Mr. Elf has returned!

Hailey was delighted to find that Santa sent her elf back from the North Pole this year! He arrived at our house a couple of week or so ago, and has been keeping an eye on Hailey ever since. For those of you who don't know about Elf on the Shelf, it is a little kit that Santa sends to help him keep an eye on kids. The elf flies home to the North Pole each night to report to Santa, and then comes back to our house by the time Hailey wakes up in the morning. The best part is that he has a new hiding spot each morning. Hailey loves getting out of bed and coming down to find his spot for the day!Last year, Santa sent him to my parents house since we were living there, and Hailey was worried that Mr. Elf wouldn't be able to find her this year at our new house. She was so excited the first day he came! She has re-named him this year. Last year, she wanted to just call him Mr. Elf. This year (after we were talking about some friends of ours, and how their elf's name is "Peppermint," she decided she wanted to name ours that as well. After tossing around a few different ideas for other names, she was adamant about keeping it "Peppermint."

So, Peppermint, he is!This day he was hiding on the actual Christmas tree! The Elf on the Shelf is such a fun Christmas tradition! It just reinforces the feeling of being a kid, and really, truly believing in all of the magic of the season! We love Christmas!

fun with friends

A couple of weeks ago, Hailey had a playdate with her friend, Brendan. She was so excited to have him over! She talked about it the whole week leading up to the actual day that he came over!

They had so much fun together!

(*side note: it was spirit week at school, that is why they were both wearing their Pine Ridge shirts!)

Then, that night, we went down to Castle Rock with our friends Tara, Bronwyn & Hayden (and Tara's parents) to see them light up the huge Christmas tree they have at the mall there. It was a bit chilly, but it was fun to see Santa arrive on a stagecoach, and they had a live band too! Poor Hayden was a bit under the weather, but we still had a really fun time!

love note

Hailey received her first ever love note at school this week. Her sweet little friend Brendan (the same one she asked to marry her a few months ago!) gave her this note... They are so sweet, always holding hands, and wanting to walk into class together, or sit by one another. I know it isn't anything serious at this point, which is why I think it's cute...but I can't believe that she is already showing an interest in boys.

OH BOY. I feel like we're going to be in trouble in a few years!

random-ness

The other day Hailey was in the office, and she came out to the kitchen to ask me how old Granny & Papoo were. I had no idea what she was doing, but later I came in, and she had pulled the chair over to the dry erase board, and this is what I found. She drew a picture of herself, Kaleb, Tory, Granny & Pappo (my parents), and put their initial and their age next to it. It totally cracked me up. I had to take a photo. In fact, I haven't even erased it off of there, it just makes me smile! (*side note: her 5's look like 6's...she gets confused sometimes and does them a little backwards!!My parents are 53...not 63!) In other random things around here, apparently Tucker has found a new place to hang out. Hailey puts him in the sink in the powder bath when she goes potty...


A few weeks ago, Hailey took Tory for his first ride in her Jeep. He loved it. Seriously, loved it! He was screaming with delight. The faster she went, or crazier she drove, the more he liked it.

Then, just a shot of Hailey one day before school. I really can't believe how big and grown up she is getting... What happened to my baby?! *sad face*

Halloween 2010

This year for Halloween, we met up with some of our friends from the neighborhood and went trick or treating with them. Hailey was so into it this year, and was really excited about going with her friends! They would all run to each door and try to be the first to ring the doorbell! They got lots of candy, and had so much fun! all of the kids together before we headed out!

Hailey & Kendyll

Hawaii Vacation

I have been trying to post this update with the photos from Hawaii for a couple of weeks now. The photo uploader has been really slow, so it took me quite a while to finally get all of the photos on here... so, here it is. Better late than never, I guess!

We visited the island of Oahu for Hailey's fall break from school. We stayed at the Ko'Olina Beach Club Resort on the western side of the island. The best part about staying on that side are the beautiful sunsets. They are unreal! You can watch the sun slowly go down, and it looks like it just sinks down into the water. This was a nightly ritual while we were there. We would have dinner, and make our way down to the beach area and watch the sunset. A few nights we actually had dinner at the beach bar and grill at the resort and enjoyed watching it while we ate.

This is what the view looked like from our table one night. So gorgeous!

One day we went to the Dole Plantation. Hailey liked seeing all of the pineapple being grown in the fields there. We enjoyed the famous Dole Whip while we visited too!

Hailey was thrilled to see that they have the souvenir penny smashers (her favorite thing from Disney earlier this year)!

We took a train ride/tour of the whole plantation and grounds at Dole.
We also went to an authentic Hawaiian luau while we were there. This one was right in the same area where we stayed, just a couple of lagoons up from our hotel. It was called Paradise Cove Luau. It was a wonderful show! We really enjoyed it! Hailey was so tired (with the 4 hour time difference, it was hard for her to stay up much past 7, or so!) she fell asleep on me at the table. But, before that, we participated in a lot of fun activities, like:

~the shower of flowers

This guy climbed up this palm tree with his bare feet, and threw down some flowers for all to gather to spread the "aloha" of the islands.

Hailey had fun gathering the flowers afterward! She got a flower for her and I , so we put them behind our ears!

~Then, we made these traditional Hawaiian headbands. We braided/weaved the leaves ourselves (with a little help from the locals), and then inserted the flowers. For women who are "taken" or married, the flowers go on their left side. If a woman is single, then they go on her right side. For kids, or women who are "up for anything" you can put them wherever you please! As you can see, Hailey put hers all over the place!

~We took a sunset canoe ride

~Took a picture with a fire dancer from the show~Watched a traditional Hukilau Ceremony where they showed us the traditions of old Hawaii with the ceremonial pulling of the fish nets to the rhythms of the conch shell and Hawaiian chants.

~Hailey even went on stage before the actual show started, and learned how to hula from the authentic Hawaiian hula girls. This is all Hailey talked about before we actually left for Hawaii, so she was so happy to be able to participate in this!

She wouldn't even let me go up there with her. She wanted to do it all on her own!
The actual resort was amazingly beautiful! We stayed there on our last trip to Hawaii, back in 2002. We had such a great time then, that we have been wanting to get back! We were not disappointed, and had an even better time this time around!

The pools were amazing! This was our favorite one. 2 levels, waterfalls, a water slide...what's not to love?

I absolutely loved all of the tropical plants and flowers! And, of course, the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful!!

Unbelievable, really. Just gorgeous!

We did enjoy a drive up the famous North Shore, and stopped for some Hawaiian Shave Ice in the historical town of Haleiwa. But, for the most part, we just hung around the resort, played in the pools, went to the beach and lagoon right in front of the hotel, and just relaxed!

On our last day there, Hailey had some shave ice with her friends she met, Elsa & Sydney. She had so much fun playing with them all week!Hailey was so sad when it was time to leave and head to the airport! She sat down on this bench and looked out over the resort one last time. Then, she went over to Tony and asked him if we could come back to Hawaii...soon! (And, he told her that we would for sure go back one day!) We had an amazing time, and I certainly can't wait until we are able to visit again in the future! What a beautiful place to vacation!