Part 2: Christmas Morning!

What fun we had on Christmas morning!  Ben was REALLY into the Santa thing this year, and Anna just knew by watching him that something good was coming!!

So sweet, waiting at the top of the stairs...

 

 Oh, my goodness...how precious!!

 

 

The first thing Anna played with was a Minnie Mouse toy...imagine that!

Ben got a cool train table and a marble run...

 

Chandler helping Anna ride her new hobby horse :)





 Mason and Ben, checking out the new marble run, one of Ben's most favorite toys.

 Best Day Ever:  Minnie AND Mickey!!

We stumbled upon a gumball machine and thought the kids might like it...it was definitely a hit with ALL ages :)

 And....the aftermath of Christmas with two toddlers and two teenagers.  Whew!  Can we take a nap??



Christmas 2013, Part 1

Hopefully "better late than never"...what a blessed Christmas we had last year!


Anna performed in her very first school program! No butterflies here! :)

Ben had a great time singing, too...

 

 

Grandmamma and Grandaddy came to see the show.

 

These two (and their mommy!) love crafting, so we did lots.  Decorating gingerbread people...

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got the felt tree and ornaments from last year back out, and it was a hit again :)

 





 

Something extra special we did was make cinnamon ornaments.  They smelled so good on the tree!  We took one to our favorite neighbors, Jeff and Betsy, and they were thrilled to have one :)

 

 

Of course, we had to go to the mall to sit on Santa's lap.  I love that they have the same one every year!  Anna was NOT a fan, but after two tries, made it long enough to get a good picture (actually a fluke - I do not recall her smiling at all, ha!!)  Of course, Mommy and Daddy were all of two feet away, and she wanted to be like big brother....well, maybe next year :)

 

 

 

Ben told Santa he wanted a dinosaur.

 

When we visited Meme and Pop for Christmas, we got to go to a special lunch with Santa.  Again, Anna was having none of this.  She agreed to stand as far away as possible from Santa while holding Ben's hand for a quick photo, but no more.  After lunch when we were leaving, though, we all got a good laugh.  From a safe distance with Pop holding her, she yelled at Santa, "MINNIE MOUSE, ELMO!"  Just making sure Santa got that wish list before we left, Ha Ha!!!

 

 

The whole gang!

 

Anna loves dessert buffets

 

Finally, here is the photo we used for our Christmas card this year.  Thank goodness one photo was good out of the fifty I took, ha ha!!

 

 

School Pics ~ 2013

I love school picture time!  Here are my babies, getting bigger and cuter every day!

Ben, Age 4

Anna, Age 2

 Melts my heart!!

Kachow! Ben is 4

Last month, Big Ben turned four!  He has really liked the Cars movies with Lightning McQueen and Mater for a long time now, so we had a Cars Pool Party.  Mater + swimming = 2 of his favorite things :)

The Whole Gang!

Besides the cool cake with an edible Lightning McQueen on top (Ben wanted a "tall cake"), one of the highlights was this ballon stop light!!  Ben is crazy about stop lights and checks them out everywhere we go.  After the party, we took it off the pole and hung it up in his room ~ so fun!

Most definitely, though, the most fun Ben had was swimming with his brothers in the pool :)

Happy Birthday, Ben!

Lots of his friends and family came ~ we must have had 50 people there!  Grandmama and Grandaddy came, and Meme and Pop, Grandaddy and Mrs Alice even came all the way from Gastonia!  What a great birthday!!  We love our Ben and are so thankful for him :)

 

Ben (Age 4) and Great Grandaddy Dunn (Age 89)

Summer So Far ~ 2013

I really can't believe it, but school's starting back soon!!  Our summer has flown by...thank goodness it's not over yet ;)

Ben and Anna (and Mommy!) have really loved how the weather has been so pleasant.  I don't think there has been one day that I thought, "Ugh, it's too hot to go out and play."  So we have been outside a LOT.  Up until we went to the beach, their new (homemade out of a Rubbermaid bin) sand table was their favorite thing to play with.  After the beach, sand = old news.  Ha, ha!

