Just Another Day in Paradise

I have a lot of other posts to do but I really wanted to do this one. My cousin asked me to take some pictures of her family at the beach this coming weekend, so I thought I would do a trial run with Benjamin. They aren't the most amazing pictures but I think I did pretty well with my point and shoot camera. Unfortunately, Benjamin didn't want to cooperate. He wouldn't smile; he wouldn't look at me or the camera. In fact, he just kept running away trying to catch birds, dogs, people, waves. Basically anything that was in the opposite direction of where I wanted him to go. He was amazed by everything around him, therefore he was deep in thought as he soaked in everything around him.

Even though my subject wasn't very cooperative I think the pics turned out great.

This one is my favorite.
Here are just a few collages of the rest.
Click on the collage to make it bigger.

Merry Christmas!

I wish I could have sent out our Christmas Card to everyone to let them know that they are loved, but we just can't afford it. So I'm posting it in hopes that you feel loved anyway :0)

I hope your Christmas was wonderful. I'll post about ours later.

Wordless Wednesday

More Pics from the Christmas Party

As you can see Benjamin was not a fan of Santa. But it made a great picture.

.We were so lucky to have such a great Santa this year. Mrs. Clause was also absolutely adorable. (Thanks Aunt Debbie for the costume) And can you get any cuter than their baby Sam Clause. They make such a cute little family. Thanks again for all of your help!!!!
Best Idea ever!!!!! We had a Christmas movie playing in the back for the kids. They went to the back if they were finished eating before we started the program. This saved the parents from having to deal with wiggly kids at the table. And saved me from having to deal with kids running all over the gym. The kids loved it!!!! When we were ready for the program and Santa I just went to the back and collected all of the kids. It worked out perfect.
The lady in the white blouse is my neighbor Grandma Joan. Benjamin and I see her almost every day when we go on our walk. She is just about the sweetest lady you could ever imagine. I'm so glade she came. She said she was too. We just love her so much.



As I said before we used all of the decorations from the ward the day before us. I only changed two things. I moved some presents to the other side of the room so it would look a little more even and discourage the children from running through the trees. But the most important change was the Y I added to the mountain. The other ward's theme was "Did the Grinch really steal Christmas". So they made the Grinch's mountain. Instead of taking it down I decided to add the Y. It was a big hit. Funny how there were so many amazing decorations all throughout the room but the one I got the most comments on was the Y. You gotta love Mormons :0)

We are so lucky to have such an amazing Photographer in our ward. She did such a great job. Without her I wouldn't have any pictures of the night. Thanks again Anelieze!

As you can see we were all smiles at the party
Well almost....Yes it's true I am laughing at my little boy's distress over meeting Santa for the first time

Boy Genius

I know all parents think their child is the smartest and I think I just figured out why. As a parent you see your child start out as a helpless little blob of flesh, and then all of the sudden one day they have a new trick to show you.

I know Benjamin is not a genius, he is right where he needs to be for 13 months, but it is a lot of fun to see his new tricks. I love watching him learn and grow.

Here is his latest trick. I found out he knew what I was talking about when I was in the kitchen one day. He came up to me making a really odd sound. When I went over to him to see what the heck he was doing he was holding up his cow. That is when I realized the sound he was making was a "mooing" sound.

M.I.A.

I have been Missing In Action for the last few weeks. Sorry about that. Things got a little crazy around here because I was in charge of the Christmas party for my church.

It took a lot of work but it turned out really well in the end. Unfortunately the pictures didn't do it justice. We shared the decorations with another ward, which was a huge help to us. They had a committee just for decorations while we only had 3 people from our ward putting the whole thing together (decorations, food, entertainment, advertising, and everything else that goes into a ward Christmas party.) I hope that next year we will be able to solicit more help from our ward. It is just too big of a job for three busy people.

Although there were just three of us, I think we did a dang good job! Everything went really well. And I am so glad it is all over. I'm hoping to get more pictures from our photographer soon but these will have to suffice for now.

Wordless Wednesday

This is a few weeks old. He can get down now.

