Ice Skating

Here are some pictures of Benjamin's first ice skating experience. He lasted about two times around and then wanted to leave. We were impressed at how well he could keep his feet straight on the ice!

Christmas Pictures

We had a wonderful Christmas. Enjoy!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Much love to you all during this season,
Stephen, Rebecca, and Benjamin

(You can click to enlarge so it is readable.)

Carriage Ride and More Christmas Fun

I had heard about a store in a neighboring town that gives horse drawn carriage rides for free during the Christmas season. So, off we went to enjoy a ride on Saturday afternoon. We waited about 15 minutes for our turn and then jumped the line because they needed a small party to fill the carriage. It was great! Benjamin loved the ride and even got to pet the horse after. Then, we went into the store. It was a child's paradise. They had trains on tracks all around the ceiling of one huge showroom, and we found Santa at the North Pole in the back. The line was extremely long and Benjamin has already had a few visits with Santa (I think 4 or 5) so, we just got him some candy from the candy river, a balloon, and took his picture in front of the tree. The greatest thing about visiting with this Santa was they take digital photographs for free of your child on Santa's lap. They print out the photo and put it in a cardboard sleeve while you wait. It is something that we will have to do next year for sure. On the way out, they had a large climb on train for the children to play on. This was Benjamin's favorite, and he ran up the stairs to drive the train. Other benefits were free popcorn, hot chocolate, and apple cider. There was even a train that took children for rides around the outside of the store, but it wasn't running when we were there. It was literally a North Pole experience, with furniture sales included. Visiting the store will become a family tradition. It was fabulous! Here are a few pictures of all the fun.

Sugar Cookies

Benjamin is obsessed with the book Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. He has been wanting to make a Gingerbread Baby and says he'll make sure that the Gingerbread Baby won't hop out of the oven and run away. I convinced him yesterday to make one with me out of sugar cookie dough instead of gingerbread. He helped me make the dough and then during his nap I rolled them out. I saved some dough so that he could roll out his own after he woke up, but when he did finally wake up after an unusually long nap, I was already frosting them. At that point, the frosting was much more interesting so he decorated to his little heart's content. The sprinkles were by far the favorite decorating tool. Stephen even surprised us and came home from work a bit early and got in on the decorating action. It was a family activity for sure, especially to clean up the kitchen after the mess. We took the cookies to the Ward Christmas Party last night, and they were a hit. Here are some pictures of the fun.

Benjamin's Gingerbread House

For our activity today, we decided to do a post about the gingerbread house that Benjamin and I made with the YW. He mostly ate the candy but had a great time. Here is the story that he told me about the house. "This is my gingerbread house. Happy I love you day. The gingerbread house put these candy. And these candy canes. A gingerbread lives in the house. The frosting got put on the house. And then we put some graham crackers. Then we put candy on it. We write on it. The most ones on the top. I like to eat the candy. The end. Yeah! (Benjamin clapping)." Here are some pictures of the house including two that Benjamin took all by himself.

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. Stephen's parents and his brother David and sister-in-law Janet with their five children came up for the holiday. Maude and Van arrived on Tuesday, and we did a major shopping trip that afternoon for groceries. David and Janet drove all night Tuesday and arrived Wednesday morning. During the day on Wednesday, we cooked to prepare for the holiday and some of us made a trip to Chuck E Cheese's in the evening. Thursday morning was filled with cooking for the fabulous dinner. The menu consisted of turkey, mashed potatoes, twice baked potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes with apples, twice baked sweet potatoes, cornbread stuffing with cranberries, herb stuffing, greens beans with bacon and feta, homemade rolls, homemade cranberry sauce, jalepeno cranberry relish, and spinach salad with pumpkin pie or pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. It was quite the feast, and we still have lots of leftovers! Then Thursday afternoon, we headed to the movie to see Enchanted while Grandpa stayed home with Benjamin and Ariel. I loved the movie, and it was a perfect family movie for the holiday. Friday, we headed for the zoo. It was a bit chilly, a high of 46 degrees, but very fun. I now have a cold so this will be short and sweet so I can take some Nyquil and go to bed. Enjoy the pictures!

