Valentines Day activities

Benjamin is showing off the crafts that we did at our home preschool the Monday before Valentines.

Earlier in the month, for a Family Home Evening activity, we decorated Valentines cards for all his aunts and uncles and cousins. That was really fun! And Eliza was a big helper too!

Jed got a remote for my new camera in the mail, so this is a picture of us trying it out.

We went on a fun Valentines date out to dinner on Saturday the 13th. It was really fun to spend some time together!

Valentines Day Party!

We invited over four other families and had a really fun Valentines Party on Friday the 12th. We decorated Valentines boxes (for them to collect their Valentines in), played simple games together, decorated cookies and cupcakes, and then exchanged Valentines. Fun fun fun!
Showing off his well decorated Valentines box...

11 kids milling around exchanging Valentines. This was a very exciting part of the party!

This and That - January & February

My friend, Jen, and I took our kids to the Henry Ford Museum in January. The kids enjoyed the excursion. It was a great winter day activity!I just had to get a picture of Eliza wearing this cute little dress. I bought it at a Mom2Mom sale when I was pregnant with her, and it seemed like the day would never come when she would actually be big enough to fit into it...
This is what I have to do in order to take a shower around here. The kids freak out if I say I'm going to take a shower, and I've discovered that one way to appease them is to tell them how exciting it will be to snuggle up with blankets on the couch and look at books while I take a quick shower. :) I've used this incentive with Benjamin since he was a little boy. I'm glad it works for Eliza too. :)
Ben and Eliza in their 'fort'... complete with boxes, pillows, board games, all our coats that were left out, a toy firetruck, bball hoop and slide. It was one beautiful mess.
This picture is SO TYPICAL! I love it! This is Eliza displaying just to what extent she is willing to stoop when it comes to scavengering everyone else's clothes... Notice my dirty pair of fluff-socks covering up her cute tights, and Benjamin's pair of black crocs. With an old black beenie to complete the picture she looks positively homeless. Jed was laughing, pointing out how other little girls will dress up in their princess playclothes, but since we don't have much of that, she goes for the hobo look. He said she only needed a bottle in a brown paper bag to make it complete. :) haha!

By the way, I took her hobo beenie off and gave her her own cute knit beenie to play with, and she had a complete melt-down. She did NOT want her cute hat, she wanted that OTHER hat!
Last of all, Jed and I thought this little scene was adorable. A few Sundays ago, we put on The Testament: Of One Fold and One Shepherd for Ben to watch. When Eliza woke up, she joined him, just at the part when Jesus was ministering to the people. Benjamin was being so tender and sweet to her. (Talking about Jesus often makes him super sweet and loving - it's pretty cute.) He had his arm around her and was tenderly patting her head and telling her about what Jesus was doing in the movie. It was just adorable watching them!

This is what a Daddy is for...

Teaching Benjamin how to ride a bike in the middle of January. They were taking advantage of having all the snow melted and the sidewalks clear!While I'm making dinner, building towers out of the masses of cereal boxes I brought home when I found a great deal...
Enjoying a roller coaster ride at a Stake Party...
Pushing his luck by asking Eliza to go get herself a tissue.... She had a little bit of a runny nose, so Jed asked her to go get a tissue and bring it to him. Here she came.... As you can see, the toilet paper is still connected to the roll in the bathroom! It was trailing all the way through the kitchen and around the corner! hahaha!
Planning AWESOME Family Home Evening Activities! Jed made a fun "Treasure Hunt" for our activity, complete with a colored treasure map where X marked the spot, and multiple notes along the trail, one of them including a key to the treasure chest... The treasure was found in his metal briefcase and it was our yummy FHE dessert! :) Talk about exciting!
Washing the car in the dead of winter... What a good Daddy to get the kids all dressed up so that they could all hang out and "help" while he gives the cars a washdown. :)

We Love You, Daddy!

Eliza is 2 years old now!

I can't believe our baby girl is two years old! She turned two in January. She is such a sweetheart! She has developed a fun little personality, and Jed and I get a kick out of her antics every day.

For her special breakfast, we had Easter Resurrection Rolls (I know, I broke tradition and made them when it wasn't actually Easter - but this was a good reason!), and Jed's famous, delicious, moist, and cheesy Ham Scrambled Eggs (applause). (Really, they were delicious.)

She felt extra special I think!

Here she is opening up her birthday present....

Notice the nice Christmas wrapping. :) She doesn't seem to mind, luckily.

Aha! She finally extracted her birthday present!

She had a great time with it. It took her a few minutes, and much encouraging, before she whacked the balls hard enough to get them to go down. Benjamin was just itching to get his hands on her new toy! Jed and I kept having to tell him that it was her present for her birthday, so she got to play with it right now. :)

Happy Birthday, you darling girl!

Lead me, Guide me

Eliza has been singing to her dolls lately. It is so cute. I will hear:

"Lead me, Guide me, Walk beside me, Help me all the way.... Lead me, Guide me, Walk beside me, Help me all the way..."

As soon as I hear that, I know she is swinging her baby doll in the carrier that Grandma Walker gave her. It's really cute.

