O Christmas Tree

As tradition, we used this weekend to put up our Christmas tree and other Christmas decorations. Mara loves this time of year and is so excited to have our tree up. The kitties are glad to have the Christmas tree back as well.

As soon as we put it up, Mara insisted on sleeping underneath it. So, we let her take her take her nap beside the tree yesterday. While she was napping, we couldn't find Doxy. Come to find out, she thought it was a good place to take a nap as well. If you look closely, you can see Doxy under the tree even though I didn't know she was there when I took the picture. :)


For the first time in a few years, I'm setting up my fiber optic village. Doxy thinks it's another good place to take a nap.



This year, we got Mara a Little Einsteins ornament from Hallmark. She loves that ornament and constantly pushes the button to play the Little Einsteins theme song. If she's not careful, the ornament might not work one day. ;)



Last year, we found a Thomas the Tank Engine set for the tree, and we picked it up after Christmas. We got it set up today, and Doxy and Puck had a lot of fun playing with it. Now, we just need to figure out how we're going to get presents under the tree and still leave a spot for the kitties to still be able to sleep under the tree.





And here are some other random pictures just because I thought they were cute.





Now hopefully we'll get the outside decorations up sometime this week before we head back to San Antonio on Friday.

Our Little Artist

The other night, Mara was drawing on her Doodle Pro. She turned it around to show us she drew a picture of Doxy. (She was being goofy when I tried to take a picture.)


We were both surprised because we hardly see her draw more than people, and that's usually with encouragement from us.

Giving Thanks

Considering tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, I thought now would be a good time to express what I'm thankful for.

I am so thankful for my family. Sure, things haven't gone as planned this year and we're not where I expected us to be, but that's OK. God will provide us with another child when the timing is right. Don't get me wrong, though. It's hard waiting and wondering when it's going to happen, but we just have to put our trust in Him.

I'm thankful for our extended families. We don't get to see you guys as much as we want, but we think about you guys all the time. We're looking forward to spending some time with all of you tomorrow.

I am thankful for our jobs. There are times when we might not be too happy with them or with the people we work with, but most of the time I enjoy what I do. Plus, it's good to know that our jobs are pretty secure when so many around us aren't.

I'm thankful for our health and that we don't have to visit the doctor much aside from routine checkups.

I'm thankful for our house. It might not be the cleanest and there is some work that still needs to be done to it, but it's ours. Just hopefully we'll get it picked up and put it in some order before anyone decides to stop by. :)

I'm thankful for our friends. We might not be the best at keeping in contact, but we always think about you guys. I cherish the time we do get to spend together – especially considering how crazy our lives are sometimes.

I'm thankful for the awesome season the OSU football team is having. Hopefully this Saturday they can show OU that there's another football school in the state of Oklahoma. Go Pokes!

I know that I've left out some things, but I really am just thankful for our lives right now. Hope everyone has a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

Santa Claus is coming to town

Last night, we went to the new Village at Allen to see Santa arrive and watch the tree-lighting ceremony.

We arrived early so Mara could get the goody bag that had a lot of little toys as well as some coupons in it. We also visited the reindeer, Donner and Blitzen, that were there.


After wandering around enjoying the hot chocolate and cookies, there was still more than an hour until Santa was due to arrive. So, we decided to go over to Toys R Us to wander around a little bit. When we got back, Mara wanted to sit in Santa's sleigh.


Santa finally arrived and turned on the Christmas tree lights. There were a lot of people there, so Mara had to watch while perched upon her daddy's shoulders.




And here's the jolly old big guy himself. We didn't wait in line to get a picture with him (we figured we'd wait until later), but we couldn't go without at least getting a picture of him.


It was a fun family evening, and Mara had a lot of fun.

It really is a small world

A couple of months ago, I met someone here at work who also went to OSU. Being here in Dallas, you would think that would be more common, but there are only three OSU grads out of about 280 employees here.

