Snow

These are from the week after we had Liam and got all that snow. Kris was going out to shovel the walks and Addie and Demzi wanted ti help.

The first thing they did was go lay in the snow in the road. We live on a deadend street so no one comes down there.
Demzi was totally loving it. I forget that last year she was only 7 months so had very little experience with snow.

Last year Addie didn't like the snow and wouldn't even walk in it so I was excited to see she was getting into it too.

Here they are bundled up right before going outside. They must have kept nice and warm because at one point Addie took off her gloves and told me she didn't need them anymore she changed her mind pretty quick though.

Happy Birthday Kris!

Yesterday was Kris's birthday and I felt like I couldn't do much since I am pretty much restricted in how much I should be going out with Liam. I wanted to make it feel a little like his birthday though so I let Addie and Demzi help me plan a party. Pretty much all that involved was making a cake and wrapping a couple of presents but they were excited about it and Addie kept telling me during the day how excited dad was going to be for his party. Addie even made him a card all by herself. Anyway, so since I didn't get to do much for him here's where I get to say, happy birthday Kris! We love you!
Demzi after eating her cake, her favorite was the swedish fish on it.

Addie insisted that Kris needed her help to blow out the candles, she worked on these last two candles until I just told Kris to blow them out. Addie's blowing was getting more and more like spitting.

Here's Kris blowing out the candles. I don't have a single picture of him actually looking at the camera and smiling but that's okay.

Liam Kristopher Benson

Coming to us a week and a half before his due date, Liam Kristopher Benson was born 8 lbs 13 oz and 20 in. long. He came to us quickly, I went into the hospital at 4 and he was born at 5:56 I guess for a middle of the night labor at least it was quick. Unfortunately due to hospital restrictions Addie and Demzi weren't able to come see him and had to wait until we got home to hold him. They are both excited about their baby and are always asking to hold him.

Addie does pretty well holding him and hasn't stopped talking about how excited she is for her baby brother and all the things that she is going to teach him. Demzi just puts her arm out and says baby and lets him lay on her, she would sit there all day if we would let her.

Liam, being a December baby, was brought into the room after his bath in a nice stocking.

One of the few awake pictures from the hospital. As they were bathing him after taking him to the nursery.
Kris holding Liam right immediately after.

Big Bed Transition

Seeing how Demzi is 18months (and I'm nearly 37 weeks pregnant) we decided it was time to take her out of the crib and transition her to a big bed. We moved Addie into a bed at this age and it seemed like for the first week or so she fell asleep on the floor and it would take her about two hours to fall asleep for a nap so that is what I had prepared myself for with Demzi.

First thing we had to get bunkbeds because the original plan was (and still is after Demzi has had some time to transition) is for Addie and Demzi to share a room. Here is Addie on her new bed. I tried to get her to sleep on the bottom bunk until she was used to it but here is the logic of a 3 year old, "Mom I'm just afraid that if I sleep on the bottom that I will get out of bed and play instead of going to sleep and that would be sad." Even at that I insisted for her first nap and put her to bed on the bottom only to have her come out after and say, "I had a good nap, I got up and down all by myself" After that I figured I'd lost.

Then we moved Addie's old bed into our other bedroom for Demzi. We thought this would be a better one to start on since it was lower to the ground. I just think it's funny how tiny Demzi looks when she is in that big bed.

I just don't know what I was worried about with Demzi, she really likes her sleep. There hasn't been any falling asleep on the floor for her. She doesn't get out of bed at all. I keep thinking that at some point she will realize there is a big bucket of toes in the corner of her room and she'll be out playing but even for naps she goes right to bed. We gave her this glow worm since she was used to having a mobile playing music, and then of course she needs her blanket but then she'll go right to sleep without a peep.

Disney on Ice

Last night we went with Kris's family and took the girls to the disney princesses on ice. I wish I had pictures because both Addie and Demzi had a lot of fun. Addie was fascinated and watched the whole thing. She really didn't move or talk or anything, I'll admit this was partly due to the fact that she refused to take a nap yesterday and was super tired through the whole thing but this morning she was talking about how Jasmine was her favorite and insisted that we had to watch Aladdin this morning. While we watched she talked about seeing the princesses and how silly the genie was.

