It's gone already!?!

Tis the season

My beautiful singer!  She did so awesome at her big program!

Sophia had her Christmas program for her 4-5 yr old preschool class and it was so fun to see her up there singing her little heart out.  She was so into it.  Most of the kids were this year!  The next evening she had her dance recital that the studio does at a nursing home for the residents.  Again, she enjoys it so and I tear up just watching her enjoy herself and show off all she has learned.  She is such a go-getter and would be involved in every activity there is but I feel that's the job of her Dad and I to decide how much.  So funny how each child is SO different.  Alex is content to stay home all the time, Ava is a busy girl but wants to do it her own way and Sophia wants to do it all and do it well! 

Holding her 1st position!

Alex also had his first sleepover with a friend.  One of his best buds at school had a birthday party and sleepover the night school got out for break.  Knowing the previous fact about him, when I asked him if he wanted to go AND stay all night and he said yes I was so pleased.  He had a blast!  It helps that this little guy's Mom is a great lady and he has gotten to know her well and has spent quite a bit of time at their house.  I was so proud but yes, I cried after dropping him off.  Wonder if that will ever change or at least I won't do it with the girls...probaby not!

I really don't know where December went!  I do know it was filled with Christmas parties, family celebrations, school parties, a Christmas program, a dance program, a sleep over and the big finale...Christmas Day!  My amazing 89 year old grandmother is here visiting from Kentucky so that always makes the holidays so special.  I love that my kids still have her and Matt's grandparents to celebrate with.
Christmas Eve is always jammed packed...we spend the majority of the day at Matt's grandparents, then Christmas Eve service followed by dinner albeit late at my parents house.  We spend all day playing games, eating and just hanging out at my parents on Christmas Day.

Playing at Great Gran's with his buddy and cousin Kaleb.

Best Christmas Eve picture I could get after a crazy day and after service!

The kids actually slept in until about 8 and then the choas started!  The old saying of seeing Christmas through the eyes of a child comes to mind everytime my kids would just gleem at Christmas lights, the fun movies, learning the Christmas story and then on Christmas morning when they got a glimpse at all the gifts under the tree!  They also love to give gifts and this makes me more happy to see.  We are still putting things away and will be making a donation of toys very soon! 

Seriously...

again really....this is round 2 at Grammie and Papaw's

The kids love giving gifts as well.  Sophia gives my grandmother her gift that we made for her!

Ava gets a Lalaloopsy doll from Grammie and Papaw

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas spent with those you love!  I am so sad it's over and am enjoying every moment with the kids on break!


Posted by Heather Brewer Hill

It's that time of year

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving has flown past...



Ms Mouse House!  Ava enjoying the cookie she decorated.





Alex and his buddy Joey at their "howl at the night" school program.



But now we are on to Christmas...what's not to love about this time of year.  I stress about the gift-giving part but still enjoy it, I LOVE the excitement that my kids show when touring the town for lights, finding our Elf (Boots) each morning, completeing our advent and Christmas countdown everyday and snuggling with them to watch all the Christmas movies.  This year it has been extremely fun to teach them the true reason for the season.  It seems to really sink in this year!  They are pretty amazing as is all of God's gifts to us!

We have been busy decorating our house, making Christmas cards and helping decorate school.  I made some stockings for each teacher at Alex's school to put some wishlist ideas for parents to choose from.  They turned out cute but they can be embellished as much as you want, it just was hard to do that with 25 stockings! 



We are gearing up for a busy December as we have church programs, school and dance programs not to mention parties and family celebrations!  I love it, love it, love it!!!

I love Thanksgiving because it is a great time to be with the family and just eat and enjoy each other.  We also enjoy a great night before Thanksgiving fun with some great high school friends.  I can't express how much these people mean to me!  I also can't believe I have known most of them for almost 30 years! 

Posted by Heather Brewer Hill

Halloween and Lark Ranch!



These are some of our playgroup friends and they are some pretty cool families!



Oh how we love to go to Larks Ranch every fall!  The kids know it as the corn maze but they get so excited every year.  We took my parents this year and that made it extra special for them because they would spend every minute with Grammie and Papaw if they could.  This year they rode the ponies but guess who wouldn't ride by himself? Yep, Alex would only ride with someone so poor Papaw jumped on too!


Posted by Heather Brewer Hill

Menu board

I figure out our menu for the week on Sunday and usually just jot it down so that I can make a grocery list from that.  I wanted to make it a little more "pretty" and organized.  I saw this on a few different blogs and decided to take a crack at it!

