Holiday Highlights...

We had a great Christmas Holiday this year. It was great having everyone off school and work (even though I was a little nervous about me really enjoying this) and enjoying a whole bunch of time together!

This year Christmas was special to me. We took time to learn as a family the true meaning of Christmas and talked a lot about the Savior and how Christmas is special because He was born on that day. And because of Him we are all able to become better people. It is very sacred when you see the click in a child's eye's of that wonderful blessing and I know Asher is more aware of Him now.
We read in the bible, and tried to give the kiddos a real life account of the nativity story. All in all, there was definetly a special spirit hanging out at my house over the holiday.

Shaner, me and Lily


I made a special Christmas Eve dinner. We had ham, sweet potatoes
corn, spinach salad and apple pie (for Cory), oreo pudding pie (for Asher),
and Dairy Free and Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie for Bens and I. (Yes it sounds
bad but turned out great!)

The Sunday before Christmas we went over to my mom's
and had a Christmas Party. Asher loves space and was totally
excited about this moon that lights up and shows the lunar phases...


On Christmas Eve we went sledding. Cory was fabulous and sat in the truck with
Lily so I could ride with the boys...we had a blast (even if our sled was broken)


Santa gave Asher this Star Wars Lego set. He also got the cowboy
hat and guns. He's so funny...


Asher put the hat on Lily and she was actually quite happy with it on...


On Christmas Day after opening presents we spent the rest of the day with Cory's
Family opening presents and of course eating! We have such a great time together -
I love his family!


And Last but not least Cory's favorite present! He bought (2) 4-wheelers for Christmas.
One to fit Asher and one a little bigger that he can ride. They have had so much fun on
them and Asher is really good and driving his. It fits him perfect as you can see from the picture
and he loves the helmet! (Good Thing)



I hope you all had a fab. Christmas and enjoyed some down-time.
-Jill

The magical 6, and the Christmas Spirit...

Lily is 6 months old!
We are so excited (and of course a little sad at how fast time flies).
She has blessed our lives in so many ways, and of course we couldn't imagine
our lives without her.






To celebrate we went to Build A Bear to get her, her very own Teddy (in this case Bunny).
My boys LOVE their Teddy's. In fact, I have thought before about the "what if we left Bensen's Teddy somewhere, or what if Asher's just fell apart someday (its quite old) etc" and I have to stop my thinking immediately because life would not go on for my boys if that did happen. (Of course it would it would just be me that would have to deal with them). Anyways, we ALWAYS know where "Teddy" is at my house.

This Picture is of the boys each kissing Bunny's heart before they put it in Bunny. (They each put a heart in Lily's Bunny). It was pretty cute...they kissed it and hugged it and rubbed it on their heart and said a whole bunch of cute things so that Bunny would be super special for Lily.


Then Bensen got Bunny all washed up and scrubbed her clean for Lily.



Last Friday was Asher's Christmas Devotional. He was the cutest Shepherd around!
This pic makes me smile. Asher's hat is making his cute ears stick out and Abby is missing her two front teeth! I love it! They both did such a good job!


Asher during his part. His part was "The angels sang for joy at Jesus' birth".



Asher and Abby with their teacher Mrs. Strong. She is such a great teacher and is so patient with my ever social Asher!



As always, in a hurry tonight. Cory took the kids to the library so I could have 30 min. of peace tonight, so I have some music I need to get together for my spin class tonight!
Lots of Love -Jill

Tag...

I haven't forgot! I have been tagged so here it goes...

5 things I was doing 10 year ago:

- dating my hot hubby

- going to USU

- getting certified to teach fitness classes

- trying to make hard, life decisions!!

- playing the guitar (doesn't happen much anymore!)

5 Things on my to do list in no special order:

- Go to Paris

- Get my scrapbooks up to date

- Hike the mountain to the east of my house

- Spend more time loving my kiddos

- Go back to school, when my kids are older

5 favorite snacks:

Snacks right now are alot different for me then when my diet is normal so here goes! don't get jealous!

-Sweet potatoes with canola butter (really good...honestly!)

- dark chocolate chips, marshmallows, and brown rice crispies (gluten free of course) melted in the microwave (rice crispy treat)

- Starbursts

- Potato Chips

- Brown Rice Tortillas with lunch meat and spinach

5 Jobs I've had:

- Greenhouse worker (I love flowers!)

- Call center (for about 2 weeks, I hate sitting down!)

- Front desk at a Gym (Body by Banks, downtown SL)

- Realtor

-Group Exercise Instructor

5 Things I would do with a million dollars:

- Pay off the mortgage

- put lots in the bank

- give some to family

- put some in the kids college fund

- TRAVEL!

5 Things that made me laugh this week:

- Cory's dancing

- Bensen's giggle

- Lily's all gum's smile

- an email I received about a baby latching on through her mom's shirt (graphic sorry!)

- ummm...I need to laugh more apparently!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm thankful for all of you!

Sewing project...

