This is what happens...

...when your 2 year old insists upon dressing herself. I swore I would never be one of those parents who lets their children wear their snow boots all summer long, but I just might. You just can't persuade her out of some of the things she insists upon. This outfit was produced at about 4 pm and luckily we didn't have anywhere to go...so on it went. She is quite the fashionista, eh? It has been a while since I updated on Hallie. She is as funny and wild as ever. I did have a lady stop me at church yesterday (who I don't really know) though and tell me that she can tell that Hallie has a "soft soul." I think that is true, too. She said she was watching her during sacrament meeting and Hallie was looking around and had some concerned looks on her face when babies were crying. She can be sweet when she wants to be. She often asks me in a very concerned tone, "tummy hurts mommy??" Perhaps I have complained a bit much during this pregnancy...haha.

We just moved her downstairs to her new room! We decided against having the two kids in the same room, so we wanted to give her a little bit of time to adjust. She has done great so far. Devin is such a handy man and built her a new closet. The old closet was out of control and had one sloping shelf that didn't do any good. He spent two days last week buying the supplies and then building the shelves. We then reorganized all our junk we had piled in there and then moved all her things in. I love everything being organized and in its place! (I think I am starting the nesting phase...I am wanting to organize everything.)

Other notable things about Hallie right about now:

*She has picked up on a few of Devin's famous phrases, including "COME ON PEOPLE!" (Devin says this when he is driving a lot...) and "Holy Smokes!". She throws them out randomly whenever she feels like it.

*She is getting really good at pretending and can occupy herself for quite some time pretending different things. My mom gave her a baby furniture set (seen above in her room) for Christmas and she loves it. She will put the baby in the tub, turn on the fake water, get the fake soap and scrub the baby down, then put the baby in the chair and feed her a fake meal, etc. She is pretty funny. Her favorite fake foods to cook are pizza and cake. Yum.

*She now understands that she is going to have a "brother." We will see how much she likes it when the baby is actually here!

*She has a really good memory. We fed her chicken nuggets on one of our drives recently to Idaho and as she was eating, she started talking about chicken nuggets on the bus. I didn't know what the heck she was saying, but then realized that the last time she had chicken nuggets was when we were on the bus in California for Mikey's wedding. She remembers who she got a lot of her Christmas presents from and when she plays with it or reads the book or whatever, she says "Grandma Lisa bought it!" Or "Santa brought it!"

*She loves songs and sings to herself alot. She likes to make up verses to "Wheels on the Bus" particularly.

*She says her own prayers now without much prompting and they can be quite entertaining. She prays for random people, kids in nursery, almost always says she is grateful for "church", and then throws in a few other things. Today it was "pants" and "yogurt." Love children and their prayers.

Here are some other pictures that I took off my work phone (hallelujah we are getting new ones this week) that I don't think I ever posted.

We went bowling over the Christmas break and Hallie LOVED it. As if her grin didn't give it away. She even beat Devin, I do believe.

This was a few months ago (the end of the summer, I think?) when we had Sadie for one night, I can't remember why. Hallie insisted that Sadie was stinky and before we knew it, she had whipped out a diaper and laid Sadie down to help get it changed. She was still wearing diapers herself at the time. The goof.

What a girl. We sure love her.

On a separate note, my oh my have I been on a blogging blitz. I do apologize. Don't worry, it will probably slow back down again here in the next little while.