Thankful for our Thanksgiving weekend!

What a great Thanksgiving celebration with our families. After a fun day at the Olsen's on Thursday we got up early Friday morning and headed down to Chehalis for Thanksgiving round two. We stayed down there all weekend and what a fabulous weekend it was. As usual we had fun family time with the kids and I always sit back at the end of these weekends and think about how lucky we are! All of these moments are definately what the holidays are all about.

Cheers!...

Some Dada kisses... I love these boys!

Grandma Ruth, Great Grandma Laurie and Aunt Katie made these awesome mint chocolate cupcakes... amazing... Bennett agreed with me :)

It's Serendipity Santa Time! Bennett was absolutely thrilled, I cant wait for Christmas morning, this kid is going to go nuts!

Puting up Papa's Christmas lights with Dada and the Uncles

And of course the cousin bath... I truly love these kiddos!

Thanksgiving 2010

Today we spent at Grandma & Grandpa Olsen's and in true Olsen fashion it was a full house and a great time. Bennett has been struggling with a cold this week and was a disaster in the morning but after a 3 hour nap in his Daddy's old bedroom he was the charm of the party (well as much as a yelling, jello eating two year old can be at the dinner table)

He was talking more than he has all week and busted out with "I love you" and played with his cousin Alanzo like crazy. Thank you Grandma & Grandpa for a great Thanksgiving... Now down for round 2 tomorrow at Grandma & Grandpa Jones'.... cant wait!

This year I decided to make the green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole... neither the stars of dinner and so I thought it would be fun to find a recipe that either would  change everyone's mind on the usual duds of Thanksgiving or to bring dishes that no one would care if they tasted terrible. Although Joel loved both of them (not saying much, that guy can eat anything) I am still undecided... we will try it again tomorrow.

Grandpa and Uncle Shane entertaining the boys with loud yelling and singing.

Let it snow...

After a night full of wheezing, coughing and keeping his mama up worrying, we woke up to snow!

I promised Bennett that if he drank lots of fluids and stayed inside to keep warm until after his nap we could bundle up and go outside for just a couple minutes this afternoon... after all this is his First Real Snow!
Although he was delighted with the snow... it was quickly forgotten when he spotted Unlce Marty's tractor...

He did get to throw his first snowball at the dog, they loved it!

Holidays here we come...

So I definately realize that my family goes a little overboard on fun holiday traditions. Some examples could be matching ugly holiday pajama pants and numerous slumber parties at my parents house revolved around baking and playing board games while eating Grandpa's popcorn. The kids get to play for hours on end and I know they will grow up and look back at all these crazy family times and have memories so unique to our family. I think about the summer we have had with all the kiddos and can not believe how many fun things we have planned coming up... I cant wait and I feel sooo lucky to be a mom to a little 2 year old, celebrating his new found talking skills and enjoying it all with great family.

So in true Jones family fashion we spent the weekend sewing and making holiday jam. Another one of our family traditions growing up was the wall hang advent calendar my mom made when we were kids. It is a cute appliqued picture of a tree that you hang a new ornament on each day of December. Since I don't know how to applique I thought this would be a great project for mom to give me a lesson. It has been sooo fun and I must say, I have a bit of a knack for it :)

This is the one my mom made 30 years ago and the beginning of mine...

Bennett enjoying some of the Popcorn and his new Tractor book...

Joel, Grandpa Jones, Uncle Marty and "Uncle" Bill did some manly handy work around our house this weekend trying to take care of some trees that we had gotten worried about falling (especially after one didnt make it through the wind storm this week). Thanks guys for the hard work... we feel safer having this big tree down and it sounds like you had fun doing it.

So Joel and the rest of the guys think it is a must that I post a video of a large tree they winched down on our property. So for those that care here is a video of them working in our yard...

Big Tree Stump Coming Down

Prematurity Awareness Day

November 17th is Prematurity Awareness Day and this year Joel and I are celebrating and hoping to help create awareness. We are celebrating our son Bennett, being born at 32 weeks gestation he had a very scary battle ahead of him. Thankfully there had been research and Dr's that helped us make it to 32 weeks of pregnancy after months of bed rest and the loss of Bennett's twin brother at 20 weeks. Although we had a huge loss we are very thankful for the love of our lives... Bennett has been a fighter and has benefited from some amazing Dr's and family support and has made a near complete recovery.

In the past year we have been introduced to the March of Dimes, a great organization that "helps moms have full term pregnancies and healthy babies. And if something goes wrong, they offer information and comfort to families. They research the problems that threaten our babies and work on preventing them."