 So, I ordered a 12x12 magnetic board from Oriental Trading and a 12x12 clear plastic sheet from SU!.  The nice thing about this board is you can easily slide different sheets of printed paper in and out to change when you get bored or to fit the holiday or season (thanks Tiff for that idea)! 

 Then I added some ribbon to the top for hanging cut, out some fabric flowers with the Big Shot, added some brads and used a glue dot to affix them to the outside of the frame so I can change those easily as well!

 Then I used the 12x12 calender from SU! home decor line and put it on my clear sheet.

The menu items are just printed on my computer, added to some decorative paper and lamenated then I put a magnet on the back so they will stick to my menu board!  So easy and it looks nice.  My calender rub-on is a bit cockeyed because it stuck before I was ready for it to!  If you do a menu for your family I recommend this idea.  You can put the unused menu items on the back out of the way.  I just printed up all of our favs and then put a few "out to eat" for those rare times we do eat out and then left 4 or 6 blank so I could use a dry erase marker to write in anything that may come out that we are just trying out.  Not sure if I will plan out past a week still because I sometimes base my menu on what is on sale but I can at least look back and see what we had over the past few weeks! 

No way, he can't be big enough to have lost a tooth!

Ahhhhh, I still can't believe my baby lost a tooth!  Can't figure out why this bothers me so much but it does so there I said it!  He wouldn't let us wiggle it ever so it truely got pushed out by the tooth coming in behind it (I also think his sister might have bonked him in the mouth to help it along also)!!!

He was pretty excited to get his money from the tooth fairy, even though he kept telling us he was going to get $100!  His Dad told him he better wait for the tooth fairy at his Papaw's house then!  Isn't that the truth!!

You can see his permanent tooth already!  Still so handsome...

Fall Break!

It was one of those messy weeks where things went wrong left and right!  The biggest one is we had a water leak in our basement and now we will probably need to replace the carpet:(  What a pain!  Grammie and Papaw were in Florida and they were missed so much by three little monkeys!  I think from now on we will vacation together to avoid kids and grandparents missing each other SO much! It's pretty sweet though.  For fall break we took the kids to The Wonderlab in Bloomington.  They had a great time but were ready to get home to see and spend the night with Grammie and Papaw.  On Saturday evening we carved pumpkins.  It's so cute watching them get so excited to decide what to carve.  Alex is such a perfectionist that he works and works to get it right.  They turned out nicely. 

It was such a beautiful weekend to be outside I hope it's not the last!!!

Posted by Heather Brewer Hill

Sick babies=lots of time snuggling!

Sophia was sick last week with a fever and missed a day of school but she bounced back pretty quick, then Ava got it!  She has had it since Friday and everytime I think it's okay to try and get something done she finds me and says "hold you Mommy"  which translates to "hold me now Mommy".  That is wonderul but does nothing for my productivity and then when I get a break I have NO energy myself to do anything.  She has made it 12 hours without ibuprofen so I hope we are getting somewhere! 







sick baby girl!

With everyone not feeling so hot we decided cupcakes and playing games would be a good way to spend Saturday night!  They are really into games right now, a few favs are Hungry, Hungry Hippos, Jenga, Thomas Bingo and Red Rover.  

On Friday before the illness hit Ava we headed to pick out our pumpkins.  The kids LOVE to do this.  They are really into Halloween this year.  They can't wait to wear their costumes and carve pumpkins!  Gotta love fall!  I can't wait to go to the corn maze and drink apple cider slushies!

Oh yeah, and my big boy is about to lose his first tooth!  You can see in this picture that his new one is already coming in!  This has hit me harder than starting kindergarten...what is wrong with me?!?

Posted by Heather Brewer Hill

A day no one will forget...

What a tragic day it was just 10 years ago.  I'll never forget where I was.  I had taught an early morning step class and as we stepped out of the studio the members who were working out in the gym told us to watch the TV.  I could immediately tell by the broadcasters tone that this was serious.  I had to leave for IUPUI (I was in nursing school) but on our breaks we all watched in horror!  I remember going to my knees in prayer.  That was the only thing that gave me peace.  I was so grateful and amazed at how all the churches in Indy were open for prayer services.  Please pray for the families that lost someone in this horrible tragedy and for those who are still serving to protect our freedom and safety.  God Bless them all!!!

Posted by Heather Brewer Hill