Comin 2009

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Thanks for coming to visit us at our little piece of the web. We have had such a great year and hope that you have too.

Here are the answers to our family quiz....let us know how many you got right!

1.KIKI...yep, she and Ben ran in the Big Dam Triathlon this fall and had a blast running in it, but also enjoyed getting ready for the big day. She even got to the point where running felt great again and enjoys getting her daily buzz.:)

2.Suprisingly both BOOKER and KIKI! Yep, Booker got his kindergarten letter this summer saying he would attend Ms. Peacock's class. (For those of you who know him, you will know that nothing could make him happier.) and yes, many moons ago, Kiki's teacher was Ms. Fox. Like mother, like son.:)

3. Sanity, Patience, and did we say PATIENCE...yes, a triple dose of that was needed daily. BUT..he survived, passed the bar and is LOVING his job and everyone he works with..and there is NOTHING better than that.:)

4. LINCOLN. Who would've guessed that one?! But, yes it is true. He is becoming a master at his letter writing and coloring, and if it isn't perfect, a whole new blank piece of paper is needed! He is just the sweetest thing.

5. A CHOCOLATE PRINCESS CATAPILLER cake. She loved every lick of frosting on the cake, but wanted NOTHING to do with the chocolate underneath..definitely don't know where she gets that!:)

6. Best things of 2009:

*Graduating law school

*Moving to Las Vegas (though we miss Columbus everyday!)

*Selling our house!

*Passing the bar.

*Starting Kindergarten

*Getting to travel to see our family often. We are LOVING this.

*Maizie's first birthday, Lincoln's 3rd birthday, Booker's 5th birthday, Ben's almost 30 birthday (yay!), and Kiki's eternal 30th birthday. ha.

We are all doing so well, and after looking at all that happened in the last year, cannot wait to see what amazing and wonderful things happen in the next year. We hope your year has been good to you and your family as well, and wish nothing but the best to you in 2010. Of course, this season wouldn't be the season without our Savior, and hope that you can all find peace and comfort this next year through Him. We love you and miss you all.

Love,

Ben, Kiki, Booker, Lincoln and Maizie

And if you haven't been by before, look around our blog..you will certainly feel caught up after that! :)

december favorites 3 of 3

And finally, to end our december, we headed off to sunny San Diego to enjoy Christmas with Ben's family. It was so fun, so relaxing, so warm, and it was so good to be with so many friends and family.

We started off the week by decorating a gingerbread house. It didn't quite stick together, so we used a little tape. It worked like magic!:)

There were plenty of smiles...

and plenty of eating while we decorated. (and yes, we did this outside..it was mid 70's that day.)

Santa came that night with presents for EVERYONE. What a sweet Santa.

Lincoln was really excited for his turbo car. I love his face.

Then it was bedtime and when we woke up, Santa had definitely been there.... The boys both asked for the same things this year (surprise, surprise):

1. a razor scooter

2. a bakugun

3. a light saber sword

Well, Santa in all his wisdom thought that maybe a sword wouldn't be that great of an idea since he has seen how many swords we have thrown away in our house due to "accidental hittings".:)

But when Santa finished wrapping presents, there were a few cardboard tubes, so with a quick sharpie markers, Santa made up a few light sabers. As Ben and I went to bed on Christmas Eve, we always worry that Santa didn't bring enough, or that the kids won't be excited.

Christmas went down like this:

5:55 am. Booker comes in and informs us that Santa has been there and that he has checked out everything under the tree. Asks when he can open his presents.

5:57 am. Booker informs us that it is now five, five, seven.

5:59 am. Booker informs us it is now five, five, nine, and asks when Lincoln will wake up.

6:03. Booker reminds us of the time and reminds us that Santa had REALLY come, and that we needed to come and look.

as you can imagine, this happened EVERY few minutes until 6:23 am, when I couldn't handle it anymore, and we got up. We woke Lincoln and Maizie up and went to see what Santa had brought. Booker saw the cardboard tubes for the first time sitting there and started screaming..."yay, yay, yay, Lincoln look, santa brought us a light saber." Ben and I stopped worrying at that moment about our worries the night before...we figured if they loved cardboard tubes, then they certainly would love their presents!:)

Booker posing.

Lincoln so excited about his Bakugun.

A new book that all 3 were intrigued with.

We also had time to go to the park, to ride scooters, play boomerang, to run...

and of course to give kisses.

There was much bonding time...I mean resting time. :)

And of course a trip to San Diego wouldn't be complete without the water...

and sand.

What a fun trip and great way to finish out our year...well, we thought this was our last surprise until we found out we were getting two special visitors the day after we got home! We have been so blessed to live so close to both of our families and to be able to see them so often. Thanks Tod and Kim for the great vacation.

december favorites: 2 0f 3

Before we headed off to San Diego for Christmas, we took in plenty of activities here in Vegas.

We had a good time going to Christmas parties. I think this season we saw a total of 4 santas. Booker got a little skeptical of this one, so he didn't go talk to him. Lincoln was super shy, but got up the courage to talk to him after the 3RD TIME of going up to him. Luckily this Santa was patient!

Watched this little girl go from a little spark plug one day:

to sicky girl the next day: (this is the first time she ever wore piggy tails. sooo cute!)

to totally sick the next. we took her in and it turns out she had pneumonia. poor, sweet girl.

here she had just eaten the ONLY thing she would eat all day..a smoothie and weirdly enough we thought she looked like hitler.:)

we saw booker put into plan his drawing he made. the box is a box full of styrofoam peanuts with a string attached...dumping on his dad. and it would have worked perfectly if lincoln hadn't pulled the string too early! I love how he brought this to me and said, "mom, let's do this"..so cute.

booker turned lincoln into a robot complete with a remote control. these two are too much!

and booker and ben had a "man date" to the las vegas bowl where BYU killed Oregon State. They had so much fun that I bet many more will follow.

Next up: Christmas Activities.

december favorites: 1 of 3

What a busy month we have had. A fun-filled, crazy paced, family filled wonderful month and this is where it all started. We made a quick trip up to see my family at the beginning of December and had such a blast. Our days were filled with games, reading, movies, playing, eating, laughing, and wrestling.

Here is our serious game of UNO going on:

Definite snuggling took place:

Did we say wrestling?:

Showing grandma our reading skillz:

What a fun trip with so many fun memories. Thanks grandma and papa, meg, em and kev and sweet channing.

time to catch up.

here is quick recap of our last 3 weeks in 6 quick pictures:

thanksgiving: We went to good ol' Battle Mountain for our thanksgiving feast. We had such a great time and loved spending every moment with our family.

Craft Show: Yay! It's done. After every waking moment spent on sewing, cutting paper, sewing and did I say sewing?! What a fun and great experience it was!

Cute kids: everyday i am so thankful for them, for the joy they bring to my heart, and the smile they bring to my face.

New pj's: We always love getting packages in the mail. Thanks papa and grandma.

Maizie turns one!: what a sweet little lady..a fun day of presents, cake and celebrating our happy little girl.

gingerbread making party: We didn't have enough going on so we decided to have a quick play party for the kids and had so much fun making them!

Next to come: a quick recap of Maizie's birthday and a quick recap of our fast trip to seattle. Happy December everyone!:)