new camera

Dave got a nice new camera. I was against this at first because it was expensive and I thought it was just a new toy that he wanted. It is so much fun. The pictures are so much better and we don't even know how to work the camera yet. I am in love. I think we took more pictures of Claire yesterday than we have of her whole life. So I am excited we will have nice clear pictures now!

working hard to get the gun ready.

Claire's favorite toy.

funny Ben

A very merry Christmas

Ben had a super hero Christmas. Cpt. America, super hero Squinkies, Nerf gun. He is one happy little boy. Claire has only been shot at once. Claire was so good and slept through most of the present opening. She finally did wake up and opened her 3 stocking gifts, tights, leggings and a toy that you squeeze and it makes sounds. The older two kids think it is hillarious. That is what they asked Santa for on her behalf.

Ben got Siena Princess squinkies. Siena got Ben super hero squinkies.

Just for the record, I think they are the most pointless/awful toy ever. They are little tiny tiny balls that have squishy little action figures in them. Perfect for a little sister to swallow. We have already had close encounters with swallowing them. We will see how long they last. The kids were thrilled to open them up.

Siena's new bathrobe because she is always so cold.

The squinkie dispenser. It holds the squinkies then you can put a coin in and it pops one of the squinkies out.

Daves present to Ben. A racecar set that goes up on the wall. It has attachment tracks that you can add on to it.

I don't know how Ben got so interested in this but he has been asking for tools a lot lately. The other day he made a tool belt and got some legos and came and fixed some things for me. He got these tools and immediately told us they were from Home Depot. I am working on a tool belt so he can carry them around. He already built a house for Dave.

Months ago, Ben and I went to the fabric store and bought fabric to make a quilt. The poor boy has had a twin bed for a year and hasn't had a big enough comforter. He wanted spider man on his quilt. There are 5 different fabrics all different widths and then all fleece on the other side. The biggest rectangle is of spider man. The others are blue plaid, red, orange and one is words that say pow and such. I like it, I think it's cute. I didn't get a good clear picture of it Christmas morning but he was excited to see it again.

a cupcake hat from Grandma. She thought this was so funny. She loved it.

The kids have been asking for pillow pets for a long time. They were so excited to open these up. Thanks Nana and Papa. They slept in their Disney sleeping bags and on their pillow pets last night. Claire got a little mini lady bug one and they thought it was hillarious.

It was such a fun year. It's so fun to have little kids and have them be excited for Santa eventhough they don't enjoy siting on Santas lap. They didn't wake up too crazy early. Around 7:30 Ben came into our room. He told us it was time to wake up. Then he ran downstairs and checked on all the gifts. He came running up and told us that Santa had come. I guess he just couldn't wait for us to wake up. He woke up Siena and we all went downstairs.

Dave got a big gift this year and bought a nice camera. I bought him 2 photography classes because I didn't want him to have this nice camera and not know how to use it. He has been taking pictures all day and they look so much better than our little point and shoot camera. Almost every picture I took during Christmas morning is blurry. This camera is nice and I am excited for nice pictures of the kids.

I got lots of fun little gifts. A mani/pedi giftcard. kitchen stuff. Lots of warm clothes. Just what I asked for and needed. I am a happy mamma!

Christmas Eve

Using the new camera we re-took our Christmas eve pajama picture.
food for santa and the reindeer. The note tells Santa to look up above the stockings, there is a chain of Gingerbread men hanging on our fireplace. Siena didn't want him to miss it.

We did the traditional things on Christmas Eve. We spent the day in D.C with friends visiting some sites. That night we had dinner with friends then did the nativity and new pajamas. Siena was determined to be in bed at 7 so Santa could come. We didn't even get home by then. Ben was exhausted and fell fast asleep. I am sure Siena was up forever trying to fall asleep so Santa would come. It's so fun for them to be so excited for Santa.

last of the advent

fascinated by all the trains

little fairy house

Inside Santas workshop. The kids weren't exactly excited to see him, but the workshop was fun. They were more excited about all the trains going around the big national tree and trying to throw pennies onto one of the frieght trains. I liked the big bonfire the best. It was cold and windy but very sunny.

Dec. 24 We tagged along with the Earnests for a trip in to D.C. We went and visited Santas workshop at the White house and The Botanical Gardens with the awesome train display. I guess everyone else in the D.C. area thought it was a good idea too because it was crowded.

