Wow! Okay, so I haven't been on my blog since... I don't know when.  I guess you could say I kinda forgot about it.  Just an update (since when I last left off we were moving) we didn't move! Surprise! My dad and mom decided, after lots of thinking and praying, that we better stay where we are.  And my dad got a promotion later that keeps him right where he is! I am now 13 (and 1/2 if you want to get technical about it) and I got a phone and a facebook.  My great grandpa just passed away a week before Christmas and I loved him very much. I miss him. I keep very busy each day with all of my homework, piano, and trumpet practice.  Besides that, in my spare moments I am watching my favorite movies, the Love Comes Softly series, and my favorite T.V. show (which we have on DVD), Scarecrow and Mrs. King.  We are in the middle of a totally awesome snow storm right now, so school was cancelled today and there is already a two-hour delay tomorrow.  I am stoked about the Super Bowl this Sunday!!! My grandparents are coming to my house, and they will buy us just about any junky football food we want. Yep, so it's a good deal. Oh yeah, smack in the middle of my blogging timeline blackhole, three new cousins were added to my family.  Luke and Josiah, the twins, belong to my Aunt Megan and Uncle TJ.  Their first birthday is next Saturday and I am very excited about it.  My other cousin, Carson Jay, is getting close to celebrating his first birthday on March 12. So now that y'all are caught up on my life, I think i'd better go... there is an Iowa State Cyclone game calling my name!

Well, I have a lot of news, as would be expected since I havn't posted in what seems like years! First of all, an update on Hannah and Caleb: they are both doing well. Hannah smashed her finger in May and lost part of it because it was crushed so bad. It's healed now, though.  Ok, as I go over what to write in my head, I'm realizing that I don't have as much news as I thought I did. In fact, I can only think of one other thing, but it seems like a lot more than it really is. Ok; are you ready for this???I know I'm not... WER'E MOVING.      :( :( :( :( :(

Yup.  My dad got a job promotion and for some time he had been debating whether or not to take it.  At one point he decided not to take it. That was a month and a half ago. And then last night he threw it on me - the clear-cut fact that I'm going to have to leave all my friends, my school and the position that I have (or would have had) on their 8th grade leadership team there. And of course there's piano lessons that I'll have to quit, even though I've only been at it for three weeks.  I'll be the new girl at this new school.  Oh yeah... we're gonna move to Eldridge, which apparently is near the Quad Cities.  There are so many things that i'm going to miss about Dysart... I can't even begin to put them down on here; they're so numerous.  I really need your prayers right now, friends. I don't know exactly what God wants me to do with moving, but I'm sure that he wants me to have a good attitude about it, and that by itself will need quite a few people praying. I feel like giving up, but I know that's not an option because I've got to get through this somehow.
~Hallie~

Tears and Cheers

Well, I didn't get to go to get Edi and Zai, but now they're home and I'm kind-of glad that I didn't go, because of the Mango Fly larva that is eating the skin in my dad's leg. Disgusting!!!!!! We all met at the airport, hardly believing that they were home, and on Christmas Eve, too! There were many set backs, such as a problem with their plane that caused them to be on the ground in Rome for four hours and miss their next flight. With the help of God and some very generous people, They made it home at 7:15 pm, December 24th. However, it is not going to be easy to train Edi-Caleb and Hannah (as we now call them) in the ways of the Lord. They are both prone to hit and throw fits when mad or scared, and that's just what comes naturally to them. Edi is stubborn and that can be very annoying - he thinks that he can get what ever he wants if he refuses to do or say something. Oh yeah -Edi is a month older than Cooper, but Cooper is a whole head taller than Edi! When they went to bed on Christmas Eve, Edi, the three-year-old, was wearing my one-year-old cousin's pajamas! They both seem to be adjusting pretty well, although they wake up at four each morning because they are still on Uganda time. I'm pretty sure Mom and Dad are exhausted - how can't they be? We are oh so thankful to God for all the work he as done in our family to help these two beatiful children come to him.

In our Loving Arms

2 years ago tomorrow my siblings and I recieved a phone call from our parents- all the way from Rwanda. They had just met Cooper for the first time and shared the joy of holding him. We heard about a little yellow, dirty toy in the crude shape of a bear that he was clinging to the whole time they were holding him. It finally slipped from his grasp, plopping into a muddy gutter. Dad silently bent down and picked it up, wiping it on his shirt. He thought of that little toy and how much we would be able to provide for this scared little boy - that toy would mean nothing to Cooper when we got him home, yet then he was balling when it dropped into the dark water. He didn't know what was coming. Neither did we. We were in it together.

