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

Miss Anna ~ 18 months

Anna and Curious George at the library for Mother Goose story time.

Oh dear!  We're starting to close in on age 2!!  Our sweet girl is growing so quickly, and we adore every single day.  She's sweet, giving hugs and kisses all the time; kind, often bringing Ben his favorite blanket and lovie "Bunny"; fun, always dressing up in whatever she can find - hats, shoes (mine, hers, Ben's), Ben's clothes, jackets, even Mark's stuff she found in the dirty clothes one time!!  THAT looked hilarious!



I was cleaning out Ben's small winter clothes and she insisted on wearing them.
Good thing we weren't going anywhere!

Giant Plastic Easter Egg Half = Hat

She loves saying her family members' names:  Dada, Mama, BOBO!  She is getting really close to being able to say Ben and Maymay (Mason), too! Just this past week she has added bowl and more to her vocabulary, and started using the word Mama to get my attention instead of just babbling it.  Mama sure does love that!

 

Hat, purse, Bunny in the buggy...Check!  Ready for grocery shopping :)

Anna loves Elmo.  Whenever she spots a book, stuffed Elmo, plastic toy, with his face on it, she gets excited and points, saying, "OHHHH!"  Just today she actually said, "Elmo"!!  Her favorite, though, is "Bunny".  We have three of them in rotation because after a day or two, they are filthy and need to be washed.

Usually, Bunny is the only thing in Anna's crib, but for this nap she wanted Elmo, too.  Precious!
(Yes, Elmo is wearing her PJ's.  He's also wearing a diaper.  Ha!!)

One exciting thing lately was Anna's dedication at church.  She looked so beautiful in her sweet pink dress...



 

Grandmama and Grandaddy Morin, and Mimi were there, too!

 

 

One last silly ~ Anna and big brother Ben hamming it up for the camera :)

 

Spring Cuties, 2013

I honestly could not believe my eyes.  On a chilly morning at Winged Deer Park, Ben (our Ben Williams!!) sat for a mini photo session with NO complaints, ALL beautiful smiles, and even helped us with a difficult Anna (poor sweetie was getting the sniffles) like I've never seen before.  The picture of maturity and a showcase of proper parenting, he shined like no other 3.5 year old getting their picture made in Easter clothes ever has before.  Bahahahah!!  Just kidding - yes, he did fabulous, but I must admit he was bribed with an entire two boxes of Fruit Roll-Ups.  Yes, two...the kind that are square and the kind that are a foot long.  It was critical that he acquire BOTH.  Well, it worked, and I was surprised because bribes usually only work for three minutes :) Totally worth it though!

Awww, look at that sweet brother!!  I'm glad we have a photo of this moment, because this is not a common occurance at home, ha!

Technically these are Easter pictures, but Easter was early this year so it was a bit chilly :(  I made Anna's dress and hated to cover it up, but we needed a sweater for most of the time!

Handsome Fella!

My favorite of them all!!!!

Sorry, couldn't resist this precious one with Daddy - he really knows how to get her to laugh!  After this, we jumped back in the car (that we left running with the heat on) to warm up and off to Ingles for Fruit Roll Ups!

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!

First Big Snow of 2013!





Anna's First Snow Adventure! 

 

Two minutes later...

A few weeks ago, we had a really fun HUGE snow! It was Anna's first true opportunity to experience the fluffy stuff :) She was pretty interested for a minute or two, but as soon as she fell over once or twice (and couldn't get back up by herself!), she just wanted to be held. So, I held her while Daddy and Ben made an awesome snow man...complete with a carrot nose!

Then the boys went sledding in the backyard while the girls warmed up and dried off inside.  We have the perfect sledding hill in the backyard for little ones.  Ben rode on Daddy's back several times, and then even went down by himself (with his sweet daddy running beside him the whole way down to make sure he didn't crash into a tree :)

Miss Anna watched from the window and laughed at the snowballs Daddy threw at her!

Later on, we made snow ice cream with sprinkles...YUM!

The Rest of the Gang

I mentioned in the last post that when we got Anna's one year old pictures done, we took the opportunity to get the whole family, finally!  This first one is my favorite, and we used it for our Christmas card this year.

Everyone is growing up so quickly!!

 

Ben and Chandler...

Sweet Hugs!

and Mason and Anna...

