The Hallberg Family

I wanted a place where the people I care about the most can keep up with what's going on in the Hallberg family lives. At times it seems like not much is happening in our little-but-getting-huge family, but then I realize we live far away from most of our family - the little things really do matter! Hence the creation of this page!

A little about us:

Joel (aka Hubby or Daddy) is still working hard for our family. Work is going well for him, except of course, for the loss of his best friend Dan back to Boise (sob!). He's also loving the fact that the seemingly eternal job of getting his undergrad is almost done. January we're finally done!!! Being Dad currently is his biggest pride and joy - four rounds of Spiderman memory with the kiddos won him huge points with both Mom and the kids tonight. Angie is loving him even more than ever right now because he finally broke down and started making dents in our forever long honey-do list for the house. The girls' room is almost finished thanks to tossing old molding and closet/entry doors, and replacing everything with new just this past week.

Angie (aka Mom or Prego) is learning what it's like to have kids who are growing up. With school and dance classes starting, along with littlest walking and talking, it's hard to know what to be most excited/anxious/proud about! Still expecting number four, we just found out last week that said precious cargo is a little baby girl. Joel's first words in the ultrasound room were "I'd better start saving for weddings..." Needless to say, we're both very excited, but getting more nervous by the minute about the teenage stage in our home. (Thank goodness it's still years away!) Next to our kiddos, the house and yard are keeping me busy. As mentioned before, Joel and I started work on the bedrooms this last week. It feels so good to see the end result, that I think I might be hooked. Unfortunately for me, it's football season, and this means I have to pretty much beg for help on Saturdays...We'll get it done nonetheless. As much as I hate to admit it, my pride and joy garden has become the thorn in my side of late. I have learned what gardeners have struggled with for centuries - keeping up is hard work! My pumpkins got mildew, my beans got rust, my gourds took over the cucumbers, and my tomatoes grew so close together that we could only harvest the outside of the patch. This all translated to me neglecting my little garden this last couple weeks, and being somewhat relieved when a freak snow storm yesterday froze what little was left of my garden. Harsh, I know, but I was so relieved! Now I can compost without guilt! Enough about the crazed gardener. On to more exciting info...

Haddon is loving school. His kindergarten teacher is awesome, and he keeps asking me how long it will be until he can go all day like the big kids. We get to make an ABC book for his birthday. In it, there's a page for each letter of the alphabet where they can place a picture of something they have done or love that corresponds with the letter. He wants me to put as many car-related items in there as possible. He seems to be getting more and more hot-wheels crazed by the minute. His new favorite thing to do is draw on paper these imaginary race tracks that do unimaginable tricks. I have to bring him back to reality when he begs me to help him build one of these race tracks out of blocks, k-nex, and legos. Such a creative little mind - I wish I had the space and the patience to allow him to try to build one! As far as his little bike accident, his stitches have healed up almost perfectly. Now he's just a bit gun shy of riding his bike. He used to take any and every opportunity to race his bike up and down the sidewalk in front of our house. Unfortunately, we can barely get him out there anymore. Hopefully he'll get over it with how much Joel and he enjoyed their rides together.

Ellie is loving her dance class. Parents aren't allowed in the room during class, so it's been fun having her try to show me what she has learned each week. She twists and twirls and tries to pronounce these french names that are hard for even Joel to say. It's pretty cute. She has taken to doing puzzles like a fanatic. We have about ten 25-50 piece puzzles - and she can whip each one of them together in about 15 minutes or less without help from any of us. I'm starting to think she might be great at crosswords or sudoku some day - look out grandpa - competition! I'm still working with her at home to get her ready for kindergarten next year. I can't tell if she's just being stubborn, or if she really doesn't know her colors. We'll go through flash cards or crayons and I get responses like "brownish" or "purply" for colors that aren't even related. Cousin Brian helped us to rule out color blindness with an online test a while back, but I'm still not convinced. Time will tell I guess! She's such a bright little one that sometimes I wonder if she's just messing with me because she can! At any rate, she's my little cuddle bug lately. She only wants mom. Yay for me!

Sydney is adorable. Joel and I decided tonight that she's so much more of a ham than Had or Ellie because she has a large audience. We all four could spend hours entertained by the silly faces or dancing of our little comedian. I'm just amazed that within seconds she can go from screaming murder at Haddon for something, to batting her long eyelashes and smiling coyly just so that brother won't be upset that she was screaming. After it all, the two of them are laughing hysterically together on the floor. Amazed. Last week she started dancing to the music - YMCA to be exact. Her idea of dancing is spinning in circles and bopping her head up and down. One of these days I'll have to get it on video. Besides all of her antics, her favorite trick to play on Mom is to perch precariously on the top edge of our wooden stairs and laugh while Mom goes white as a sheet. She's taken a few spills on them, and yet still seems fearless. Sometimes I swear my kids are trying to make me go gray before my 30's.

So this is a summary of the Hallberg (almost) six-pack (strictly non-alcohol, non-caffeinated of course!). Hopefully I haven't bored anyone who reads it. Now that it's midnight, I should probably sign off. Let me just say this. We watched the two hour season premiere of Extreme Makeover Home Edition together tonight. When Haddon mentioned how cool it would be for us to win a makeover, all I had to say to him was "Not me! I love my life just the way it is." And to that I can honestly say - it's true. Love to you all! Andge