Mammoth Picture Update

Thanks to Barney for giving me time to do this update! Of course, pictures are still backwards - need to remember next time... SO, I am going to pretend that you are reading this entry from the bottom and will start from there.... to the beginning!!! Here is our arrival back at DFW. Uncle Roy was familied out and took off as soon as his luggage came. For some reason he didn't want to wait around for the Maas's 7 bags, 3 car seats, and one ski bag. Wow - lots of work to get ready but lots of fun too. I think I'm glad there aren't any trips on the radar for the next little while because I am exhausted! Although I do want my niece to come play again for a few weeks. She is Ben's idol and he followed her everywhere. Not many 12 year-olds would have been so kind to an active 4 year-old boy who wants to be with you ALL the time! She's a gem!!!!
Andy got me some beautiful earrings and a pac-man game that you plug into the TV (in preparation for a youth activity where they are playing old school video games, I'm sure!). After the Wii excitement at Christmas, it was great to have a game Ben could play and we weren't all holding our breaths that he would drop it! Andy had fun skiing on our trip and also took Ben for an afternoon. Ben LOVES his ski goggles and has been telling everyone that he and Dad and Uncle Roy skied in Utah. The bus driver told me this morning that Ben must have had fun in Utah!!
I think Ben's favorite Christmas gift was waiting for him at home from Uncle David and Aunt Christina - 2 new cowboy shirts. He loves opening gifts (as do all children) and expresses excitement over everything, but I wish I'd had the video camera out when he ripped open the box and exclaimed, "COWBOY SHIRTS!!!!" So, here is Ben in one of his new cowboy shirts, with his cowboy hat, and a favorite ornament that a friend made. Thanks Uncle David and Aunt Christina because the one he has been wearing does not stay tucked in and that has been a major source of contention between Ben and his jeans for the past few weeks!

We had so many people we wanted to see, but there is never enough time. We did get to visit my Grandmother (my dad's mom) and a favorite aunt and uncle in their new home. Utah has most of our favorite people living there (notice I said MOST, not ALL) - maybe it's time we shuffle on back... :)
The new Gordon B. Hinckley building. It is beautiful!
Another this we really wanted to do was take the kids to visit BYU. We walked around on campus for awhile, visiting the new Gordon B. Hinckley building and eating lunch in the WILK. It was a cold and snowy morning!
For my mom's 60th birthday we went to Olive Garden for lunch with her younger sister and a few of her girls. It was great and the servers did a rowdy rendition of the birthday song. When we got home it was to find that the 6-layer birthday cake I was making (we had dinner assignment for the evening) for each decade of mom's life was missing a layer. The big dog strikes! Duncan the dog who is not even allowed in the kitchen somehow cleanly snatched a layer - either that or my brother-in-law is a fabulous liar, whom I can't see him lying about food. So, it turned into a 5-layer cake. One layer for each child she has raised into adulthood. (In all honesty, it was probably a really good thing we only had five layers because by the time I stacked the fifth layer on with chocolate frosting in between each layer and peppermint sticks holding the cake upright, the cake was being mocked. My family decided they didn't need to travel to Italy to see the leaning tower because they had already seen it. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of this because my camera was downstairs and we needed to quickly sing and blow out the candles. Where was my structural engineer when I needed him?

Andy and I took our kids earlier on Christmas morning while the others were playing Wii. It was a short-lived trip as both Annie and Emily were ready for naps...
Those ready to brave the snow! Bronwyn was hanging out with me... I really don't know who had the most fun - Uncle Roy or Andy...
Andy giving them a good start. This was a FAST hill with a bunch of snow-covered rocks at the bottom so we tried to stop fast as well...
Uncle Roy and Roman...
Ben and I getting ready to go sledding. It was a cold and beautiful Christmas Day. We did the big turkey dinner on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas day playing. All my sister's prayers were answered as we had a very White Christmas (as well as the preceeding and following days!).

Outside the St. George Temple where our newest family addition was sealed to his parents - little Trevor is very cute and has the MOST pinchable cheeks! He and Emily are two months apart and were really fun to watch as they watched each other!
Most of our time in Utah was spent in PG at my sister's house (who doesn't have tv set up). We went to St. George for 2 days to see my brother and his family and stayed in a hotel that night - ironically that was the night of BYU's bowl game. So here is Emily and Daddy how we found them when Ben, Annie and I got back from swimming in the hotel pool.
This is Christmas Eve. Grandma and Grandpa bought all the kids jammies to open on Christmas Eve. Also, I think this is the cheesiest grin I have EVER seen from Emily!
Okay - so it's still not in order, but this is better. Here is Ben on Christmas morning excited for his REAL cowboy hat that Santa brought! For some reason he didn't seem too shocked that Santa didn't bring him a horse and actually hasn't even mentioned it, so I think we're good...

