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!