Christmas concert

Tuesday was Bennett's last day of school before Christmas break. Her class performed a little concert. There were about 4 kids out sick that day, so it was a small group, but they did a good job! I was proud of Bennett for singing all the songs!

Bennett and her favorite teacher, Ms. Karen.

Bennett's teacher asked Bennett and her best friend at school, Anna, to hold "Baby Jesus" so everyone could sing "Happy Birthday" to him.

Cookie Party!

Our friends the Brinkleys were kind enough to once again host a cookie decorating party. Unfortunately, a few of the families had to cancel last minute due to sick children, so there just ended up being 3 families there this year. We still had a great time though! Bennett loved decorating cookies as usual and playing with her friends Hollye Anne and Sutton. Miles had fun with his little brother friends as well!

Bennett and Miles in front of our tree before we left for the party.

Decorating is fun!

I think she dumped an entire container of sprinkles on her cookie!

Painting icing on her cookie. She was much more detail-oriented this year!

Kimen and me with our baby boys.

Hollye Anne and Bennett posing for the cameras.

Sutton wasn't too interested in joining the girls!

The little brothers! McKade, Miles and Henry

Spokane! Christmas, Part 1

We traveled to Spokane from Dec. 10-14. Each way we had really horrible flight times (6AM on the way out, and didn't get home until 11:30PM on the way back). The kids were really troopers! Bennett is a perfect little flier. Give her a few activities and she's happy as can be! Brandon and I gave ourselves an iPad for Christmas, so we opened it early to enjoy on the flight. Bennett absolutely loved listening to books and coloring on it! Miles was a little more difficult. He just wants to get down, crawl around and cruise. But considering how long our travel time was, he did really well!

We had a great time hanging out with Nana, Papa, Jake, Erin, Ella and Bridgette in Spokane. We also got to visit with Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Caskey and Uncle Tom. Bennett and Ella really played well together, and Miles and Bridgette enjoyed looking at each other. Lots of good food was consumed, and there were so many gifts, I'm still not sure how we fit everything in our bags (we had an extra suitcase on the way home)!!

Thanks for the wonderful time!

The Daddies and the kids

Erin helping Ella open one of her gifts from us

Bennett and Ella ready to play in the snow!!

All ready to go! Bennett loved sledding and building a snowman with Ella, Daddy, Uncle Jake and Papa.

An attempt at a picture of Bennett and Ella in their matching dresses after Mass.

Miles and Papa in matching outfits at the Davenport Hotel.

We went to the Davenport Hotel because professionals were decorating gingerbread houses for a contest. Everything visible had to be edible! Bennett's favorite was the Cinderella castle (0bviously!).

We then went home and felt inspired to decorate our own gingerbread house.

Bennett was very precise when decorating...kind of like one of her parents (hint: it's not me!)

Bennett's half is finished!!

Happy boy!

Bridgette and Miles in the bath

Great-Grandpa Caskey with Miles

Miles and Great-Grandma Caskey

Oh! And one of Miles's top teeth finally emerged while we were in Spokane! The other top tooth is not far behind!

Seeing Santa

Last week, before we left for Spokane, Brandon met us at the mall during lunch to go see Santa. Bennett is in awe of everything Christmas this year. She was very excited to go sit on Santa's lap and tell him that she wanted a doll house. Miles, on the other hand, had no idea what to expect, and was not a fan of the big man in red. So we got the classic screaming baby pictures. Also, Bennett's fake smile was not her best that day either. Oh well. Gotta love the funny Christmas pictures!

Bennett and Santa

Oh no, Miles, what are you doing?

Poor Miles! Santa is nice!

Thanksgiving

What a fun Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is one of those days that I always wonder how the kids are going to survive, but then they always manage to surprise me! First, we headed to Uncle Stan and Aunt Carla's house for a delicious Thanksgiving feast in the afternoon. It actually snowed and iced on our way there. I can't remember a time when we had snow on Thanksgiving, so that was pretty fun to see! I think Grace is now on the top of Bennett's "favorite people" list because she shared with Bennett her autograph book from Disney World! Seeing princess autographs about made Bennett's day...or week...or life! Miles was getting really tired so we left a couple minutes early and drove around a little extra before heading to Uncle Stephen (GUS) and Aunt Helen's house. Miles screamed for quite a few minutes, but eventually fell asleep and got a quality re-charge in the car.

The Reeds had another outstanding feast, and Bennett had a blast dressing up in aprons, serving people play food, and pretending that she was "Princess Tiana." Miles loved throwing balls back and forth with Alex and cruising all around the tables trying to get things he wasn't supposed to have. ;)

Thanks so much to everyone. We are very grateful for all of our family...those we were fortunate enough to spend time with yesterday, and those who we hope to see soon.

Bennett and Miles with Great-Grandma Rull. Apologies to the Rull side. I'm not sure why this was the only picture I got!

The boy cousins on the Reed side: Jeff, Alex, Sam and Miles

GAL and Miles

Bennett was loving the attention! Aunt Madonna, Grandma Joje, Murph, Bennett and Aunt Helen.

This picture is my all-time favorite! I think we need some conversation bubbles for this one. It looks to me like Miles is sitting there asking "who are these crazy people?"

10 months...out of order

I'm going to post today's pictures out of order because my Thanksgiving pictures are on the other camera and not downloaded yet. Miles is 10 months today! As you can see from the pictures, 10 months is a very busy age! Gone are the days that he would just sit on his Nap Nanny for his photo shoot. He is crawling and standing and cruising everywhere these days! He also is completely obsessed with climbing stairs. He has a couple words: Dada, baba and all done. He just started saying "all done" yesterday and it's the cutest thing I've ever heard! Enjoy the pics!

Sat on the Nap Nanny for about 2 seconds...

And there he goes!

I'm out of here mom!

Pulling up on the rocking chair instead

Then he crawled over and tried to escape, but he got distracted by Bennett's Snow White shoe.

Nap Nanny Take 2- You can see how long this was going to last!!

Random

Here is a little video of Bennett's dance class. She was listening pretty well. Some of the other kids, not so much! :)

Here is Bennett with Buster Bunny. Each kid in her class gets a chance to bring Buster home for 2 days, then you have to write a journal entry about what Buster did at your house. It was our turn this week, and Bennett already dressed Buster up the second she brought him home!

Miles points all the time! We often call him "number 1" so this picture is so classic! Miles did get another tooth while we were in Florida, so now he has 2!

Also, this describes our children to a tee....

We are teaching Miles sign language just like we did for Bennett. The first sign that Bennett actually did herself was the sign for "book."

Miles's first sign is "more!" :)

Florida Trip

We just got home from a great 5 days in Florida. It was Miles's first airplane ride, and we realized that traveling with a 9 month old is really challenging! All he wants to do is get down and crawl!! But we survived. Bennett was perfect on the plane rides, as usual. She's really a great little flier!

Here are a few pictures from our trip. There are tons more on Mom's camera. We enjoyed a lot of time at the pool and spent one day down at the beach. We actually met some friends of ours down there that happened to be in Naples at the same time. They have a 4 year old and a 2 year old, so Bennett loved having friends to play with for the day!

Thanks to Mom and Dad for inviting us. We had a lot of fun!

On the plane...being very serious...

Then very happy!! :)

Bennett on the plane with her coloring.

At the beach!

Miles hung out with Pa under the cabana for quite awhile...

Then we took him down to the sand...

And before we knew it he was off!!

Bennett loved playing in the sand too!

Miles was very interested in his sister's creations

We only caught him trying to eat sand twice!

And a family picture.