Christmas Caroling

One of my favorite memories of Christmas is the traditional evening of caroling with family friends. This year almost everyone got to be there, including us! Over the years, the night has become such a special time to get together with friends, stuff our faces with the absolutely most delicious cinnamon rolls ever created, and sing Christmas songs to various friends and neighbors. We've been doing this night for as long as I can remember, and even now that we are older, some of us are married, and some of us have kids we are still such good friends. Even when it's been a little while since I've seen or talked to some of these friends, we still pick things right back up where they left off. I hope someday we can make such good friends and my own kids will have this same experience to treasure.

{Ryder :: 11 months}

Everyday Ryder man grows up more and learns all sort of new tricks, at 11 months, here are some of the things that make Ryder man the cheeseball that we love so much...

• crawls for real now... up on his knees and everything
• HATES having his diaper changed, which makes it a fiasco every. single. time.
• officially owns his first pair of Chucks, a milestone in any kid's life
• getting more and more opinionated about the kinds of foods he will eat which means when I try and sneak peas into his pureed meats he sucks all the good stuff off and then spits the peas out
• loves to be the center of attention
• cruises around furniture like a pro
• waves hello and goodbye
• loves to shake his head 'yes' at spontaneous moments and gets so involved in the activity his eyes start to roll back in his head. It's hilarious.
• sporting the rosy cheeks this month because of the cold and eczema
• when he's falling asleep he loves to grab our faces and either try and pull out our eyelashes, stick his finger up our noses, or smack our foreheads. 
• will occasionally give open-mouthed kisses on command
• still takes 2 naps and is a cranky pants without them
• loves to be out and about, especially if it involves going to visit daddy at work
• has had a cold off and on for the last month, he just can't seem to kick it
• foods of choice: graham crackers, frosting, watered-down apple juice, cinnamon ABC cookies, and quesadillas 
• points to give us directions of where he wants to go
• when being held, he always wants to touch and play with any type of switch/box/control buttons on the walls
• he is always on the go and does not understand the whole "holding still" concept... as you can see from the pictures below. It's a good thing he's got such a cute little bum!

 

 

 Can't believe his birthday is right around the corner!

This actually happened.

Bathing at Grandma's house can be a little stressful, but mostly just for the dog. Watch the whole 2 minutes... it's totally hilarious.

Temple Square Christmas Lights

A couple of weekends ago we made the drive up to Salt Lake to enjoy the Christmas lights & displays at Temple Square. Its such a fun family tradition when you live in Utah! Our good friends Joel & Angie now live up in Salt Lake so we met up with them for dinner and then walked around the Temple Square. Oh, I just want it to be Christmas all the time!

Meeting Santa

Last night we established a new holiday tradition in the Bennett family. It's called, "Go Meet Santa and Sit on his Lap No Matter how Scary he May be". It's a rite of passage for any kid, right? We kind of anticipated he might lose it... especially after his encounters with my white beard-clad Grandpa, but it sure was hilarious. So here it is... the classic, terrified picture sitting on Santa's lap. I think we've got a white beard phobia going on around here...

 

 

{Ryder :: 10 months}

Ryder Man at 10 months:

• Army crawls everywhere and effectively mops the floor in doing so (double awesome)
• Loves to give his signature "cheesy grin" when he's particularly happy.
• He's a champion eater and has fully embraced eating real food with gusto.
• Pulls to stand on all manner of furniture.
• Loves to be apart of whatever is going on- can be perfectly content playing with toys but insists on being wherever everyone else is.
• Loves a set of blocks his Aunt Kimber passed along to us and crawls around the house with one block in his hand... he is peg-leg Pete.
• Growing like a weed- wears 12 month clothes now!
• Such a social kid, he loves running errands and being out around lots of people and seeing new things
• Goes to sleep around 8:30-9 pm and doesn't wake up until 7:30 am, unless he's sick.
• Now has 6 teeth- 2 on bottom, 2 very LARGE ones on top, and 2 smaller ones on top
• Loves to watch other big kids play and run around
• Officially had his first hair cut

Blogger Problems

I'm having issues with blogger right now. It's made for an involuntary hiatus from all things blog. Apparently I've exceeded my limit in the amount of pictures I can upload without having to pay... so I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do. I really don't want to pay whatever the storage fee is for pictures on picasa, and also trying to figure out if I can somehow use smug mug as my storage site while still posting pictures on my blog. I was never good with "technical difficulties" so hopefully I'll have it sorted out soon.  Kind of sad I can't post Ryder's 10 month post... his pictures came out so cute!