Santa's Little Helper

Christmas in Florida

It may not snow here, but some people get into the Christmas spirit like I've never seen before. Exhibit A. The Hyatt family. They start decorating in AUGUST! After Thanksgiving, they open up their yard for people to walk through, set out punch and cookies and have a big screen with cartoons playing.
Vanessa was terrified of this Santa and wouldn't get near it.
I also have to mention that even though I am in a t shirt and capris, it was NOT warm this night. I froze! I have now accepted that it does get cold, even in Florida, and I have to wear warm clothes.
Exhibit B (and my personal favorite) is yet to come...

The Twins Become Big Bertha...HELP!

I have a SERIOUS problem. For no apparent reason, my left side has shut down production. Okay, not shut-down, but taking it a little too easy? I suppose this might be why Benson still eats so often. He gets enough for sure, it's just mainly out of one side and he can rarely make it four hours. But the problem here is that having one side produce that much LOOKS a little funny. Call me vain but I don't want ONE big bertha. I am obviously and uncomfortably lopsided. So why am I exposing this embarrasing dilemma? That's right! Help! Any and all advice welcome, from those experienced in this area preferable.

Happy Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving feast: Hotdogs, soda and apple pie on the beach.

I tried to get Lynette to do a bikini photo shoot, but this is all I got.

This face plant was on purpose... guess she wanted to see what sand tastes like.

Life is good.

Halloween...just in time for Thanksgiving

So I am more than a little slow on this post, but I had to go in chronological order and I was really behind.
For Halloween we got all dressed up and headed over to the church for a Trunk or Treat. Vanessa was so excited she feel asleep in the car and so did Benson :) We actually couldn't wake her up, which has happened maybe twice in her whole life. Jon tried standing her up and she still stayed asleep!


Benson was a black widow.

And Vanessa was Belle

My Two Cuties

These were taken October 28. We spend a lot of time on our bed, ironically. Vanessa usually naps on our bed because it is the one room in the house that is only for sleeping. Her room is also the office and quite used during nap time (such as for blogging, or Jon studying). And after a nap, of course we spend some time on the bed waking up. We also do baths in our bathroom (for some random reason the plug in the other bathroom doesn't work), so after a bath, they both end up on the bed getting diapered. I pulled out the camera this day because the lighting was so perfect. Vanessa was in a super funny mood and kept trying to put my glasses on both herself and Benson. I think the poor kid got poked in the eye. But he is such a trooper with her. I think he's going to have to put up with a lot.

Benson

Vanessa at the pumpkin patch

We have a million more to go through, but here are a few. She is in a camera hate stage. She doesn't like to look at us when we are even holding the camera. We've tried everything, noises, random objects to look at, treats, she's not buying it. But she is really good at the GQ look :) Jon thinks she looks a lot like me in the second picture.

So Behind....

Here are a few pics taken of Benson October 22 and 23. I can't believe this was a month ago. He's already so much chubbier. We'll catch up one of these days. This was about the time he started smiling for real. Maybe a week or two earlier. But this is the first smile we caught on the camera. He smiles and coos like crazy now. We sure do love the little guy.

Thanks for reminding me why I don't want to live in a big city and why I love the church

The day started out great. I took the kids to the park and even went for a run afterwards. I met some new ladies from the Fort Lauderdale ward, who were all very nice. I went to put Benson in his car seat when I realized I had no window. That's right, some jerk bashed in my window and stole my purse.
Now you may remember in April 2009 I had my purse stolen from my shopping cart. I will acknowledge on that account that I was slightly careless. I left my purse like a sitting duck and that is just too tempting for some folk.
This time however, I had learned my lesson. There are signs all over the park, Lock your Car! Don't leave valuables in your car! My feeling was that if I take my purse with me, I might leave it somewhere while chasing down Vanessa or some other unforeseen event so it's safer left in the car. Obviously, we must hide it in the car though. So hide it I did. I hid it very well actually, underneath the seat with Benson's car seat. I checked and you couldn't even see it was there. Well, apparently hiding things isn't good if there are people watching you get out of your car! I guess this is the latest trend. They watch for women to leave, where they put (hide) things, what they leave behind or take with them. And then they strike! Those dirty rotten scoundrels.
Of course my phone battery would die while at the park too. Luckily some of my new friends were leaving at the same time as me and they lent me their phones. One lady even happened to have an infant car seat since Benson's was full of shattered glass. One of them stayed with me until Jon was able to come and let Vanessa watch Tarzan with her son, a very messy and dirty Vanessa no less.
We called the police of course. They came and took prints but we all know that will amount to nothing.
In the end, what did the darn crook end up with? My Utah driver's license with my old address (I'm kind of glad I didn't change it now), my credit cards which are all canceled now, $22 in cash, a $50 gift card to Besty Buy, $30 gift card to JcPenney, some mace (maybe he can use it on himself!), probably a binky and a toy or two.
And what does it end up costing us? A whole lot of hassle, time to get my new drivers license and however much that will cost, canceling all our cards and getting new ones, new insurance cards, and a new window (the insurance will cover it after our $1000 deductible, it better not even come close!)
I really do like Florida but it's days like these that I'm glad it isn't permanent. I'll be happy somewhere in the country, population 5000.

It's That Time of Year

We are in South Florida until December 17. Then we'll be heading to Utah until January 2. Let us know if you want family pictures done. You can check out our website:
jayellephotography.webs.com

We decided to take on the zoo using the charriot a.k.a. "the batmobile." Vanessa didn't last very long inside, but Benson slept through it all.


Vanessa wasn't too sure about the crazy long black tongue coming out of these giraffes.


This is Vanessa running onto the splash pad at the zoo

This is Vanessa running off the splash pad at the zoo

Beach Days

Benson's first trip to the beach happened October 1. The wind seemed to bug him a little but I think he'll love it as much as we do.


This was obviously not the same beach day, but a cute picture. I decided it was worth posting.