Christmas Morning

We had a fun Christmas morning once everyone finally woke up.  I was chomping at the bit and even took a shower before the kids woke up.  Didn't they know it was Christmas!?!?

Caroline on her new slide.

Ben was way more interested in his bottle than any gift around.

Caroline at 2 1/2

Caroline loves trains, dancing, helping mom cook, watching tv and playing with the ipad, riding in dad's truck, visiting grandma and grandpa, playing with her cousin Scott, going to church and nursery, dancing, reading books, opening doors, climbing on furniture, and being a cute little girl.
She is getting much more social with other kids her age, and is also about to get her top canine teeth. She is growing like a weed and getting more talkative and opinionated every day.

We definitely have a two year old in the house, and we love it... most of the time.

Christmas Eve with the Ridges Family

For Christmas Eve we went over to Jared's parents for the annual festivities which include eating a lovely dinner, reading the Christmas story while the kids assemble the nativity, and opening gifts.  It's a fun time that we look forward to.

Caroline loves Loves LOVES this book; The Caboose who got Loose.

Pre-Christmas festivities

It's the most wonderful, fun packed, craziest, grandest time of the year!

There are so many fun things to choose from at Christmas time- here are some we chose:

Festival of Trees with Grandpa & Grandma Ridges, Mary Jean, Anna, Jamie, & Scott

Mapleton City tree lighting with a real Reindeer. We also went to Spanish Fork Parade of lights but it was hard  to get a good picture.

Warming up in the Family History Center at Temple Square

Temple Square

Building  A Graham Cracker House

Basketball Game

Good times made even better when BYU won.  I can't even remember who they were playing. :/ Thanks to the Mendenhalls for the free tickets!

Sledding!

On the first really good snow we got we went to a good sledding hill with the seemingly hundreds of other kids who had just gotten out of school and had a few good runs.  Caroline was a little hesitant at first  but didn't want to leave once she got the hang of it.  We followed up with a little bit of sledding at Grandma and Grandpa's little backyard hill the next day and Ben was happy to watch from inside :)

Ben at 8 months... and 9

Ben's stats as of Nov 23rd at his 9 mo well check:

Height: 26.75 in (3%)

Weight: 18 lb 1 oz (22%)

11/28/15 Ben at 9 months

Ben wears his emotions on his sleeve.  He's very very quick to smile but he's also not shy about telling you when he's not happy.  Overall he's pretty easy going and will sit and play for quite a while only coming to get me when he's dirty, hungry, or tired.
He's absolutely all over the place.  He's not walking yet but he is pulling up on everything and is starting to let go.
He loves vegetables.  He'll eat most any baby food I give him, but he really seems to love veggies.  He's almost entirely on formula now as he just wasn't getting enough from mom.  He also really seems to love cheerios and is getting really coordinated at getting them into his mouth.
He makes lots of noises- grunts, squeals, snorts, etc.  As long as there are not constants involved he's good.
He got moved into his own room.  I did have him in a room with Caroline, but they just wake up too much at night and play.  Since moving him into his own room he's been sleeping through the night like a champ- usually about 12 hours.  There have been a few times that he'll cry but he usually goes right back to sleep on his own.  There have also been a couple times when I'll just happen to wake up and look at the baby monitor and see that he's awake and playing in his crib.  Not making any noise at all- just playing.
He went through a phase where he really really liked his "Elasta-Girl" toy.  I guess it was easy to hang onto and good for chewing.
He's pretty regular about taking a short nap in the morning (usually about 1/2 an hour) and then a longer nap after lunch (usually around 2 hours- while Caroline is napping- it's a beautiful time.)
Ben had a surgery on November 2nd to bring down his un-decended testicle.  We went to the hospital pretty early and were home around noon.  He slept most of the afternoon- until about 5:00- and after that you'd have never known that he'd had surgery at all.  In fact it was a bit of a challenge to keep him from climbing around too much.  He never even got off his napping schedule.
He got his two bottom teeth on November 3rd.  Conveniently while he was still on a pretty regular schedule of pain meds from his surgery.

Some of these pictures are from a little further back- I just barely got them off the ipad.

8/9/15

9/16/15- Sitting up for the first time on his own

10/6/15 Starting to climb

11/4/15 Ben's 8 month photo

11/2/15 Before surgery

After surgery.  

Happy Halloween!

Lucy Wilde, A purple minion, Kevin the yellow minion, and Vector

Spanish Fork River Park

We wanted to attempt tent camping with our little ones before it got too cold.  We picked a nice little campground close to home (just in case we needed to bail in the middle of the night :)  with a river and a playground.
Up until the kids went to sleep it was picture perfect.  We roasted our hot dogs and Jared made a spectacular dutch oven cobbler.  It was a clear night and the stars were so bright.  Caroline especially loved that there were train tracks that were close to the campground and she got to see the trains and hear the loud horn.  Ben went to sleep right around 8:00- like normal and we were able to get Caroline to sleep around 9:30.  Everything was great until... yep... remember those train tracks... Caroline pops up, "Choooo chooo!!!  Chooo chooo!!"  which woke up Ben, who then decided that he was either cold or hungry.  We were able to get everyone back to sleep around midnight.  But then around 3:00 am, yep, you guessed it, "Choooo choo!!! Chooo choo!!"  She thankfully went back to sleep fairly quickly- in Jared's sleeping bag- and Ben and I sort of slept in my sleeping bag sleeping/nursing until about 6:00.
All things considered it was not a total failure (we did make it through the night, after all) and if there hadn't been frost on everything when we woke up we would have hung around and played and gone for a hike- such as it was we made our bacon and eggs and then were home by 9:00 am where Caroline slept on the couch for a few hours.
We'll definitely try again- but when there's no chance of frost in the morning. :)

Oh Desitin...

I didn't realize she could unscrew the lid on the 1 lb container of Desitin.  

I thought she was dead when I went in her room.  There was a funky smell and she looked deathly white and was asleep in her bed.  I was pretty relieved when I figured out what it was.  Aside from being a NIGHTMARE to clean and the IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of  lingering fishy smell we're all still alive.  I'm pretty sure that was the only time she's ever asked to get out of the tub.

Just for the record to finally get her hair from being an oily mess I used vinegar, lots and lots of dish soap, and baby shampoo to get it normal again.  That was after Jared had washed it about 5-6 times with shampoo and a little dish soap.
And to mask the fishy smell (there's cod liver oil in Desitin- who knew.) my house could be a walk-through advertisement for glade plug-ins.

Caroline

Caroline is starting to make a little more sense lately.  She'll still jabber on and on and we don't know what she's talking about but when she wants something it's pretty clear.

Some of her favorite things to do lately are: Watch Curious George, color, watch Daniel Tiger, bubbles, swinging, playing in the sandbox, going for rides/walks, seeing grandparents, playing at parks, playing with her cousin Scott, jumping, squeezing between the back of the couch and the cushions, singing songs, count things, find things in books, puzzles, paint, chase and be chased.  She can recognize most letters and numbers and is getting better with colors. She also really likes trains.

She's still a dream to put down for a nap and for bedtime.  We'll get milk, get her blanket and pick out a book.  After her milk is gone we lay her in bed and she'll say "night, night" cuddle up to her blanket and we're done.  Maybe I already put that in on her last update- but it's still the same and still wonderful.

At cousin Anna's pinkalicious birthday party.