/2-1 ounce per breast per session. Is this normal? I have a call into Staci(got your message this morning, going to call you back soon). I can't figure out when to pump since he's exclusively breast fed. If I pump after he eats, I get nothing. if I pump before he eats he'll get nothing. Advice will be happily accepted and appreciated! Jason's company Christmas party is Friday. I need to have at least 1 bottle for Grammie to give him.

Harrison had his 1 month check up last week. He was 9lb 4oz! Woowzeers! He wasn't even back up to his birth weight at 2 weeks(7lb 10.5 oz). Apparently he's eating well. The pictures I had done last week he wore his coming home outfit and it was almost to small...I don't think I'm ready for him to be outgrowing clothes yet!!

Speaking of clothes..check him out in his Staci Sleeper!!

It has orange, yellow, green, and blue polka dots. Too cute!

I need to get better pics, but he was sleepy after his bath!

Even though Harrison looks terrified this is the best pic of all 3 kiddos so far

He's still not hot on the bouncy seat...

But at least he's awake!

Yesterday we made peanut butter balls

Messy Hands!

The dipping part sucked!
But they taste SO yummy!

I have been a baking fool lately. Making all sorts of snacks for the kiddos. Today is puppy chow, yum, yum!!

Harrison's Newborn Pics

So Thankful...

I think this was one of the best Thanksgivings ever. Misty and the girls got in about 2:30 in the morning Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. On Wednesday we were able to just hang out and catch up before everyone else arrived. We even went out and did a little Christmas shopping :O)

On Thursday Mom and Dave arrived around 1:30. We spent the afternoon just hanging out until dinner, which was great! I love Thanksgiving! Even if I did gain 3 lbs :O( last week. After dinner Jason, Misty, Dave and I played cards, while the kiddos ran off all the sugar from dessert!

On Friday, Tiffany and her family came down to celebrate Christmas. I had went out at 5a.m. to do some shopping and bought a tree too. By the time Tiff arrived the tree was up, the gifts were under it, and the kids were going crazy with anticipation!

After gifts, mom took us girls shopping for our Christmas gifts!!! I got 2 pairs of jeans( desperately needed), a sweater, a bra, shoes, and a dress for Jason's company Christmas party. The bra and the shoes go with the dress. I had to get one of those 4 in 1 bras b/c for the dress I needed a halter bra and I didn't have one. I can't wait for ya'll to see it. I look HOT!!

PICTURES:

Harrison wasn't much impressed with his first Thanksgiving!

Me and my Mini-Bubba


Daddy and Mini-Bubba

Misty and I-photo taken by Ashyra!

Jason and I-

I'm so thankful for our relationship.

Our ability to understand,forgive, and persevere. He is my soul mate, my "person"

Jason carving the turkey

Ashyra after she tried to use aunt Angel's orange nail polish as eye liner.

It took Misty and Jason holding her down full force to clean her eye!!

Note to self: next visit keep nail polish out of Ashyra's reach!

My sisters and I with our children!

Back row:Tiffany, Me, Misty

Front row: Savannah-7(A), Codey-5 1/2 mo(T), Jonathan- 9 1/2(A),

Elizabeth-3(T), Elize-10(M), Harrison-1 mo(A), Ashyra-3 1/2(M)

Elizabeth

Harrison and Auntie Misty!

Elize and Harrison-She told her mom she wants a little brother. Misty said not until she's married to wealthy Christian man!

Me-in my new yellow sweater

My Ashyra girl

Tiffany's Family

Chris, Codey, Tiffany, and Elizabeth

The Girls being silly in our new sweaters!

Serious Sisters

Chubba-bubba Codey. He's so squeezable!

The Tree

Codey and Auntie Angel

I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving!!