Thanksgiving Once Again with the Grays!!

One week ago today we celebrated Thanksgiving! It was Haley's First and Emily's Second and Micah and I's 5th as Husband and Wife! We have so much to be Thankful for! And at the top of the list is so many wonderful family and friends who love and support us and our girls in all that we do! A lot of family who are pictured below and a lot of family who are not! But we are thankful for every one who has helped nurture and teach us and our chicas along the way!


We had a GREAT Thanksgiving Day! We stopped by Mema's on Thanksgiving Morning so that we could visit a bit with her and some of my Aunts and an Uncle and Cousin, we didn't get any pics there though.....too busy socializing to think about it I guess:)


Then we went to Mimmi and Dooders house for Thanksgiving Lunch, which was at High Noon, as always! This year before we had a prayer and began to eat our Feast Dooders had us go around the room (and there were about 30 people there) and each person shared something that they were thankful for! And the thing that touched me the most is that out of all of the THINGS there are to be thankful for, almost everyone was thankful in one way or another for FAMILIES: Moms, Dads, Get Togethers, Husbands, Wives, Children, Experiences and the list goes on! It was a very spiritually uplifting experience and I am so Thankful to have been there to be a part of it! Life is Good and We are Truly Blessed!

Emily Getting Ready to Enjoy Her Thanksgiving Lunch and Giving Aunt Ellie and Cheesy Grin!

A Precious Moment for Emma and Emily!

Fun Times in the Play Room!

An Adorable Shot of Gracie as they Both Get Ready to Enjoy Their FIRST Thanksgiving!

Haley and Gracie share some "sippy cup talk" on the Living Room Floor!

Haley and Gracie sharing some Play Time By the Foot Stool!

2 Peas in a Pod.....Crazy Girls, sitting in the Hall way in their Booster Seats!

Gracie enjoying her FIRST Thanksgiving Meal with her Mommy!

Like Father Like Son ~ Eating Together on the Couch!

Haley squeezing in some Dooders Time as she pretends to be Super Girl (Notice her Cape, I mean Bib!)

Iris Jumped right in to Feed Haley some of her baby food!

Phoebe Had the BEST time playing with Emily on Thanksgiving!

Haley Snuggling with her Aunt Ellie (and her red cup!)

Eliza sharing some of her lunch with Emily!

Haley chillin' with her Uncle Josh!

Haley drinking Emily's Sippy Cup!

Cute little Colton with his Mommy!

Me and My Haley Boo (as she is trying to squirm away!)

Two Toe Suckers!

There are many fun and exciting things about having 2 little girls! Just one of the small and exciting things for me has been taking comparison photos! Not comparison in height, weight or stature of course, but in the little things that they pick up on and hold on to! It is so fun to see both of the girls wear the same dress, or suck their thumb or eat their first bites of baby food!

And just the other day I got the opportunity to witness yet another one of these moments when I went to get Haley dressed for the day and laid her down on the changing table! As soon as I unzipped her sleep sack and her PJs she reached right for her toes and then immediately they went right to her mouth! Luckily my camera was close by and I was able to get a picture before she stopped! It seems like a routine she has now though, whenever I start to get her dressed in the mornings she reaches down for her toes and she has to taste them and make sure they are okay to start the day with! She is just too funny! I know to some this may seem ordinary and perhaps gross, but to me I thought it was the cutest thing and I am so glad that I was there to see it! These girls have a way of making this mommy smile with just the tiniest things that they can do, even sucking on their toes!

Emily at 5 1/2 Months Tasting her Toes!

You can see she was really having a blast!

Haley at 8 1/2 Months Checking Out her Toes!

And there she goes with the Taste Test!

Maw Maw "Weezy", The Backwards Coat and Bottoms Up!

It was an interesting weekend for us! Mostly regular and laid back, but with a few little extra quirks that made for some fun Memories!
Our girls don't get to spend a whole lot of time with their Great Grandma Louise (aka: Maw Maw Weezy), so that is why it was extra special when she paid us a surprise visit with Mimi and Dooders on Sunday evening! She really enjoyed watching the girls, it was after dinner so Emily had an exceptional amount of energy! And she enjoyed snuggling with Haley. Haley thought she was great, she just kept patting her hand and staring at her! It was a fun moment to be able to watch! And I am grateful that Heavenly Father allowed me that opportunity!
Also, Emily got a new snow coat (that was an amazing "Hand Me Down") for this coming winter! And once she realized we had it she put it right on! As you can tell by the pictures she enjoyed wearing it backwards! She even came over to me and asked me to zip it up; however, shortly after I snapped a picture she was more than ready to get out of it! Once she noticed she was "stuck" she became really insistent for me to "unzip!".
And Haley enjoyed when I sat her down in her excersaucer bottom first! You would think she would have freaked out, but she thought it was funny! She sat there and laughed and giggled about it for a few minutes, at least long enough for me to snap a few pictures! Then she got all squirmy and we fixed her, so that she could actually play!! She is one funny girl, that is FOR SURE!
It truly does amaze me that some how these little girls get more and more fun and funny each and every day! I love it! It is so fun to watch them learn new things. Haley is starting to learn more about how to move around and Emily's vocabulary has just exploded recently! She has busted out with so many words lately! It is really a treasure to watch them both progress! I am so thankful that I get to experience it first hand! Life is Good!

I just thought Haley's expression was Funny! I love how her little tongue is out!

The Moment of all Moments! I love it!

Emily all zipped up in her coat, taking care of her baby!

I had to snap a quick picture from the backside before I unzipped her! Too Cute!

Chillin' in her Excersaucer!

All Laid Back and Enjoying the Entertainment!

Uncle Nathan and Our Girls!

