Early Christmas Presents!

You may remember my dear husband made me an AMAZING bed for my birthday this year!
Well guess what he made for Christmas?!

YAY!!!!
I love it!
It's the perfect hight for me and it matches the bed perfectly!
{and I love how he put a picture of himself on it when he set it up!}

Bennett also got an early Christmas present from my cousins who came for Thanksgiving but won't be down for Christmas. If you saw my recent Disneyland post you know this is the most perfect present ever and well ... We go NOWHERE without Pooh now!

Watching Pooh while holding Pooh and working on a Pooh puzzle ... yikes!
(but at least Pooh isn't an annoying character like Elmo ... if he was obsessed with Elmo I might pull my hair out!)

Celebrating Baby #2

Last weekend I had a baby shower to celebrate the life of this little one that is coming so soon!
It was so beautiful and so perfect ... it really looked like a magazine!
I loved every second of it!
{I'm trying to consolidate the massive amount of pictures I ended up with... hopefully it works for you}

The decor was fabulous! I loved the bird cages!

I have ridiculously good looking friends! 

So much food that all tasted sooooo good!
{did you see how cute those bird cookies were?!}

Gifts, Gifts, Gifts!
{Check out the "Starry Night" in the bottom left corner - Unbelievable!}

There's nothing better than spending a rainy afternoon with people you love, eating yummy food and opening presents!

Thank you to all my fabulous party planners who made this day so special and wonderful!
Baby Elwer and I feel very, very loved!

Bed

So I guess this could have been included in my birthday blog but that was already way too long and this needed to be highlighted with it's own blog because it is just that amazing! 

Adam told me about a week before my birthday that he had decided he was going to make me something for my birthday but that we wanted to show me a picture of it first to make sure I liked it. So I told him it was okay if he broke the surprise early and he pulled up a website and showed me a really pretty bed frame. He said the site had all the direction on how to make it yourself and that the cost was estimated at only $80 (which I might add was not the REAL total. I think the website was using wood prices from the 1950's) 

Anyways, after getting all the wood, he set off to working in the garage ....

A couple weeks later while I was gone at discipleship I came home and this is what my bedroom looked like! Pretty rad huh?!

(adam made the picture a few years back) 

I love having a husband who can build stuff and I love that he can find awesome projects online so that we get this amazing bed for what would have been at least $1300 from Pottery Barn! 

Where has the time gone...

So if there is anyone still reading this, you may remember I mentioned some computer issues and me having a Christmas job... well, those two things came together and they got the best of me and thus the blog sort of died.

But let's be honest, blogging is far less important than these two:

But nonetheless, blogging is fun and thus I will continue! 

Bennett has been learning and changing so much! 

The change that comes to mind right now is this:

Yes, he's learned that he has power of this clothes.

Both to remove and to put on ... I'm staying busy.

SOooooo, here's a brief

not even boxer briefs, just plain 'ol tighty whitey breifs 

over view of December:

Advent of course occurred

 as did Hanukkah! Oy Vey!

My brother Aaron made it out from the frozen tundra of Wyoming for a visit

We went to Christmas Eve service 

check out the cute cello player

We got dressed up in Christmas PJ's and went and looked at lights!

We opened presents...

... both store bought 

... and homemade! 

(it's a jewelry holder)

and we had tons of fun doing all of it!

again with the no clothes... where are that kids parents?

Adam and I worked on this project together:

(We are for hire ... no joke)

We had to say good bye to our good friends the Durham's who moved to Texas

Bennett figured out where the advent candy is stored

 

... and was asking for it non stop! 

Basically, we had a very happy Christmas and New Years and we hope that you all did too! 

Love,

the Elwers

PS. this picture is just too good to pass up

We were having a nice family lunch at Panera in San Marcos when we looked over to find this little weirdo next to us!

Becky Time

Bennett and I were lucky enough to be able to go on a coffee (and shopping) date with Becky last week!

We went to the always wonderful Flour Fusion in Lake Elsinore (you may have seen me mention it here, or here, or here - I kind of love it!) I had the raspberry white chocolate scone for the first time ... Oh.My.Goodness it was amazing! Anyways, back to Becky, we had a very relaxing time of talking and sipping (and playing with Bennett) and then headed off to the mall to get Bennett a new outfit!

