Merry Christmas!

It's been awhile

So it's been awhile since I have posted. It's not that I haven't wanted to. It just seems like life always seems to get in the way. Here are a few things we have been up to the last few months (sorry about the lack of pictures. You are lucky to get this update!)

Ben
Ben has become such a big boy although he sounds like a little girl. He loves to "sing" all of the time which consists of a whole lot of screaming.
He loves to play hide and seek. All you have to do is start counting and he will either run and hide or run to find Nena (aka Jenna). He is quite the cheater but that is okay.
The kid eats a TON! Total opposite of Jenna who won't eat anything. When we get home in the afternoon, he goes straight to the cupboard and pretty much stays there until dinner time when he gets in his chair to eat dinner after his afternoon of snacking. I am scared for what he is going to be like as a teenager.
He is such a happy little boy. He loves to give and receive kisses. Today in church, it was perfectly quiet when Ben decides he needs to give me a giant kiss. The problem is, his kisses are actually "zerberts"--he will put his mouth on your cheek and just blow. It makes a loud fart-like noise. I busted out laughing and couldn't stop. No one else seemed to find it funny.
He turned one a couple months ago. Where did the time go? He's not my little baby anymore.

Jenna
Jenna is growing up fast, too. She will be four years old soon.
She loves to pretend. We spend a lot of our time going to the ballet, the store, and talking to cousins on the phone.
She has a friend that lives next door that she absolutely loves. Really. It's almost an obsession. She was taking a nap when Jenna went over there one day to see if she could play. Jenna wanted to wait on her porch until she woke up. STALKER!
She started pre-school this year and has already learned a lot. She doesn't have a whole lot of interest in writing. She has learned to write her name and other letters of the alphabet, but she really likes to do her own thing. You can't tell her what to do. She has to want to do it--just like her dad! Her teachers say that she is the leader around there. She is one of the younger kids, but even the older kids follow her around.
She has been taking gymnastics for a couple of months. It has been good for her although I think she is the "creepy" kid. She really likes to get the teacher's attention so she just hangs on her arm and follows her around. She is once again the youngest person in her class, but most of the time is the most well-behaved (which says a lot!)

Joel
Joel is really busy. He works full time and is in school. He is doing really well in school. We are all proud of him. He took part of the summer off of school so he was able to take us on a really fun family vacation to San Diego. We had a blast! He started back to school the day after we got back. This semester's schedule is not that bad--in that he is not in class a ton, but still has a ton of homework.
He is teaching Elder's quorum. He always gets a lot of compliments after he teaches, so I think he is doing a good job.

Kristen
I am keeping busy with work, kids, the house, and running.
When I went back to work after having Ben, they allowed me to work from home for part of the day. It is hard, but so worth it! I am able to do things with the kids in the afternoon as well as get my work done and housework done (for the most part). It is still difficult to keep up with everything house-wise, but at least we are not living in complete filth (although if you do come over, please give me some warning first!).
I have been trying to run a lot lately. I am considering running a half marathon soon so I am trying to train for it. It takes a lot of my little free time but it is fun. I have always considered running one, but have always talked myself out of it. I am determined to do one though. I am pretty stressed out about it. It is on my mind all of the time.

I think that is about it. Keep in touch! I know I will try to!

Ben always has a smile on his face...

So we were at WalMart a couple of weeks ago. When we got home, I discovered we had purchased some stickers that I had not intended on buying. I thought I had put them away for a rainy day, but Jenna found them the next day and insisted on using them. I was busy getting ready for church and didn't really care that much what she did with the stickers. Here is where she was putting them...
At first I thought, "Poor Ben", but then I realized he really didn't care. In fact, he was kind of enjoying it. I figured no harm no foul so I let Jenna continue.

By the time we got to church, there were stickers everywhere! We left a little puddle of them when we left the chapel because there were so many. Even the next day at work someone pulled a sticker off the back of my shirt. These things were multiplying and getting everywhere. Did that make me stop Jenna from doing it again? No!

I guess I should be a stricter mom and protect Ben from all of this abuse, but it was kind of funny. All the stickers came off really easily except one that we had to wash off with water. There are only like three more sheets of those stickers around here. Speaking of which, I wonder where they went...

Another snow storm

Back in January we had another big snow storm. It started around 9:00 on a Friday night, so of course the first thing Joel thought was that we needed a snow fort. So Jenna and Joel bundled up and headed outside to play.

Jenna ready to go. She got ready all by herself. Yes, those are her pj's underneath her coat because she was supposed to be in bed!Look at those ginormous snowflakes!

Packing a brick for the fort

Having a little snack. Don't worry, it wasn't yellow snow.

"I love snow!"

Sadly, the fort was never completed. It got too cold for Jenna (and Mom) so we called it quits. In the morning the sun came out and melted all of the building material.

Sad baby

A couple of weeks ago I went to go give the kids a bath. For some reason, as soon as I put Ben in the bath he freaked out. I promptly took him out of the tub, wrapped him in a blanket and set him on the floor with some toys. He wasn't too happy about that, but he was so cute in showing his disapproval. I know I am a mean mom, but instead of comforting him immediately, I grabbed the camera :)


He forgot all of his troubles when he realized I was just going to take his picture.

Rice cereal...yum!

Ben always stares at us when we eat. It's cute to an extent, then it makes me feel guilty. "We get to eat this yummy food and you just get this bottle." Well, I got tired of it one Sunday and decided to give him some rice cereal. I have friends who have started their kids on rice cereal at 4 months, but my doctor strongly suggested waiting until 6. He was 5 months, so I thought I would just try it. He loved it! He was so impatient when I had to refill the spoon. Hopefully he won't be a picky eater like Jenna.

