We spent Sunday through Tuesday afternoon with Curt's family. They had quite a bit of snow up in Cadillac and Ben was able to go sledding two times. Sadly, I didn't send Curt with the camera either time. On Monday we celebrated Christmas together. We started with stockings, had a fabulous breakfast, then opened presents after each family shared something (like a story or song that they had planned). The rest of the day was filled with toys, fellowship, and games. We had a fun time and made lots of great memories.  Ben with his stocking. I'm not sure why he has such a pained smile.  Katie and Abby played a song together.  The Nickel kids shared a story about the true meaning of Christmas.  Curt's mom read a Max Lucado story about an little lamb that spent the night in the stable with Jesus. Ben was really excited to get a Cars racetrack. His cars really fly fast on that thing!

This year, we spent Christmas Day with my family. It was fun to spend time with my parents, siblings, my sister's fiance Paul & his kids, and my cousin Miranda & her daughter Bella. I ate way more food than I should have because there were so many choices. We had fun games for the adults & kids and enjoyed our time visiting together.  Ben and Bella. They had a fun few days playing together.  My brothers, Joe & Matt, being forced by me to take a picture. :)  Ben with Gramps and Grandma.  Emma and Mya getting into the Christmas spirit with some singing.  Time to open presents.  I got a new fleece from my brother Matt. The kids had fun playing a hot-potato type game with a singing Rudolph. Grandma had lots of prizes for the winners to choose from.

When we were up in Grand Rapids, we got to spend the evening of the 23rd with the Bairds. They invited us over for dinner and we were able to have our first experience with Derek's new grill he got a few months ago. It's a "Big Green Egg" grill. We've heard many tales about how awesome the food turns out, so it was nice to taste it for ourselves. He made a couple chickens and baked potatoes. It was SOOO good! The chicken was tender, flavorful, and juicy. The potatoes picked up some of the smoky flavors and were so fluffy. I think we'll have to invite ourselves over for dinner again!  The grill...it definitely lived up to the hype. :)  The boys hanging out in the kitchen before dinner.  The chicken turned out so well. I wish I could eat it every week. Luke, Ben, and Jackson had fun exchanging presents. Ben got a new bat & ball and a soccer ball.

It has taken me FOREVER to get all of my Christmas pictures uploaded. I'm going to separate them out in a few posts, so that it isn't one that goes on and on. On Wednesday, the 22rd, we celebrated Christmas at our house before we headed up to Michigan to visit our families. We had a fun morning together opening presents and having a yummy breakfast. In the evening, we were pretty busy getting everything packed and ready to go for the next morning.  Ben set out some cookies, milk, and a candy cane for Santa. He thought the reindeer might like some carrots and celery.  The presents under the tree and Ben's new table and stools.  He was excited in the morning that all of the treats he left out were gone.  Ready to open up his stocking.  Ben was thrilled to get the penguin pillow pet that he wanted from Santa. Curt and Ben putting together one of Ben's new lego sets.

We had a fun morning watching Yogi and Boo Boo in the new Yogi Bear movie. I thought it was really cute for kids and even made Curt and myself laugh a few times. Ben has been looking forward to seeing another movie at the theater. He loves to get popcorn! Thankfully, they have $1 popcorn on Tuesdays, so that it doesn't have to cost a fortune. Because we will be with our families over Christmas, we are celebrating a little early. Today is our "Christmas Eve" and tomorrow will be "Christmas" at our house. Curt was able to take a few days off of work and we LOVE having him home. :)

Yesterday afternoon we went to the Lutheran Health Sports Center for ice skating, bouncing on inflatables, meeting Santa, and having lots of sugary treats. It was all planned by Curt's work and I think they always do such a nice job with all their parties. Ben was so excited about it all week!  Ben has never been ice skating before and could hardly wait to try it out. I was a little nervous that we would spend most of our time falling on the ice, but we did great and somehow managed to stay upright the whole time. Curt is a good skater but I'm a little wobbly at first & it's been several years since I last skated. We both held onto one of Ben's hands and he was able to get some good practice. After skating we headed upstairs to meet Santa and have some cookies. Ben got right up on Santa's lap and wasn't nervous at all. We ate way too many treats, then headed back down to the Bounce Mania area. Ben had a great time on the inflatables (after an unfortunate ...

This past week, I had lots of errands to get done before we go out of town for Christmas. Ben was on the look out for H's everywhere we went. He does such a good job spotting the uppercase & lowercase letters. We also did a few projects at home. I had some more things planned, but we ran out of time. We're going to take a letter break the next couple weeks because we'll be busy with holiday stuff & visiting our families.  Placing windows on the house.  Lowercase "h" house  Happy uppercase "H"  Ben made green hand prints and I cut them out to make a wreath. I forgot to take a picture of the wreath, but I'm sure you get the idea. :) One of the afternoons, I made Ben a cute hamburger snack. It was made from 2 Nilla Wafers, 1 York Peppermint Patty, and 1 red Starburst (melted in the microwave). He loved it!

Saturday afternoon we summoned our creative skills and designed a beautiful gingerbread train. Well...we did at least open up a pre-made gingerbread train kit and follow the directions. That takes some skill, right? :) I've seem so many cute homemade gingerbread houses lately that I think we might need to try making one without a kit next year. Curt and I put the train pieces together while Ben was napping. This gave the icing time to harden, so that it didn't fall apart while we were decorating it. As soon as he woke up, we got to work on our project. Curt and I were in charge of getting the icing on the train (and ground for the snow). I wish they gave you more icing in the box because we ran out and still had some candy left. Oh well...then you have some candy to eat when you're finished! :) The train, icing, and candy from the kit. The only thing I added was coconut for the snow.  Curt is working hard to squeeze more icing out while Ben is placing candy on the train...

We've had a good time this week with the letter S. There are so many fun things to do with this letter that I feel like we could spend a few weeks on it. But, next week we are moving on to letter H. Below are some pictures of a few of the things we did for our "S" week.  Coloring the body of the "S" snake.  Looking for letters to spell S-N-A-K-E.  Ben's scary "s" spider.  Gluing on the snowman's carrot nose.  Placing the mini marshmallows around the snowman's body. He did a great job keeping them close together.  Ta Da!  The pieces to make a Santa face.  Concentrating on the all important cotton ball placement.  Ho! Ho! Ho! One of the days we had a "Silly Sock Day." Ben thinks silly socks are so much fun, he'd probably like us to wear funny socks every day!