Jan-Week 1- Clara's Blessing, Ben's BD!!

For starters, "Hi, my name is Anna and I'm adorable!"

She loves selfies.  

Little miss chatterbox too. :) 

New Year's Day after we got back from Mantua, we went to see the 3rd Hobbit movie with my parents and siblings.  We saw it in 3D, IMAX & high frame rate!  Pretty awesome!  I only got motion sick once or twice during the really wide angle shots panning the landscape.  I know, I'm such a wuss. ;)   

Friday, Dan and I got to go to a Jazz game with Dan's parents.  They spoiled us with dinner, treats, and some Jazz swag!  Thanks for a great time!!  

Saturday, I got to meet my new primary class I'll teach for the year.  I've got an amazing co-teacher and am lucky enough to teach the kids who will turn 8 and be baptized this year!  

Sunday, was our niece Clara's baby blessing.  

I so dearly love all my Webster sisters-in-law!  

The original Webster clan! 

The Stewart family with sweet baby Clara!  (Love that "Sir Henry" too!)

Wednesday McKenna had crazy hair day at school.  We tried the Cindy-Lou Whoo hair-do with a cup underneath.  She did NOT want me taking a picture of her (too bad!), hence the reason these pictures are blurry. 

 Wednesday was also Ben's 4th Birthday!!  

Ben’s 4-year-old Birthday Interview (Jan. 13, 2015) 

What is you favorite color? Red and green

What is your favorite toy? Remote control Lightning McQueen

What is your favorite fruit? Oranges, apples, bananas

What is your favorite TV Show? Super Why! (We haven’t watched this in a long time)

What is your favorite movie? Rapunzel

What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Meat and cheese sandwich

What is your favorite outfit to wear? Spiderman shirt (he also loves to match colors when getting dressed)

What is your favorite game to play? Spot it, Hungry Hippos, Chutes and Ladders

What is your favorite snack? Fruit snacks

What is your favorite animal? Giraffe

What is your favorite song? Star Wars

What is your favorite book? Berenstain Bears

Who is your best friend? Taggart and Henry (preschool friends)

What is your favorite cereal? Fruit Loops

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play Basketball (I’ve never seen him do this)

What is your favorite thing to drink? Milk and water

What is your favorite holiday? Christmas

What do you like to take to bed with you at night? My puppy (stuffed animal)

What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? English muffins and pancakes

What do you want to have for dinner? Pasta Salad

What do you want to be when you grow up?  A Teenager

What is your favorite thing to do with our family? Grocery Shopping (he’s usually the worst behaved one.  So…??)

What’s your favorite thing to do in preschool? Sharing time (you bring stuff from home to show others)

(**I won't have his 4-year check-up until February so I'll have to insert his stats later.)

He wasn't so sure about breaking through the streamers to come out of his room at first.  But once he broke through he woke up a little more and smiled. :)  

He requested pancakes for breakfast and I did my best to be a little creative with the shapes. 

 He opened a few presents and thoroughly enjoyed them throughout the day.  

 The next day, Thursday, we took Ben on a mommy/daddy birthday date.  He fell asleep on the drive there.  Such a sleepy boy!  We went to IHOP since he requested more pancakes.  However, he took one look at the kids menu and then wanted mac and cheese... go figure.  He and Dan played the line/square game while we waited and he drank all his hot chocolate.  Dan's meal included some pancakes that Ben ended up eating one of besides his whole mac and cheese and side of fruit.  He was a hungry boy!  

We headed over to Bountiful Bowl to go bowling, but unfortunately it was League night and all the lanes were full.  That's what we get for not planning/calling ahead.  Ben cried and cried that we had to leave and didn't understand why.  Thankfully, we have another bowling alley in North Salt Lake.  We called ahead and found out it was their league night too but they still had some lanes open.  (We were prepared to drive to Kaysville to go to Boondocks if need be, though that would have made for a very late night.)  Phew!! 