We do a babysitting swap with Micah's oldest brother, Nathan, and his wife, Sarah so that one month we can attend the temple and the next they can attend the temple! And watching all of the kids, the total now is SEVEN, is no small feat!
This past Saturday it was our turn to attend the temple. And Sarah had a few things she needed to do outside of the house. Although Sarah was there to help with lunch time (which can definitely get a bit crazy, especially with 7 little mouths to feed!), Nathan spent pretty much the rest of the time alone with the kiddos! And he was such a champ about it, and we were so grateful to be able to attend the temple together!
Sarah just sent us this picture that she snapped of Nathan with our little chicas and I thought it was so cute that it deserved to be posted! Moments like these don't come around very often!!

Haley and Emily in their Matching Outfits Enjoying some time with Uncle Nathan!

Our EIGHT MONTH OLD Haley Elizabeth!

It has taken me a little while to get this post together, but nonetheless, on November 9th our little Haley turned EIGHT MONTHS OLD! She gets cuter and cuter with each passing moment! When we first became parents we thought there was a specific stage that was "the fun stage", but as we have been adventuring in parenthood for almost 2 years now we have come to realize that every stage is "the fun stage".
We are not the type of parents who rush our kids to reach certain milestones, but we rejoice as both of our girls has come to reach those milestones at the right time for her. I have had to remind myself of that mantra of ours recently as Haley has been waking up every night in the middle of the night and wanting to eat! It is hard on both of us to wake up and to get her changed at fed and sometimes I have not been too happy to do those tasks in the middle of the night, especially since Haley is 8 months old now. But last night I was gently reminded by my Father in Heaven that "she won't be like this for long". And at that moment I realized that even though it is not always convenient to wake up at 4 am, I need to enjoy this part of the journey because soon enough she won't need or may not even want me in the night and that in itself will bring on different challenges for this mommy, and I definitely know that. So for now, as I wake up each night with our little Boo I am going to relish in my alone time with her! I am grateful to have been taught that powerful lesson now, while it is not too late!!
Okay, enough of that, now onto Haley's Accomplishments as an 8 Month Old:
~She got her FIRST TOOTH on Halloween! She has been so interested in rolling her tongue around on it ever since her tooth made its appearance!
~ She is definitely beginning to take an interest in being mobile! She loves to scoot around:)
~ She is babbling and mimicking A LOT more these days:) She loves to say "Ma Ma Ma and Da Da Da and Ba Ba Ba" although she still doesn't realize what those words mean yet:)
~ She LOVES to play with toys now! She is fascinated with everything Emily does, just as a little sister should be!
~She enjoys being talked to, sung to or read to! She is a very mild mannered baby who is very easy to please!
~She still fights nap times and bed times, but I think it's because she is such a people person that she doesn't like it when it is time for everyone else to go away:)
~One of the greatest things about Haley is that she is FULL OF EXPRESSIONS! She makes the funniest, cutest, silliest faces!! She is such a little clown!

I think that sums up Haley's 8th Month! She is such a fun little baby and we are falling more and more in love with her with each passing day!!

Our Adorable Haley!

Man, she REALLY Loves her Bear!

Ever since her 1st tooth came in she has LOVED rolling her tongue:)

Queen of Expressions!!

See what I'm Sayin?

One of my Favorites...She is so inquisitive!

Okay, had enough picture time.....time to get down now!

And of Course Miss Emily had to have a turn in the Green Chair!

A Happy Sister Moment in the Big Green Chair!

And then Something Stage Left Caught their Attention!!

Sitting with my Littlest Girl!

All 3 of us together for a moment!

Daddy snuggling with his Haley Boo!

My 3 Favorite People! I LOVE this shot!

Family Photo Time, Oh it was an interesting Time!

A Little Too Slow for the Self Timer!

Life With the Grays can definitely get Crazy at times, but we Love it!

Emily's First Hair Cut!!

I knew it needed to be done, and I knew I was going to be the one to do it, but that didn't change the fact that I didn't want to!! I mean, who wants to cut their baby girl's hair? And yes, I know she is not "technically" a baby any more, but she is only 22 months old and she is MY BABY and she always will be! That is both why I didn't want to give her her FIRST HAIR CUT and why I knew I needed to!
I was nervous of how she would react, I was nervous about how to do it, I was nervous about how I would do with it....but I made a couple of phone calls to a good friend of mine who is super at cutting little ones' hair and decided TONIGHT WAS THE NIGHT!
After dinner, we all went for a walk. Emily wasn't in the best of moods and so I was really nervous, but once we got home and I asked her if she wanted a hair cut and an oatmeal chocolate bar that we had made together, (she missed it for dessert after dinner because she didn't eat all that we asked her too), she quickly agreed and was up in her booster seat super fast!
I sprayed her hair with a spray bottle and then I began the first cut, I was so nervous and to my amazement Emily wasn't phased at all! She just kept eating her dessert and was very obedient when I asked her to look up and down! The overall cut took about 10 minutes and of course there were pictures throughout, which made the whole process take a little longer, but all in all she was amazing and I have to say her hair looks quite cute! I am impressed with both of us, we did very well together....and the best part is that Emily still has some hair and I am not too shaky to write about the whole experience! Overall Haircut Number One was a SUCCESS!!

The Before Shot!

Getting Her Hair Wet and Handing out the Treat!

Trying to Trim the back was tricky with her seated like this!

So we rotated her!

Had to put the pins in to keep her bangs up and her hair down!

Done with the Back!

On to the Bangs!

All the Hair that was cut!! (If you ZOOM in, it looks like more!)

The AFTER shot (after the cut and the dessert!)

And she is ready to be DONE!

Her Dessert is Gone and So is Her Smile:(