Callaway Gardens

Yesterday was a holiday for everyone in the family so we went with some of our friends to the Callaway Gardens in Georgia. It was so much fun and it was FREE (in January and February)! They have all sorts of exhibits and centers at these gardens plus lots of biking and walking trails. We only had time to check out some of the things that it had to offer. We went to the Discovery Center and the Butterfly Center. The kids had a blast and what was best was the weather was awesome (60 and clear).

At the Butterfly Center one of the workers brought out a parrot for the kids to see. I have a feeling they may have loved that more than the butterflies!

Everybody out enjoying the beautiful weather.

At the Discovery Center coloring some of the pictures.

Women's Basketball

On Friday night our whole family went to the womens basketball game against Alabama. We actually had fun. There were a lot of people there when we showed up at the stadium and Ben turned to me and said, "This is the women's basketball, right?" Like I said though, we did have a lot of fun and it was a good game (mainly because any game that we beat Bama is a good game).

Stina saying, "WAR EAGLE!"

Lexi, Dayne and our friends, the Martins, in the background.

This was the half time show. It was probably cooler than the game!

Sledding

Dayne and Sarah took us sledding while we were in Utah. It's not exactly my favorite pasttime so I just hung out in the warm car. However, Ben got some great shots and I came out for a few minutes to see the kids sledding down the hill.

Lexi, Sam, and Dayne speeding down the hill. Dayne doesn't look like he's really enjoying himself, but Sam absolutely loves it!

My brother Dayne and his daughter Brooklyn. His son Jackson is trying to sled down the hill on his belly.

Ben found this mini snowman that somebody made and placed in the tree. It's so cute!

50th Wedding Anniversary

Ben's parents were celebrated their wedding anniversary on th 28th of December. His siblings had planned a celebration for the 29th and had put a TON of work into this party. All of the children were going to fly out as a surprise and be there for the party. Ben's sister had secured some stand-by tickets for Ben to fly out for a few days so he could be there. Right before we left for Utah, my sister-in-law jokingly said we should ask my parents if we could borrow their van and drive over to Oregon for a few days so our whole family could be there (we were going to be in Utah for almost 3 weeks). We told them we would see if we could. Well, my parents are VERY generous and lent us their car. We ended up leaving on the 26th and came back to Utah on the 31st.

It was completely worth it. When we were about 1/2 an hour away from Ben's parents house we called his parents pretending we were in Utah. We asked them if they had received a large box from us for Christmas. They said they hadn't and we told them it should be there anytime. When we got to his parent's house we hid Alexis in this HUGE box with a note on it that said, "Merry Christmas Mom and Dad, from Ben and family. Open immediately." We knocked on the door and hid around the side of the house and waited. The whole family came to the door (they were over there for dinner) and Ben's Mom and Dad opened it up. Lexi jumped up and said,"Surprise!!" You could probably have heard my mother-in-law from 30 miles away screaming. That was worth the 14 hour drive!

Christmas in Utah

This year we spent Christmas with my side of the family. It was so awesome being able to celebrate with all of my brothers and sisters. I don't think our family has been all together for Christmas since Andrea was married (in '88, I think). Here are some of the highlights:

On Wednesday we all had Christmas dinner together. My sister-in-law, Kelley did most of the cooking while the rest of us made token offerings to the dinner. It was really good!!!

Christmas morning was so much fun. However we made the kids wait until 8am to open presents because they had all had a hard time sleeping the night before. (If you'll notice the kids and their stockings - no candy. I just couldn't do it.)

Ben decided what we needed was a huge breakfast on Christmas morning. I'm so glad he coordinated that. It was so good. He made strawberry crepes and sausage. My brother Dayne contributed the eggs and Kelley and Jonathon added biscuits and gravy. The biscuits were so amazing - I'm going to have to get Kelley's recipe! I'm still paying for this breakfast on the treadmill, but it was worth it!

This is about how we all felt after everything was said and done!

I think this is such a cute picture of Stina (at 6 weeks) and her cousin, Levi (at 2 weeks). They look like twins, except Stina has a pink blanket around her.

Jewelry Making

Lexi has been having fun in Utah. Her and her aunt Andrea were making lots of jewelry together. I needed Andrea to show Alexis how to make jewelry because I bought a bunch of jewelry making supplies with the intent to teach Alexis. Four months later they are still sitting around our house and have yet to be used because I realized I'm really not that crafty. Hopefully now that Alexis' aunt Andrea has shown her how to do it she can show me.

Kristina Jordan Puffer

Kristina Jordan Puffer finally made her entrance into this world on Sunday, November 8th at 2:26pm. I say finally because she was a week late - my first late one - but she was worth the wait. She was 9lbs 7oz and 21" long.