Wordless Wednesday

Snow Much Fun

The day after Thanksgiving Tom and I went up to my parents' cabin with them. We had a great time. That night there was a huge storm with thunder, lightning, rain, and hail all night long. We woke up the next morning to a very unexpected surprise, SNOW. There was about 3 inches of it covering the ground. It was Benjamin's first time in the snow. I'm not sure what he thought of it. We had a hard time getting him to look up, he refused to take his eyes off the ground. He had a hard time walking at first but he quickly mastered the skill of walking with boots that are 2 sizes too big on an uneven squishy surface. I'm actually impressed at how well he did. He had never even walked in hard-soled shoes before that day.
We just love our little man.

Visiting With Sis

After Knott's we drove down to San Diego to visit Tom's sister Susan, who was in town for a conference. First we met up with John, Rachel and Van so we could all go in their car. Wow, what a car ride with our two little ones. They kept each other up the whole way down. We are both so lucky that we have amazing little boys. They should have been tired and cranky but they had a great time at the restaurant.

We went to a very unique restaurant called Kemo Sabe. The food was fantastic!!! The presentation was amazing. This is a picture of our dessert-how cool is that? If you ever have a chance to go to it while in San Diego I highly recommend it.

It was so fun to see Susan again. This was only the second time I have seen her. The other time was at our wedding almost 4 years ago. It was so fun seeing the siblings chatting it up. I know they loved it because they don't get to do it very often.

Here is just one more picture of our cute boys. Van is getting very close to walking so I'm pretty sure this will be the only picture we have like this.

Knott's Berry Farm

This month for my parents' visit with us we went to Knott's Berry Farm together. We had a great day. Although Benjamin was too little to go on most of the rides we did find a few we could go on.

He enjoyed all of them but the train. At first he was so excited to be on it. He was waving to everyone out the window. Then he started jumping on the seat. Before we knew it he had bumped his chin on the bars on the window. He got a fat lip and a slightly bloody nose. When we finally calmed him down the train robbers came in and scared him. He cried almost the whole rest of the ride. Who knew the train ride could be so dangerous and scary.

We rode a few rides but mostly just people-watched.

Thanks for the great weekend Mom and Dad!!!! We love spending time with you.

One Year Portraits

I took Benjamin in last week to get his one year pictures done. They turned out OK. It is so hard to get him to smile while we are there. He did however, love running out the door. After a lot of hard work we finally got some OK shots of him.

Wordless Wednesday a day late

The Big One

I thought it would be fun to add all of his stats to this post so you can see just how my little baby grew to be such a big boy.

• Birth~~ Weight 7 lbs 14 oz ~~ Height 21.5 in
• 2 Week ~~ Weight8 lbs 1 oz ~~ Height 22 in
  
• 1 Month~~ Weight 11 lbs 2 oz ~~ Height 24.5 in
  
• 2 Months ~~ Weight 13 lbs 9 oz ~~ Height 25 in
• 4 Months ~~ Weight 17lbs 0 oz ~~ Height 26.75 in
• 6 Months ~~ Weight 19 lbs 6 oz ~~ Height 28 in
• 9 Months ~~ Weight 21 lbs 14oz ~~ Height 30.5 in
• 12 Months ~~ Weight 23 lbs 0 oz ~~ Height 32.5 in
  

Life got a little crazy this week (but that is another story for another post) Today I want to talk about my big guy turning one last week. His birthday was on Monday. We started the day by making special pancakes shaped like the #1.

Then he got the best present ever. A trip to the doctor to get 3 shots. Yep, that's right I am the meanest mom ever. He did really well with his visit and the shots. Later that night we invited his favorite people from church (Emily and Jared) over for dinner and cupcakes. This was my trial run of the cupcakes that I will be making for his family birthday party. I think they turned out really cute. I got the idea from my friends blog. Click here if you want to get a description of how they are made. I let everyone decorate their own which I think was a little added fun. This is a picture of my friends monkeys ours were not quite as beautiful :0)

Benjamin was so dainty about eating his cupcake. Why is it that this is the one time we want him to get truly messy and and he refuses to do it.

Thanks for joining the fun Scott Family!!!

He loved his presents especially his little car that makes noise.

All in all it was a great day for my little man!