Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock.

 

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! I am enjoying my 5th day off at home writing you a blog post. Not sure if anyone really reads these much anymore, Facebook seems to be where it's at. But again, this is for journaling purposes. So far this month, we got our lovely little squatty tree and decorated it. It took me like two days to do that because I get worn out pretty fast. Ben got to put the first ornament on the tree (family tradition now) and that started our night of tree decorating off.

Ben got to put the first ornament on the tree, one he picked out at the store.

He enjoyed helping decorate the tree, but I'm a little particular about how and where things go so I might've moved some stuff after he put it up... teehee.  I never got around to putting up quite a bit of my decorations which kind of depressed me, but I got enough up that the house looks festive enough. I JUST put up the nativity yesterday, whoops! Seriously, I'm just tired. 

We also have enjoyed our friend Ashley and Jacob's little girl's first birthday! Time flies! I can't believe little Savannah is already a year old! We also went to another friends Christmas Dessert get-together. Which was fun! Ever since that one time a secret Santa from the ward dropped those reindeer brownies off a few years ago, it's become a tradition for us (mostly Ryan) to make them every year- so that's what we took to the party.

Reindeer Brownies

We've also enjoyed finding pretty light displays at houses and found one in a neighborhood not too far from here where the owner of the home synced music to the display. Pretty cool! Lots of work, but super enjoyable. We've had other birthday parties, work parties, horrible traffic jams (the worst I've ever been in coming out of the parking garage where I work), dog training, shopping with Nana and Merry-go-Round at the mall, Christmas Cards... very busy!

Oh and my oldest nephew JC turned 19 this past weekend and had his farewell in UT over the weekend. He leaves for his mission next week (the 28th)! He's off to Colombia, and we are so proud of him. I can't believe he's so old, and will be gone for 2 years! He's super excited and is such a good kid. 

Ben and I drove up to Knoxville, TN to visit my cousin Laura and her family over this weekend. It's only a 3 hour drive, and TN really has some beautiful scenery. Plus it's always good to be with family during the holidays! Although I enjoyed my time there, Ryan stayed home and I missed him terribly. Being pregnant and away from my husband is not allowed apparently. :) Ben was a little bit naughty because he just wanted to do everything against my will, was tired, was hungry and well... I am tired and cranky too and so we didn't get along very well. HOWEVER, we did have fun going to a Hibachi grill, Ben's first time. He was pretty entertained by the fire and the onion volcano and even ate Miso soup! (not all Miso is created equally though, this one was good, some taste like dirty sock...)  

Sunday we went to church and Ben decided that the nursery there was NOT for him there, he kept getting it confused with Primary which we've told him he's going to be in next month. SO... he and I stuck it out the last hour in the foyer. Oh well... it's a little weird going to another ward, I get it. People there were super friendly though, so that was nice. We came home Monday morning, and then stopped for lunch with Ryan on the way home. It was good to see him and you could tell the way Ben was clinging on to him how much he had missed him too.

Baby boy #2

Yesterday I had my 24 week appt, and because we didn't get a couple of important views of the baby last time we had to have another ultra sound (darn it). Ryan couldn't be there, so I asked Ashley if she could come to mostly help with Ben but to also get to see little guy. We got a few good shots of him! It was fun to see him again, but even better to see him moving and feel it at the same time. He's about 1 lb 7 oz and is in the 90th percentile for his head size! Haha! I laugh, because this is not surprising since Ben's head was a little on the large side too. He yawned for us again, which was fun to see and he has cute little feet. Ryan said you can already tell he's going to be cute! haha Which, we've talked about before because we're afraid Ben's taken all the cute genes!

Ben had me in stitches a lot yesterday, which was refreshing since we've been fighting a lot lately. First funny one was at the store, I told him I needed to get some cracker and he said "oh and mommy we need cheese!" I told him we already had some, I had bought some yesterday. He stopped the cart and looked up at me with a very serious face "mommy, let's talk about this for a second" which I laughed at and he smiled because he thought he was funny, but then quickly got back to the business of being serious and proceeded to tell me we didn't have the orange kind. I reassured him I'd bought some and we had some already and then he went on his merry way. Later in the day, I told him I was excited because I had put a treat in the mailbox for the mailman and I was impatiently waiting for him to come because I wanted to see his reaction. He was confused at first, so I told him I put a present in the mailbox for him to say thank you for all his hard work. He got really elated and said "ooooh! Mommy! Good for you!!!" and he gave me a really big hug and said "thank you for giving a present to the Mailman!!!" It was adorable. He said a lot of other really funny things but I can't remember them all. He's a little character that kid. Pretty soon we'll be moving him out of his bedroom in to the other one so we can start making room for Baby Boy. We hope to get him a big boy bed soon and get him excited about having a more "grown up" room. That will all be done after the holidays though!

Well, I should get back at the duty of wrapping gifts, I've got to make some cookies, we have to take treats to Ben's teachers, still have some shopping to do, cleaning and dishes (which I guess are the same thing), shower, ugh... so much for a week off! Delinda and Jen are coming over for Christmas Eve which I'm super excited about. We're doing the traditional Collier Christmas dinner because I'm incredibly home sick for my family. We realized that it has been since Ryan and I were engaged (2006) since we've spent a Christmas in UT with them. We of course can't afford to fly out West more than once a year because now there's 3 of us we have to pay for. Plus we are hoping to fly my parents out for the baby's birth in April. So we will try for Thanksgiving maybe next year. Anyway, I leave you with photos (if Blogger lets me) and a wish for you all to have a VERY MERRY Christmas and a wonderful and Happy New Year in 2012! If you didn't get a Christmas card... I apologize, we'll see how next year goes with two little ones!

Ben and Ally