Glimpse into our girls' personalities

Our girls are so adorable and have such individual personalities!

 

Halloween costume choices:
Hannah chose to be a beautiful princess in a pretty pink gown and she wants to wear make up.
COST about $20.00

Madeline wanted to be a witch. But we over-ruled because we decided not to do scary. So she decided to be a ghost and she is having me hand make her costume out of a white sheet!
COST about $6.00

Book Fair Wish Lists:
Hannah chose the following for her wish list:
Deluxe Princess Music Player $19.99
The Disney Princess Encyclopedia $16.99
The Lion King "Movie Theater" $19.99
 Littlest Red Riding Hood $3.99
GRAND TOTAL $61.00

Madeline chose the following for her wish list:
 Big Time Rush $3.99
Judy Moody Girl Detective $4.99
Stink Solar System Superhero
$4.99 Magic Tree House #46 $12.99
Magic Tree House Dog Heroes $5.99
GRAND TOTAL $33.00

Giles Spirit

 

Madeline and Hannah are sporting their elementary school spirit shirts and their new bows - courtesy of BOWS and SEWS (https://www.facebook.com/BowsAndSews?ref=ts) Madeline scooped Hannah up on impulse and Hannah was giggling like crazy. When Madeline put Hannah down she said "Whew that was good! I needed my exercise for the day!" I love our girls!

One year later...

My goodness!
It's been nearly one year since my last blog post. How insane!! I suppose this is a good testimony to the fact that we're so busy living our lives, I haven't had time to document things. Let's catch up...

Madeline is 7 years old now and she's in 2nd grade. She is very bright and articulate. She loves to create things and she's quite artistic. She has a beautiful singing voice. She still hates to perform so you won't be blessed by her singing unless she forgets her surroundings. She is a kind and loving girl. She enjoys observing her surroundings before joining in the action. She wants to be a scientist or a pet shop owner when she grows up.

Hannah is 4 years old and she is now in PreK. She attends Madeline's school this year and her PreK program is 5 full days a week. She is a very energetic, silly girl. She loves to hug and kiss her friends and family. She reminds me of Tigger...always bounding up to people with a huge smile on her face, ready to smother them with love. She wants to be a teacher AND a rock star when she grows up.

Chris and I have entered private practice together!! We leased an office space that was renovated for us. We have our own suite with a lobby, restroom, 2 offices and a storage closet. We LOVE our space. Now that Hannah is in school full time, I'm more available to work. Chris and I enjoy days in the office together. We've never really done much marketing or advertising but will probably start soon. In addition to counseling, I am also certified to do adoption home studies for prospective adopting families. I LOVE this piece of my practice and hope to do many more of them!! We have a facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Giles-Family-Therapy/153812668022445 and a website which is still under construction: www.gilesfamilytherapy.com Come check us out!!

We face trials and difficulties in our practice but we have a long term perspective. I wouldn't say that we're "wasting away" but this verse still speaks to the focus we have in life. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

We love this life we're living. And we look forward with excitement to eternity.

Our tour of southwest Missouri, Oct 2010

We stopped by a favorite dive in Arkansas called the Bus Stop. It's a convenience store in Garfield AR that is billed as "home of the Big Ice Cream". Irene, Madeline and I are sporting smalls, Chris has a medium, the large is astronomical and its the best soft serve I've ever eaten!

Lunch with our college buddies: Seth and Jayme Rowell, Dylan and Harper

SBU HOMECOMING

We loved catching up with President and Judy Taylor

We watched the parade from outside of my old dorm, Beasley Hall

Mrs Mercer and Dr Brewer, 2 of our dearly loved psychology and sociology professors

PRECIOUS MOMENTS CHAPEL

Our very own Precious Moments

Videos of Hannah

Hannah's a cutie and a half!

Here are a couple of videos of her. One is a video of her singing a Carrie Underwood song. The other is an interview I did with her the other day. Unfortunately, we taped the interview once and it was SUPER cute, but at the end she said something mean about her sister. So...we deleted it and re-taped. Hence, the reason that she says several times "I already did that one". She had to answer many of the same questions twice. I guess I should have just kept the first video - it was probably more true to the tone of our house these days! Our girls love each other very much but there is no shortage of drama! Ah well...

Hannah singing Carrie Underwood from jen giles on Vimeo.

Interview of Hannah - 3 yrs old from jen giles on Vimeo.

Back to School 2010

Hannah's first day back to Preschool!

Madeline's first day of 1st grade!!

Hannah is Three Years Old!!!

Our Hannah Elyse is 3 years old. She is such a darling little girl. She makes us laugh multiple times per day. I want to share with you some of my favorite things about her.

Hannah's favorite songs at bedtime are Amazing Grace, You are My Sunshine and I Love My Hannah. She has loved these songs since she could talk and she has us sing 2 of them every single night.

Hannah loves her paci. She used to have two pacis and she would suck on one and play with the other in her hand. We have weaned her down to one pacifier and she only gets it at bedtime. We have decided that we want to take her paci away before we move her into a big girl bed because we don't want her screaming and chasing us down the hall for it every night. So...lately the big theme in our home is getting Hannah excited for a big girl bed so she will chose to give her paci up. If she doesn't give it up soon, the paci is going to start breaking...you can bet that will be a sad sad day.

Hannah is a social little girl. She will talk to people in stores and other public places. She likes to tell people her age and her name and her sissy's name.

Hannah LOVES her big sister. She wants to be with Madeline almost all of the time. And she wants to do everything Madeline does. She has become quite skilled at pushing Madeline's buttons - so skilled that she can immediately reduce Madeline to tears or whines. We're working on this little interaction at least 5x a day lately.

Hannah can boogie-down. She knows how to do the cha cha slide and she loves to shake her booty. She's a tiny little thing but she can sure dance!

Hannah is learning how to pray. Lately she likes to pray that God will help her friends breathe "God help Laney to breathe, help Zachy to breathe, help Hallie to breathe, help Camryn and Brooke to breathe" and on and on. She also likes to pray at meals "God help Ma-line's food, mommy's food, daddy's food, my food, mommy's food, ma-line's food, daddy's food and my food. amen"

Hannah is a very clear communicator. She has been talking clearly since she was 2, maybe even before. So we get lots of fun little glimpses into the mind of a toddler.

Lately, Hannah's favorite saying is "That's not FAIR". Luckily she realized quickly that the saying isn't going to fly in the Giles house and that she sounded pretty funny saying it in such a whiney tone. So now when she says it she totally dramatizes it and then cracks up laughing.

I should ask Chris and Madeline some of their faves about our darling. I'll make that a later post. For now, here are some pics of our celebrations of our little girl's birthday.

We had Vacation Bible School the week of Hannah's birthday. VBS ran from 530 to 830 pm every night. So we had a little celebration for Hannah with our neighbors after VBS on her birthday. Jakob and Jakson and their mom Janet live next door and were able to attend (Karl was out of town on business). Aly and her mom and dad, Kevin and Amy, were able to attend too. Hannah felt so loved :)

The weekend after Hannah's birthday, we went to Nana's house for a swim party. Papa was sick and Aunt Chrissy was out of town but they got celebrate with her in St Louis (pics of that trip will be posted another day).

I didn't get pics of everyone with Hannah but I can promise she is a very loved little girl. Hannah, you have so many people who love you and you bring sunshine to all of us. We love you Hannah Boo.