Christmas Coma

Is anyone else out there in a total state of 'Christmas coma'???? We are! Still rolling around from the yummy food that was eaten, still throwing away bits and pieces of wrapping paper and tape, still opening all the kids' new toys (the song 'Toy Packaging" keeps running thru my head....) and still trying to find a new "home" for all our new toys and goodies. It was a fun and blessed Christmas nonetheless. Despite a few setbacks of sickness, with mostly Lilly and Jer, we made it thru the holidays and all the celebrations. We are all about partied out though!

Now, as I'm still putting away my things, I realize there IS something people can buy, and it does not matter how many zillion people get of these. What is it you ask???


Ah yes. I love me some Bath & Body Works shower gels, lotions and hand soaps. I think I shall be stocked up for awhile, what do you think? :)

Now......on to our Christmas celebrations. Our families Christmas parties start on Christmas Eve. It was at our home this year, and it is with Jeremy's side of the family. His Grandpa Haines, his dad and his 3 brothers and their wives and kids and grandkids. We had a total of 20 show up this year. Would have been 24 if everyone was able to come.

Of course, every good party is started off by a cup of hot apple cider (I shall share the recipe with you tomorrow..........as it is downstairs at the moment, and I'm too lazy a little tired to go get it now.) Followed, of course, by dinner.........

After dinner, we take a few pics.....

Here is my nephew, Ben

The Nicholson clan.
Ryan, Stephanie, Manoa and Malia
(Stephanie's dad, and Jeremy's dad are brothers)



Mike and Donna and Mike's son, Todd
Mike and Jerry (Jeremy's dad) are brothers

Our family of 4 1/2 :)

Jeremy's sister, Jen, her husband Andy and their 2 kids, Ben and Braden

Jerry and Judy with the grandkids (+ Jeremy) Isaiah would not get in the picture unless his daddy was in it too.....*sigh*

btw, not exactly sure where Judy is looking.......maybe she's praying for patience? lol

Great-Grandpa Haines with the great-grands (minus Malia)

and again, Isaiah had to be sitting on his daddys lap to be in the pic.

After the torture fun of picture time, it was time for the reading of the Christmas story.

After the Christmas story, we got our yearly visit from "Uncle Santa" who visits the Haines family every Christmas Eve (aka Uncle Mike)

Isaiah and Braden were the first to greet him at the door :)

A hug with Uncle Santa....

Santa passing out his gifts for the kids...

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Christmas Day.....

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We went to moms early, about 9:30 and started our Christmas celebrations with them. Mom always fills a stocking up for each of the grandkids. And this year, she hung up 5 stockings and surprised me with a little gift for baby girl :) Baby girl is 21 weeks in-utero and already spoiled :)

Pictures before presents!

Gifts are all passed out.............

Lilly's favorite..........make up! :)

Showing off her new slippers from MeMa and PaPa!

My nephew, Matthew.........

Later Christmas Day.........

We went to my in-laws house for more food and gifts!

Here is my nephew, Ben :)

Yes, this was our Christmas, the highlights, in as few pics as possible :) I've not quite woken up from my coma, so this is all you get for now! :)

Hope your alls Christmas was fun and memorable!!!!

Merry Christmas Eve :)

Merry Christmas Eve to all my bloggy friends!!!! Hope you all have a fantastic Christmas Eve today and a wonderful, fun, memorable Christmas Day tomorrow!

We are busy little elves today, cleaning and preparing our home for the 'invasion' of 20 of Jeremy's family members this evening. Our house will be full of love, laughter, talk and food!

Pictures to come soon! Hope you all have a great day! Love you!!

Baby ___________

So now I know why most people don't tell anybody baby names until they are 100% sure of the name or until the baby is born! lol. Live and learn I guess! haha. I made the mistake of mentioning a name that I liked, and apparently my dad really likes that name, so now he is calling her 'baby.....______'. And my friend Monica is doing it too! I asked her what girl names from the Bible she liked, and she mentioned 3, one of them being the name that I like, and I told her I liked that name, so now she is calling her by that name too!