Christmas Preparations

There were several things we wanted to get done before Christmas. Thankfully we had time the night before we left for vacation to visit this train in our neighborhood. Andy was completely in his element driving the train (he finally got to be a REAL engineer!!!) and learning all the inner-workings. It is now large enough to hold 24 passengers.
Our neighborhood playgroup went bowling. It was Ben's first time and he had a blast!

We finally got to see Santa at our second visit to Santa's Village. The first night we went the weather was beautiful and I think everyone in the metroplex had the same idea. I avoid waiting in line if possible, so we returned on a wet, cold weeknight. 10 minutes later, we got to see our favorite big guy in the red suit!
Annie turning into a reindeer. Ben had a good 5 minute conversation with the police man on duty about being good. Each of the houses are sponsored by either a public service or a Richardson group/business. We love Santa's Village!
Annie was completely enthralled by Frosty the Snowman. After we visited his house, Frosty decided to walk around the block. Annie had to follow in a dazed manner and just took ahold of hid hand. We finally got a picture where she kissed him goodbye (because her parents were thoroughly frozen and needed a fireplace to warm up) and we could go on our way! Merry Christmas!

Why we spent $9 at the Zoo with our FREE pass...

I try to take the kids to the zoo every few weeks one because I want to get good use of our pass and two because we all love it! We did have free passes for Emily's first carousel ride! I think it's funny that Annie likes to look for and touch bugs and stuff. I, on the other hand, do not.
The birds are my very favorite part. Yes, we spent $9 buying food to feed the birds so they would land on us. This bird below just came to cuddle. He tried to bury himself between my shoulder and neck and would let all three of the kids pet him!
Emily enjoys having them on her head. It must look comfortable because they continue to land on her!
And Ben with several cockatails following him. He likes to buy worms to feed the specialty birds, but the seed birds seem to love him. Maybe it's just the shirt that the birds have seen several times so they know he has food...

A Powerful Speech

Take a look at this. It is a great speech by Mitt Romney about the role/division/union of state and religion.

A REALLLLLLY Good Laugh

Thanks to Angie for sending this funny...

http://www.flashfunpages.com/couple.swf

Christmas Preparations at the Maases

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Fun Family Events

For the first time in 20 years I again attended Mass. Our neighbors baptized their sweet baby Claire and we were invited to go! It was a bit quieter than most Mormon meetings (probably becuase our kids weren't there!) and a soloist sang "How Great Thou Art' that I wanted to join in on! Claire did great! Sunday afternoon we finally put lights and ornaments on our Christmas tree. Annie and Ben did all the ornaments. I can't even tell you how fun it was to watch them!
Emily is now crawling! It clicked last weekend and there is no stopping her now! She also pulls up to her knees, but we won't be encouraging that one!

A Few Odds and Ends

So - for the last 2+ weeks we have had a free pass to 24 hour fitness that I have been taking advantage of. While this has been great for me and the kids, it has not been so good for my blog! Thus - more catch up entries...

I love sleeping pictures. Look at those arms - you can just bite them - and we do! Annie did NOT want to take a nap in her room so she instead fell asleep watching SuperWhy with Ben.
My dear friend Katie met her husband's family outside of Tyler, Texas for a family reunion at one of the resorts there. We went up one afternoon to meet them and were able to play in the lake a bit!

Yes - Annie is totally giving this little girl a look like "Why do you think you are so cool?" It's not Annie's typical look and thankfully Carolyn is still too young to figure it out.
The brood - Katie's 3 and my 3 all playing nicely together....
Emily's classic cheesy smile - she is such a happy girl!

Sacrifice Brings Forth Blessings

That song is currently running through my head, although I can't quite recall all the words. I'm supposed to be picking up the house while Andy is at a fireside, but I just can't do it yet. There have been so many "funnies" this past week that we kept saying "we need to blog that!" but now I don't remember! I also love that "blog' and "google" have become verbs!

Ben wants to know what we are eating - as in what animal we are eating. And what part of the animal it is. Weak-stomach Lindsey is finally learning to talk about these things WHILE we are eating because others in the family think it's a good learning experience. I was quite impressed that I didn't gag even once as we discussed how we got the ham that we ate for dinner this evening! However, I still will not buy another rotissere chicken until we are out of this phase - I'm almost dreading the carving of the turkey...

