Christmas Time!

Christmas was great!  I didn't get very many pictures as I didn't use my camera much and when I did it died.  Oops!  I did get a few choice videos though!

First, while at the Great Canadian Barn Dance B&B Santa came and visited and left us a few treats on Christmas Eve before he made his rounds while we were sleeping!  My favorite was my niece telling Santa that she has been good.  Afterwards her eyes were just big and amazed and she could hardly believe that Santa had really come!

Next we have our re-enactment of the Nativity.  I loved watching Mary with Jesus (Taylor).  She sat there holding her for a long time after we finished.  All the little girls gathered around and cooed over Taylor.  Sorry if it is a bit shaky!

Lastly, but not the least, Taylor is officially a roller!  She has been working on it quite diligently this past week and now I have seen her roll from tummy to back and back to her tummy.  Oh, and this makes for a happy mama, Taylor is sleeping in Kimber's room now.  Yay!

Happy New Year's everyone!

Pee Wee...

Herman, that is.

Guess who reminds me of Pee Wee?  In most of the pictures we took that day Benson was doing his fake smile.  You add that to his glasses and the bow tie and we have Pee Wee.

Taylor on her blessing day.  I know I already posted about this but I got more pictures and wanted to share!

Kimber looking like the princess she is!  I love her dress.  Thanks Rachel for getting it for her!

This and That

I have avoided blogging lately as it required putting my pictures onto the computer which was by all means dead!  I am a little excited to announce that I got an early Christmas present which allows me to come back on here and share our lives with you.  It is great for me, I'll let you decide if it is worth while for you or not.

We are going back a little while to birthday season in our house for this one.  I love this video and had to share it.  I am toying with the idea of sending it in to AFV.

My SIL wanted to make Cookie Monster cupcakes and I graciously said that we could do them for McKay's birthday party gathering so I wouldn't have to think of something to do.  They turned out awesome... Thanks Rach!

McKay was pretty cute at Taylor's baby blessing.  He had an old camera and was taking pictures tourist style!

Sadly this is the best picture I have of Taylor the day of her blessing.  This is the dress that my Mom, Sister, Kimber and I were blessed in.  I am grateful that my Mom was able to find it and bring it just days after getting home from her mission.  It was great to see my parents again.  I really missed them.  It was almost as bad as when they went to Japan for a year.  Luckily I had my best friend living with me this time to help me miss them a little less... just a little.  Oh, and I guess having 4 kids around also helped distract me a bit.  No matter how I look at it though I am so grateful that they are home and look forward to spending Christmas with them!

Hmm, now I see that it is half past late o'clock and I need to get some beauty rest before my little sleepless beauty wakes up to eat.

Birthdays!

We have just finished Birthday season in our home!  Here are a couple of cute videos of my November birthday boys!

Happy birthday Daniel and McKay!  Who knew McKay was so awesome at blowing out candles?!

McKay loved blowing!  We are doing cake on Sunday night (they only got muffins on their bday) so he will have more fun blowing out candles then!

Last but certainly not least, my smiley baby.  I love her squinty eyes when she smiles!!

Rachel & Spencer

We had a bit of a busy weekend here.  It was a great kind of busy though!  Daniel's only sister got married on Saturday!  I can hardly believe she is married, but we are so happy that she has found Spencer.  There are a ton of pictures here, so enjoy!  

It was quite cold but they braved it for some pictures outside the Temple.

I love their candid faces in this one!

Mom and Dad with the newlyweds!

Kimber was a flower girl and has been so excited for the wedding.  Now she keeps asking if there are 3 weddings so she can wear her dress more.  She was also really excited to hold flowers and kept asking for them.  For some reason we wouldn't let her take them in the car with us.  By the end of the night they were pretty thrashed.

Kimber was pretty inseparable from Auntie Rachel.  During the program at the family dinner Kimber kept going up and sitting on Rachel's lap.

Smelling their flowers.

There is a really special bond between these two.  Benson kept asking to have a picture taken of him and Taylor.

I need to crop this one still but I love this one!

Bateman family.  This will most likely be the last full family picture for the next 2ish years with Jordan going on his mission soon.

The couples were told to kiss each other.  Poor Jordan missing out!

Bride and Groom with our family.  This is the only family picture we have right now so this will probably be our Christmas card... not to spoil the surprise or anything!

Bateman siblings.

Giving some attitude!

Feeling the love!

This was the best picture I got of my kids with Rachel and Spencer.

The previous picture was not good enough for Benson, he had to be holding Taylor.  I sure hope they keep this relationship as they get older.  It really just melts my heart watching him with her.

