Jingle Bells, Frozen Mail and Pedro

So I suppose it is time to update this thing a little bit. You'd think being pregnant with not a lot of energy and being at home I would be so on top of this, but as you are well aware I am not. I don't love sitting in front of the computer all the time and my computer attention span usually gets eaten up by some email and going crazy trying to make the blog cute instead of updating it. I know the updates are more important, but I can't help the fact that I care way too much about cuteness!

Here are the updates....

Christmas

We had our own Christmas the night before we left to spent Christmas in Billings, Montana, at Tanner's family's house. We watched my favorite Christmas show "It's a Wonderful LIfe!" opened presents and ate pizza. It was lots of fun. The picture below was our tree, which Tanner so cleverly tied to the fireplace to keep it upright (it had some troubles last year that we never could fix). We were lucky enough to get to spend about 2 weeks in Montana and another week at home in Nebraska before Tanner had to trudge back to school. We had a ton of fun seeing EVERYONE there. His entire family got to come home for Christmas-- yes all 7 siblings, spouses and their kids too. We had about 25 people there. There was always a lot going on, but Tanner's mom knows how to keep it all going and making sure everyone has a good time. Amazing! We did have a stinky little bug floating around the house that pretty much caught everyone with a one day stomach flu. Both Tanner and I were "lucky" enough to catch that one. We were thankful it only lasted 24 hours. But we were well stocked with Gatorade and crackers so all was well! It was fun to see everyone from Cleveland to Utah, Idaho, Arizona and Nebraska. Krista and Kara blessed their sweet new babies, Connor and Sophie, and I think we took up about four small pews in the Chapel with the whole gang. We very much enjoyed Christmas and were grateful for the break!

COMING HOME

So coming home was nice because we realized late that Tanner actually had one more week of Christmas vacation left. We got to spend a fun week at home. Well, I should say we had to spend a fun week at home because right after we got back a huge storm hit and practically froze us inside. We got about a foot or more of snow added to the foot we already had and the temperature was

-25 or so everyday. Not really what I'd call winter wonderland weather, more like a frozen misery. I was very glad Tanner had all week of so I didn't have to be couped up alone. We played games, watched tons of movies, and finally ventured out at the end of the week, before we went crazy, to the pet store for some low budget entertainment. Some fun facts about much-to-cold-to live-in-weather: Your mail sticks to the mailbox giving you quite and interesting challenge getting it out, even a pregnant lady can get too cold, it takes like 1/2 hour to defrost your windshield and you may actually need to plug your car in, the sun may shine, but it is only deceiving you into thinking it just might be warmer than it really is. Let's just say that life in a Nebraska winter is grand!

DECEMBER PREGO PICTURE

Here was our December Pregnant picture update. I was comparing my belly of Jelly to Santa's at the ward party, but I think I won! Sorry Santa.

JANUARY

It's funny how every year I try to make New Year's goals and resolutions and I try to pick something I can actually accomplish and that I know I'll do, but this year wasn't like that. All the goals I thought of either have to wait until the baby comes or will most likely be messed up when he does come. So I think I'll do some spring cleaning resolutions instead. Clean up my house and myself! Even though I didn't really make any goals yet this year, I did find my self reflecting on the new year in other ways; ways of how our little Bennion lives are going to change forever and for the best! We are very excited to welcome our baby home and, frankly, we hope it is soon! Here is the January Prego pict too. TANNER'S NEW BUDDY

So here is a funny little Tanner update. I am usually good at posting something he probably thinks is goofy or embarrassing about him so here goes another one (because I am writing the post and he is not! And I think he is cute, charming and handsome no matter what!) This semester in his anatomy class he is studying the head and neck only. So as a fun homework buddy the teacher sent home a skull for each student to work with. So lucky us we now have a real human skull staring at us everyday on our living room table (which you can see from every area of the house except the bedroom, unless it is left on the kitchen table instead). It is such an inviting thing to have in the front room as you walk in the door. I have to say though, he is kinda growing on me. He is always smiling and Tanner even named him Pedro.