Annie is growing and totally out-eating Ben, which is a feat in and of itself! She's like a little vulture. She also loves her daddy.

Emily is still not yet crawling on all fours but does do a one-armed army crawl. She is now pulling up on funtiture to her knees and gets a kick out of standing while you hold her hands. I've told the kids that we all need to crawl around her because it's so important to learn to crawl!

I've become an Usborne book consultant. At my party a few weeks ago I fell in love with the books again and signed up to sell them! At least for a little while until I get the things I want... This is my website if you are interested! www.ubah.com/T2109

Andy loves them too, so it will be fun! I got my kit on Thursday and Annie has comendered the encylopedia and loves to flip the pages. It is a constant battle to get her to close it and put it away, but I guess there are much worse things that she could be spending time with. There is a moon book that both of the kids have loved, and Annie is also obsesed with seeing the moon at the moment. I need to pull out Goodnight Moon for her again...

This is so wordy! I promise next time I will pose some pictures!

What a week!

So, I've forgotten to post about the previous week! It all started last Thursday - our women's volleyball team won the stake tournament! Yeah US!!!! Then we were clobbered in Regionals the next day. (Andy's team plays in the Men's Regionals tonight - they also were 1st place in the stake.)

Monday I french-braided Annie's hair for the first time, and it was simply precious! UNTIL I couldn't find either of my children after putting Emily down for a nap. I found them in the laundry room with Ben hiding a pair of scissors behind his back. That boy is SOOO lucky he just made a few snips on Annie's sweet head! It's not completely noticable unless you know where to look and pulling it into pigtails hides the worst. whew! I kind of lost it and still have the pieces Ben picked up from the floor in a bag. I must admit to crying just a little bit.

Emily has been sick for a week and is finally on the mend. Poor little girl was raw under her nose from all that wiping! I'm exhausted from the lack of sleeping.

Speaking of - this whole Daylight Savings thing is not such a great idea! Our schedule has shifted a bit wherer kids are ASLEEP by 6:30 at night and up at 5 the next morning. I actually kind of like this schedule though - surprisingly enough. I still think they aren't getting enough sleep and since they don't sleep in, we'll need to adjust bedtime or have a nap day to throw everyone off!

Then I had a holiday open house where several of my favorite consulatants showed their wares. It was a great 5 hour party! And, we've enjoyed the open space in the house so much that we've left the furniture in the garage and just play! Since we are typically sitting on the floor anyway - it's been fun!

Yesterday we drove a little ways past Tyler, Texas to see one of my favorite people in the whole wide world - and her family! We'll do pics of that when I have more time!

So - I've decided my favorite image of Annie is in this cute little nightgown. She has about 2 inches of feet showing and the gown flows behind her when she runs.

Halloween 2007

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Halloween Festivities

Right before Trick or Treating: Emily's bunny costume was a bit too short, and Annie's Tigger was hot (at 75 degree weather) so we became a nice witch and Ben's prisoner. Feeding goat at neighborhood activity.

Sweethearts!!!
Caught in the act...
Emily didn't last very long!

Kising Daddy goodbye before he leaves for work...

Sweet girls waiting for neighborhood party.
They had a fun room filled with balloons that Emily had a blast in!
This kitty loved on Annie and just climbed over here. Then Annie sat up and the kitty just curled up on her lap and kids came over to pet it. It was adorable until someone else wanted to hold it... It was seriously the cutest thing I've ever seen!!!
It was the best Halloween yet! After trick-or-treating we went to my brother's apartment downtown for his 33rd birthday and Halloween party. It was so much fun! The weather was perfect, the company great and the entertainment even better - love that Wii!

Yardwork

Monday Andy came home from work early to finish our projects from Saturday. The kids of course had a blast! A cute little frog...
I love the two-year-old squat!!!!!!!

Lindsey's 10 Year Reunion

My high school reunion was last weekend, and we decided to just go to the football game on Friday night. So, I introduced Andy to High School Football in Texas - where the bands play loud and the stands are full, and there is almost always a promised teenage fight from some junior high kids! We had a great time with Emily and she LOVED all the entertainment. I wanted to get some food at half time, but Andy wanted to stay and watch how bad the bands were. They WEREN'T band in high school terms, but the last football games we've been to in the previous 10-11 years have been BYU which is a blast with the mountain backdrop and UT games - which you just can't compare anything to. So - it was really fun. Emily and I after the stadium cleared out.
Happy day!
Something was totally going on with our camera because all pictures from that day are blurry! Anyway, my parents took the kids to our church Halloween party while we were gone!