Merry Christmas cont.

Here are the Photos to go with the last post:
This is my bragging rights of a wall... I painted this in high school and I was going to show Julie and then I forgot... so I thought this would sufice for now.

This is our last family picture before we start sending people off on missions... Good luck Jaron!

Eliza wasn't too fond of Santa (this was Ben's work party)

But she did enjoy the Christmas tree!!

This was Santa at the ward party and it was a little better than the work party...

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas every one!!!

I hope that everyone's Christmas was as wonderful as ours has been! Ben worked Monday and Tuesday but he had the rest of the week off. We have had tons and tons of fun hanging out with family all week. Hailey, Brian, Jackson, and Grant all got into town last week and Eliza has loved following the boys around and doing everything she can with them. Eliza is just in love with those boys and she's going to really miss them when they go home. It's been adorable to watch Grant let her follow him around and help her play with things.

Christmas day was fantastic! We started out at our own house where we got to open some fun new thing! I got a new coat (it's fantastic!) and Ben got new bindings for his snowboard and a remote control helecopter. That is just to name a few gifts I really can't list them all it's too much stuff! After our house we went to the Merritt house for breakfast and christmas morning which was great! Eliza got some awesome toys from Everyone! Ben and I got a Wii from his parents (THANK YOU!!!) which we've already spent waaaaaaay to many hours playing... so it's mostly me who has a problem with how much I play... After the Merritt house we went and had dinner at the Waite household and exchanged gifts there which resulted in us being spoiled rotten with a new printer for me to print my scrapbook pages!! and rummikub to play together and a shop vac for Ben. Eliza got too many toys to list but she's successfully rotated through them all in her play. She didn't get much sleep with all the excitement of the day so she passed out pretty much as soon as we strapped her in her car seat to go home. But over all it was a fantastic day!

Today we went to Loveland to listen to Jaron speak before he leaves on his mission. Lucky for us my aunt and uncle (John and Julie) and two of their boy's (Skyler [12] and Cliff, with his wife Emily and their two kids) all happened to be around and they came to listen to his talk and have dinner with us. It was a lot of fun and I think Jaron appriciated the support and the time to talk to Cliff who served his mission in the same place! it was a blast getting to see everyone and meet the ones we haven't met before. Jaron's talk was wonderful I just want to know where my shy little brother went and who took over his body! We took our final family picture before Jaron leaves on his mission and spent the day socializing and letting the kids play. Good food and good company is always a good combination!

We are looking forward to our next adventures in the comming week! and we wish all those who are headed home in the next few days a safe and uneventful travel! I'll post some pictures tomorrow for your viewing pleasure!

This is a late update but still the same...

Eliza is just great she's enjoying being a newly one yr old. She has been tons of fun to watch recently as she is trying to talk so much more and she just loves stories and toys. She's not really walking but the video is her doing it her own way. She just cracks everyone up when she'll walk across the room like that!

Last week was mellow. I watched Jane and Macie one day which was fun and uneventful (thankfully). Ben worked and spent lots of time in the truck for work... too bad for him. The weekend was nice and busy, Eric had his eagle project and we had the ward Christmas party. Grandpa Merritt sang in it and Ben participated in a funny chime song. (there is video of that and sorry for the poor picture quality.)

so this week was good as well busy with Christmas activities for enrichment, Ben was a food pep guy for that and so Eliza got her first ever Nursery experience and she seemed to really enjoy it. at least until she got tired and saw daddy then she cried but it was almost 2 hrs past her normal bedtime so I'll cut her some slack. Wednesday night I had the activity with the youngwomen and we worked on some bracelets that are for personal progress stuff and they're beautiful! Today Ben went up to Eldora to get a run on his snowboard before our new years trip. So other than that we're all happy and content!