Ben and Alyssa: January 2013

Family Together...

After getting back from Idaho in the beginning of December,

we put up our little apartment Christmas tree.

It was so nice having a little Christmas decor in our home before heading down to my parents for the holidays.

Our little family together before Ben headed into finals week.

Soo glad he made it through and did so well on all his tests. Congrats babe!!

Picnic lunch with Bry-Bry!

One snowy evening during the holidays my family headed out to an indoor mini golf and arcade family center.

We had such a blast playing the black light mini golf and assortment of arcade games!

Snuggling with my favorite little boy while watching Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman!

Happy New Year!!!

We enjoyed a night out to dinner with family and friends, and my moms famous BINGO game party with awesome prizes!

We rang in the new year with lots of horns, whistles, poppers and confetti :)

It was a great celebration for a fresh start to 2013!!

2012 was a year full of many changes, great opportunities and bounteous blessings- looking forward to having Hallie join our family and enjoying many more sweet moments together!

White Christmas

The most wonderful day of the year finally came :)

Christmas was wonderful!

It was fun to think that last time we were with my family on Christmas I was pregnant with Bryson, and this year Bryson is 2.5 and was sooo fun to watch open his presents and get really excited about each one.

(Everytime he open a gift he turned to Ben and said "Daddy peeeese," wanting him to open the toy and put it together right there and then. It was fun trying to get him to keep going and finish opening his treasures before getting into them all ;)

AND this year I'm pregnant again with our second, but this time with our first little girl!

Bryson opening his very first present...

And to top it off, we DID have a white Christmas :)

We got lots of snow to play in after we unwrapped all our gifts!

Bryson wanted to build an "iceman" as he calls them, so we did.

First came the scary one and then came the silly one.

They were little, but he loved them!

Sledding around the yard while Daddy, Grandpa and uncle Natey shoveled the driveway.

Although we missed all our family that we couldn't be with, we had an amazing Christmas!

We can't wait for our little Hallie to get here, but it was super sweet to enjoy one last Christmas with just the three of us :)

Christmas Eve

Every year my family heads over to a good family friends home for a fun

Christmas Eve party!

It's been a while, but this year Ben, Bry and I got to join them :)

It was so much fun eating yummy foods, catching up on sweet memories, enjoying Christ's birth reenactment by the children & Santa's little visit!

Even though my Dad got to play Santa this year, Bry was still too scared to sit on his lap- but brave enough to at least talk to him :)

We kept saying "it's grandpa Bry, it's just grandpa," but he still wasn't so sure ;)

Later that night when I was tucking him in to bed I said "time to go to sleep so Santa can come," and he said "papa" (what he calls my dad), "papa's coming?"

I think the kid is officially confused...we'll have to do a little more explaining next year :)

Our little shepherd boy <3

Getting ready to play our annual pipe chimes to our favorite Christmas songs :)

The children acting out the nativity scene.

After the party we headed home to exchange our secret Santa gifts, wrap a few last presents and headed to bed hoping for a little snow :)

Boston With My Sisters

Life has just flown by.

Now that everything is beginning to settle down and life is getting back to "normal,"

I have A LOT to play catch up on- including my blog posts, soooo

her goes...

Back in December, my sister Mary flew in from SLC for three weeks of FUN!!!

First stop-exploring B-town :)

We had such a blast hopping on the train, exploring museums, strolling downtown, eating scrumptious seafood and delicious pastries (found @ Quincy Market), shopping at all the little boutiques, enjoying the Christmas lights and decorations, and tasting the VERY best (rated the #1 ice cream in Boston) at JP Licks!!