Hailey~Your birthday is coming...

Hi, Hailey!
Are you excited your birthday is coming so soon?
You told me you wanted a Bible...what else would you like to celebrate the day you were born a 'whole hand' ago?
I want you to know I am celebrating you and that I am soooooooo happy you are my granddaughter. Oh, how I miss your giggle, your happy face and your twirling around!
Would you kiss Triny and help her to obey mommy by not climbing the stairs so she doesn't get hurt? For sure, you don't want your baby sister to get any bumps and then cry or scream in your ears!!!
I love you, Hailey Daune Ritenburg...those are a lot of letters to write for a girl that is 'a whole hand' old!
Forever your gramma.

Oh my word...your pictures, my dear girls, are so beautiful! Please send me some, ok?
How are you? Has it snowed again?
We'll be moving soon. I probably won't be able to write for a little while, but I will call you.
What have you been up to?
Oh, on Sunday, we are taking the funny papa to the country where there are snakes, rattlesnakes, coyotes, badgers, and mountain lions! There was even a momma lion with cubs! How amazing is that? I don't want to see one close up! The funny papa is going to fish...he already bought worms that are on the bottom shelf of the fridge. He is excited but very nervous that he'll see a poisonous snake! I'm not worried at all, actually, I'm excited to see the goats, chickens and six dogs they own.
Any news from you? Please write me a letter soon, ok?
I love you both.
Forever your gramma.
I do love all the pictures mommy posted on Facebook. They're beautiful.

Short note and kisses...

I love you two!
Forever your gramma!

My, how time has flown and you've grown!

Dearest Trinity and my Haileygirl,
Gramma finds it very hard to believe that I haven't written you in over a month! Please forgive me. I have enjoyed the over and over the letter you wrote me, Hailey.
I'm sure you won't mind if I include it here so I can remember what you said.

I love you gramma and someday i'll make chocolate cookies with you and someday with caleb and isaac and i'll show you what gracie and jordan look like. and jordan's already 5 and gracie's 3. and i want to make a cake for you and give you roses and i'll make a present for you and i'll be a nice girl to you and i'll like you all day and i'll help you and i love you and i wanna make a cake for you and i want to sing with you and with grandpa and trinny and my mommy and daddy and caleb and isaac and i want to give you pupcakes and a lot of stuff and i want to give you a new thing that's for my mommy and i'll show you gracie and jordan and i will tell you what their names are and i love you so much gramma even if you are not in texas i will still love you and if you go get something else i will still love you and i love you so much even like a chocolate cake and i will make you a normal rainbow and i make you a happy smile and i'll get a crown and i'll make it and send it to you and color a lot of pictures for you 5 and 6 pictures for you and when mommy gets pictures for you and i love you so much and even my mommy and trinny bin and next time you come you can play with me and hide and seek and games together and we can put stickers on pictures and watch movies and play candyland and we can be nice girls together and you can give me a big hug and kiss and i'll make colors and roses for you outside in the winter time if there's snow on them i'll get off so it's not messy in the house and so it bees beautiful and we can be best friends and read books together and jewlery and color and do dress up and write letters and sing together and make christmas for my mommy and she'll be so happy for us and it will be so nice for her and when we're done it's ganna be 7 minutes and i can do all the numbers by myself and you can do the bible and i'm ganna do everything i'm supposed to do and make the whole place beautiful. and i love my daddy and trinny and i'll give you a big hug and kiss and give you stickers and a new present and you will love it and we can do bubbles together and a lot of fun things and it's ganna be awesome and we will love it and go to the beach and do a big sandcastle all the way to the top like i dreamed of a huge monster climbing into a castle maybe you'll dream of it. i love you so much even like a star shining in the sky. and praise the lord for you and i will do colors for you and make beautiful pictures for you and we can make smiley faces together and make shiney stars and you can show me how to cuz i don't know how to make that and you will be jsut the right size to show me and we can write letters together and we can write our family and curly hair all the way down and we can take pictures and do clean up time and sing songs and work and do the memory game and paint, and do bubbles and glue stuff and paint and write letters and go to a dance class and dance with our ballerina stuff on and twist around and make a happy birthday and a surprise for my mommy and go to chuck e cheese together and wave the flag and go to darien lake and the circus and the carnival and the fair and we can color and celebrate and paint butterflys and get stickers and do chalk, and sell stuff and do playdough and do nice games and stickers and write boats, and help trinity and serve and celebrate stuff and maybe we can um um serving together and we can um we can write together make neclaces together we can do games on the puter together we can make a list for mommy and beautiful pictures for my mommy and do the pledge of leggiance, and color in coloring books and go and play games and not real games but we can make our body healthy when we run and i can show you how to do "ping around the rosey" and "shipwreck"- that's at church we do that when i'm done with my class it's super fun, and we can play duck duck goose and watch movies at the movie featre and get candy together, and go to my friend's house and i'll show you where the right path is and we can sing songs of dickory dickory dock the mouse went up the clock and we can color hair and curl our hair and do x-rays, and paint pictures and do chalk and play dressup we can put dresses on and we can play um x ray and do games i'm talking abouth these games right here mom, and we can sing songs and spin around and play babies, and um pretend we're having a birthday and write together and clean up together and sing songs together and what else can we do? let me guess...we can change the babies diapers we can do school together we can do dance class together and learn how to dance in the dark and we can balance and we can um um we can read books together and sing songs, and what else? learn how to celebrate and we can do a lot of fun things in school and we can do a lot of fun things. write the sun and the moon and one more thing i have to say we can eat together and drink rtogether. that's all. we can paint rainbows and do numbers and play with my daddy and mom and shapes too. that['s all/ ok we're all done. one more thing, and we can eat ice-cream and popsicles for dessert and after we're done eating our food and sing the "bible" the bible tells us so and we can do a lot of fun stuff and see santa clause at christmas. and maybe santa clause can give me a dolly or something and we can put a christmas tree up and we can have a birthday cake if it's somebody's birthday and we can brush our teeth and sleepover. bye gramma i love you.and i'll see you later and i love you so much like a shining star and a glowing star. love you gramma