Waiting
First bite
Not so sure about this
"Give me the spoon!"
"I said give it to me!"

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam!

This picture was taken on Jenna's first day of Primary. I can't believe she is in Primary. She is just growing up so fast.

We were worried about her first Sunday because there were only 4 kids on the roll for her class. One child is kind of inactive, two neither I nor the teachers had ever heard of, and the last one was Jenna. I was nervous that she would be the only one that would come consistently and that they would move her to a different class. I didn't want that to happen because her teachers are AWESOME. I have been crossing my fingers that they wouldn't be released until Jenna went through their class. I have been doing this since she was born! I am not kidding, either. They were called into primary when I was in the presidency and they are just amazing.

Anyway, the first Sunday there were three kids there! Yay! She had a great time and came home with lots of goodies. In the weeks since there have been a couple of times that she has been the only child in the class but luckily two more little girls have moved in to the ward. I don't know that Jenna really cares, but I am excited! She has really loved the class and asks to see her friends, Sister Tami and Sister Julie.

Cousin Izzy

Jenna loves it when cousin Izzy comes to visit. In January, she was in town for a couple of days. One of those days we went over to Jami & Leslie's house to hang out a play for a little while. There was a whole lot of giggling and joyful screaming. I don't know about Izzy, but Jenna had a ton of fun.

Izzy and Lion King, I mean, Jenna.
How cute! We miss you Izzy!

Our retirement plan

Step one: Teach kids how to play basketball extremely well. They don't have to love it. They don't even have to like it. They just have to do it.

Step two: Make them enter the NBA/WNBA when they have completed stellar years in college basketball.

Step three: Sit back and let them pay for our retirement.

We are working on step one. It's not working too well so far.

Um, the ball is going the wrong way off of her fingers.

She was able to dunk with Daddy's help.
Yay! She made it! She has actually done pretty well in the weeks following these pictures. She is able to make baskets when the hoop is about four feet high.
Ben on the other hand gets easily distracted by the camera.
"You want me to do what???" (I love the drool dripping off of his chin)

Photo Shoot

Just playing around with the kids and the camera...

Checking out his sausage fingers...and showing a little cleavage

Yummy fingers

Who, me?

Goofy face

Pouty lips

Up the nose

Cheese face

Cheesier

They just love each other

Christmas Day

Christmas day was wonderful. Joel and I got up around 9:00 and had to wake Jenna up. We promptly went downstairs to see if Santa had come and fortunately for us, he had! He left out this great kitchen set which Jenna was so excited about. She ran over to get us all a drink and make a couple of phone calls before she even looked at all the other presents under the tree.

I love this picture of Jenna! I love how you can see in her eyes just how excited she is.

We took our time opening presents and just had a great time admiring each one. Jenna was so appreciative of each gift she got. She even thanked Santa again and again for the other pair of pajamas she got.

Hugging her pajamas. She hadn't even unfolded them to see what they looked like yet. She was just beside herself with joy.

Ben had a good Chrismas, too. Jenna was kind enough to help him open his gifts. He was more interested in eating the wrapping paper.

Ben with his stoking goodies. He got a bunch of stuff to chew on, but decided to chew on his new bibs instead.

Yummy presents

The tongue comes out in this one

I love the furrowed brow in this picture. He is determined to get the whole thing in his mouth.

After presents we watched one of Jenna's new movies and ate breakfast. We let Jenna play with her new things while we worked on a puzzle.

This is why our children were neglected for a day or two. Evil puzzle.

Both sets of grandparents stopped by later in the day to visit. I think they were a little disgusted with us because Jenna had just discover the "Flarp" in her stocking when they came over. It was this putty in a can that when you squeeze it into the can it makes a tooting noise. Jenna and Ben got such a kick out of it which then made Joel and I just crack up. We had hours of fun with that disgusting toy.

For dinner we had a wonderful prime rib cooked in our new roaster. It was fabulous! The rest of the night was filled with working on the puzzle and another movie. We had such a great Christmas and can't wait until next year!

Jenna was exhausted from all of the excitement of the day. She passed out on the couch for a little while with her new doll. What a sweet little girl.

Christmas Eve

Every year Santa's elves come to our house and leave us pajamas. This year they pulled through and made it to our house.

Jenna going upstairs to see if the elves came. She is tightly gripping the movie she wants to watch before going to bed.

They came! You can kind of see how Jenna's jaw dropped when she saw that she got Tinkerbell slippers!
She loves them so much she has to rub them on her face. Weird child.
Goofy girl. She was so excited to wear her new pajamas! She looks so funny in them because the pants are tight fitting and the slippers are ginormous!
Ben was asleep when we got home so he had no interest in finding out what the elves brought him. He got these cute jammies with little monkies on the toes.
When he woke up, I put him in the pajamas. He was not too happy about it. To show his disapproval he had a blowout first thing the next morning. Gotta love it. They didn't even make it 12 hours before getting poop on them.

After getting in our pajamas we got the cookies ready for Santa and sat down to watch a movie. Jenna quickly fell asleep so that ended our Christmas Eve night.

As a side note, we are always looking for new traditions to start as a family. What kind of Christmas Eve traditions do you have? Yes, I realize Christmas was three months ago, but I would still love to hear any suggestions. There are only 9 more months to get ready for next Christmas :)