Here's a couple shots of his cute face!  He also wanted to make sure there were "dancing pins" on the screen after we bowled each frame.  

Oh, the anticipation!  

A video of his bowling style!  

 http://youtu.be/U5oVq0FzXdw

I happened to bowl the best game of my life that night!  Dan asked where I'd been our whole marriage? ;)  I totally could have beat Dan if I hadn't wasted my last strike in the last frame!  DANG!!  I only got two gutter balls the entire time.  

My mom babysat the girls that night and had the cupcakes frosted and ready by the time we go home.  He requested chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting.  Easy to please!  

I'm so thankful for this Ben Boy in my life!  I love that he loves to match his clothes very specifically in the morning while getting dressed.  He loves to color and play with Octonauts and Ninja turtles.  He's a good eater, but still our worst sleeper.  He's loved being a Sunbeam so far and I love that I get to be in Jr. Primary to watch him on Sundays.  :)  He's even improving on saying the /k/ and /g/ sounds!  

  

And here's just the girls getting some snuggles!  

Dec- Week 4- After Christmas, New Years

The day after Christmas, Dan took the big kids sledding at Eaglewood golf course.  

Yes, Ben is wearing PINK snow pants that belonged to McKenna and a beanie too big for his head. He didn't care.  ;)

The rest of the day we did laundry, played with new stuff, then went to dinner at 5 Guys and ran some errands to Lowe's and Famous Footwear.  

After the kids went to bed, I finally cleaned our basement tile from the construction we had done over a month ago.  I had to get it done since my parents were coming to town for a visit and would be staying down there.  :)  They got in LATE Friday night.  

Saturday, I sang Goin' Home at a funeral for a ward member and I was lucky enough to have my mom accompany me.  Later, Dan and I also attended another ward member's 80th birthday party!  

This is also the day I took my first pregnancy picture.  Here I am at 11 Weeks.  

Sunday we went to church, enjoyed dinner with my parents, then had a movie night and went to bed super late.  

Monday, Dan took McKenna on a breakfast date!  We tried to take full advantage of Dan not having any work from Dec. 23rd-Jan. 1st.  He's so great to fit in one-on-one time!  

Dan also installed a new entryway light fixture that day!!  I've been wanting one since we moved in 4 years ago and we finally decided to just DO IT!  He was all dressed up (and waiting) to go issue a temple recommend, so he just decided to get to work while he waited.  

Before...

...After

We also enjoyed more time with Gma and Gpa!!  

Tuesday we decided to stop layin' around so much and get out of the house so we headed to Kangaroo Zoo!  The kids LOVE this place!  We went a little too close to lunch time so the kids ran out of energy quicker than normal. And this was also Anna's first time!  

We had lunch at Quiznos, then home for nap time/quiet time.  My parents and brother were nice enough to babysit while Dan and I snuck away to the Temple to do some family name sealings!  What a great way to end the year! 

Tuesday evening, we went to the Grand America Hotel to see the holiday windows and giant gingerbread house.  I love that this was INSIDE (read: warm!!) and such a pretty atmosphere!  Each window contained 2-3 letters of the alphabet to look for and the kids were given some cute papers to keep track of all the letters we found.  

The pictures on the left shows how much Anna adores my brother!  

She was pretty excited they gave us free cookies too!  

The giant gingerbread house! 

Everyone went home for dinner and bedtime except Dan and Ben.  It was Ben's turn to go on a date with dad.  This time to a U of U basketball game!  They said it was SOOOO cold and windy walking there.  They ate dinner at Hires and met up with Uncle Sammy at the game!  

And cute Ben got his cute little face up on the jumbotron flashing his "U" (similar to this picture).  

On New Year's Eve we packed up, ran some errands, and headed to Mantua to be with (most of) the Webster clan.  

First time doing Anna's hair like this.  She liked it and sat pretty still for it.  And I still love her "mad" face she gives on command!  

McKenna even sat still for me to do her hair to match Anna.  

