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. :)