A White Christmas

A few months ago, I made a terrible choice and let Benson hold my camera.  I was making dinner and he had been extra whiney.  I sat him on a kitchen chair and set the camera in his lap.  Within a few minutes it fell to the floor. And it was a gonner.  So all the pictures we have from our recent trip to Utah and all Christmas activities leading up to it are from Riley's phone.  I have a few on my phone I'll add later.

Luckily we got a new camera for Christmas so I'll do better on this blog.

Benson, Bennett and Elsie at the Temple Christmas lights! A fun tradition.

This is in Utah at the "tree of life" in Draper.  It was pretty neat!

Zoo lights at the Hogel Zoo

Christmas morning was VERY fun. Having a kid makes Christmas much more meaningful and magical.  His expression when he saw the "trrraaaiinnn" was priceless.

This is the only picture I got of cute Elsie Serafine :) Benson really did like her!

Chocolate Pie with Graham and Mason

These four sure know how to navigate an iPad.

Riley and I snuck away one morning and went snowshoeing up Rose Creek Canyon. It was beautiful and so fun!  We found a hidden trail to the top of a mountain that had a fabulous view of the valley. Pre-inversion.

I crocheted Hadley a snuggie!

Christmas Eve Jammies!

Riley slept out with Andrea and Kalen.  The boys didn't last too long because of the rain but somehow Andrea made it all night.

The train :)

It was a lovely Christmas! We had really begun to miss everyone and it was nice to see lots of family and friends that we hadn't seen in a while.  I don't have pictures of a many things, but here are some highlights:

-Natural Museum of Curiosity

-JDawgs with friends

-Eating at our favorite restaurants

-Visiting Matt and Taylor in the hospital and meeting Max :)

-Game nights with Kalen, Jenell and Andrea, and the Wilson's

-Serafine night of Ginger

-Snowshoeing

-Mini dates while Benson napped

-Several trips to the temple

-Benson's birthday

-Benson and Hadley dancing and Stephanie's wedding

-Seeing the Hobbit and Into the Woods

-FHE with the Brandon's

-Shopping with Mom and finding incredible deals at the Gap

Before Utah/Benson's first birthday

Dad? Are you viewing this on your new phone? I hope so, because you can do that now. If not, call me and I will show you how.

Wow. We are back in Maryland. What a fun trip we had. It will be difficult to recapture everything that happened. But before we get to that... here are some things from before we left.

We built a snowman.

We visited the National tree.  It sits in the lawn in front of the White House, surrounded by a tree from each state.  You better believe we looked for the Obama's.

Notice the Washington near by?

Benson tried on his daddy's shoes.

And went to our ward Christmas party!

Two days later- Riley dropped us off bright and early at DCA where I somehow managed to push a stroller and pull two bags, a carseat, and a backpack to the check-in counter.  I quickly learned that Frontier now charges for carry-on bags if you buy the ticket through a third party. Like Orbitz. I guess it is in the fine print. rude, right? So I checked it at the gate which left my hands free to deal with Benson, who had just discovered how to walk- and all of the independence that comes with that. Somehow it took nearly 45 minutes for everyone to board the plane...... but once we got on we found our seat had an extra 5 inches of leg room. we scored.  We made fast friends with the lady sitting next to us. She was wearing a fur vest and Benson loved it. Between that and her watch he was pretty occupied for the entire flight.  He didn't sleep but was fairly easy to please.  After a quick layover in Denver we were on the last leg of our trip.  As soon as we took off Benson passed out on my lap.  He woke up just as we were landing. It was a lovely flight.
Also- Frontier doesn't serve drinks anymore. I mean, they do, but they charge you. What's with that?

Mom was waiting for us and our luggage came quickly. Before I knew it we were home! The house was decorated beautifully. I love it at Christmas time! It was so fun to see everyone. Kelli and Jake came over for dinner. I hadn't seen dad in nearly 6 months and it was great to see him again.  In the week before Riley came we accomplished a lot.
-sister lunch and movies
-babysat cousin Hadley
-laughed at benson and hadley
-shopping, a lot
-watched my three sons
-ate mom's delicious food
-played the piano
-made chocolate covered pretzals and peanut clusters

And I don't have a picture of a single one. BUT- I do have a few golden pictures:

Ok.... one golden one. But it's a good one.

Then Riley came! Oh boy, a week away is long. Too long. We were excited for him to join us. Finals went extremely well. As soon as he arrived we had a little birthday party to hold. For our cute one year old. Can you believe he is one? Me either. He just gets cuter and more fun every single day. It's amazing. 

Here's the party.

We are so grateful for Benson and the wonderful, sweet boy that he is. We are also so lucky to have wonderful family and friends who care about him as well :)