Christmas

I know, I'm a few days late! But Christmas was wonderful, Benjamin loved playing with the tissue paper (and his trains too)! We packed up and flew down to Ontario to Tim's parents' house on Wednesday morning. More photos to follow...

Christmas #1

We spent the day at our dear friends' house (they're as close to family as you can get without actually being related). Benjamin mostly napped, which meant that I got to visit! See my photo blog for a couple photos I took of Glen and Heather's family.

22 months old

I'm a couple days late, but I blame it on the cross-country flight with a coughing, runny nose toddler who just wanted to run around the plane and my recovery from said flight. Actually, it was a pretty easy flight, just rather exhausting! But we made it, our luggage made it, and no one was too unhappy for too long!

Benjamin is now 22 months old! I can't believe he'll be two so soon - this year has flown by! His current favorites: trains, throwing anything he can get his hands on, talking about "wewo" (yell0w) ducks, reading books, running around, and being generally adorable. We're enjoying him more and more every day!!

we've been elfed!

This is complete silliness. Click here to see our elfish family! Merry Christmas!

hold me close so i can thrive

I did some baking this week! (and too much cookie eating as well...ugh)

santa claus is coming to town.

Benjamin's first Santa experience went just as I expected it might...with tears and screaming. Here's a photo my friend Jen took. Her little boy Sam LOVED Santa (see her blog here)! Well, there's always next year...
After the Santa trauma, we went outside (since it's 78 degrees today...) and the boys played with some leaves and we took photos of each other with our respective little boys (or tried to, but the leaves were much more interesting than mama in both cases...)

jingle bells

Benjamin and I went to Meghan and Jamie's house to play/for me to photograph Jamie for Christmas card photos. Benjamin thoroughly enjoyed playing with baskets of bells!

new hair thursday...

was today! My friend Mary and I went to the Aveda Institute in Chapel Hill to get pampered...I got my shoulders rubbed, a mini-facial, awesome shampoo, and an adorable haircut for only $19! Granted, it took about 2 hours, but hey, Benjamin was having a ball at preschool at the time! I wanted a Katie Holmes-ish bob, and it's a bit longer than hers but I think I like it that way. I can always go shorter later.

Photos:
Mary and I before (being dorky in the parking lot outside of her car):
and because I had to get Benjamin and Mary had to get back home to get some real work done, the after photo is just me (one with the two of us coming soon...). I think the hair looks better in person. And it's really hard to take a picture of yourself that you think looks good, but Benjamin hasn't quite learned how to use the camera...
What do you think?? Should I go a little shorter with more layers in the front? I'll have to go back in a couple months...

busy december days

It's only december fourth and we're already excited for Christmas! So far this month...

Matt and Mary babysat, and Benjamin now has someone new to flirt with!
Then Sam and his mom Jen came over for banana bread and some playing. It was rather difficult to get the boys to stay still and close enough to each other to take a picture, but they definitely had a good time!
This is Benjamin showing off his "ga-ra" (giraffe) and his adorable Cars outfit that he got for his birthday from Bill & Danielle. And he's standing on a frisbee and holding his milk. Life is good!