Today, the girl from OSU came by my office, and we started talking about Stillwater and even a little bit about Bartlesville since her grandparents lived there. Come to find out, she also worked with John at Creative Labs in Stillwater, and we know some of the same people from our days at OSU.

It was neat to talk about people and places that I haven't seen in over eight years.

Sleeping Beauty, er, Snow White

As one of her "poop prizes," Mara earned a pair of Snow White dress-up shoes that we found on clearance after Halloween. Apparently, that was one of the best prizes we could have given her. She loves to wear the shoes and wears them to bed most night. She has even asked to wear them to the store, but she has finally learned that they are for in the house only. Here's a cute picture I got of her sleeping in her shoes the first night she earned them.


While I'm on the subject of potty training, I thought I would update you on Mara's progress. It looks like we finally have a fully potty trained little girl! Yay! She's been doing really well the past month or so, and she's going to receive her big Littlest Pet Shop prize this weekend. (See blog post here for more details on her big prize.)

Pictures!

I downloaded pictures from our Sony camera, and there were a bunch of random ones on there that I wanted to share. So, here we go. :)

Pictures from the Dallas Stars game against the Wild on October 29
We celebrated Mike's birthday by going to a Stars game. It was fun and helped me forget about what was going on with me for a little bit.






Flowers from my staff after my miscarriage last month
My department has come a long way this year. Losing half of my staff earlier this year was one of the best things that could have happened because now I have a really great staff of four. From what I can tell, these are bamboo orchid. The bee has been on my whiteboard for a while. It was coincidence where I placed the plant in conjunction with the bee. :)


Emily's fourth birthday party
Our friends Paul & Michelle had a pony named Blue at Emily's birthday party last weekend because Emily loves horses. It's the first time Mara rode a pony, and she loved it.






Mara's new haircut
This is only Mara's third haircut. She's been asking to get it cut shorter for a while now, and we finally did it. The stylist cut about three inches off of her hair.




See her gray front tooth in the last picture? That's from when she hit her mouth on the coffee table last month, but it will probably fade and turn white again. Her mouth has pretty much healed aside from that tooth and a little bit of her gum that still needs to grow back.

Coldest Day So Far

Today is the coldest it's been so far this year. The high was only in the low 50s with a north wind. So, what did Mara and I decide to do? Take a walk and play on the playground, of course!

Our walk was much shorter than I anticipated because I didn't realize exactly how cold it was, but it was still nice to get out. I'm glad the weather is getting cooler (it's about time!), but I have the feeling it's going to be back in the 80s soon. That's Texas weather for you.

Mara was fine riding in her stroller. To keep her hands warm, she stuck them under her leg. Luckily, I also brought along a pair of gloves for her to wear when she was playing on the playground.








You might not be able to tell from those pictures, but Mara got a haircut last weekend. It's just below her shoulders now, and she loves it. She had been asking us to shorten her hair for a while now, but I wanted to wait until after Halloween so she could still pull her hair back into a ponytail fairly easily.

I also found out today why I really like Mara watching the main Disney channels (Disney East and Disney West) – no commercials. There's a Phineas and Ferb marathon on Toon Disney this weekend. During every commercial break, they have at least one commercial for a toy, and Mara is constantly saying, "I want that." If it wasn't one of her favorite shows (see yesterday's post), I don't think I would put up with these commercials. From what I've seen of the various kids channels, it looks like the main Disney channels are the only ones that don't have commercials, and I am very thankful for that.

Mara's Favorites

Mara has been letting us know what some of her favorite things are for a while now, so I thought it would be good to record them. So, here are Mara's favorites according to her.

• Favorite colors: Pink and purple
• Favorite stores: Toys R Us, Kohl's, Target
• Favorite TV shows: Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Thomas and Friends, and Phineas and Ferb (all Disney shows)
• Favorite movies: Little Mermaid II, The Little Mermaid, Cars
• Favorite Disney princesses: Ariel and Cinderella
• Favorite animals: Killer whales, dolphins, cats, dogs

There are also several random things that Mara has said or done over the last few weeks that I haven't blogged about yet, and I thought now would be a good time to list them.