I was most worried about Demzi, being 18 months, sitting for two hours but she was so fun to watch I wish that we'd brought our camera. She watched the first half hour on Kris's mom's lap with fingers in her ears (I guess the music was too loud for her). After that she wanted to sit in a normal chair so she sat next to me. Whenever anything startled her (her reaction to Maleficent was the best) she'd jump and put both hands over her mouth and then her hands would go right back to covering her ears. She loved clapping whenever everyone else clapped and every once in a while would turn to me and say, "more mooie!(music)" All in all we had tons of fun and the girls being totally worn out barely made it out of the parking lot before they fell asleep.

More Halloween

Here are our awesome pumpkins. As always the pictures are a little out of order but oh well. This is the one that Kris carved (I think the one next to it is the one Demzi colored but you can barely see that)


Here is the one that I carved.


This was right before going trick or treating, Demzi wouldn't sit still for a picture with Addie so we tried to tell her to give Addie a kiss which got them in the same picture but neither of them looking and they were pulling funny faces.

Addie didn't last long with the mask but we told her she needed to put it on for the picture and this is what we got.

Here's Demzi happy as can be just as long as she can sit on my leg while Kris takes the picture.

Finally got them to both look and to be somewhat happy about it. So another shot of Addie as batgirl with her trick or treat bag that she has been asking to use all month. And Demzi as a bee, she usually won't keep things on her head but something about seeing Addie get dressed up made her want to get dressed up too, including the headband.

We thought that carving should be left to the adults so we just let Addie and Demzi color their pumpkins. Neither pumpkin actually ended up with a face but they had fun. I was just beginning to wonder who thought of giving Demzi a marker she had it all over her face and hands by the time she was done.

Addie worked hard on her's, it was just a bunch of scribbles at the end but I think that she colored the whole thing. I tried to get a picture of Addie with the finished product but she was less than cooperative.

This is Demzi after the ward trunk or treat. I came in and set her down and she pretty much told me off, "No! My Candy!" She's getting to be quite the talker. I came back down to find her like this, pulling out her candy and looking at every piece (she would occasionally try to bite through the wrappers)

Halloween parties

I have tons of Halloween pictures, these are just from the two family parties that we had.

At the Thompson family party we played "twisted" Alicia made it up and it was tons of fun. Demzi just kept watching everyone and then she would lay down next to them in some weird position.


The grandkids love doing the Halloween pinata. Demzi was crazy, she was yelling at it while she was swinging the bat. She loved it.

Addie got really into it this year too, she didn't even need our help hitting it.

Scott trying to give Demzi kisses, this time Demzi was being somewhat cooperative.

Even though Addie was bat girl last year she insisted that she wanted to be bat girl again. Everytime I tried to get a picture of her though she was holding this gun for some reason or another.

Kris and I the hippies.

Aspen makes me laugh, she saw Kris taking a picture so she turned to him and posed. I think they were trying to get one with all of the kids.

Demzi likes Halloween but is a little freaked out by it. She likes dressing up but isn't convinced that everyone else should look so weird. As a result she didn't want to be put down a whole lot.

This is the Benson family party, there aren't as many pictures of this probably because I was a little preoccupied with it being at my house and all. This was the cookies decorating portion of it. Demzi wasn't sure why she had a cookie with frosting on it in front of her. She would much rather eat her candy straight.

Addie kind of got the idea, she first tried the cookie plain, then with just frosting, then she pushed a whole handful of skittles into the frosting and that was the winner. The whole idea was to decorate your pumpkin but became an excuse to eat huge amounts of sugar.

Here's the family shot. Two hippies, bat girl and a bee. One of these days we could try a them (Alicia always has a cute theme) but Addie might be too opinionated for that.

Pretend Cars

In an effort to save the cupboard on our entertainment center from breaking we have made it so that Addie and Demzi can't play in there. However, one Sunday before church Addie had been playing while I was getting ready and was sure that it was her car. I finally got her to stop crying about it because I told her I would get her a box that she could pretend was a car. Of course Demzi needed one too.


Funny how when you change the game it's just not the same. While I'm sure the entertainment center didn't really move or have a steering wheel it made Addie so sad that her box wouldn't move on it's own and even with a paper plate for a steering wheel it's not the same as a "real driver" as she calls it.


Demzi however found the whole thing completely entertaining and just sat in her box for a good twenty minutes rocking back and forth.