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I know she will be such a little Mommy to our baby boy. Whenever she sees a baby, she tells me, "Mommy! a baby!" and "Mommy holding a baby." She will follow the mother around asking to hold the baby, with her arms outstretched. :)

When we were around a little baby today, she was sitting next to me and we had a long conversation about the baby... Eliza said things like, "Baby cute!" and "Baby crying". She was very excited when the baby was looking at her and told me multiple times, "Baby looking at me!" and when the baby smiled at her, Eliza was so happy and giggly! "Baby smile at me!" :)

....and I'm a little bad sometimes....

Yesterday I was explaining to Benjamin what it means to be named after someone. It started because Benjamin always thinks that Eliza's middle name is Carabell instead of Carol. (so funny!) I told him that her middle name is Carol, and she is named after Grandma Sterzer, whose middle name is also Carol. I explained to him that we gave her the same name as Grandma Sterzer so that she could always remember what a wonderful person Grandma Sterzer is and try to be like her. Then I told him that his middle name is named after Daddy, because that is Daddy's middle name. He can be just like Daddy because they share a name. And that his first name is named after King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon, and that will help him remember to be just like King Benjamin, who was a wonderful, righteous prophet.

Anyway, he thought about that for awhile. Then after a few minutes, he said:

"But Mom, I'm not like King Benjamin. Because I didn't stand on a tower. I'm not dressed like him .......And I'm a little bad sometimes. ...And I didn't live in the scriptures."

Eliza happened to giggle about something right then and Benjamin turned to her and said, "It's not funny."

snow play

A few days after Christmas, we got some great snow. We bundled up the kids and played in the front yard for a while.

Jed pulled them around on the sleds.... That's a workout!

Ben was loving it.

As for Eliza... Is this the face of pure enjoyment or what?! :)

In the picture to the right, Eliza isn't kneeling. Those big marshmallow pants make it look like that, though. :)

We kept getting lots of snow, and so the kids and I went out a few different times to shovel the walks and walk around in the snow. It was fun!

Christmas Day 2009

Christmas morning! Lined up at the top of the stairs, as is tradition!Seeing what Santa brought us!

Santa brought Eliza a pack of plastic bracelets, Grandma Sterzer gave her a pink fairy skirt, crown, and wand, Grandma Walker gave her a silver purse with a flower on it, and Aunt Melanie gave her a blue Cinderella purse, necklace and gloves...

... She loved it all! Here she is decked out in all her feminine glory!

Grandma Walker gave Eliza this grocery cart for Christmas, and it was so funny how Benjamin was super

excited to fill it up with all our produce, pretending they were at the grocery store. Here he is enthusiastically raiding our refrigerator. haha!

Benjamin and Jed had a blast playing with the Basketball hoop from Grandma Walker. Every time Ben made a basket, Jed would run over, whooping and cheering, and lift him up to touch the ceiling. Ben loved it. :)

Here are a few cute pictures of Eliza playing with her teaset.

This gift was a BIG hit!

At the close of Christmas Day, we watched the 5 minute Nativity video produced by the LDS Church. It is wonderful! It was nice to end the day with a reminder of the incredible birth of our Savior, and what a precious gift He was to all the world.

The kids sat in their new seats (Santa's matching gifts to them) and thoroughly enjoyed watching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing a few songs afterward.

We had a wonderful day. It was relaxing and fun, and it reminded me of what a blessing this cute little family is to me!

Christmas Eve 2009

For Christmas Eve we went over to our friends' house and enjoyed the evening together. Since we weren't able to be with family this Christmas, I was very thankful that we could spend this special evening with good friends.

We had a yummy dinner of Clam Chowder and french bread, and then we went down to the Christmas tree and reenacted the Nativity Story, played a fun little 'Pass-the-Gift' game, read The Polar Express, sang carols, read Christmas stories, and snacked from the homemade candy I brought to share. (My mom always has multiple trays of homemade Christmas candy and shortbread cookies sitting around during our Christmas Eve program. I couldn't help but bring some to our little party. :) )

For the reenactment of the Nativity Story, Benjamin and Eliza were designated to be Joseph and Mary.

Here is Mary giving her baby a hug. She was so funny during the reenactment - she kept wandering around while the Angel was trying to prophesy to her, and so the Angel (Kaly) kept having to follow her around. :)

One of our friend's traditions is to listen to the audio storytelling of The Polar Express, while we all look at the pictures. As you can tell from below, Benjamin was absolutely ENTHRALLED. It was so cute! I didn't even know the story of The Polar Express, and it was fun to listen to it while the kids were all entranced. At the end, the children all got to ring their bells if they believed, and it was so fun! The week after Christmas I was at Pier 1 Imports and bought eight cute jingle bells and then the other day I ordered our own copy of The Polar Express and audio cd. Benjamin loved it so much that I thought this would be a tradition we will keep!

Before bedtime, we took a picture of the kids in front of our Christmas tree. Doing this two years in a row makes it an official tradition. :)

Merry Christmas

We hope everyone enjoyed the holidays! We were thankful for the opportunity to remember the birth of our Savior, and enjoy the magic of Christmas.

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

Love,

Jed, Erin, Ben and Eliza