We'll be talking, and Mara will pipe up, "That's from Phineas and Ferb!" Sadly, we can usually figure out which episode it's from.

Mara calls her wrist her "hand's neck."

Mara has an imaginary sister named Bola, and her imaginary friend is now called Lala. Not sure where she comes up with these names, but they're definitely hers. :) Hearing her talk about having an imaginary sister makes me kind of sad, but hopefully she'll have a sister or a brother in the next year or so.

Shake, shake, shake...

We went to Chick-Fil-A for dinner tonight because they were giving away free chicken sandwiches if you wore you're "I voted" sticker. When we finished eating, we were talking about ordering one of their new peppermint chocolate chip shakes. I was joking around and sang, "Shake, shake, shake. Shake, shake, shake." But, I left it at that because I couldn't decide if I wanted to sing the rest of the song in front of Mara. Apparently, I didn't need to worry about it as Mara had no problem finishing it with a "Shake your booty, shake your booty" while wiggling her bottom. We didn't even realized she knew the song, but she proceeded to keep singing it perfectly while we were at Chick-Fil-A and then throughout Wal-Mart. She told us she learned it from Ms. Monica, who is the music teacher at Mara's school. It makes sense since it's a fun song – especially for preschoolers.

Just to make sure she knew what she was singing about, we asked her if she knew what a booty was, and she replied, "my bottom." :)

Trick or Treat!

I know I'm a couple days late, but I wanted to go ahead and post some pictures of our Halloween.

This year, Mara dressed up as a whale trainer riding a whale. She loved her costume, and so did everyone else. We got so many comments on it at school and as we were trick or treating that night. My sister Diane sewed her shirt so it looks like what the whale trainers at SeaWorld wear. She's also wearing the whale tale necklace from the Believe! show at SeaWorld.




Here's Mara with her cousins Lani (Tinkerbell), Lori (a witch) & Mikey (Batman) on our way out the door for trick or treating.


And here's Mara and Lani at the end of trick or treating. I think Mara was more than done. We had hit a ton of houses in Mike & Myra's neighborhood by this point and were headed back home.


I also made a kitty litter cake for our Halloween celebration. I followed the recipe here, but I used a regular chocolate and a yellow cake as the base since you don't even see the cakes. It turned out pretty neat and actually tastes pretty good if you can get past the looks.

Here we go again

I had another miscarriage this week. We haven't had a chance to tell everyone yet, but that's because it's hard to bring it up in conversation and there hasn't been a good time. So, sorry if this is how you're finding out (again).

I was supposed to go to the doctor for my 6-week appointment yesterday, but I called and moved it up to Tuesday because of spotting. By the time I made it to my doctor's office, the spotting had turned to bleeding. I went in for an ultrasound, and the gestational sac was only measuring 4 weeks, 4 days. (I was 5 weeks, 5 days pregnant.) The blood tests and ultrasound combined with the bleeding plus the cramping I had Tuesday night and Wednesday mean that there won't be a baby in the Haley household in June. Since my body is already taking care of things on its own, I'm just going to ride it out this time.

Since this miscarriage occurred so early in the pregnancy, we could theoretically start trying again as soon as possible, but my doctor wants me to come back in 4-6 weeks (December 5 to be exact) to run some blood tests and try to figure out why I've have back-to-back miscarriages after a successful first pregnancy. These miscarriages could just be two flukes in a row since neither one of them were anything alike, but at the same time, it would be nice to have answers and know how we can proceed. Having answers might also explain why we were able to get pregnant with Mara the first time we tried, yet it took 4-5 months with the other two pregnancies. And hopefully we'll be able to add to our family soon.

And now that everyone knows what's going on, that means I can go back and publish a few posts that I previously wrote about this pregnancy. I was waiting to post them once we announced the pregnancy, but I might as well put them out there now.