Twas the Nights before Christmas....

And boy have we been busy!  Prepping for Christmas and anxiously awaiting time with our sweet families, we first brought some Christmas cheer at a nursing home.

 The kids singing and bringing smiles to the grandmas and grandpas

 Cash and Paige - a rare picture of the two buddies together!

We then drove down to celebrate Christmas with my family - it was a fun-filled 24 hours together!

 Christmas PJ's

 Reading books with Mormor

 Not sure what to say about this one - my mom is starting a March Madness family tournament:)  Hmm.

Nothing like a serenading princess!

We made it back home just in time for our church's Christmas Eve service.  It was such a neat blessing to be able to be at our church this year.  It was also my very first year hosting Christmas Eve with Ben's family and we just loved having our family to our house:)

 The whole family before our Christmas Eve service

 Reading The Night Before Christmas with Grams

 Our family Santa decided to make one last Christmas visit ..... just because I didn't laugh hard enough the first time, I guess:)

 The three cousins watching Santa leave

 Cousins!

 Spreading Reindeer Food outside 

And finally, cookies by the fireplace for Santa.

I think there are enough pictures of our Christmas festivities to fill an entire year's with of posts.  

Merry Christmas!

"Fwee"

"Fwee or Free" is how my sweet little boy says his new age. Will is THREE! Will is so many things - sweet, sensitive, hilarious - just to name a few. Three feels like he's now a little boy and not a toddler. I love watching him discover "boy" things like playing sports, wrestling with Ben, motor-boating his lips when he plays with his cars, or razzing his big sister. And I treasure the times that he reminds me that he's still my little guy. He gives the tightest hugs, loves to snuggle and gosh darn it, he still loves "Ruff". I swear, he will actually go to college with that dog.

We had a great day celebrating Will - his Mormor and Aunt Erika came up from Chicago and we had a day full of special things including a birthday donut, cookie decorating and lunch at our favorite spot. He also got to go out to dinner with his Grams and Grandpa. I think he felt very loved!

We love you, William Benson. You are a blessing, a joy and an absolute blast to have in our family!! I asked you some questions about some of your favorite things at 3....here are your answers (You can tell it's Christmas time. A lot of your favorites revolve around things we are doing during this season:)

Ho, Ho, Ho

Our poor neighbors had no idea what they were getting into when they asked Ben to be their Santa.....

Not to mention that he's the skinniest Santa I think I've ever seen:)

Turkey Day

Over the Thornapple River and through the Michigan woods to Grandma's house we went....we headed to Chicago for Thanksgiving this year.

Paige discovered the innards of a turkey - very fascinating stuff for a 4 year old:) Her flashlight investigation concluded that the inside of a turkey looks like a mouth. She's kind of right:)

Happy Thanksgiving from our little family

Our annual tradition at the Walnut Room on State Street (thought of you, KB!!!)

Little teeth!

 Aunt and Uncle time with the kids

 The whole gang

My dad and sweet LoLo - we were so glad so was able to join us this year!

Such fun memories!

And Santa Report 4.0 - I am happy to say it went incredibly well. Huge surprise, if you remember those of the past:) Paige and Will even shared their lists with Santa and Annie just looked in fascination. Phew!

First Snow!

It happened a few weeks ago....

....just for a few minutes....

....but it was long enough to capture the kids attention, get their gear on, and catch their first snowflakes of the season on their tongue.

It's December 5th and we're still waiting for our first "real" snow (and we are definitely not complaining!) We are well aware that there will be plenty and we'll be wishing for mild winter days come January:)

3/4 of the way there!

How can it be that my BABY is already 9 months old??? I still feel like she was just born and here we are, almost 3/4 of the way through her first year! Our little 9 month old is on her way to moving and shaking! She's working on standing on her own - her record is 4 seconds. She is a pro at maneuvering around the ottoman and loves to "walk" while holding on to our fingers. She's started eating some solid food and is loving bread, pancakes, yogurt and puffs. I like that Annie can be entertained in the highchair for a good 30 minutes with some puffs:) We've discovered that our hands can work - Annie's grabbing at everything and has learned how to put anything in her mouth:) She is also reluctantly starting to wave, clap and do the baby sign for 'more'.

A monkey like her big sister!!

Love this little sweetheart to pieces!

Why he is the way he is!

It makes so much sense now.....

My little ham....

.....is a mini version of his dad!

Like Father, like son☺

8 months

The top 8 from Annie's 8th month:

1) She's 18.5 pounds!

2) Her Baby Dedication

3) Poor baby had her 4th Ear Infection :(

4) First Halloween - she dressed up as a strawberry

5) First surgery for tubes! Annie was a trooper and is doing great!

6) She's crawling like crazy and pulling up on everything

7) Since her tubes, Annie's become a babbling queen and the most special, a SCREAMING queen.. we're working on that one because our ear drums can't handle it.

8) FINALLY....after 8 months, Annie is FINALLY sleeping through the night. We are consistently getting 13 hours of sleep from our little girl, who fought sleep for her first 7 months. YAY ANNIE!!!

Trick or Treat!

We had another great Halloween party at our friends, Luke and Langley's, house. Their mom and dad are SO gracious to host all of the kids for such a fun night.

All the ladybugs....ok, Annie was technically a strawberry but what are the odds that we'd all dress our girls in black and red?

Our 3 little princesses

The whole gang

The super heros plotting their next adventure.....

♥Love these two♥....

.....I love these dear friends!

....and I love my Tom Cruise!

So long soccer and we're back....

from a bit of a break:) What can I say? Time flies when you're having fun! We said adios to our first soccer season with some fun with friends. Loved having a cheering squad for our girls and enjoyed a beautiful fall day.

Instead of taking further advantage of the nice day, us parents somehow decided that taking our kids to Chuckie Cheese's was a good idea. I kid you not, I need to take 1000 mg of tylenol when I got home because my head hurt so bad:) BUT, our kids had the time of their lives. Paige has been talking about "Chuckie Jesus" for as long as I can remember. I'm happy to report that the hype did not disappoint.

In my opinion, the dads had just as much fun! We all forgot our love for Skee-ball!