Joel and I have proudly taken the roles as the Thurston County Family Team Co-Chairs. We will assist all the Family Teams of Thurston County in their organization and fundraising for the March for Babies here in Olympia on May 7, 2011.

This is cause we are truly proud of and can not wait to get started fundraising and kick off the first year for "Bennett's Team" and the 2011 March for Babies.

For those that want to learn more please visit http://www.marchofdimes.com/ and we will keep you updated on how and when you can be part of Bennett's Team in supporting the March for Babies.
Our little man Bennett at 1 day old...

Leaving the Hospital (the first time :)

 NOW... What a sweet little man he is!

It's a blustery day in the neighborhood...

What a week we have had! I guess with all the Holiday fun comes wind rain and snow, and boy we are not ready. This is the damage remaining of the large tree that punched a hole in our ceiling... I was really worried during the storm and this was definately the scariest sound in the whole world.

We have a very upscale brown tarp (so fancy) as opposed to the ol' fasion blue one. Our great builder is on the job and has been out both days to check and make sure the rain has stayed out of the living room.

 With all the bad weather Bennett and I have been forced inside to spend all day in our pajamas!
And a great milestone this week... Bennett said his first sentance!! "Where Dada?!" After a few days now he loves to ask where everything is "Where Doggie?" Where cracker?" etc. He also picked up the phone today and said "Ga-Ma, Hello", although the phone wasnt ringing and he doesnt know how to answer it, oh well... I can not believe he is talking!!!

It's not always rain...

All I could think about when summer was coming to a very quick end was the looming months of dreary rain and Bennett crying to be outside. Although those days are part of our reality (like yesterday) there are some beautiful days in the Pacific Northwest in the fall.

Bennett and I have discovered one of Olympias treasures in the last couple weeks... Capital Lake.

We have been running around it and near the Historical Park. It is a beautiful area with lots of ducks and doggies (obviously Bennetts favorite attributes). I wont lie, Bennett hasnt fallen in love with the jogging stroller and never has but we have tried to improve his time strapped in by reading books, playing playdough (yes that is a mess) and singing. I thought jogging was hard enough but imagine how much pushing a jogging stroller while singing Old McDonald had a Farm can slow a girl down.

Thank you Matt & Kim for the hand-down jogging stroller... we are getting our use out of it :)

I have kicked myself everyday for not brining my camera... it was a little dark tonight but we had fun jogging and taking a few pics...

 If you can see his precious little tear... this was during "the battle of the binky" about halfway through our jog

 It was getting a little dark out... and brrrr it was cold... My bundled up little bundle...

 A pre-run romp in the leaves...

 And a bearded daddy home from hunting earlier this week... I cant get enough of how much his hair (Bennett's :) has grown... love it

1st Annual Cousin Sewing Weekend... the Holiday season has begun!

Picture this: 5 babies under 23 months, 7 Mamas, 5 sewing machines, matching pajamas for the mamas and babies, many fabulous meals, numerous repeat trips to the fabric store and countless bottles of wine.

This all put together was a great weekend spent in Chehalis with my sisters, mom, Aunt Pam and Cousins Emily and Sam and all their babies. When planning the weekend it sounded a bit disaster filled, I pictured little boys running sewing machines, chasing them up and down the stairs, no sewing and lots of cranky tired babies.... But, it truly couldn't have worked out better. Everyone did at least one sewing project, the babies were absolutely delightful playing together and napping (which I thought would be impossible) and it was great family time that we will always look forward to every year!
(There were many cameras there so I took the weekend off, what a treat to be able to get pictures of me and the kiddos :)

I decided on Friday morning to make a "Serendipity Santa" This was actually how this whole weekend came about, When growing up both our family and my cousin's family had these cloth bags that looked like Santa that our moms filled with 24 cute bags of goodies for every Christmas season. I remember being so excited to see what our treat for the day was as one of us girls reached into the festive little bag every day of December. It was a must for Bennett this year. I knew that if I didn't try to sew it when I had a ton of help from my sewing expert Aunt Pam I would probably never be able to do it. It turned out so cute!!! I cant wait to fill it with treats this year for Bennett, it is definitely memories in the making!

I also decided to sew a bed skirt and curtain for a future babies room. We are not expecting but we have started the process for Foster Care and Adoption (more to come about that later) hopefully it will be in our near future and I decided "if you build it, they will come..." Right?! Turned out super cute!