Scooter

Benjamin's loving his new scooter. We had fun at a park the day after Christmas and he rode it for quite awhile!

The Rocket

Benjamin wanted a rocket for Christmas more than anything. So Dad worked his magic and came up with this... *(Make sure you watch the video clip.)

Christmas Morning

I have a great little video clip but it's barely too big to upload on blogger. Too bad, but here are a few pictures of Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve

These pictures didn't turn out great--I need to play around with the setting on our camera, I know Stephen and Shara. : )
The last few pictures are of our annual tradition of making veggie trays to take to people. We put dip in the middle and the veggies are pretty. WE figure people get a lot of cookies, etc. so they might like some veggies to munch on. (Don't get me wrong, we did make fun Christmas cookies, too.)

Cookie-Decorating Day at Preschool

These are pictures from cookie-decorating day at preschool last week. Each child got to decorate a dozen cookies to take home to their families. A few other moms and I were there to help out. The kids were adorable and so proud of themselves.

Happy Birthday, 5 year old Benjamin!!!! : )

Our sweet little Benjamin turned 5 years old yesterday! We can hardly believe it, and count our blessings every single day for this amazing boy. He is an absolute joy and we love to see his observant, kind, giving heart at work all of the time. Very few people get away with leaving our home without some "gift" from Benjamin. : ) We ended up having a party with a few families that are dear friends and had a bowling theme. I was in charge of the cake, and David worked out all of the details of the bowling party with Benjamin. They spent Saturday afternoon spray-painting 2 liter bottles and juice bottles white (we had several saved for water storage) and then used black Duck tape to make the stripes. David marked the spot for each pin on the garage floor and set up bowling lanes using string. He even borrowed heaters from a neigbor to warm the garage up. Each child was given three pennies. One was to pay for the bowling, one was to rent shoes (mostly David's big shoes) and one was to buy popcorn. It was SOOO fun and they all loved it. (We had waffles for dinner-Benjamin's request.)

Happy December!!!

We are in the full holiday spirit here. Today we made candy countdown chains--a fun tradition started by Aunt Janeece. We got our Christmas Tree the day after Thanksgiving at a small tree farm where we got to choose and cut down our own tree. It's been so fun! : ) Bring on the Christmas music and everything else! One of these evenings I'll try to go outside and get a picture of our outside lights. We had a fun bonfire/hot chocolate and lighting ceremony (David plugs in all of the outside lights while we ooh and aah in front of the house) while Brian and Debbie were here. I LOVE this time of year.
Hunter just mostly ate candy--not much help with the chain yet. : )
This is the "saw" that Ben made with some cardboard and a butterknife.


Goofy boys...

Carriage Hill

Having fun with cousins...

Thanksgiving Week

We had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving week. Brian (my brother) and Debbie came with their three kids and we had a wonderful time. We also had Glen (other brother) and Bekah here for a day. I know I haven't been posting a picture daily as I wanted to, but I'm not giving up! : )

We have SOOO many blessing to be thankful for, and all of our family and friends are at the top of the list!

Unfortunely we didn't take a picture of our Thanksgiving feast, but I'll be posting a few pictures of what we did during the week. Today's pictures are of a hike to Charleston Fall. It was a beautiful day and we had a fun time because Brian and Debbie taught us how to geo-cache. (You use GPS to search for "treasure" that people have planted for you to find. The kids loved it!)

Handsome boy!

Is this a handsome kid or what? This picture was taken this summer when we were on our trip to see family in Idaho/Utah. Okay, I know I haven't been posting a picture a day--but I'm going to keep trying! So keep checking, grandparents. : )

Hunter knows...

nose,
belly,ear,

foot,
Okay, he knows a lot more than that. : ) But I thought these were fun pictures. I LOVE the stage that he's in right now, wish I could freeze his adorable little cuddly self here forever. He is now trying to repeat words after us and I love that!

St. Jude's Trike-athon at Preschool

It was a fun day at preschool for Benjamin. They had a "trike-athon" to earn money for St. Jude's hospital. Benjamin rode over 60 laps!!! It made me dizzy just watching him. : ) He had a lot of fun and it was really cute to see the kids working hard to ride their bikes/trikes/scooters. And, of course, Hunter wanted to be a part of the action. : )

We had such a great afternoon a few days ago. We went to a park where Benjamin could ride his bike around a trail, but we got derailed at the baseball diamond. I should have known it would be the fun place, since it's dirt. We played there for an hour, rolling a golf ball to see how far we could make it go and using a stick to make an X in the dirt where it landed. The last picture here is of Benjamin's dinosaur footprints. Both of the boys had a lot of fun (so did I) and it was a great reminder of life's simple pleasures.