Lily loves textures i've noticed as of late. She grabs anything and everything and wants to touch and feel everything. (This is way different from my boys!) So one day when I was carrying her and letting her drag her hand against the wall as I walked (our walls are texturized) I decided to make her a "texture blanket". So I headed to Wal-Mart and bought 5 different fabrics and cut them into squares, added some ribbons around the border to hook toys on to, added some soft mink fabric to the back and presto! I also made one for my good friend Chandy who just had a baby. Hers had a different pattern and turned out really cute. (I didn't post the picture cause I haven't given it to her yet!!)


Here is Lily loving her texture blanket! I love this age...so much life and personality!

Catch Up!

It has been awhile! Life has been crazy lately (nothing new right?) and I've neglected my blogging responsibility! Cory was out of town Mon - Thur last week, Bens had pneumonia, my computer died and I didn't have it for a week, and on and on I could go - but no need, life is ok again now that I can check my email! I'm always so surprised how reliant I am on my computer. I go to it every spare chance that I get! Either to check my email or see what is going on with all of you on your blogs, to checking the weather on KSL or just researching an interesting topic...what did we ever do without computers?? I know you are all with me on this! Anyways Halloween is right around the corner, so we have been preparing at my house. On Monday for family night we had a great time carving pumpkins. Everyone got into it and we ended up with some fabulous carved pumpkins!

Pre-carved Pumpkins!





Asher and Bens having a great time cleaning out the inside...



Carved Pumpkins...Our Scooby Doo pumpkin is missing from the picture.



We of course had to make our annual Halloween Sugar cookies. They turned out
great this year (or so I hear)!!!




When Cory left out of town last Monday, I decided to head to Robert's to find the boys a craft to do at night. (For those couple of hours after dinner is over and I realize I still have to entertain!) I picked us up some wood frames, and we painted them and cut shapes out of Foam sheets and used sparkle glue until our hearts were content! The boys did a fabulous job and they are now on display in their rooms.

This is Bensen's
This one is Asher's



Happy Halloween everyone!

Happy Birthday Bensen!

This is Bensen on his Birthday, October 7th 2005.
He was 6 lbs 4 oz.

This is Bens, after he had been home a couple of weeks. Was he really ever that little??



Here he is a couple months old now, (and a little plumper)



This was taken on Bensen's 1 yr Birthday (below)


For his 2nd Birthday we had a Halloween Party and he was Superman!




And that brings us to the current.
Here is Bensen on his first day of Preschool (Sep 31'08)
He was so excited! He had his own backpack and was more then ready to take on school.
(It was just me who was not ready for him to go and give him up for someone else to enjoy! He is such my little buddy that it was REALLY hard for me. But I have made it through so far and I'm doing better now.)



We went up Provo Canyon last Thursday and took lots of fall pictures. We had a blast and it was so beautiful up in the mountains.

It has taken me forever to post this post. I think I have been putting it off because
1. It was going to take me quite a bit of time to go through the old photo's, but I think it really was because I knew I would be a sobbing mess! I love my Bens, and I love that he is growing up and doing so well. I have loved every minute of his little life. He has had so many challenges, and we have grown so close to him experiencing those challenges with him. His little life has entailed multiple surgery's, a billion it seems Dr. visit's, hearing aides since 4 months, food allergies, special food's etc But with all that he has one amazing personality! I think Heavenly Father blessed him with everything he is going to need to be a strong, confident, happy person. We live at such a great time with so many opportunities and so much focus on accepting people for who they are, no matter what challenges they may face.
I Love you Bens! Live life to the fullest!!

A whole lot of fun!

We had soo much fun in California. Here is a quick run through...

We split up our vacation. We hoteled right across from Disneyland until Saturday morning, and then drove to Carlsbad (right by San Diego) for the other half. Cory LOVES the beach, so instead of having to drive everyday, I found a fabulous hotel right off the beach. He was in heaven! He boogie boarded and skim boarded until he was so sore he couldn't move!!
Here are some pic's!

*Asher standing by the Tower of Terror ride. He didn't go on it of course (even though he did go on Space Mountain for his very first roller coaster ride ever!! I know we are so mean!). I do recommend going on this ride. It was awesome! Asher was pretty excited to see Mr. Incredible!


Of Course we did have some of these moments, but overall Lily did soo good!
Ash and Bens in Toon Town driving one of there cartoon looking cars...




We went to a really fun restaurant at the Disneyland Hotel called "Goofy's Kitchen".
A lot of the character's are walking around and they come and sign your books and we got pictures with them. It was way fun!


On Friday Night we went to a place called "Medieval Times". It was kind of like a dinner show. You didn't have any silverware (because you are living in the medieval time period) and you watched a medieval time like battle with horses and nights and kings etc. I do recommend seeing this cause it was really fun, but go to the 6:30 show. We switched our show time to 8:30 and the boys feel asleep and missed the whole battle at the end!


We then took our vacation to Carlsbad!



Sea World was a blast! I have always loved Sea World. So much so that for my 16th Birthday my mom flew me to Sea World for the day so I could see all the shows (of course the killer whales are my fav.) and then we flew home late that night. What a mom!
The boys loved it and Lily loved it as well, except for the up close splash that she got right in the face at the touch the dolphin exhibit. She screamed soo loud!!


My very handsome husband...


Ash and Bens Loved the sand...

And Bensen was fabulous to have around. He chased the birds for about the first 30 minutes he got to the beach. It was pretty funny!