We got together with Monica and Jeremy and their adorable twin girls tonight for dinner and to exchange Christmas gifts with the kiddos. She got Lilly and Isaiah 2 gifts each, and even one gift marked "To Baby ______"! I loved it :)

Here is our babys first present..... :)

Thank you Monica and Jeremy! We love you guys so much and appreciate your friendship!

Ready. Set. Go!

The countdown has begun....it's all over facebook! lol :) Might as well join em'........only 5 more days until Christmas!!!! Woot woot!!!

Today we enjoyed a fun day at church and with family. The whole day has just been relaxing and great. (and I can't say that about every Sunday....)

It started off great.....the kids woke up on their own (as opposed to us screaming trying to shake them and sing and wake them up for 20 minutes...{yes, we sing when we wake them up.....you know....wake up, wake up, it's time for sunday school!!! is my mom the only mom that sang that????} anyways, they just wake up in a MUCH better mood when they wake up on their own). So that started the morning off beautifully. And somehow, don't ask me how, we actually all got ready for church with about 20 minutes to spare! (And I even curled Lilly's hair.....which, face it, NEVER happens!)

So.....we took that precious gift of a few extra minutes for some picture time! You know me and my pictures...... ;) When you bring the camera out, or mention pictures, Lilly is all over it. Reminds me of myself when I was younger :) She loves having her picture taken, so she was the first one over by the tree, posing. :)

Is she my little model-girl, or what? :)

We finally got Daddy and Isaiah over by the tree. Isaiah is not as camera-friendly as Lilly. He can only take so much, and he's done. So I had to shoot some quick ones.....

But don't they just look adorable in their little matching shirts????? :)

Jeremy has a funny look on his face in the one below.....if I remember correctly, Lilly is the one that took this picture, and Jer was trying to tell her something. Not only does Lilly love having her picture taken......she also loves being the one to take pictures!!!

Kisses for Daddy!!!

Kisses for Bubby!!!!

Daddy and his kiddos.....

Mommy and Lilly.

We tried to get Isaiah in this one too.....but he was sick of pictures at this point and wanted to help daddy take the picture.....

I love having a kid old enough to take our picture! And she does a pretty decent job too! (I only had to delete a few....) We might have a photographer on our hands.....

And obviously Isaiah took this picture below of the 3 of us......took a few tries, but he actually got a pretty good one!

By this point we were running out of time and had to head to church. I was happy with our little photo session though.....it's better than what I can get out of the kids sometimes!

The kids sang with their preschool friends, 2 songs the beginning of church service today. They were just adorable. Of course our kids didn't sing, or smile hardly at all, but no surprise there!

I caught Isaiah here actually clapping as part of the song....

They had all kinds of fun stuff during church today, the kids singing, a cheerleading group, music and song from the youth, song from kids from kids church, and even a visit from Santa Clause, or as they called him, 'Santa Dan' (our childrens pastor) It was great!

Pastors sermon was all about how does Santa tie in to Christmas and Jesus? I loved it.....it was very informative and interesting.......and definately a sermon I've never heard taught before!!

Well, we've got a busy week ahead of us over here..........last minute gift buying, visit from friends, baking, and cleaning the house and preparing for a dinner of 20 on Thursday night at our house! Shew..........

Take a deep breath Sheila.

Ready.

Set.

GO!!!

Merry Christmas, and I'm off!!!!!!!!!!!!

Isaiah's Christmas Program - 2009

Yesterday was a fantabulous day. Our church's choir had a concert they put on yesterday morning and evening. It was absolutely amazing. It was just a 'you-had-to-be-there' kind of day. Unfortunately, I lost my camera yesterday morning, and was scrounging around the house looking for it, and finally had to leave for church, so I gave up. So I didn't get any photos of the concert at church. It was beautiful! After church, I spent 2 hours frantically looking for my camera, because we had to go to Isaiah's school for his Christmas concert. Fortunately I found it, just about as soon as I was about to give up. Shew!