So this is the last I got before my camera died.  I wanted to film their family dinner for them but my camera had other ideas.  I guess that when Spencer and Rachel first started dating Spencer, the king of puns, mentioned that it would be funny to 'cut the cheese' instead of a cake when he got married.  Well some brie was at the wedding for them to cut.  So classy!

Congrats Rachel and Spencer!

Happy Halloween

We have been having so great Halloween fun around here this week.  Warning there are a few videos in this post!!

Getting our Pumpkin on!

Kimber got the little pumpkin from Rachel's Bridal Shower and wouldn't let us use it for the this.  When I told Daniel my idea all of a sudden she was cool with the big pumpkin eating her little one.  She carried her pumpkin around for 2 days, it was her treasure!

We brought out the costumes out for the kids to see the night before Halloween and they got pretty excited!

McKay being a puppy.

Princess Kimber, she was so excited to have a princess dress.

Hahaha!  This is my favorite!  Benson wasn't sure if he wanted to be Batman or a Vampire, specifically Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I told him he should be Batman while the costume still fit.

She is getting to be such a big girl.  I can hardly believe she will be 3 months old next week!!

Taylor and I chilled at home after doing a little Trick-or-Treating.

My cute little Taylor Monkey Mae.

McKay went out with the big kids around our complex but was pretty done.  I had him put his candy in a bowl while Benson and Kimber went out for more.

He kept putting his feet on top of the bowl and resting.  He really enjoyed getting to eat the candy!!

Kimber's incredible haul.

Benson's haul.

When Benson left for school this morning we had a layer of ice on our van.  I took this picture at 10:30 about 2 hours after he left.

This picture was just after 2.  I am loving the snow!!  I feel like we are going to have a real winter this year!!  Yay!  I was sad that the kids didn't get to go tobogganing last year.  This year for sure! 

Nutshell of October

I don't know where the last month has gone.  I keep avoiding the blog though because I put my pictures on our desktop and it is on it's last legs.  I avoid using it until necessary.  Hopefully soon I will have a new desktop I can use.  I sure hope Santa reads my blog! ;)

Have I mentioned that McKay wears glasses?  He got these a little over a month ago.  They last about 50 hours before the broke.  After he got them back they lasted 3 weeks.  Hopefully when we get them back they will last a bit longer!

I love this picture!  Auntie Rachel comes over once in a while for a pick me up with the kids.  Rachel is getting married in 12 days and Kimber is super excited to be her flower girl.  Keep a look out for pictures in the coming weeks!

Kimber performing for the camera.  She has started to copy Benson a lot so when he tells her to do a face she will do it.  My favorite is 'Squish face, Stretch face'.  She does this to me at night time and the way she says it cracks me up!

My McKay man.  Sometimes I feel like he gets forgotten on here.  Mom this shows his snaggle tooth I was telling you about.  He kept getting a bigger and bigger space until an extra tooth appeared.

My Benson boy showing off his second tooth that he lost.  He pulled this out while all the guys were at the Priesthood session of conference.  The rest of us had a good time here with Chinese food!

Kimber got her hair braided as part of the party.  Then her braids were braided and those were put into a ponytail.  She would not let me take the pony out at bed time though.  What a cutie!

They got some story time with Grandma!

There is no picture at the beginning of this video, it will kick in part way into it.  McKay was singing to get me up one morning.  Personally I just love his song!

This is the same morning when I went to get Kimber up.  Not quite the singing get up but still my cutie.

Taylor has really started to talk the last couple of weeks.  If I coo at her she will talk back which is super fun!  She is happy, smiley little girl!  She will be 3 months old in just about a week.  The time has really flown by way too quickly.  She has gotten out of the newborn stage which makes me kinda sad.  It is fun to see her looking around and cooing a lot though.

Benson is doing well with school.  He doesn't like going into school though.  Once he is there he does great but getting him to leave us when we drop him off has been tricky.  We have given the kids one point to use on media for how old they are.  Kimber is 3 so she gets 3 points, Benson is 5 so he gets 5 points.  We have resorted to taking points away if he puts up a huge fuss.  Hopefully this will pass soon!

We are getting geared up for Halloween here.  Daniel has a costume idea that he can wear to work and the kids have their costumes together.  I am trying to decide if I will dress up this year or not.  I am fresh out of ideas though.

Last but certainly not least, my brother in law got his mission call this past week.  On February 27 he will be reporting to serve in the Jamaica, Kingston Mission.  I had feeling he would be on an island, although I was thinking more South Pacific than in the Caribbean!  Daniel guessed Central America so between the two of us we kinda got it.  Congrats Jordan!  You are going to be an amazing missionary!