Christmas part 4, Rull family Christmas

ter in the afternoon on Christmas day, the Rull family came over to mom and dad's house. We had a great time celebrating!!

All the cousins!

Bennett's ballerina doll from Great-Grandma Rull straps to your feet and dances with you. What a hit!

Bennett took her for a spin...

Then she told Murph it was her turn! ;)

Miles loved watching it all unfold!

Bennett and the Rull girls

Jammy time after a long, fun day!!

Christmas part 3, Christmas morning

Since we had a big night the night before, Miles woke up a little before 7 on Christmas morning, but Bennett slept until 8! (unheard of in her world!) We opened presents from Santa at our house, and then after Miles's morning nap we headed over to Grandma Joje and Pa's house to open gifts with them.

Santa came!!

Bennett was excited about her Tiana book for her new Tag reader, and her new doll house!

This Christmas was the most fun, because Bennett loved all the anticipation by counting down on our Advent calendars, and was truly so excited for Christmas morning!

Miles cruising around with his new walker

Daddy and his kids!

Bennett enjoying all the fun at Grandma and Pa's house!

More Playmobile!!

Bennett and I admiring all of the alphabet ornaments that Grandma made for the kids.

Miles getting in on the action!

Miles stood all by himself on Christmas morning for at least a minute without holding on!!! What a big boy! Unfortunately, he hasn't done it much since!

Miles and Aunt Murph

Grandma and the kids

Pa and the kids

Daddy and Bennett are pretty excited about Steak n Shake gift cards and coupons! ;)

Christmas part 2, Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is always spent going to Mass and then dinner at Algonquin with family and some close friends. This year we had to make our exit pretty early because of some tired kiddos, but we had a great time, and the food was amazing as always!

Miles and Pa

Bennett is enjoying her dinner between Grandma and me.

Miles doesn't know all the great food he is missing out on!

After many bloopers, we ended up with 2 pretty good family pictures.

Bennett was enthralled with the carolers. She sang and danced along, and they even asked her for some song requests. Of course, she requested Rudolph and Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. She had quite the crowd watching her show at one point!

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!