Dec. 23 We went to Toys R Us with all the rest of Northern Virginia. It was crazy. We went and shopped for presents for our friends. The kids got through a whole show while we waited in line. Thank goodness for my iphone and a show to watch.

Dec. 22. It was the last day of school for Siena. They had pj day. It was such a nice day, it didn't seem like it was Christmas time. We walked to school and stayed and played on the playground afterwards.

Dec. 21 We made the last of our treats. We made fudge and sugar cookies. On the last day of school for Siena everyone was to bring in a few treats to share.

Dec. 20 Nana sent us some Christmas sun catchers that we painted. We didn't do many Christmas crafts this year because Siena was in school all day and she was the one that really loved doing them. It is fun to have our house all decorated with the kids Christmas crafts.

Dec. 19 We drove around town looking at Christmas lights. It was fun, Claire slept the whole time in the car so I got out with Siena and Ben and we walked around the displays. The kids brought along 3 little treats to eat and they were gone before we got to the first house. It is one of my favorite things to do at Christmas. People go crazy with their displays.

Claire 9 months

My baby is getting so big. I think she is the most social baby and she is very content if she is being held by me or Dave. Today at church I had to go to the bathroom quickly so I handed her off to a friend. She screamed and screamed and screamed. I came back and took her back and she calmed right down. Then she looked all around and smiled at everyone like she hadn't just been screaming for 5 minutes.


She loves to eat. She is such a good eater. She eats puffs and most of our dinners. I haven't given her meat yet. She loves blueberries and graham crackers. Dave said today at church that he got the bowl of food out and she saw it and it had puffs on the bottom and graham crackers on top. Dave tried to reach in and feed her the puffs and she wouldn't eat any puffs until all the graham crackers were gone. She is the same way with Cherrios. She won't eat them unless it's the only thing offered. She loves to eat with her hands and hates it when we try to intervene or help her.


She is finally consistently sleeping through the night. She goes to bed with the kids at 8 and wakes up around 7ish. It's amazing how much happier I am with a good nights rest without waking up in the middle of the night.


She army crawls everywhere. A couple days ago I lept down the stairs after Claire as she started rolling down. She is so curious and just goes and chases after the kids. She is getting fast at the army crawl. She has started pulling herself up on some things. I don't see her walking anytime soon, she is so lazy. If she doesn't want to crawl but wants to get somewhere she just starts screaching and we come and rescue her. Whenever we pick her up she seems so pleased with herself.

She has four teeth now. She is 17lbs 5oz. She has gone down in percentile and is now where the other kids were. I always thought she was bigger than both of them. She is a happy baby and loves it when we bring her down for the morning or after naps and the kids jump all over her. She is always content when she is playing where Ben and Siena are.

More Christmas

Dec. 18. More baking. We made candy cane cookies and they are almost gone. No wonder my kids are on a permanent sugar high. The sweets need to leave this house.
Dec. 17 Classic picture at the ward Christmas party. It was on my phone so not the best picture. Poor Ben was happy until we threw Claire on him. He got hit in his face, Claire was not happy. Good Santa though.
Ben told him to come to our house that we would leave him cookies. He also asked for a Nerf gun.

Dec. 16. We had daddy/son date and mommy/daughter dates. Basically, Siena needed to go out and buy a gift for her teachers. Siena, Claire and I made our way over to Panera bread and had some treats and talked. Siena was bouncing all over the place. She was so excited and it was lots of fun. She is a lot easier to take out than Ben. Claire is easy to take out because I can just throw puff cereal in her direction and she will be happy and she loves all the attention from people. I don't even know what the boys did on their 'man date'. When we left they were talking about watching a show or playing a video game. Sounds like a perfectly boy thing to do.

Dec. 15. There are always so many things to do in December. I finally realized that if I worked for a couple hours on one night and made all the dough for our treats that I could do it a lot easier during the day with the kids when we planned on making cookies. It has seemed to work. Now it only takes 20 minutes to make a treat as we just have to decorate it or cook the cookies.

Dec. 14 We did a gingerbread craft to add to our gingerbread display. Siena loves to do any little craft so she is decorating our home nicely for Christmas.

Dec. 13 Dave and I went out and finished up our Christmas shopping. The kids got to spend time with Aunt Karin. They were so excited. She lived with us for a couple months and Ben has always wondered when she was coming back home. They had a good time and I think this is the earliest we have ever finished our shopping.