Cousin Hank, along with Aunt Anne and cousin Max, came to visit and we had a ball!  Matching outfits were found for the boys and that seemed to multiply the fun by 100! 

Hank and Ben

Chandler was in lots of baseball tournaments this summer.  Here they are cheering him on. (Well, actually constantly climbing bleachers and raiding the cooler for ice to play with, but that's ok!)

 

Although it hasn't been to hot to play outside most days, it has rained a lot this summer.  So, we've found some fun indoor things to do.  Ben thought this "no mess" finger painting was cool...two paint colors, baby oil and waterbeads all sealed up in a bag taped to the table.  He squished it around for almost an hour!  Anna wasn't as impressed, so he squished hers around, too. 

 This might be my absolute favorite picture of Ben and Anna together of all time....Happy 4th of July!!

April and May Catch-Up

One of these days, I will catch up and “stay up” to being current on this blog.  Lately, though, it seems like I’m always posting old news.  I just hate to let anything special get left out, because I know one day, this blog will be the only pictures we look back at…why?  Because currently there are 11,589 pictures of the kids on my computer.  Most likely, we won’t be leisurely browsing back through those, ha ha!!

So with that, here are some good times from this spring.

Feeding the Geese in the Holston River

 

Anna ate more bread than she threw in!

 Ben's favorite ~ pancake breakfast!

Walks with Elmo (fashionably wearing Anna’s pink PJ’s) before it got so hot …Anna held Elmo’s hand for half the walk, so cute!

 

Celebrating Daddy's birthday with a yummy fruit pizza!

 

As school wrapped up, we had Muffins with Mom and Donuts with Dad. Also, since Ben has a summer birthday, we celebrated a liitle early with ice cream cone cupcakes and animal masks.

Ben's the lion in the middle!

 

 

Here's Ben with his teacher, Mrs. Linda.  She was such a fun teacher, and really loved Ben :)

My little buddy is growing up fast!

School Pictures 2012/2013 ~ A Pleasant Surprise!

Ben's "school picture" for this year came out super cute....definitely NOT reminiscent of some of the beauties I have from my school days!  I love the contemporary style of the photographer, and I even took Anna to have hers done, too, even though she's not in preschool yet.  I'm always surprised how she can get them to give such a natural, beautiful smile.  These were a few months ago, so Anna has more hair now and Ben has less (haircut!), ha ha!!

Ben ~ Age 3

Anna ~ 16 months

February Fun :)

February had tons of fun for us...lots of it just our "everyday" routine, and I forget sometimes to blog about those sweet times, so here it is!

We had lots of fun celebrating Valentine's Day.  Ben fingerpainted a beautiful heart garland for us to hang in the breakfast room :)  The highlight of February 1 - 14 was waking up each morning to see what was in their Valentines mailboxes (made for less than $3 each!!).  I put a small piece of candy in them the first day, and quickly decided I didn't want to fight them wanting to eat it before breakfast (when we checked the "mail") every day!  So, from then on it was Dollar Store toys...the day I took a photo, it was a recorder for Ben and a clapper for Anna.

Ben had a Valentine's Day party at school, of course, and loved eating pizza and bringing cupcakes for the class.

It snowed several times last month, so we took a few "snow baths"....hey, anything to kill some time on those loooong, cold days when everything's closed due to weather, and we're stuck inside!!

Ben was excited to dress up for "Cowboy Day" at school!  His teacher Mrs. Linda loves him so much, and she really does FUN stuff with his class. 

Anna enjoyed fingerpainting with prunes, ha ha!!  At first when I gave them to her, she (of course) took a lick and made a face.  Ten minutes later, I look over and she practically has the bowl on her head licking all the prunes out!!  She really will eat most anything we give her, sweet girl!!!

Our precious babies ~ just hanging out watching cartoons!