Going to bed

I don't know if Addie does this every night because usually Kris and I come back downstairs after getting the girls down but the other night we decided to stay upstairs and just read in our room and we were getting a complete kick out of Addie. She was in her room singing which usually means just yelling but this time we heard her sing "ABC's", "C is for Cookie" "Old McDonald" and "BINGO." The best thing is that she knew every word to these songs and was totally keeping herself entertained in there. I started laughing when she was singing "C is for Cookie" from sesame street because after she finished she started making up her own words, "C is in ice cream and ice cream's good with cookies" and she just sang that over and over. I think she lasted for a half an hour in there before she finally sang herself to sleep. The next morning when she came into our room she climbed up in bed and first thing she said to me was, "I can sing Tell me Baby mom, I practiced last night so that I could sing for Grandma and Grandpa." Apparently that was what it was all about. She just wanted something new to perform on Sunday when we talked on the webcam again.

Demzi officially thinks that she is just as big as everyone else. It started when we put her in the highchair and she screamed and pushed her food off and I assumed she was sick and wasn't going to eat. (This picture here she had her bowl up on her head right before I took it then she chucked it on the floor)

So then she climbed on the chair and wanted me to give her her cereal, Addie was accommodating enough to do it for me. She fed her a bowl of dry cereal this way (it's no wonder the kitchen is such a mess after breakfast).

Finally I broke down and got the booster out so that she could officially sit with the rest of the family, sometimes she is still not convinced that she should be in a booster either but at least she will sit and eat again so we'll try it for a while. She would be even more happy though if I just let her sit at the table without anything, I just know the mess that would mean after.

Funny things Addie says

It's funny how all of the sudden without any help from me Addie has learned to play pretend. Her new favorite game is to play house, she doesn't call it that but she always tells me to come up to her room and she'll make me some dinner. She'll be the mom, I'll be the dad and Demzi is the sister. And if I don't eat my dinner then I can go to time out. Or if I tell her I don't like the ravioli then I can go to time out. Can you tell we have a picky eater? And apparently even if dads don't eat their dinner they will also go to timeout.


Another one she has started is every morning she asks me if the sun is up yet. This is my fault because one Saturday night when we were getting the girls ready for bed I said, "we better be sure to close these blinds, on the off chance Addie actually sleeps until the sun comes up tomorrow" (she is up by 6:30 every morning). Then last night she asked me over and over, "mom, can I have donuts when I wake up tomorrow at 7:30, after the sun comes up?" I don't know where she got the time 7:30 from, pretty sure I haven't said anything about it but she is constantly surprising me with what she comes up with.


Other new phrases:
"There is no time to waste"
"This is not a game"
"That would be fun"
"I sure am!" (or did depending on if what she is responding to)
"mom, you need to focus " (near as I can tell this is from cars)
"Just a quick little second"

Mostly she'll just talk your ear off. I don't know if she stops talking, but it keeps me constantly entertained.

Hats

Back in the day Kris apparently collected hats. Up until recently, when we bought a house, it has always stayed at his parents'. Now it is in our family room and the girls can play with those hats, usually when I'm cooking dinner.

I don't know what is with this hat but Addie doesn't realize that it doesn't go all the way over her face so she just walks around blind.


Addie puts this hat on and pretends that she is hunting animals. I believe here she was showing me the elephant that she just caught.


They both really like this umbrella hat.


Of course Demzi has to have one over the eyes, she is too big for help to get these on and she hasn't figured out how to get it all the way back yet.


Both Addie and Demzi love this hat, Demzi likes to pull it over her eyes then yell, "Boo!" when she pulls it off.

Putting in a Yard

Here's our pile of dirt. We've finally gotten around to starting the process, as of the last couple of weeks the task has been to do our sprinkler system. Now we are to the point where we can fill in the trenches so I've been trying to do some of that while the girls play outside. Addie loves to go outside and look for rocks. We have tons to choose from but she is looking for the painted rocks, we had blue stakes come out and now have some red, yellow and orange rocks laying around. And Demzi, she just likes to eat the dirt. She had her own hand shovel and would stir the dirt around so she could get a handful, I think she's eaten half our yard already. (Never mind her gross nose and sad face, she was just mad that I left to get the camera)