It turned out that the hospital experience wasn't as bad as I was anticipating so I was happy about that. I had started contractions at about 8am that day, but they weren't really consistent and they were far enough apart that I decided to go to church (which was at 10am) and see how things went from there. As we were sitting in sacrament meeting (our worship service) my contractions died down a bit. I only had about 5 during that hour. After that meeting I started walking around outside a bit. Within about 30 minutes I started having the contractions every 5 minutes or so. I went inside to tell Ben that we probably should go to the hospital. He happens to be the financial clerk right now and he was almost done getting the tithing all ready for the end of the year so he asked me if I could wait about 20 minutes. At the time I thought that wouldn't be a problem, but within 15 minutes my contractions were coming about every 2-3 minutes and getting a lot more intense. I sent 2 people in to get Ben and he came rushing out of the church. We rushed to the hospital and got there at about 12:30pm.

When I got to the hospital I was happy to find out that I was at 7 centimeters so I knew I'd be having the baby pretty soon. At this point, however, my contractions slowed down a bit because they weren't too quick about getting things done (it took about an hour to get me situated into the room). I was really apprehensive about having the baby in this hospital because they weren't really set up to accommodate women who are laboring naturally. One thing that I've been used to in the past is laboring in the tub, but they didn't have any in this hospital - and let me tell you what - it makes a big difference!!! Usually I don't hit a "wall" where I feel like I can't do it anymore, but about 10 minutes before I had her I was thinking that I couldn't do it any more and was wondering how much more I could take. Thank goodness for my mom and Ben because they were so encouraging. Anyway, once my water broke I had her in the next contraction.

She has been the best baby ever!!!! Since we've been home she has had only 2 "bad" nights. The rest of the nights she has slept 5-6 hours. Rest has made such a big difference - I feel like a normal person instead of a walking zombie! Not only does she sleep through the night (5 hours of sleep constitutes a full night's rest to me), but she hardly fusses during the day - she's very content. If babies that are late are always like this, then I hope my next one is late too!

The kids love holding their new baby sister. Dayne has been adjusting well.

Grandma's Visit

Grandma Puffer came to visit us these past 2 weeks and it was so GREAT!!! I haven't done any laundry, folding or dishes since she came (it was heaven). I was able to get so much ready for the baby and now I think I'm almost ready (but not quite - I'm still enjoying a full night's sleep). While she was here we all got sick so she also took care of us. Thank you so much Grandma. We miss you already!

Grandma had a birthday while she was here. She celebrated by going to Sam's soccer practice (what a trouper). Lexi and I stayed home and frosted cupcakes and got things ready for her "surprise" party. When she walked in the door she was greeted by silly string.

Grandma blowing out her candles with a little "help."

Ben took Grandma to the Syrup Sop in the nearby town of Loachapoka. Doesn't get anymore Southern authentic than this! =)

Of course we took her to a volleyball game. The game was against Alabama and we WON!!!!

Just had to put in a picture of Ben to show you how crazy he gets at the games. Don't you just love his hair?

Grandma made Dayne a quilt for his bed. He LOVES it so much - he calls it his Auburn Tigers blanket.

Who do you think is going to miss Grandma the most?

Volleyball

Last night we went to the college volleyball game. We've been trying to go to as many games as we can. There is a girl in our church congregation that is on the volleyball team so a lot of the members of the church try to go and support her. It's tons of fun and the kids LOVE it! They love doing all of the cheers (especially the war eagle cheer) and Ben of course has a lot of school spirit. Last night he was stomping on the bleachers so hard that his stomping could be distinguished on the other side of the auditorium. One of these days we're hoping to snag a free t-shirt for all of his efforts!

This is the mascot, Aubie. Dayne LOVES Aubie, but everytime he gets close, he get star-struck.

Lauren (the girl in our congregation) is the one blocking the ball. We found out a couple of months ago that her sister is married to my cousin. Small world!

The kids love this cheer because they like to sing along with it. It's the song "Battle Hymn of the Republic," but at the end where it supposed to say "our God is marching on" we sing "A-U-B-U-R-N." This was at the end of the game so a lot of the people there had left.

Soccer Season

Sam has just started up soccer and he had his first game the other night. It sure was fun to watch him 'play' soccer. It was interesting for the whole team actually because we'd only had 1 practice before the game (because the weather had been bad, his other 2 practices had been canceled). Despite his daydreaming on the field, he really does love the idea of playing soccer. He does a great job dribbling the ball and making goals and there are a lot of fun kids on his team. I love little kid soccer!!!

Sam is #12.