You see at my baby shower (back in January 2009) Becky didn't get me a gift because she wanted to buy clothes but couldn't since we didn't know what sex "baby Elwer" was. She recently reminded me of that and said she wanted to fulfill her gift to "Baby Elwer". We ended up in Macy's getting some very cute plaid shorts and blue shirt. He will be so handsome in them!

Lovely day with a lovely lady, Thanks Becky!

Boxing Day!

When we all got up Saturday morning it was finally time to open presents as a family!

Gift number one... look at his face, I don't think he can believe it!

Ohhh....

Look Mom, a farm!

Gift number two (from Uncle David and Aunt Tricia) His third copy of the Jonah movie! :)
Next some blocks from Mom and Dad. Those didn't cause much excitement at first

He wanted to go back to the cool farm

And then he wanted to have a little dance party!

But eventually he made it back to the gifts and was ready to open the one his Auntie Jen sent him.

And then, last but not least, the gift we bought last minute because there was a sale (and Uncle Ted sent money to pitch in)...
YAY! Music Toys! (Bennett was so excited he had to taste it to make sure it was real!)

He loves the castanets!

Making noise... I mean music, with Dad!

Once Adam took the blocks out of the box and showed Bennett what he could do with them they were a much bigger hit!

And basically these last pictures kind of sum up the morning for Bennett... he was so cute and so happy to play with his new things with his mom and dad!

We love making memories with our sweet baby man!

Christmas Eve

My dad is a firefighter and had to work on Christmas this year so we did Christmas early with my side of the family.

On Christmas Eve morning we woke up at our house and Bennett's presents were sitting out in our living room (I wrapped them with the families the night before). He was very excited to see them! He went right over to them and and started banging on them like a drum but we told him he would have to wait until the next day to open them with Mommy and Daddy.
There were a few chores to do before we left ....
...and then we all showered and got back into nice clean PJ's and headed to my parents for "Christmas". It was weird driving through Murrieta in our PJ's and also realizing that it wasn't Christmas even though it totally felt like it was.
After a hearty breakfast of biscuits and gravy we all gathered round the tree in the living room and started opening presents.
Bennett really enjoyed the gift tags on all the boxes even if the gifts weren't for him!

Bennett got to try on his Grammy's fancy hat and scarf from Tio Pepe (Uncle Aaron)
Bennett and Grandpa disappeared for a few minutes towards the end of present time and then suddenly reappeared in the cutest little red wagon! Thanks Grammy and Grandpa!
Last week at Target there were foam battle axes and swords in the $1 bin - we bought them for everyone in the family and passed them out once the real presents were done - here's Tony displaying the awesomeness that was the foam battle axe!
In the afternoon there was a lively 6 player game of Catan and then an amazing meal of Beef Stroganoff with rice or pasta depending on if you eat it the right way or the wrong way! :) (Who knew people could be so passionate about the carb that goes with their sauce!)
Right before Brittany had to leave we remembered to take a family picture

Back Row: My Dad, Mike, Casey, My Mom Barb, Crystal-Lee, Brian

Front Row: Adam, Bennett, Me, Brittany, Aaron

(Unfortunately due to the fact that it really was Christmas Eve, Brittany's fiance, Javier, wasn't able to make it for the celebration - but we sent his battle axe home with Brittany to make sure he got it!)
We of course had to go out and give the wagon a test drive - Bennett pretty much loved it!
As I was pulling him up the lawn he wanted to stand and hold on to the front. We sang the Chariots of Fire music to him!
After turning his wagon into a chariot, he discovered that he could sit in the middle of the two seats and play with the folding seat - he really enjoyed that!
He also really enjoyed the giant snow globe in my parents front yard!
A little off roading with Tio Pepe
And then there was the wagon ride with Dad, where Adam almost broke his neck walking backwards down the lawn not noticing that there was a fire hydrant behind him (Luckily the crisis was avoided !)
We all had to try out the new Wii fit too! Adam's character dressed up as a penguin was definitely a favorite!
We ended the evening with a Christmas Eve service at my Mom and Dad's church and then a little Christmas light looking on the way home but we were not able to go out on the Christmas light rounds in our new PJ's because Bennett was pretty much done by the time church started so doing one more activity after the service was just not going to happen!

Christmas Day and Boxing Day celebrations will be covered in blogs to come ... stay tuned!