proud uncle and aunt

Josh and i are so in love with each one of our niece and nephews and we think we have the cutest kiddos in the whole world that I had to post a picture of each of them.

Kole

Madelyn

Boe

Grant



Luke

We are so excited for our little guy to get here so he can join this bunch of awesome kids!

Merry Christmas

We stayed the night at my parents house christmas eve and was able to wake up and open our gifts to each other there. after breakfast Josh and I ventured over to his parents and opened more great gifts. when we got home everyone was back at my parents and ready to have more fun. The kiddos really really liked having all their cousins there to play with. Josh and sweet Mads. she was sick, but really excited to got a ballerina outfit and shoes.

We did a lot more playing of the Wii. My dad rocked to bowling! we kept getting strikes and then doing his sweet victory dance!

our presents to each other. we stuck to a very tight budget this year and we both got really great gifts. Josh did a great job considering he couldn't get me any clothes.

Santa got us a glidder rocker for baby sonic's room!





Every year we have a delicious prime rib dinner. cory and brent preparing the yummy meat.

Christmas day was great! I'm exciting for next year with our little guy here to celebrate with! I love my family and glad that we had such a great christmas together.
I also marked my 7th month and 3rd week of being pregnant on christmas day!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

as far back as i could remember we always celebrated christmas eve with my aunt and all her kids. this year the families decided to do our own thing. Tyson and Amanda was able to come home for christmas. They stopped for christmas eve and then went to her family in Oregon. It was such a great day of being with my awesome family and doing a lot of laughing and eating.

here is my sweet Luke in his cute christmas jammies. I've really missed my Kole and luke and was so excited to spend this day with them.

Everyone did A LOT of playing the Wii! it was a big hit this year.

we were able to get a decent family picture with all of us in it.

My family still stuck to tradition and did our christmas eve program. it was more short and sweet this year, with a fun game, christmas story, jen and I playing the piano and finishing with the story of the birth of christ from the scriptures. then it was time to exchange sibling and cousin gifts! Cory and Jenny had us this year and they gave us a nice set up hair clippers! i'm going to learn how to cut Josh's hair!! and luke had baby sonic and he gave him some little socks and some sweet books.

during the day the kids went out back and went sledding. my parents had a ton of snow at their house and a huge rock pile which was perfect for them to sled down.


all around it was a great christmas eve. everyone had a great time and we all ate way too much! I also took way way to many pictures and wish I could post all of them becuase I think my family is super cool!

Rockettes

my mom LOVES the Rockette dancers are was so exciting that they were coming to Boise. She gave us two tickets to the show for my birthday. So the three of us went to a nice dinner and then over to the show. it was fabulous and amazing that those girls can be so on point with their moves. it was a great way to start the Christmas week.

light house

so on my birthday since we didn't go to the botanical garden we heard of this house in boise that puts on a light show to music. we thought what the heck lets go check it out. it was AMAZING! you just drive in and park in front of their house, turn your radio to the station and enjoy the show. it last about 30 minutes and played all the great christmas songs. we will definitely go back next year.
I'll try to upload the video i took.

Big Boe

Boe's birthday was on the 16th and they had a little party for him on my birthday!

We was really into every gift he got and we didn't want anything to do with his cake!

i can't believe that baby Boe is already 1 year old! time really flies by these days.

Christmas party

every year our friends the Benefields host an ugly sweater christmas party. it's always so much fun with all the food and white elephant gift exchange, games and lots of laughs with our friends.

I knew i would get really hot so i bought these t-shirts to wear under our sweaters

So option 1: the santa shirts

options2: the ugly sweaters

old lady

it was my birthday on Saturday! it started off on friday, josh didn't work so we spent the day together and little Mads. The next day Josh made me breakfast in bed and we just lounged for a while. got ready for Boe's birthday party, went shopping(josh and baby got stuff), and then went to dinner. I was really wanting to go to the botanical garden and look at the amazing lights, but it was a blizzard outside when we left the restaurant.

I was so excited to get a popcorn popper! i've been craving healthy yummy popcorn.

before we left for dinner

oh ya we made a very impulse buy and went to walmart at midnight and bought the red Wii! it was on a great deal and we've been wanting one. We've been playing with it a lot!


Sunday my family came over to our house to celebrate my birthday! it's always a great time to hang out with my family. I had a great birthday weekend and i actually feel old this birthday!

GNO

Me and two of my favorite friends had a Girls Night out! Jill, Tricia and i went out to eat and had a ton of laughs and a lot of girl talk.

i'm so excited that mine and Jill's babies are due about 5 weeks apart. hopefully they'll be good friends or who knows maybe she'll have a girl and they will get married one day! :)

ME: due march 8th Jill: due January 23rd

she has a cute round belly and mine is wide and long!
Tricia was in charge of the camera and kept snapping pictures when i wasn't ready, but Jill is always ready for a candid moment! there are a lot more of these bad pictures of me but of course i'm not going to embarrass myself that bad!

group shot! Tricia was feeling left out of the pregnant group so she stuffed a pillow up her sweater. she's so funny! i'm so happy i have friends that can always make me laugh really hard and can talk about ANYTHING with!

feeling the growth

i'm SEVEN months pregnant! that's just shocking that it's going by so fast! i also can't believe that jill is about to have her baby in a few weeks! So anxious to know what she is having. Anyways.... I can't sleep because i'm in such discomfort. I'm always flipping from side to side and getting up to go to the bathroom a lot. my back hurts most days and it's no fun when he's sitting up in my lungs and the weight gain but, besides those little complaints i'm loving having this sweet baby growing inside of me and people asking questions and exciting about our baby. a couple at church gave up their seats on the bench for me because i'm pregnant! I'm just not ready to share him yet with everyone else! i love having him with me 24/7 and having experiences only i can feel!

oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree

first off my camera is really frustrating my that it's not taking good pictures!

We put up our Christmas tree a week ago and it's beautiful. i love putting it up and the fresh tree smell filling the house. I'm especially proud of our mantel.

josh's job is to put up the lights on the tree. While we decorated i put us in the christmas mood by watching a christmas movie. it was a great night!


the frustrating thing about finding a tree is finding a tree. every year we think we find a spot that has great trees for cheaper. then you get there and expensive and the next place is as well. finally you just cave in a buy a tree from Lowes!
that's our story. :)

recap

past week or so we've gotten a lot a lot of snow. it's been fabulous! i've been really into shoveling the snow off the driveway and sidewalks. josh feels really bad watching his pregnant wife do it, but i just can't get enough of it. this picture is of me doing it when we were leaving for church. Jakobson family got together last saturday and went to the caldwell night christmas parade. it was really good actually and there were a ton of people there. the lights around the creek were beautiful and made me so excited for christmas. i really felt like a stuff sausage in my ski jacket.

Not a lot is going on at the willden house. josh works a lot and still going out of town. i find stuff to keep myself busy during the day! I started making baby boys christmas stocking for next year and that's a big project. baby's room is slowing coming together. I had a Dr appt today to get tested for gestational diabetes and i'm crossing my fingers i don't' have it. I also start going every 2 weeks now. we really are on the downhill slide now. very exciting. it's fun to see my belly grow and move a lot!. i'm excited for December and all the awesome christmas activities that are to come.

oh i never blogged about Thanksgiving. it was our turn to be will Josh's family and it was very low key and just his little family all together. it was so nice and we really had a great time. the boys went hunting that morning and i went to my mom's to bake pies and watch the macy's day parade.