I love this one of all four kiddos!!

Miss Anna ~ 1 Year Old

We took Anna's first year "photo shoot" as an opportunity to get the whole family in on the deal and they turned out GREAT!  Anna was actually 14 months in these pics...growing up so fast it makes me wish I could just slow each day down and savor it even more.  Already as it is, I carry her around with me everywhere I go (an arrangement we both prefer :)  She's so lovable AND loving...always giving hugs and kisses, and snuggling at every opportunity.  And a happy girl for sure ~ she smiles and laughs all. day. long!!

Anna is getting really good at using sign language. She can "say" More, Milk, All Done, Bath, Please, Poop (as in: "I need a diaper change"!) and Help Me. "Help Me" has become a frequently used sign, and it's really helped us avoid lots of crying and whining, because whenever she's playing or eating, etc, and needs help getting a toy down from a shelf, opening a lid, peeling a banana down more, you name it...she just comes over and signs for help, and we follow her over to whatever she needs help with and problem solved! It's great since her spoken vocabulary mostly consists of Dada, Bye, More, Uh Oh, La La (I love you), Up and Mama. Oh, and na na na na na....that is what everything else is called right now, ha!

Her favorite things to do at this age are take a bath, try on Mama's shoes (she picks a certain red pair of flats EVERY time!), and bee bop to music.  Also, eating is pretty high on her list!  She carries around a snack cup of Cheerios or Goldfish most of the day, just grazing.  She's great at eating all kinds of foods, too, as long as it's baby food in a jar :)  I guess I don't blame her for not being too crazy about some "big people food" though, because she still only has six teeth!!

We have adored this first year with our baby girl. She truly is our princess :) Every day, we are amazed again at how much happiness she brings us and our whole family ~ a special girl we are so thankful to God for!!!

Santa Came!!

Christmas wouldn't be complete without a visit to the mall Santa, ha ha!!  I really love our local Santa because it's the same one every year, and he's so, so sweet ~ just how Santa should be :)  I may have mentioned before that Anna will only be held by Mama, Daddy, and more and more often Grandmama and Grandaddy.  So, we knew it was going to be a challenge to get a photo this year with Ben and Anna on Santa's lap.  As expected, Anna was having none of this big, furry strange man holding her, but we managed to grab a decent photo before she knew what was going on!!

Ben asked for a present, a toy, and when pressed by Santa, finally asked for a dinosaur.  This year was really neat because it was the first year he could really comprehend the Santa story.  I'm so glad he wasn't afraid of him (it also helped that we told him Santa would give him a candy cane after he sat on his lap, ha ha!!)

Here's Ben and Anna putting out cookies and milk...we all got so tickled at Anna swiping Santa's Oreos!

Checking out what Old St. Nick brought!  Ben got a dinosaur (of course, since that is the only thing he asked Santa for!), a marble run that we had to drag him away from to open other gifts, an art easel to share with Anna, and Anna also got a wooden walker with a xylophone and other fun things on it. 

We've had a yellow Elmo chair for several months that's been such a hit. Even though Mama had to hit up Ebay to find another one exactly like it, Ben still asks which one is Anna's so he can sit in THAT one.  Goodness!!

Funny pic of Anna playing with Ben's Santa hat...

Christmas Morning, 2012

Christmas 2012

This year, we kicked off Christmas with Ben's school Christmas program.  Here are Ben and Anna at school before the performance, all dressed up.  Anna's outfit was made with love by Mama!!

We took a video of his class performance, but there's really not much to see because this is what Ben looked like the entire time. HA! He kept his hands up to his mouth just like this the whole song. I think he wasn't quite sure of the words since he missed several days of school when they were practicing because he was sick...poor thing! We got a good laugh, though!

In deep thought...front row, 3rd from the left!
 

Next it was time to get our tree. Ben was really excited about going to the tree farm because they have hot chocolate and popcorn :) Here are some of my favorite moments from our trip:

Anna gets a ride/Daddy gets a hug:

 

Ben gets a ride from Chandler (thank goodness, because when we first got there, Ben must have tripped at least five times in a row as he excitedly ran around - he didn't "get it" that there were a bunch of stumps everywhere from the trees that had been cut!):

 



 

Ben's most anticipated moment: hot chocolate and popcorn!

Finally, the whole gang!!