Curt decided to take Ben out on his sled this morning. Right away Ben asked if  Pop (Curt's dad) was coming too. I had to explain that he lives to far away to come this time. He has fun memories of sledding with Pop on Christmas Eve. We don't have a lot of snow here. You could already see the grass after one pass of the sled. That's fine with me though...I am not a snow person. :) Curt and heading heading towards the little hill in our backyard. At the top of the hill, ready to go down. Whee!!!! Ben had a great time sledding with daddy.

This morning we headed out to the mall. Curt and I needed both needed new calendars for 2010. It's a good time to get them because they are all 50% off right now. We also did a little shopping. Ben got some new books with $ my grandparents gave him for Christmas. I was also able to find him a couple shirts on sale...this boy is growing like a weed and many of his shirts are too small. We stopped for a little while by the play area and the fountain before getting some Chick-fil-a at the food court for lunch. It was a fun morning together. Ben and I are going to be depressed when Curt heads back to work next week. :(

We spent a few days in Michigan over Christmas celebrating with both of our families. It was fun to see everyone! We were pretty worn out by the time we got home on Monday afternoon. It took me two days to get all of the laundry caught up! It's been so nice to have Curt have this week off too. It's great to relax together at our house. The Walker grandkids (minus Brady) sitting by the Christmas tree. Ben opening up one of his presents at Curt's parent's house. We also found time to celebrate Molly's birthday. Ben opening one of his presents at my parent's house. Ben wanted to play a game with my mom and Molly. He pretty much made up his own rules. My niece Molly being silly. She got some gloves in her stocking and put one pair in her hair and another pair on her feet!

We arrived in Cadillac, MI (to visit Curt's family) yesterday around 5:00pm. The roads were clear the whole way. I hope the weather cooperates for the rest of our Christmas travels. This morning, Curt and his dad took Ben outside to go sledding. Curt said Ben was a little nervous at first, but had a fun time after he got comfortable. Ben looking a little nervous for his first sled ride of the winter. Climbing up the hill with his "Pop". Ben and daddy

Yesterday, we spent the day celebrating Christmas as a family. We will be out of town visiting family on Christmas so we had to open our presents a little early. We picked Sunday because I wanted to do it on a day that we could spend the whole day together. It was fun to set cookies out for Santa the night before and then bring Ben down in the morning to see all of the presents! After he first came downstairs in the morning, Ben had to check out all of the presents under the tree. Opening some of his stocking presents. He got a few new cars from the movie Cars . Opening another present. It was a rug that has roads on it and places from Cars. Ben was very excited to drive his cars on it! His big present was a car/train table. He played with it all day! I'm glad that we already had it put together for him...it's no fun to have to wait to play! :) Overall, we had a great day together. Since we got some snow on Saturday, it felt like it was really Christmas!

Ben has been doing really well at learning the alphabet. Here's a little video of him working on them today.

Yesterday, I decided to make some Christmas cookies. Ben usually loves to help decorate things like that so I imagined the fun bonding time we would have together. Well...it didn't really turn out like the picture I had in my mind. After decorating two cookies he was over it. He only wanted to eat cookies, not decorate. So, I put him in his high chair and let him eat a cookie while I had to decorate the rest of the cookies. So much for our "mother-son" time. :) Ben trying to get sprinkles on his second (and final) cookie. Finally getting some sprinkles on the cookie. Some of our finished cookies. Santa is coming to our house early (this weekend) since we will be out of town on Christmas, so I wanted to have some cookies ready for Ben to set out. What will probably happen is that I will have him help me set the cookies out for Santa and then Ben will cry that he needs to eat the them himself. :)

This afternoon Curt and I helped Ben put together a gingerbread house kit. Ben was upset at first that the candy was supposed to go on the house, so I had to give him a few marshmellows to eat while he worked. :)  He had a fun time putting all the candy on the house. We'll have to do it again next year!  Ben decorating the roof with Curt's help. Curt squeezing some more frosting on the house. Adding some gumdrops. Ben decorating. More decorating! I had Ben sit by the finished house...he still wanted to eat the candy. :) Being silly.

Ben has never had hot chocolate before, so I thought he might like to try some today for a snack. His ended up really being "lukewarm" chocolate, but he still enjoyed it. His favorite part was the marshmellows. He also had some goldfish crackers, which I think sounds really gross with hot chocolate, but he seemed to like the combo. He wore the Santa hat to make his first hot chocolate more festive! The marshmellows have disappeared!

Last weekend, Vera Bradley put on a special thing for employees to bring their kids to come and meet Santa. They had lots of yummy snacks. Ben loved the cookies! I even had to share mine with him. There were also several little crafts that they kids could choose from. Ben made a sleigh ornament that is now on our tree. He was pretty nervous about meeting Santa and Mrs. Claus. He didn't want to go near them without us. So, we all ended up in the picture together. Ben's favorite part was the candy cane Santa gave him when the picture was finished.

On Friday night we got out the Christmas tree and decorations. We put the tree up while Ben was still awake. He was pretty excited about the tree. We waited until he was in bed to put on the decorations because we wanted to keep our sanity. :) He was very excited to see the tree all decorated this morning. He's done a really good job listening to us about the tree. He likes to touch the ornaments, but he's been really gentle with them...hopefully that will last the whole month! Ben having his first look at the tree this morning. The decorated tree. Our stockings on the mantle. I tried to get a picture with Ben by the tree. He would not smile at all. But apparently there were plenty of smiles for daddy....I'll try not to take it personally. :) When daddy's laying on the floor, that's a good time to jump on his back! Ben had a little fun with me too. He likes us to let him "ride" on our backs while we are sitting down. We just move back ...

I'm happy that today is Friday, the start of another weekend! I think we are finally going to get the Christmas tree and decorations out tonight. We will probably wait until Ben goes to bed, so that we can do everything a little faster. I can only imagine how much fun it would be to try to do that with him...yikes! I took Ben out to It's Playtime again today. It was our third trip. We met my friend Rebekah and her kids Tiana, Isaiah, and Amarah. Erin and Will were supposed to come too, but Will got sick :(. It was fun to spend the morning visiting, while the kids were able to play with all of the toys. Ben enjoying the train table. He tried out these toys, but he only stayed for a few minutes. I guess they were not that thrilling to him. Ben got his thrills from the slides! He went down them many times. Isaiah is in the top of this picture with the green shirt. I will say that Ben is the SLOWEST stair climber. He would take forever to get to the top of the slides. S...

This afternoon we met Curt for lunch at Carlos O'Kelly's. I had some birthday gift cards burning a hole in my pocket...thanks for lunch mom and dad! :) It is always nice to see Curt during the day and Ben was very excited to see daddy! Ben sat on Curt's lap for a little coloring time at the restaurant. After his nap, Ben wanted to watch Cars of course. It's his latest obsession. I turned the couch so we could have close/comfortable viewing.