College Football

It's been such a long time since I've posted anything and it hasn't been because there was nothing to post. We've been really busy with school and soccer starting, but the real reason is that we got a new computer and it's taken forever to set everything up. What's really nice is that this new computer is WAY faster. I swear that computers age in dog years - how can something that is only 3 or 4 years old be so out-of-date? The problem with getting new things is that then you have to get other new things to keep up with them. That's one of the reasons that we got this new computer - our old computer couldn't handle the photos from Ben's new (amazing) camera. Oh well. I won't complain because I like both of them - the new camera and the computer!

Now - getting back to the important things in life - college football has started up. Not that this would normally be in the forefront of my brain come fall time, but when you live in a college town - a southern college town - the world revolves around the pigskin. Especially when we've been winning!!! Auburn played West Virginia last Saturday and it was a crazy. They had to delay the game an hour because of the lightening storm. Ben said that it was raining so hard that it looked like a river coming down the stadium stairs. They must have super good drainage on the field because the field was completely flooded, but as soon as it stopped raining the field cleared up. Ben was the only one in the family at the game, but the rest of us did enjoy the tailgating before the game.

Lexi and Sam had their faces painted at the tail gate party. Our church congregation puts on a tailgating party for 3 or 4 of the games during the season. It's so much fun and gets people into the spirit of the football games.

This is called the Tiger Walk. The football players walk from the athletic facility to the football stadium before the game to the tune of adoring football fans.

Toomer's Corner - whenever Auburn wins a football game the oak trees at Toomer's Corner get blasted with toilet paper. It looks pretty cool!

D.C. Family Vacation

At the beginning of August the kids' school and Ben's school had vacation time that coincided. It was only for a week, but we really wanted take advantage of the time together. We decided to go to Washington D.C. for our vacation and visit some of our friends that live in North Carolina. It was a whirlwind trip, but it was definitely worth it. The kids absolutely LOVED it!!!

Saturday morning we headed out of Auburn to Wake Forest, NC to visit the Henry's, friends from college. That was one of the highlights of the trip for our kids. They loved playing with the Henry's and an added perk was that they had a super cute dog!


Sunday afternoon we left NC and went straight to the Washington D.C. temple. We didn't get there before the sun went down so we didn't get a whole lot of family pictures here. However, the temple was beautiful at night.




We stayed in Alexandria, so we took the Metro into D.C. on Monday morning and checked out the Mall. On this first day we hit the Capital (couldn't go inside because we had food with us), the US Botanical Gardens, Air and Space Museum, Natural History Museum, and the American History Museum. Dayne was in heaven because he got to go on a train (the Metro) and go inside a building filled with airplanes (2 of his 3 obsessions at the moment).






On our 2nd day we went to Christ Church in Alexandria (which is where George Washington went to church) then drove to Arlington Cemetery. We went on a bus tour, which I would highly recommend unless you like hiking up and down hills for fun. After that we took the Metro back to the Mall so we could go to the top of the Washington Monument. We had tickets for 3pm, but we were 15 minutes late and missed it - one of our regrets! Next we saw the WWII, Vietnam, Lincoln and Korean War Memorials. I was really tired by the end of the day, but I'm glad we got through it all.





On the 3rd day we went to the University of Virginia to check out the Academic Village (if you want to know more about it click the link because I don't think I'll explain it correctly). It was designed by Thomas Jefferson and it was amazing. The University of Virginia's campus was one of the most beautiful campuses I've ever seen. I'm glad we checked it out (thanks to Butch). After U.Va. we went to Monticello, Jefferson's estate, which was pretty close by. The grounds around the house were awesome as well as the view from the house and gardens. (I did have to laugh when the tour guide refered to us being in the mountains - they were glorified hills!) After Monticello we headed back home by way of Tennessee - just to say we had been there. All in all, our trek covered 5 days and 6 states plus the District of Columbia. Can't wait to do something like that again!

Baby Blanket

Lexi has really been itching to try her hand at sewing for a while. A friend of hers has done a few sewing projects and Lexi decided that it looked like fun. She wanted to make a baby blanket for the baby, but I made her wait until after we got back from Utah to do it (and we wanted to know the sex of the baby first as well). A few weeks ago we finally went to the store to pick out the fabric and got down to it. Luckily baby blankets don't require too much skill to put together (at least the one's that I supervise). She did a great job with it and is already looking for the next project. The only hang up we had was she wasn't tall enough to reach the pedal and hold the fabric so we switched back and forth with that - she would guide the fabric while I did the pedal and vice versa. She's really excited now that it's done and can't wait for the baby to see it!

Doesn't she look like such a big girl!!?!

The finished product.