Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful holiday--up EARLY, at 5am--filled with gifts, food, and friends.

This was the year of the wheeled-vehicle for Ben... lots of cars, trucks, and trains!! He LOVES anything with wheels, so he was happy.

His stocking was filled with Matchbox cars... which worked wonderfully on the new train tracks he received from his friends across the street.


Coco and Papi sent a basketball hoop...



Daddy received an iPhone from Santa...



Mommy was psyched with a leaf mulcher... watch out compost, things are about to get crazy!!


Daddy (wearing the hat Mommy knitted) reads to Ben from a book given by Mom Mom (a book about TRUCKS!)...

Here's a video of Ben playing with the car track thingy that Tommy and Kate gave him... he LOVES it!

Stay tuned for more posts... Ben's birthday on the 24th, and the impending party on the 2nd!! Happy New Year!

'Tis the Season!

Last weekend we went to a Christmas Tree farm and cut down our tree. This was more than your average tree farm, as it had hay rides, a tractor-driving Santa, and all kinds of activities for kids. It was a blast!! Mommy's favorite were the rocking reindeer--wooden and iron reindeer that rock like rocking horses. They were AWESOME and could be ridden by kids and parents! Here's Ben giving one a whirl...





There were also hay horses to ride!



After what seemed like hours and miles spent walking and searching, we found the perfect tree!! It's a variety of redwood, and is really beautiful. Daddy cut it down while Ben "hupped" (helped) by sprinkling sand and gravel around.


The tree is great... the star on top keeps tipping over and Ben likes to pull down the bottom string of lights... overall, we think it's a spectacular tree!!


Happy Holidays!!!

Coco and Papi (PeePaw) Visit!

Ben's grandparents came to visit for Thanksgiving and it was a fun-filled week! One of the great highlights was Ben's decision to re-name Papi, reversing the pronunciation to "PeePaw," which continues to stick with him even after PeePaw has been away for a couple of weeks. Here are some of the other highlights of the visit...

Here is Ben helping Coco make some of the Rodger's world famous chocolate fudge frosting (which was DELICOUS!).


Ben's first taste (with Coco looking on):

Success!


Ben was very attentive to PeePaw... especially with PeePaw's cane and chair. Here are the two boys together.

We went to visit the Buter-Casanova clan, and Ben had a chance to meet Romeo, Susan's beautiful horse, up close!


Ben had a blast playing with Grayson, his third(?) cousin...




We played with Emma and Elliot (of course!):


And we got some good shots of Ben with Mommy and Daddy...


Finally, here are a few of my favorites of Ben from the week... Enjoy!

Halloween!

We had a great Halloween. Jonathan bought a 55 pound pumpkin (or "pokon" as Ben calls it), and the night before Halloween we had a carving party with the McReynolds, our neighbors across the street. Ben and Emma helped decide on the design...



Who wouldn't try to cram their kid into a 55 pound pumpkin?? Ben didn't like it too much...


Though he didn't mind as much when Emma was crammed in there too...


Elliot was much more willing to hang in the pokon (at least for about 5 seconds, and then he cried too)...


Ben wore his cow costume all week... here he is on his way to music class!


And here he is in Diaper Daredevils... gotta love a kid in a costume doing a faceplant!

Happy Halloween!!!

CeCe's Visit!

I've been terrible about updating the blog lately! We've been busy during the past month...

We had a wonderful visit with Grammy, who Ben re-named CeCe!! She was with us for a week, and gave Jonathan and me a FANTASTIC weekend away (all by ourselves!!). Ben absolutely adores CeCe, and he mentions her still on a daily basis--often saying "MY CeCe," with a strong emphasis on the "my." It's really cute! We are grateful that she could come visit, and we're hoping that she and Papa, as Ben is now calling Frank, will be here together soon (hint, hint!). Here are some highlights from her visit.


I like this one, even though CeCe looks like she's in the middle of a laugh!


Ben and Mommy (I'm so grateful when someone else is behind the camera... I have very few photos of me with Ben!).


Goofing around with Daddy...


CeCe takes some of the best photos of Ben--ever!


I love this one as well...

Maybe Ben gets his wild hair from his daddy!?!

Helping with the laundry...


Here's Ben at his Diaper Daredevils class (baby gymnastics). CeCe had a chance to see him in action!

And perhaps best of all, CeCe *weaned* Ben from his pacifier! While we were gone she forgot to give it to him at night, and he didn't need it. We've gone weeks now with NO binkie, and even though every once in awhile he'll ask for his "bink," we're fairly certain it's totally behind us now!! THANKS CECE!!!

R.I.P. Binkie!

Impossible Acres!

This morning I took Ben to a local farm and pumpkin patch called Impossible Acres. We met up with our neighbors, Elliot and Emma, and their cousin Katie. It was a blast!! I'm posting a few videos of the dozen or so I took... mostly showing Ben with the animals that he could get VERY close to. Enjoy!

Salsa

Ben loves salsa. And chips. So whenever there is salsa around, he must eat it. Even if it's mommy's HOT, spicy salsa. Now, to be fair, I could have taken it away from him. But I know him and I know that if I don't let him at least try something that he wants, he'll throw a tantrum. And his tantrums are nothing to mess with! So he tried my hot salsa. This is what happened.

When you watch, note that when he says "WAH!" that means "more" in Ben-speak.

Mommy's New Toy!

I haven't been happy with the quality of the videos I've been taking with my old digital camera. So, I splurged and bought myself a Flip camera!! It's SO easy to use, and the quality is 100% improved. See if you notice the difference...

ps-I just watched the video here on the blog, and the quality doesn't seem as improved as it does when I watch it on my computer (watching from the file directly). I'll have to figure out if there's a way to make it even better on the blog.

Body Art?

I think this speaks for itself...

Halloween Preview

(I JUST UPDATED THIS POST WITH A BETTER, RIGHT-SIDE-UP VIDEO!)

Yesterday I saw this Halloween costume at Costco... a COW! I knew that it was for Ben since he loves to MOO at pretty much anything and everything. We did a trial run to make sure it fit. He had a blast! My favorite part of this video is that there is still a hanger sewn to the hood... so funny! Enjoy...

Lunchtime Fun!

The three of us had an early lunch together today and Ben was happily giving "nose kisses" to his daddy so I grabbed the camera! I think this video speaks for itself. In my humble opinion it's one of the cutest things in the world!!

PS- If you listen closely, you can hear Ben say "bye bye" at the end!

The Artist!

Today I was reminded that there is no limit to what I will do in order to keep Ben entertained. He was pretty grumpy this morning so I grabbed the roll of paper and some paints and turned him loose in the backyard. These photos give a small sense of what fun he had... I will be cleaning paint off of not only Ben, but off of the patio furniture and steps for quite awhile. But it was so fun to watch him paint!!! Enjoy...






The little artist is napping now... here's a peek at the damage he did to himself!!!