So here we are at Isaiah's school, Sonshine Preschool, for his Christmas 'concert' :) It was really cute. Each class sang two songs. The first one he sang was 'dance like snowflakes'. Hence, all the kids holding snowflakes. It was adorable.

His class sang their 2 songs with another class. Isaiah only has about 8 kids in his class.

The lady directing in front with the Santa hat on is Ms Stephanie - she teaches Music, PE and Bible.

And after all the classes got to sing, then all the kids came out again, and sang 2 songs together- Happy Birthday Jesus and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

Isaiah did not much act like he wanted anything to do with being up there :)

Afterwards, Lilly and Isaiah and their cousins (who came to see Isaiah sing) went to the fellowship hall where there was Santa and cookies!

Hope your Christmas season is turning out beautifully! Until next time.....

Christmas season is upon us

Here is the sonogram from Friday. Baby Haines #3.....baby girl #2 :) We are soooo excited. Looks kinda scary here, but I think all sonogram pics look kinda scary- lol. You can see her head (on the left, she is looking down) and her spine really good. She had her legs crossed and tucked up underneath her most of the time, so it was difficult to get a good shot of her female parts. That's ok baby girl.....we still saw :) She was comfy. I'm now 18 weeks and 5 days along.

My Christmas cards have officially been sent out, and it's funny, I am still getting people from church coming up to me, congratulating me, saying they didn't know I was pregnant. One lady didn't find out until she ready our Christmas letter. And another lady came up to me just last night, congratulating me. It's still hard to tell, unless you look real close. I'm getting a small baby bump, but most of the clothes I wear are big and loose, so it's still hard to tell. I've thought I've felt a few flutterings in my belly.....but nothing definate....like I KNOW that was the baby. Feeling the baby kick and move around in me is my absolute FAVORITE part about being pregnant. There's nothing like it :) (that's actually probably the ONLY part I like about being prego- haha)

Anyways, on to other news. Christmas season has officially hit full force. :) I LOVE Christmastime. I love the pretty Christmas trees, the lights, my kids' excitement over every little thing, the plays and productions, our church's amazing choir performance every year, the parties.....I could go on and on.... :) I went to 3 Christmas parties this weekend. One Friday night, for the ladies at our church, one Sat night for our ABF class at a friends house, and one Sunday night at church with another ABF class. And, Christmas party #4 is just around the corner. Tomorrow night to be exact, and it's at my house :) It's our annual ladies MPact Christmas party. Sure to be lots of fun!

One night last week, my sister asked me to take some pics of her family by the tree, so I got some good shots while over there, then had to snap this adorable one of the ornery 5 year olds. Thought it turned out pretty cute. :)

Also on Saturday, we took the kids to Lilly's school. They were having a craft fair there, and Santa was there in the afternoon. So we got to go visit Santa. Here are the kids telling Santa what they want. Isaiah said "cars" and Lilly said "dora". no surprises there. :)

Hope ya'll have a great week..........we'll 'talk' soon!

IT'S A.....

GIRL!!!!

Lilly and Isaiah are going to be getting a new baby sister! We are so excited! Yay for girls! Our daughter was being very modest (good girl :) ) and had her legs crossed and tucked up underneath her, so it took the dr awhile to figure out if she was a boy or girl, but he finally saw those 3 little lines on the sonogram that indicate a baby girl. He never got a "perfect, clear shot", so he said he was 90% certain it was a little girl. We'll take that. :) Baby is perfect. They checked her spine carefully (since my sister has spina bifida), and it looks perfect. Her head and brain looks perfect, and her little heartbeat was beating perfectly. Thank you, Jesus! What an amazing miracle of life that the Lord has blessed us with.

today is the day!!!!!!!

We find out if we are having a PINK baby or a BLUE baby!!! Leave for my level 2 ultrasound in 30 minutes............I CAN'T WAIT!!!! Please cooperate with us today baby........just this once........show us your stuff -- or lack thereof!!! :)

Will let you know..........!!!!