Christmas 2010

whew, I can't believe Christmas has already come and gone. It was a truly magical day. We have SO much to be thankful for. First and foremost, we are thankful that Jesus was born and came to live and die for us. Of course, there were many thoughts about next year and the 9 month old that will be a part of our family.On Christmas eve, Jessie & I got seriously pampered at a local day spa. It was so wonderful that we decided it will be our annual tradition :) We got foot rubs, a 60 min. massage, and unlimited time in this incredible steam shower where jets come at you from both sides. Best part? I was able to lay on my STOMACH! 2nd best part? When I flipped onto my back, she pressed a button and the middle dropped down to make it super comfortable. Incredible!


That night we ate a Mexican feast together and then went to the Christmas eve service at church. Afterward, Ben and I went around to some different houses that were decked out in lights. I was determined to stay up until midnight since it is our last Christmas Eve where we can sleep in as long as we want, but unfortunately, I fell asleep about 10 min. into Santa Claus and didn't make it much past 9 pm.

Christmas day started out with Ben and I opening our presents from each other. Ben gave me a few really thoughtful gifts including a personalized photo album for pictures of friends and family to pray for, the EXACT water bottle from the birthing video we watched last class (he must have been really paying attention), and a really neat willow tree statue. He also got me some stylin boots!
I got Ben a few things like a new watch, some hot cocoa from the Real Simple gift list, a keyboard for the wii and a date of the month club membership (I made up 12 dates that we will do throughout the year).
After our time together, we went over to Jessie & Mark's and spent the majority of the day playing, cooking, baking, and laughing. It is so fun to see Christmas through little kids' eyes. James was SO excited about so many of his presents.. he kept needing to remind me that he got a new bike and it has buzz on it! The Rikalos came over for a yummy dinner (the marinated tri tip from Costco is amazing!).








What a beautiful day!

Warm Beach

We found a new Christmas event that we got to experience with the Heavilands this year. Warm Beach is a conference center about an hour away and each year they deck out the grounds with tons of lights!

Colter has a party

Colter has been busy lately. I finally caught him in action.

What's in a name??

Colter Elijah Crowl

Ben and I have been mulling over a long list of names for our little boy even before we knew he was in fact a boy. We went from Brendan to Tyler to Lucas (Ben wanted Luke) and never quite felt like it was the right fit.

Back in August, we went to Hood River with Courtney and during one of our conversations, she mentioned her friend's brother named Colter. I immediately loved the name, but wanted to wait until I was alone with Ben to talk about it in case he really didn't like it. Turns out he also loved it.

The more we thought about the name, the more it seemed like a perfect fit for our first born son.

As most of you know, Ben and I both have a love for the outdoors. It seemed perfectly fitting that John Colter is considered one of the first "mountain men" who is the first known person from Europe to enter into the Yellowstone area and see the Teton Mountain Range. Ben and I have both visited Yellowstone and loved it. Ben and his family would travel to the tetons almost every summer and it is Ben's favorite place in the US.

Here is the mountain man himself.. hopefully our Colter wont get his fashion tips from him:



Probably my favorite connection to the name Colter is that Ben and his family normally camped at Colter Bay Campground every time they would visit. It looks gorgeous. I can't wait to take our little boy there someday!

Onto the middle name, Elijah. Ben thought of this one and I instantly loved it. The name Elijah means "The Lord is my God." Our biggest hope for Colter is that he will come to know, love and serve God. Although we don't imagine that Colter will make as grand of an exit from this world as Elijah did, we pray that, like Elijah, he will be passionate about worshiping God.

So there you have it, the reason and meaning behind our little boys name.

Christmas festivities

We have unfortunately been getting a ton of rain up here which has put a damper on some of our traditional Christmas activities like Green Lake luminaries and the Christmas ships, but we've still been having fun!

We've been totally blessed by the neighborhood we live in and have gotten a lot of chances lately to get to know some of the couples that live around us. We watched Christmas vacation a few weeks ago, went to a Christmas party last weekend, and today I hosted a ladies cookie exchange while Ben and the guys played video games together.

It is so awesome to see where God has placed us!

The grub



The handsome Brody



the ladies



Gotta throw in a pic of the tum tum. 30 weeks today!

Baby Belly

Here are some recent shots of the belly getting bigger!!

O Christmas tree

Here is our beaut all lit up!