What a wonderful break!

Thanksgiving break was heavenly. Ben was off of work and we just played, ate, and enjoyed being with family. We spent thanksgiving at Ben's dad's side, Uncle Greg and Aunt Sue's. It was fun to be with the Allsop family. Troy and Liam were two of three little ones that were there, but they are older, so they made sure to let their presence known :) Ben and I tried to feed them before hand, so that we could actually eat with everyone. It mostly worked, except for Liam wandering upstairs away from the movie. I didn't get pictures. Lame. But it was beautiful and yummy. The boys played basketball after and Ben got a pretty bad scrape. His jeans got a huge hole at the knee and it was surrounded with blood. And he didn't stop playing, of course.

 The rest of the weekend was spent at Ben's moms and we just enjoyed hanging out. We played lots of games and ate way more than necessary. Brayden was such a sweetheart and babysat while we went shopping early black friday. Ben and I had so much fun. Troy and Liam love their Uncle Brayden. When we played games, we tried to keep the kids occupied upstairs with a movie. Liam is catching up to Troy in size. Not really, but sometimes when they are sitting, it looks like it.

While everyone was shopping or working on Friday during the day, we wanted to help mom with a few projects. I LOVE working together with Ben. We raked a large amount of leaves in the yard, Ben cleaned out the garage and hung the Christmas lights. Liam was a big helper with the leaves... well, he avoided the piles, which was very helpful :)

Other than Christmas break, my recent pictures are of Halli Ann. We were babysitting and Troy and Liam thought she was so funny in the johnny jumper. I am SO excited for our little girl to come! But until then, I soak up little Halli Ann. She is THE cutest little girl.

Liam and Troy would jump with Halli Ann, but Troy got bored and started to run away.

Liam was very curious about how she was jumping. He was having a hard time keeping up :)

Ben is busy with his calling as Elder's Quorum President. He is constantly texting, e-mailing, calling, stalking...  He also stays very active with basketball and loves it. His work is going really well and he just got an iphone 4s from his work. We have this phone as personal phones, thanks to Christmas last year, and it's fun that now he gets it for work too. I'm pretty sure Ben was an influence on it, because his work is NOT one to spend money on new technology. I think they saw the benefit of having a good camera on your phone, google docs, work e-mail and be able to send it to each other while out in the field. Anyway.. he's doing good.

I am doing great. The last two nights were really fun, we went to the temple with Ben's presidency and the night before, I went to a bridal shower for Dantzel at Rachel's house. SO FUN. I miss all my sweet girlfriends. Katelyn is moving around a lot, especially at the temple session yesterday. Little heartburn every now and then, but I just need to take more tums. I am exhausted by lunch time because of little Liam, but I don't know if that would be different if I was not pregnant... 

One of my piano students was taking pictures with Liam on my phone and I just have to post it because it makes me smile. I'll be cutting down on my teaching, but I love it while I have it. 

Liam is so happy, sweet, and crazy. Within 5 minutes tonight, he threw the remote down a vent (luckily I got it out), unplugged the Christmas tree, stuck a sticker in between the piano keys, knocked down his high chair (very heavy) and poured water all over himself. He's a busy one. He also gets SO excited to see us. He yells out our names and runs to us. If he's really excited, he will put his hand to his mouth and rotate it rapidly while saying, ababababa. What a joy in our lives!

Troy has gone poop in the potty twice! HUGE deal here folks. Although, I'm not getting my hopes up too much. I still feel like we have some time before this is behind us. Troy is growing up and talking about Christmas. I don't think he quite understands everything, but he gets very excited about the concept of Christmas. His favorite song is I am a Child of God and will randomly start singing it in the car. He has the cutest little voice. Troy is a good big brother. He plays with Liam all of the time and makes sure that Liam has a toy if he has one. They still fight and Troy thinks he can push Liam around, but he is pretty sweet. He also tries to keep Liam in line. If Liam hits him, he looks at him and says, "No Liam, we don't hit. Don't hit my head. No." He takes over my job sometimes. He also tries to tell Liam to go potty so that they can both get rewarded. :) I wish.

I told Troy to smile, and he got the eyebrow action, but didn't move the lips. I love this little guy SO much. He is really into hats. I think Ben may be the reason. Troy loves pleasing his dad. At church on Sunday, Ben tried to take Liam out of sacrament meeting and Troy just started crying hysterically. I wasn't surprised, and I even warned Ben what would happen. I took Troy out and we switched children. I always take Liam, and Ben always takes Troy. They have chosen their favorites :)