A Lovely Night

I adore making memories with my family. We decided to bring out our Christmas decorations a week early. We just could not wait any longer.....Lilly and I could not wait any longer!  Last week we spent a few hours making decorations that I found on Pinterest. We love our homemade decorations. This evening was perfect complete with a special family movie and frozen hot chocolate. Blessings Everyone! 

Christmas In The Making!

Every year we make new ornaments for our tree and home. This year we went on a hike a few weeks ago and got a ton of pine cones! I found all kinds of ideas on Pinterest and we went to work! Gary was incredibly impressive with his creativity! I was in charge of the glitter....let's be fair I was hoarding it! 

Turkey!

Lilly and Owen so sweet together....At least for this moment. Owen had a little turkey project and his big sister helped! 

Opposites

Owen loves to do homework and Lilly's not a fan. They get it done every night with little to no complaining, and Gary and I are thankful for we know one day they may really grump over homework. Each night they are rewarded by having the chance to play on their class web pages. Each teacher at their school has a web page and Lilly and Owen love to play on the computer. We give them a half hour each and they play together. Lilly's reading has improved and we are working on spelling. Owen absorbs everything, he is sounding everything out and reading short sentences! 

Awards

The kids had an awards assembly at school the other day. Unfortunately I was not able to make it but Gary and my parents went and took pictures! Owen was very seriouse and was working hard to keep his bubble in his mouth and his hands behind his back. Lilly earned three awards in Science, Art and lunch with the principal. We love our little school! 

My Servants

My kids really have good hearts. Last weekend they decided to rake all the leaves from our yard and our neighbors. Our little neighbor was so happy she gave them both a huge bag full of candy, that I threw away.. :) What they had enough I promise! 

Miss Independent

Lilly is quite independent these days. She likes to do her own hair and pick out her own cloths. Fortunately for me she does a really good job. A rare occurrence happened this weekend when she asked for princess hair. I'm cherishing these moments, I know they are going to become less and less.  

Thank You

My parents drove out of their way to bring me coffee! My office was very thankful! 

My Husband

We spent all last summer remodeling the basement to give Gary a nice man cave and our family a movie theater. We have new furniture, new TV, new paint and what does he sit in?? A camping chair! I love him so much but sometimes I question his sanity!! 

Ahhhh Sunday

I love Sunday morning! We went to church last night, so I have nowhere I need to go.  This Gary's weekend to serve at church so he was gone pretty early today and my kids are still sleeping soundly. It's just me, my clean house and my coffee! 

I am so blessed! 

I am so glad they love each other!

We regularly ask the kids who their favorite friends are in school. And we are thankful they both have really sweet little friends. Last night at dinner Lilly told us her favorite friends are us! I hope it stays that way, I love these two so much! 

Serve

The kids have been serving and helping in church since they were really little. It makes my heart glad to see them serve with happy hearts! 

Halloween

We had a great night on Halloween. We went to church to the Wired Wild and Whacky show. The kids laughed and giggled. It's always fun to see all the families sitting together in church. After church we let the kiddos trick or treat to all our neighbors and Grammie and Grampy house. This is the first year I let the kids keep the bucket of candy and not stick it up on top of the refridgarator. That only lasted through the night! 

Embarrassing Life Moment

Embarrassing moments never seem far from me. I have had several in fact so many I could not possibly list them all. I would like to think these little mishaps are just part of my charm..