Now the playful, hyper, extremely cute three-year-old that I see each and every day is no longer scared or shy - in fact, he's quite the opposite... Brave and a bit goofy, he isn't afraid to meet new people. He's always into activities all the way from watching Veggie Tales to coloring a picture for Mommy to wrapping-paper roll sword fighting with one of his brothers. Now, I can hardly remember life without our beatiful, precious Cooper.




PS... I might get to actually witness the next metcha day - I might get to go with my parents to Uganda to meet our little girl and boy waiting with another story to be told.

-Hallie

Family, Friends, and ME!

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Sick Spell

Yep! That's right! I'm suffering from a miserable cold - or so we think... My mom hasn't taken me to the doctor yet, so we don't have an accurate diagnosis. All the symptoms are leading to a cold - Drainage, caughing, fever, dizziness, and a headache. It's so hard to sleep... I get so hot in my bed and I wake up three or four times each night. I really don't want to miss school tomorrow for two reasons: I get to go on a limo ride tomorrow because I sold a lot of magazines for my school, and it will be hard to catch up with the homework that gets piled on top of me each day. I don't want to go tomorrow for one reason: I have to run the mile, and with this terrible cough, I 99% sure that I'll pass out - right now just because of the cough my head feels like I just ran a mile.

Right now it looks as if I'll go to school tomorrow, but things can always change.

Friday!!!

You don't know how excited I am to have even a very short break from school... it tires me out! I have a quiz tomorrow in math, so please pray that I would do well - I'll do the same! Today we had to go up to a doctor's appointment for Carter, because he broke his arm in football. We got home at almost 6:00, so I didn't have a lot of time for homework... in fact, I just finished about ten minutes ago. I am excited to sleep in on Saturday... sorry, that's kind-of all I can think about right now - SLEEP!

Getting past the thought of sleep, I will list some things that are important in my life right now:

1. God - absolutely my #1 BFF


2. Family - always there to help and encourage me


3. Friends - my "Cheer Leaders"... they always find a way (or make a way) to crack me up


4. Energy - that includes SLEEP, eating good foods - it doesn't (at least not where I'm concerned) include Coffee... my parents, on the other hand, are all over it


5. Faith - trusting that God's gonna do what he says he's gonna do

Halloween Plans

Well school is definately keeping me busy - often too busy to write about it! I will give you an update on our adoption situation - We are adopting a boy and a girl, brother and sister, and we are assuming that my parents will be able to go to Uganda to get them no sooner than January. The suspense is sometimes unbareable - we really want to meet these two right NOW!

School is going well... I'm understanding most of the math that I'm doing, and for me, that's a really good thing. I am very excited for eighth hour because that is band! I am in the marching band this year and it is a lot of fun. It's a great work out, too! in fact, my arms felt like jello today after I got done marching around the block with the rest of the band. Sometimes I doubt that I will be able to make it all around town in the Halloween Parade.
Speaking of Halloween, I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing for it. I'm trying to convince my mom into letting me have my two best friends, Lizzie and Veronica, over so that we can bob for apples, frost cookies, and answer the doorbell when excited trick-or-treaters come. We might even scare some of the older kids - but not the little ones. My brother, Hayden, once went into a "Haunted Garden" of a classmate of mine, and he nearly wet his pants he was so scared! He wouldn't go in, even for his favorite bag of chips! Carter had to go in for him. I'd rather not have a petrified toddler wet his pants on my front step.

If I can't have them over, I will probably just sit at the door and hand out candy in my costume from last year... I hope that doesn't happen :)

VICTORY!

Oh wow! My life has been a whirl-wind since school started! I am super Excited to exclaim something that I can Now prove to everyone:

THE CYCLONES RULE!
after their victory against the Hawkeyes today (which had my Mom and I biting our fingernails), I can freely say that they are so much better than the Hawkeyes. :D

Water Park Blast

I just got back from a waterpark in Waterloo... oh boy was it fun! I went on 4 different slides, the lazy river, and a wave pool. I think my favorite slide was the roller coaster slide... It had several huge bumps and for a little while we were air born on one! Oh yeah... It was a lot of fun.