Fall Leaves Fun

Here are some pictures of that we took of Benjamin playing in the fall leaves in a park near where we live. Benjamin had a great time kicking the leaves and running around!

Fall Leaves

Coconut Cupcakes

The other day at a high-end grocery store we just found, I saw that they had box mixes made by the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten, from Food Network. One of the mixes was for coconut cupcakes. The price was astounding at $10.99 for a box, which was just the dry ingredient I might add of flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. I thought to myself that I could find that recipe online because I remembered seeing the episode where she made them. Then yesterday my niece Megan posted some links to some pictures and recipes of gourmet cupcakes, and I got inspired to try to coconut cupcake recipe. After nap today, Benjamin and I made them. The recipe was a bit too complicated to have him next to me the whole time, so he went off to play in the middle and then came back to scoop the batter in the cupcake liners. I also had dinner in the oven so it was a bit tricky to keep track of everything. We ate them tonight for our Family Home Evening treat. They were so delicious -really amazing. Stephen's reaction was that he thought that it was absolutely the best cupcake that he had ever had. Here is the recipe for Coconut Cupcakes. The only adjustment that I made was that I only made a third of the frosting and it was plenty- I just couldn't imagine needing three sticks of butter to frost 24 cupcakes. Enjoy! You won't be disappointed!

Happy Birthday Daddy! Happy Birthday Stephen!

"Happy Birthday message. I want to write Daddy's name. He starts with a
'da' 'da' 'da' 'D.' Happy Birthday Daddy. I love you message. I like Daddy. He give me big squeeze. That's all the words I need for Daddy."
Love, Benjamin

I love you! I am so grateful to have you in my life. I love you because you are a wonderful, caring, kind, and considerate person. I hope that you have a wonderful birthday!

Love, me

Halloween

We had some great Halloween activities this week and a very fun day yesterday. Here are some of the highlights in a new slideshow format that I found. Hope you enjoy.

Make your own slide shows and scrapbooks

Band-aids

What is it about owies and band-aids? Benjamin is now obsessed with band-aids. Every time he gets hurt, he immediately needs a bandaid before the crying will stop. The other morning he fell and bumped his nose on the couch. It ended up being a nose bleed and so after the bleeding stopped, he needed a band-aid. It covered his entire nose and half of his face, but he was happy with it. He even wore it to a play date. The other mothers didn't say anything, but just gave me a funny look. I didn't get a picture of it. I wish I had. It was picture worthy. Then a few days later, he fell again and this time bumped his chin. Another band-aid was required. He found a very large one from my surgery last year and knew that this was the perfect thing for his owie. This time I did get a good picture.

Pumpkin Farm

I have been waiting and waiting for a nice day to go to the pumpkin farm. All weather reports pointed to a partly sunny Saturday and so with anticipation, I waited for a beautiful autumn Saturday to come. That beautiful day never came. Instead we had a week's worth of rain and a rainy Saturday. I decided, begrudgingly, that we should go any way. We ended up being ankle-deep in a muddy mess, but we had fun. Although I have learned my lesson because of muddy shoes. All the other children at the farm had rubber rain boots on and so being the newbies, we were unprepared. We will have to get some for next year. The mud was incredible. Stephen said that he hasn't seen that much mud since his mission in Argentina. In spite of the mud, there were two really great things about the farm. First was the cost. Admission was free for all, but we had to pay $3 for Benjamin to do things in what they called their courtyard. It was really an amazing deal for everything that we could do. The courtyard activities included a ride on the cow train and other little fun activities. There was also a barn with small animals to look at and feed. They also had a goat feeder that allowed you to put feed into a cup and then use a pulley to hoist it up to the goat up on a walk 15 feet up in the air. We took a hayride around the farm too. The second thing that Benjamin absolutely loved was a giant barn filled with corn. In a sense, it was an enormous sensory table big enough to get in that was full of corn. They allowed children and adults to take off their shoes and jump in it. Stephen and Benjamin hopped in. Stephen recounted that it felt like a massage on his feet. There were also diggers in the corn that Benjamin loved playing with. Overall it was a great day in spite of the rain, mud, and cold. Enjoy the pictures!