Yesterday I battled a horrible headache I was really tired and in all honesty my head really hurt. It was the kind of headache that was in my eyes, jaw and the top of my head. I battled this thing all day and was looking forward to going home, taking a bath and just getting into bed. Well.....that was a nice dream considering my wonderful husband and his big heart had some guy from his office over and they were trying to fix his car. The car is a mess and in fact this very moment is still sitting all apart in my drive way. This poor guy needed help and so Gary is always willing to lend his mechanical hand. Because this guy had no way to get to work Gary said he could just stay with us for dinner and they could go to work later that night. Imagine how thrilled I was to have a headache and company. God did show me much grace in the fact I had a spotless house and a roast in the crockpot, so I took that as a small victory and rejoiced in my weakness. I put a smile on my face and served dinner like a good wife did dishes and made lunches for both my children, myself, my husband and our guest considering this poor guy could not even get home for a nap before enduring graveyard engineering. After dinner and cleaning up I got the kiddos all cleaned up, changed into jammies we read our story and prayed and they were off to dreamland. In my mind I was counting down to that moment I could change myself and sink into the warm bath and finally lay my head on my pillow. However this dream was once again short lived with company in our home. I went back downstairs and made brownies for our guest and chatted for what seemed like eternity before the guys left for work. Finally I kissed my husband goodbye did a little happy dance while setting the alarm and made my way upstairs to sink into the bath and finally go to sleep.

Making it upstairs is always a chore for me because I find fifty things to do on the way up. By the time I got upstairs it was dang near 10:30 and I settled for a nice face wash and two Tylenol PM's. Finally I was in my jammies all warm and settled into my soft warm bed........................................

AND THEN.   Like a mad woman my heart jumps out of my chest! I had just fallen asleep when the motion detectors went off and I heard someone in my house. I am alone at night with the kids and I was in a panic. There was pounding and banging and I was definitely scared. Somewhere in this fog I managed to call 911 while getting into the gun safe praying I remember the combination. I managed to do all this getting the gun, talking to the 911 operator and making sure my kids are safe in bed. Then I look outside and there are police men at my house. I tell this in a panic whisper to the 911 operator and she calmly says Mrs. Haynes your alarm has been going off for over forty minutes and they are there to make sure you are okay. OH MY GOSH are you kidding me? So I stick the gun on my tall mirror, grab my robe, and rush downstairs to turn off the alarm and talk to the lovely police men who I am sure thought I was on drugs when it was just Tylenol PM.
These wonderful  police men showed me much grace as I tried to calm down and breath explain that I had a horrible headache and took Tylenol PM  all this while they looked all over my home to make sure no one was in the house...Again thank you Jesus my house was spotless! We could not figure out how on earth the stupid motion detectors went off it was really strange. These officers were fantastic even making a joke that they really do respond to home alarms going off. They told me if I needed anything else to just give then a call and they would be back. After calling Gary at work and my parents I figured I would try the bed thing again. And then I heard a little meow. I wanted to die at that moment because I remembered with the headache, and the guest and trying to be a good wife I forgot to put the cat away and he set off the alarm.
At this point it was near 3:30 am I had a little over two hours to sleep. Needless to say I was a little embarrassed and extremely tired. I am however thankful for the wonderful police men who managed to make me smile in the midst of one of my charming moments.

Making Costumes

We love to make our costumes in the Haynes House. There is something really special doing a craft with the kids! This year we will have a Cabbage Patch Doll and Jase from Duck Dynasty! These are my favorite moments when we are doing stuff like this, these are memories! 

The Best Day!

I adore my husband and kids! I adore making memories with them. We are so blessed to have this time together

We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day of hiking! We hiked and walked and had pinecone fights in the forest and hiked and walked some more. 

God is so good!

Hipster Talk

The young ladies in my office are very hipster. I however had to look up what a hipster even was! I have learned I am super uncool.. However I found that even I have a little hipster in me! 

Mason Jars! 

Bad Dogs

Bradley has learned to open the back door. I came up from the basement and found these two looking at me. 

I do love them, took their picture and sent them back to their dog house!

Owen My Trooper!

Poor Owen had to have some dental surgery yesterday. It was a big one. They gave him a sedation medicine and the appt was like two hours long. I hate seeing my kids out cold and having people all over them. He was a trooper and today was back to himself! 

I was able to take the last two days off and today the kids are out on a special date with my parents. I am home all alone and going to clean like its spring!!!