Tis The Season

Tis the Season!! It is defintely starting to look like Christmas in our house. Yes, I know it is really early, but I like to fully enjoy the holidays and it is so nice to have the decorations already up before December. Last night Wes, the girls and I put up the Christmas tree. Jaidyn loved every minute of it. She enjoyed me telling her about each of her ornaments and then hanging them on the tree. She put most of them on the lower center front of the tree, so when she wasn't looking I had to spread them out and rearrange some. Addy had her own way of helping. While Jaidyn put ornaments on the tree, Addy would follow her and take them off. That definitely didn't go over well with Jaidyn. :)

I have finished putting up about half of the decorations today and hope to finish the rest either late tonight or tomorrow.

My Two Ebay Helpers

I have been working so hard trying to catch up on business with my Ebay store. Since volleyball season is over, I have much more time to catch up on my listings. I have been trying to list the laundry basket full of items that have been sitting in my closet all through September & October. It has become almost like doing laundry, as it seems never ending. Just when I about get caught up, I purchase more items and fill the basket. I did get all of my newly purchased Halloween costumes listed last week and have been working to empty the basket this week. Christmas sales are right around the corner and I want to get everything else completely caught-up so I can focus completely on holiday toy sales. Thank goodness I have two great helpers at home with me everyday to help me efficiently complete everything on my to-do list. :)

Here are some pictures of my Ebay helpers at work.

Jaidyn is like a mini-me. She is always climbing on my lap while I am on the computer and wanting to help tape up the packages that I am shipping out.


Addy likes to sit on my photo background. Just when I get it laid out straight, here she comes running to sit down right in the middle of it. She likes to pose on the background and see her picture afterwards on the digital camera.


She knows that I am completely annoyed at her for not wanting to get off the backdrop, yet continues to sit there and give me this look.

Final Four! Vote For Haley!

My sister-in-law, Haley won the semi-final round of the week 4 contestants and is now part of the final four. I am so excited for her. Please help her win this contest and send some votes her way. This is her recent email.

~Thank you for you votes, I am in the final round!!! Please vote all you can until Nov 12 th at 5pm so I can win the Grand prize! Thank you so much! I could not do this without you!


Vote for Haley #188 at: www.abcrn.com/accsuperstar/videos.php
If the above web address does not work go to: www.acctop40.com
Click on "American Country Countdown Superstar"
Click watch video/vote

Make sure you select me by clicking the white dot before clicking vote or your vote will not count. You may vote as much as you like. Please keep passing this on to everyone you know.~

Haley, Best of Luck! We will be sending votes your way.

Trick-Or-Treat

Well I guess this wraps up the Halloween posts for the year. It is time to follow the yellow brick road in to November. Jaidyn has been so excited all week to wear her Dorothy costume. Nana gave her a copy of the Wizard of Oz movie and she has watched it several times this week so she would be in full character. Even though it was fantastic Halloween weather, we decided to have Addy wear the lion costume because it is warmer than her witch costume. The poor girl had her 18 month shots today so she started out the evening as the "Crabby" Lion instead of the Cowardly Lion. Nana came over to be a part of the festivities. While Wes, Jaidyn, Addy and I circled the neighborhood she gave out treats at our home.

Papa has been on a hunting trip all week, so he missed out on the festivities. I have an adorable purple and pink butterfly costume that I was telling Jaidyn that she could wear next year, but she has already decided that Papa can be the butterly next year since he missed out this year. So Papa, start looking for some purple tights to go with your costume. It is a beautiful costume, but on Papa it would probably turn out to be pretty SCARY. :)

Spooktacular Trail Evening at the Park

In Richland, the night before Halloween the park hosts a "Spooktacular Trail" evening at the park. It is a pumpkin carving contest and the carved Jack-O-Lanterns line the trail of the park. Wes and I had friends over for the evening for dinner and since the park is right out our backyard, we thought we would walk over with our kids and join in on the pumpkin carving festivities. Well, I should have looked into the details of the event a little more. After dinner we walked over to the park with our uncarved pumpkins as we assumed that we would carve them at the park. Wes noticed on the sign advertising the event that it said to bring your "carved" pumpkins for the contest. We could see in the pavillion that no one was carving pumpkins. So needless to say we quickly turned around and walked back to our yard carrying our pumpkins. Wes and Rick carved our pumpkins in about 5 minutes with their pocket knives. Okay, so maybe we didn't win the contest, but considering that pocket knives were used for our carvings, they turned out pretty good. Regardless of the pumpkin carving outcome, we had a great evening of nice weather and good company.

Wes and Rick carving the pumpkins

Rick, Cheryl, Emily & Cole with their Jack-O-Lantern
Wes, Jenny, Jaidyn, & Addy with their Jack-O-Lantern

The Kiddo Crew

Ebay Stores To Go

Ebay Stores to Go is a new feature that Ebay is using to promote Ebay items for sale. It allows me to showcase my eBay Store on websites, social networking sites and my blog. I am really not sure exactly how everything works for sure, but thought that I would try the promotional tools out. These widgets help showcase all of items that I have for sale.

Vote For Haley!!!

I just received this email from my sister-in-law Haley. She has a fantastic voice and besides that is a fantastic person. She deserves this opportunity. You have until November 1st to vote. Please send some votes her way! Thanks!

~ Hey Everyone!
I am so excited! As most of you know I have pursued a music career off and on over the past 4 years. I have met some great people and songwriters who have helped me get a start on some of my own original music that I would love to make a professional recording of someday. Of course that takes money. More money than I have.

Long story - short, my friend Chrissy and my mom sent me this website where I could enter to win and trip to Nashville a free recording session and a lot more. Well I sent in my video and they chose it to put onto their website for you to vote for! So now it is up to you all.

Please help me out and email this to everyone you know and ask them to do the same and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!!!

http://www.abcradionetworks.com/default.asp Click on Meet Kix Brooks contest to vote
Look for Haley singing, "Walkin After Midnight"

Thank you so much!
Love and blessings,
Haley Hawkins-Toombs ~