Once in Mantua, we had a pot luck dinner, fireworks at 9, let the kids stay up till 10ish, then played reverse charades and Apples to Apples.  Anna ended up taking a "nap" from 8-9pm, meaning, she woke up after we put her to bed for the night and she wouldn't go back to sleep.  So Anna was unintentionally awake with us at the stroke of midnight!  She was relatively happy as long as she was eating chips!  It was also fun as a family to remanice and talk about our highlights of 2014.  Mine would definitely be our trips to Chile and Disneyland!  

 We woke up around 8, the kids did some crafts with Gma, then we had a yummy breakfast!  We played games, hungout, took naps, cleaned up, and packed up, and left around lunchtime.

Dec- Week 4- Christmas!!

Monday, a neighbor friend hosted a used book exchange and cookie decorating party.  The kids had a great time having a little party of their own.  :)

Monday night, we invited Dan's parents over for dinner and gingerbread houses.  Dan's mom made the molds for the houses and brought all the candies and I made the frosting.  The boys were a team and the girls were a team.  The frosting wasn't quite thick enough so the roofs started to slide off.  But in the end, we managed to save them! 

The girls' finished product

The boys'

Tuesday, Dec. 23rd is known to Dan's family as "Christmas Adam."  ALL the Websters head up to Mantua for dinner, talent show, sleepover, and lots of games!
Best cousins! 

Here's McKenna performing Jingle Bells. 

Dinner! 

 Chocolate fountain for dessert! 

Grandma also bought everyone new jammies! 

Most of the cousins.  Some of the younger ones had gone to bed.  

 The girls

 The men

After the kids went to bed, we had a lovely Christmas message from the father.  

Then we went cray cray and made the traditional Webster pyramids! 

We also attempted a WHOLE group one but never made it past level four before we started slipping. 

We played two rounds of Telestrations and then Dan stayed up later playing Mario Cart with his brothers, another beloved Christmas Eve tradition.  Many of us got pretty crummy sleep due to sharing a room with all our kids, but how can you not be happy waking up with these wonderful people!??!

We opened presents and had a yummy breakfast!  

Unfortunately, Sarah Jane's baby Ellie, fell out of a booster seat that was somehow not strapped to the chair it was on and got a pretty good goose egg.  Her little eye also swelled up and she threw up a little more than usual.  So her dad, Jake, gave her a blessing and they decided to take her to the hospital to get checked out.  Sarah Jane said she was pretty worried about Ellie until they got to the waiting room and Ellie started dancing to some music playing on the speakers.  They kept her for observations for about two hours and then sent her home.  Thank heaven!  

Later that day, many took naps and played with toys and Legos!  

We headed home around 4 and started our own little family Christmas Eve traditions.  

We had frozen pizza for dinner...fancy!  The kids wrote a letter to Ellie (our version of an elf on the shelf), left treats out for Santa and took baths. We then Skyped with my parents who were staying with my sister in AL as they were opening a group present from all of us (a few photo memory books). Then the kids opened their new jammies from us.  Anna saw the big kids getting ready for a picture and sat right down beside them of her own accord!  Love this cooperative (for now) baby!

Then we read Luke 2 and acted out the Nativity.  

Even though Anna was our baby Jesus last year, she did not feel like participating this year.  

After kids were in bead, we finished wrapping a few things and set everything up! 

The kids woke up Christmas morning around 8!!  Thank you!  Here are some of the highlights.  

McKenna got this Lite Brite from Dan's parents.  They've certainly updated them since my day. :)  

My boys also spent some time putting together a (Ghostbusters) Lego set 

One of the best parts of Christmas was that it finally SNOWED!!  We had a beautiful WHITE Christmas and the kids had fun playing in it.

We had my siblings over for Christmas Dinner and then went driving around looking at some great light displays.  Ben unfortunately slept through the whole drive and was consequently up late...oh well.  It was a wonderful Christmas where we did our best not to go overboard on gifts and to focus on the true meaning of the season.  We're so grateful for the FIRST gift of our Savior given by our Father in Heaven!