Hailey,

Where do I begin? I LOVE chocolate chip cookies...they are most definitely one of my favorite cookies! Especially if I'm sharing them with you and they have nuts in them. Mmm good!

Next, how did you know I love roses? I think they smell wonderfully...are there any blooming there now?

Have mommy take a new picture of you and Gracie or you and Jordan. I don't know what Jordan looks like now or her baby sister, Bailey...

Hailey, even if you aren't always nice, I will always love you. Just the way you are, with the not-so-nice to Trinity pushing or throwing her like you did today. You are forgiven and you know, no matter what you ever do, I will always love you and you make me smile and laugh every time I read your letters! I treasure them and will keep writing you, so we can forever be friends, just you and me. And, oh, Gracie, too. I will be Gracie's friend, too.

I heard Gracie is going to be a big sister again!!! How exciting. Did she jump up and down when her mommy told her there was a baby in her belly? I jumped up and down when aunt Rebecca called me on the telephone and told me! I am happy for their family...very much happy.

Has mommy read you my fairytale story? Maybe when you're a little older she can read it to you and then you will understand it better.

Let's see...

Hailey, I praise the Lord for you, too. You are a miracle to me, just like Trinity is.

What movies do you like to watch? Yes, I love to blow bubbles. Playing hide-and-seek will be so much fun. But what if you can't find me, then what? What if I can't find you because you know all the good places to hide, then what? I might sit and cry cuz I can't find you, then what?

What is your favorite cereal? Do you like Pizza, doughnuts, pretzels, pickles, gum?

I like all those things.

I love you so much. I want to kiss your face, tickle your belly and then snuggle under covers when the snow comes down, except there is no snow here, so we could cuddle when the rain comes down.

Papa is missing you, too. He took Isaac and Caleb to Sea World with him on Monday because they said grownups could bring their children to work with them on that day. They had so much fun and brought home a lot of candy, a coloring book, crayons, a jester hat that lights up with little balls on it...it is so cool. Oh, it rained, so Sea World gave them a raincoat with Shamu on it, too! I missed them, but I don't think they missed me.

Gramma is getting tired now, so I have to go to sleep. Do you still have the ropes hanging from your ceiling like you did when I was up there?

Has it snowed there yet? Do you like snow?

Please kiss Triny Trin for me real good, ok? Help her to walk. Hold her fingers with your fingers and let her go forward. She will be so happy to follow you everywhere you go when she is able to walk all by herself.

Kisses and hugs forever, my friend, Hailey Daune Ritenburg.

Forever your gramma.

I took this picture at a park we went to a few weeks ago. You would like this park...there are a lot of ducks, turtles and geese like these everywhere and they make a lot of noise to scare people away. Papa Bell wants to fish in the lake at this park. I'll send you some of those pictures when it happens, ok?

