hello again - our second post of the month - yes!! :) and as promised, we finally have pictures to share from Christmas! but first, i have to start with a disclaimer: there are a lot of pictures of me today (and were last time too) but it's not that momma is playing favorites, it's just that i'm in a really good phase of smiling cute for the camera and always have funny faces to make, and therefore, share with you all. we hope there are no complaints, and let's get started with some adorable ones of me and "small dog" that ben made for me (at build-a-bear) for christmas...
this is that same goofy face you've seen before, and it's what i do now when i realize momma wants me to smile for the camera...
and now to finally get to our Christmas events... first, we have one and only one picture of me opening a gift at home. we got several new musical instruments, and this is me intensely trying out the "flutophone" which we pretend is a trumpet...
and that's all we have for that because momma only took a few pictures that day and most of them were not very good and aren't that exciting anyway, so we'll move on to our trip to indiana, which was christmas day. flying on christmas was actually really fun, everyone was cheerful and happy, and ben and i were both good on the plane ride there. see - - this is me being good...
...and this is ben being good! :) ha!! he got to watch movies on daddy's laptop for the first time on a plane ride (after having only just recently sat through his first entire movie ever a few days before - jungle book!) and was very focused on what he was doing, no time for smiling even...
we had an awesome flight attendant, and after we landed, she arranged for ben to go up to the cockpit to sit on the pilot's lap and even turn the control "wheel" - oh my!! ben loved it and even did manage a small smile for that one!!...
meanwhile, i continued to make this face throughout the day because i just couldn't help myself but to be super happy on christmas...
we had a great time at beamee and grampee's house and stayed for several days, playing with relatives, having visitors, and somehow managing to not break a single one of beamee's 4,000 breakable christmas decorations that she had out (and those were just the ones that we could have reached!). momma managed to take almost no pictures whatsoever, but aunt aimee saved the day by sharing hers. and here's ben playing with the "crazyforts" from beamee and grampee, sharing in the fun with aunt debbie - yahoo!!! it was quite cold in indiana but ben still managed to go without pants for a majority of the time...
the crazyforts are a really fun building toy and after we made the suggested structures on the box, we couldn't really go on without making a car wash, of course, complete with aunt debbie's scarf as scrubbing brushes...
here i am waiting patiently while ben takes forever with his turn in the car wash...
and you might remember from the last post that momma had bought us all kinds of winter gear in the weeks before our trip. and then the weather forecast all but guaranteed absolutely no snow whatsoever in indiana during our trip, and our suitcases were already very full and heavy anyway, so we left all the winter gear at home since it wasn't going to be needed. but ben kept saying 'maybe it will snow anyway' and momma kept trying to tell him, 'yes, it's possible but very unlikely so please don't get your hopes up...' and what do you know but we woke up on tuesday morning and everything was covered in beautiful white snow!! we were ALL so surprised and so happy and it even continued to snow all day! and we managed to scrounge up enough clothes to keep ben warm while he played outside, and this is what he looked like - oh my! totally embarrassing, sorry ben!!
hilarious though because all ben wanted to do during our whole trip to indiana was play in the snow, make snow angels and build a snowman. we read "the snowy day" a lot and ben just couldn't wait to make snow angels like peter!
and this was snowman #1 on the first day that ben and taylor made together - so cute!
but once back inside, ben was so happy for the snow but really was wishing momma had brought all of his snow clothes that actually fit him and didn't make him look like a dork...
and so off she went to target to score a full set of snow stuff for ben - on sale, mind you! - and life was good and he got to play in the snow for two days and wear his own snow boots and snowsuit and even got pulled around in the sled by momma!
and everyone was loving the snow, except me you might notice, because i was mostly inside the whole time because i was not as big of a fan of the cold, and momma didn't buy snow gear for me and instead i just hung out with aunt elaina and aunt aimee and beamee and life was good anyway. but back outside, they had a big snowball fight the second day, and i had to share this picture because everyone is looking up as if the biggest snowball ever is being thrown from across the neighborhood and daddy is determined to catch it - hilarious!
anyway, this is getting long and the point of it all is we had such a great time with everyone and were especially thankful for that awesome surprise snow. we had a great christmas, and ben got to help make a proper snowman after all...
yay! and come back again soon for some pictures of another christmas surprise we got and hopefully a few of ben's birthday pictures too. bye!