On the other hand, school is coming up soon and I am not looking forward to it. My dad says that he will try to have My brother and I moved down to our new rooms in the basement before school starts. I am excited that I will be able to see all my friends again, though.

Backbone

Backbone, as always, was awesome! We canoed, caught crawdads in the trout stream, and I got to stay up one night to play chickenfoot with all my aunts and uncles. My uncle Brian won. Oh yes! There was a mishap in there, too. When we were packing up to go home, my dad picked up our bag full of beach towels and swimsuits, handed them to Carter, and told him to throw them away. Of course, he thought that they were trash. When we got home and my mom could not find them, My dad said "Well, I'm sure that I put them in the car!". Ha Ha Ha... He didn't. He threw away my two swimsuits, one of which was brand new and a birthday present, Hayden's Spank'in new towel that he got for his birthday the week before, My mom's new swimsuit, Carlie's swimteam swimsuit, and Coop, Dad, and Carters' swimsuits. Of Course we forgave him, but My grandma and I had to go shopping all day to find new ones (we are going to a really cool waterpark on Saturday) Well, that pretty much sums it up:)

I Have a Good Exuse

Sorry that I did not have a chance to blog for the last three days. A huge storm Hit my town and did a ton of damage. There was no tornado, but the meteorologists said that the straitline winds that did hit us were as strong as an F2 tornado. No homes were destroyed, but no homes didn't have damage. One house had a huge tree fall on it. The power was out until I woke up this morning (lucky me). Our house had a lot of damage too: Our deck was destroyed, our mailbox and light pole were taken out, we have leaks all over the house (including our garage) and yesterday morning we found out that part of our leaky garage roof had collapsed all over our bikes and fishing poles that we are going to take to Backbone State Park tomorrow. Bummer, Right? I got pretty bored of eating sandwiches and cereal too. Our friends,the Winkleplecks, had there 120 year old barn destroyed and they lost a lot of cattle too. Everyone is still cleaning up. So that explains why I could not blog for three days! ;)

Softball/Baseball Game News

Okay, so I was a little more active yesterday than I planned to be. I forgot to tell you that I had softball practice yesterday. Well, It was super hot, super boring, and I was super miserable. When we were finishing up, the pitcher threw the ball to me and it hit my ring finger on my right hand really hard. It started swelling right away and there was still some practice left. As soon as we were done, I ran to my dad and told him what happened. Although I didn't cry when it hit me, (I was about to cry though) I was pretty sure that I broke my finger. My dad, being my dad, said, "It's probably just a bad jam." It had turned black and blue by the time we got it home and my mom was assuming that it was broken. However, with little time left in the day and a softball tournament the next day, (that was today! We played three games and didn't win any!) we had no time to take me to the doctor. It did pretty well today. I can only bend it so far and it's still black and blue and sore, but it didn't bother me too much in the tournament (probably because we wrapped it up really well).

When I was getting on the computer my mom pointed out a little news article that popped up when I opened internet explorer. It was talking about a man who was at a Texas Rangers Game. He was on the second floor balcony when he reached out to catch a foul ball and fell headfirst off the balcony, with his son watching the whole thing. When paramedics got there, the first thing that he said was: "Please! Go check on my son! He's up there alone." After he finished this sentence, he passed away. Please pray for this man's family, especially the son. When I was reading this article, I thought about what I would do If it were my dad who fell off the balcony. I would probably be screaming when he fell off and when he had been on the groumd for a while, I would probably have started crying.

This boy must have been really brave to know that his father needed help and there was nothing that he could really do to help him. I know that I could not be as brave as this little boy was.

Just another Day

I am not doing anything today... nothing at all... I am just going to have a lazy day! I woke up this morning and started playing with a new barbie toy that I bought with some of my birthday money yesterday. My mom called me downstairs to watch Cooper and Carlie while she took Hayden to swimming lessons. So that is where I am right now: Typing this up quick while my siblings are busy watching a Veggie Tales movie. I skipped breakfast and now I am regretting it... My stomach is killing me! For those of you who do not know, we are adopting again! The children that we are adopting ( yes, I said CHILDREN) are from Uganda, which is a neighboring country to Rwanda (where Cooper came from). We are getting a little boy and a little girl who are brother and sister. We are super excited and we ask for prayers as we continue this adoption process. :)