Dec. 11 Matching Christmas dresses. I am a little worried that my older two kids aren't growing. They still fit comfortably in their Christmas clothes from last year. Claire got a new sparkly dress to match Siena. I love that they all match.

Dec. 12 For FHE we decorated gingerbread houses. Grandma gave these to us at Thanksgiving so the kids have been waiting a long time to do them. There are 5 mini houses. It was difficult to put together so I only bothered putting 3 together. The kids loved doing these. Five minutes after we were done Ben asked if he could eat his. Siena with her swing set in the side yard with a snowman.

Ben with his snowman and play ground

Dec. 10. We went to a Christmas party. We celebrated with friends from Heathers Headache.

Who me?

Claire loves food. I bet you would never guess by the size of her cheeks. When she smiles you can't even see her eyes. She will eat anything that gets within reach. She eats almost everything we do at the table. She loves foods that she can feed herself. The baby oatmeal and mush food are long gone. She will just grab the spoon and make a mess. I guess tonight I wasn't paying enough attention to her and she was hungry. She army crawled over to my purse and dumped out all her crackers.

and my cute Claire. She is getting faster at army crawling and can get almost anywhere now. It's nice to have our family room down a step from the kitchen so she stays out of the kitchen. She just lays there and screams for us.

It took me a week but I think I finally finished decorating the house. We put up Christmas lights on the outside all along the garage and we put up our three little trees in the window. This year we decorated them with pictures of past Christmas's

Dec. 9. Today after school we are going shopping and out to dinner. It seems like we are doing a lot of little shopping here and there. I hope that we can finish the shopping up soon so we can go and do the other fun holiday things and I will be done with the dreaded post office.

Dec. 8. We went to get our cousin gifts. Hopefully we can get them out fast so they will actually get there before Christmas. We shopped at Toys R Us with all the other crazy people out there. As long as the kids get 10 minutes to play with what they want they are good shoppers there.

Dec. 7. We started a class again at the Nature Center. So we went to that this day. That night we watched a Christmas show as a family. Thank goodness fo ABC Family channel and their Christmas specials.

Dec. 6. The kids woke up to their shoes being filled with candy. They were very excited eventhough the night before they were little terrors and didn't really deserve the candy. I guess we are just going to be on a sugar high for all of December. Hopefully January will be better.

After school we went to Macy's and mailed our letters to Santa. They have this cute mailbox and I used my smartphone to take this picture and it added Virginia. The whole little theme is from that book, but I don't know the story. The kids were so excited to mail the letters. They had cute stationary there and they wrote a letter for Claire saying she needed a baby toy.

Dec. 5 Our family night treat. Peanut butter chocolate balls. Some had sprinkles on them. they were delicious.

December

It's the most wonderful time of the year. We have started our advent calendar counting down the days till Christmas.
Dec. 4 Decorate the tree. It was difficult to take the ornaments out gently before the kids would grab them and put them up. Claire was under the tree in seconds trying to pull herself up and get to the ornaments. We will see how long they last.
Dec 3. Get the Christmas tree. We went to Home depot this year and got a beautiful tree. The kids actually looked at a couple before choosing this one. We got it out to our car and realized our van doesn't have a roof rack like our old Pathfinder. I miss our big Pathfinder but I LOVE love love our van. We put the kids in the van and put the tree on top. As Dave was tying the last tie he realized that he had tied the doors shut. Dave and I had to climb in the car thru the windows. The kids thought this was hilarious. I was not too happy about it.

Dec. 2. Write letters to Santa. I know my kids don't want to sit on his lap but they are more than willing to write him letters. Ben has started to ask how to spell everything. He is getting pretty good for not even being 4. He addresses his envelope. He wanted to write North Pole on there because he didn't want it to get confused with a firemans pole. too funny.

As I was scribbing Bens' letter he kept telling me where Santa could go to get the gift. After each toy he would say at Target, or Costco or at Toys R Us.

Siena has been sure what she wants all along. Looking through the toy catalogs and things from the stores she always picks the same things. Ben just circles every toy in the catalog.

Dec. 1. Get out the Christma decorations. I was happy I finished Claires stocking before her 2nd Christmas. We got to add hers to the mantle this year.

Our new advent calendar. The kids love seeing what is in the box each morning and eating their chocolate. We also added a scripture each morning to it.