I love you girls.

Hailey...
Hi, girl! I wanted to send you a pix of your cousin, Joseph...They came last nite and I put him to sleep this afternoon so his daddy and mommy could go look for a new house because you know they are living in Texas now near gramma.
Here he is:

Isn't he handsome? He fell right asleep in my arms, like you used to when you were little like him.
I love u.
Forever your gramma.

It's National Cheeseburger Day!

...thought you'd like to know what holiday it is today! It's also Chile's Independence Day!

Hey sweet girls...

I love you guys!

Catch my kisses...here they come...

.
Two kisses each!
Are you enjoying school, Hailey?

What have you been learning? Write me a letter!
Forever your gramma.

Oh, how could I forget?

A flower for each of you.

This one is for you, Hailey...

Trinity Faith, this one is for you!

Letters from Hailey to Gramma...

Hailey,

I am going to post some of your letters so I can read them from here and you can see what you've told me and then remind mommy about coming down here to see us and do fun things together...ok?

Dear Gramma,

i love you. i went to
sydney's house and gracie's house and to the movie theatre with gracie and i
will have a house by myslef and i have a good time for my nice day and for i'll
build for you it's ganna be a special house and you will like it so
much ok gramma and for this nice day gramma i love you and i'll sing
you a new song that's very special and i'll sing the whole song...what is the
whole song mom? oh...go to the hole, go to the wonderful wonderful hole.
you know what gramma, we saw lots and lots of stars when we came home,
bye gramma i love you so much and i went in the pool with gracie to
get all clean but we were all dirty too, i'll see you wednesday and i'll go to
the bounce house place with you if we have tickets again, ok gramma, ok love you
too. and i saw lots and lots and lots of stars and you know what? i saw bats at
camping but they were outside and we had a good time and i'm ganna
build a big big house for you ok gramma i bet you will like it and you know what
gramma, it's ganna be huge and i'll bet you'll ike it and next time i can go to
the zoo with you and gracie and jordan and i'll see you wednesday and i love you
and i'll give yo ua very special treat ok gramma, bye see you
later.

Love Hailey

Here's another letter that tickled me and still does!

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH I THINK TRINITY IS CUTE AND I
LOVE YOU SO MUCH I'LL SEE YOU SOMETIME AND I HAD A BIRTHDAY AND I KNOW YOU
KNOW THAT AND YOU KNOW WHAT, I HAVE A SPECIAL THING FOR YOU AND FOR
THIS NICE DAY AND FOR YOU COMED OVER AND FOR TRINITY COMED OUT
OF MOMMY'S BELLY AND FOR THIS NICE DAY AND FOR GRAMA DRIVED ME TO THE
CHURCH AND I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND I JUST WANT TO BE BIG AND SOMETIME
I'LL SEE YOU AND SEE A BEAR WITH YOU AND I LOVE GRAMMA THE END. I'LL
GIVE YOU A PRESENT AND I'LL PAINT A PICTURE AND YOU WANT TO COME OVER AND
SOMEDAY I'LL SEE YOU AND FARMER 3 THE END. ONE MORE THING MOMMY, AND I'LL
HAVE A GOOD TIME WITH GRAMMA AND FOR THIS NICE DAY AND SOMETIME I'LL HAVE
WATERMELON WITH YOU AND SOMETIME I'LL SLEEP OVER WITH YOU AND IF PA PA
WANTS WE'LL HAVE A CHOICE AND THAT WILL BE BEAUTIFUL AND GRACIE
WILL COME AND I KNOW YOU KNOW HER AND FOR THIS NICE DAY AND FOR I WENT TO
PA PA'S HOUSE AND FOR SOMETIME MY MA MA CAN DRIVE YOU TO MY HOUSE AND I
LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND MOTHER'S DAY AND THE
END.

LOVE, HAILEY

BUT ONE MORE THING MA MA AND
FOR WE CAN GO TO THE ZOO AND SEE SOMETHING AND AMEN.

Here's one that is very sad, but it's so cute I'll treasure it forever...

Dear gramma, my fish died, blue died i'm very sad because he was my favorite
fish and i'm so sad he's gone and when daddy's home we'll say good bye. can we
have a lolly pop with gramma can we go to the zoo with gramma i think there's
ganna be a carnival there. i love my bears and i love polly pockets and i have a
special crown- i was a baby and i love everyboy in the whole world, ok?
goodbye!

Love, Hailey

Thanks, Hailey, for making my day!
Forever your gramma!