Summer can be a Bummer

Oh my goodness! It has been soooo long since I have posted! In fact, I had to come up with a new password to get on here because I forgot my other password! I had a wonderful birthday and and awesome fourth of July. I have been going to my siblings' swim meets and playing in my own softball games... I guess that partly explains why I haven't had a lot of time to write on here. I was devistated this morning when my mom told me that a Casey's General store in the neighboring town of LaPorte City burnt down at 3:00 this morning, killing an employee who was there early to make donuts. Evidently she died later at the hospital, but she did have to be rescued. Hayden's birthday is coming up in the next 3 days and I am excited to watch him blow out the candles on his dinosaur birthday cake! I have run across a problem... I can't find my softball glove and I have to be at softball in aprox. 15 minutes. I am glad that softball is almost over- we just have the tournament and a few more practises left- I really need time to just be free of having to go to some kind of game or practise every day. I guess that summer can be a bummer sometimes- but it is sure better than school!

A Trip to the Neighbors and a Hit on The Head

Oh... Wow! It's been a long time since I have posted... SORRY :o Ok., anyway, I went over to a friend ( who is a neighbor) 's house to pick her up to come to our house so she could play with Carlie and I. Our Friend's Name is Sophie, and Her older brother, Zach, is in my grade. They made a zip-line thingy out of a chain hanging from a tree and a chunk of wood. you hold on to the piece of wood that is on the inside of the chain and jump off a raised platform (in this case, a Plastic mini car that little kids sit in and drive around). It didn't work well for me. first the wood broke, so we got a new chunk; a very big, solid chunk. When I tried again, The wood slipped and I let go. I landed on the ground ok but the wood landed on my head and made it not ok... I have a bump the size of Texas on the very top of my head and it is killing me. I will probably have to run the mile this week, which is a big challange for me. It will not be fun at all... I always end up feeling like I'm going to pass out or throw up :(

New Years Resoloutions

I know that it has been a good week since New Years, but here goes my list of New Years resolutions; hope you like them:
1. Beat my dad in Wipeout on the Wii
2. Control My temper with my siblings
3. Pray and say my devotions every day
4. Practise my trumpet more often
5. Obey my parents right away... ( if I don't, I usually get grounded )
6. Keep getting strait A's in school
7. watch less TV

Yeah, not much, but If I had much more I would't be able to keep track of them, let alone accomplish them. Over and out...( in other words, "See you later" )

Well, Christmas is officially over. It went by fast. Way too fast. I wish that I could have had more time with my family, especially with my family from Pennsylvania. Though I am sad that Christmas is over, I am excited for New Year's eve, when I get to stay up until midnight. I was originally going to have my two best friends from school, Lizzie and Veronica, come to my house for a sleepover, but Lizzie told me that she was going to Veronica's for New Year's eve.

Oh Well.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

We had our church play last Sunday night. Cooper and I, along with a bunch of other kids, were sheep. One of the sheperds set down her staff while she was saying her lines. Coop got sight of the big long pole and evidentally thought that it would be a blast to play with. He got up from the floor and picked up the staff, swinging it wildly around while screaming "Hy-Yah" several times. I almost broke out in crazy laughing from where I stood behind a whole bunch of toddlers dressed in fuzzy white hoods and shirts. Oh Yeah... sheep costumes are not only itchy, but hot. While I was almost laughing to death, I was sweating bullets also. I just thought that I would give you a report on the best Christmas Pageant ever.

:D

a year ago yesterday, I first met a little boy whom at first my parents called,'Cooper the Super Pooper'

Hey everyone! I just want to say that yesterday was the day that I first met my awesome little brother Cooper. If you are wondering why they called him Cooper the Super Pooper ( Bailey and Kaylee, you already know this because you guys called him that too, (; ) is because he had Giardia ( a sickness caused by polluted drinking water) and it gave him horrible diaherra. It is kind of funny because it feels like he has been in our family forever. Update on my mom: She is doing better; she doesn't have to rest on the couch anymore, but she is really tired, especially around six or seven o'clock. Part of that is probably natural tiredness like you and I and everybody gets at the end of the day, but she has been falling asleep right after supper, and she usually dosen't do that. Our Christmas play at our church was postponed until next Sunday because of a blizzard that hit our area ( no, not a Dairy Queen Blizzard, but that would be awesome!). See ya later!