Ben- 2 years, 4 months, 3 weeks & 5 days old.

Well, Ben is changing a lot these last few weeks. He's really a little boy now. My little baby is gone. But he will always be my baby. :) (I'm sure he'll love me saying that to him in about 7 years from now.)
-he's using full sentences now... well, full TODDLER sentences. Some of my favorites lately have been "Ouch Mommy, that hurt me! don't touch my boo-boo!", "mommy, I go to the pool with daddy in da morning, okay?" Yesterday when I picked him up from school I said "How was your day?" and he said "I be nice." When he wants us to pick him up he says "want you". He uses "okay?" a lot after things he says now too. And my favorite word he says is dirty pronounced "Duw-tee". No R sound! Love it! The other day I was washing fruit that we got at the grocery store and he was observing me and after watching said "mommy, it's duw-tee... it's duw-tee"!! -speaking of being nice at school, the last couple weeks he wasn't so nice and was on a hitting tirade. Tirade is I guess a strong word, but he had a few "Boo-Boo Reports" and a lot of time outs at school. He wasn't very nice to one of his friends he plays with a lot one day, and she told him off and it hurt his feelings. After that he seemed to stop hitting! Now if Daddy and I are playing and he happens to see us doing anything that resembles hitting, he PROMPTLY tells us to say sorry to one another. He's a peace maker. OR a tattle tale... either way.
-Ben, I hope, will continue to have a good sense of humor. He laughs a lot, and has THE greatest chuckle of all. He still gets the hiccups when he laughs hard, which is adorable.

-Ben also has a pretty hefty temper... but I guess that's pretty typical. He can get pretty shook up... but he can get over it pretty fast too. Although, it's hard to distract him nowadays, he's started to remember a lot more. And REPEATS HIMSELF constantly. I know, typical 2 year old.

-Ben is giving sweet hugs and kisses, knows how to squeeze when he hugs. I love it. He's been having a hard time saying goodbye in the mornings lately. Not sure why. One day he cried so hard I had to hurry out so I wouldn't either. It's extremely difficult for me.

-Ben right now LOVES watching "my giraffe" which is the movie/cartoon Madagascar. He also really enjoys Nemo and Veggies Tales and of course still Elmo. We took him to the pet store last weekend so he could see the fishies and "tuuhrtuls" (turtles) and we got to see Nemo and Nemo's daddy and Dori. He was pretty excited about that.

-Ben doesn't really show excitement like others typically do, like maybe clapping hands or jumping up and down. Ben observes and smiles gently and looks and learns about it and if he feels comfortable he'll want to get down or walk closer to the subject... but then we know he really was affected by it if he talks and talks about it after we've left. He's so much like his daddy.

-Ben's favorite songs to sing right now are: Happy Birthday (to Daddy specifically- EVERY day is Daddy's birthday), No More Monkey's Jumping on the Bed! (which he likes to repeat in different voices and tones quite frequently), Twinkle, Twinkle, ABC's (of course which he still muddles a little and stops at V occasionally and sings the end to the song), the newest is Barney's "I love you" song which he promptly hugs and kisses me during which is A.O.K. with me!!! Other than that I hate Barney! Ha! He likes the few primary songs we have on our iPod and there are a few songs of ours he likes to listen to and tries to sing along to, in particular "Could You Be Loved" by Bob Marley! So cute!

-Ben is still very protective of Ally. They have an interesting bond...nothing too noticeable. But occasionally he will show his love for Ally in random ways. We took her to get her hair groomed this weekend, and he cried his little eyes out when we left her. He was so afraid for her, he thought she was going to get hurt or something. He's very sensitive and can tell when a person (or Ally) is not feeling right or is sad or scared.

With this (I think) he has a really good trait of being sensitive in general. I've had a few nights where I've just really missed my big sister, and have cried and he remembers the next morning. And while I'm crying he almost always apologizes, because I think either he's trying to comfort me or that he thinks he made me cry. It's very sweet and he comes and touches me and gets a very concerned look on his face and says "Sowwy Mommy... Sowwy". It's so sweet and I love his tenderness.
-pretty much, Ben's best friend is his daddy. Must I say more? He just really adores his dad. And his daddy adores him. He also adores his grandparents. All of them, yes mom. :) Oh and I think he digs me too!-Ben loves the pool A LOT, and thank goodness because it's been a life saver in a lot of cases especially because it's been so blasted HOT and HUMID here this summer. He asks to go to the pool pretty much everyday. We use the Elton's pool a lot, but if we can't make it there and have time we fill up his little pool out on the driveway. (Our backyard has tooooooooooo many mosquitoes.) He loves his floaties and will probably be full on swimming by next summer. I think we might try swim lessons during the winter, in an inside pool of course. What kind of parents do you think we are!-Still loves to sleep. Still needs about 10-11 hours a night, to be "normal". Even if he's not sleeping for like the last hour, he likes to rest I guess. He never cries out for us if he wakes up before us, he usually just hangs out and talks or sings and plays with his feet and rolls around. (I've watched him before, this is how I know.) He's still taking naps- a lot of the time on the weekends he'll take 3 hour naps still.-I don't know if he'll ever grow out of it, knowing his dad, but he's pretty shy. Until he feels comfy around you. But he does keep to himself a lot. After the weekend of staying with Ryan's parents I asked his teacher that evening when I picked him up if he talked a lot about Poppy's house. She said "no, he doesn't really talk much. If we ask him questions he'll talk to us- but he doesn't talk much". BUT that was ONE teachers comments, I don't believe that's totally true because the OTHER teacher the other day said that Ben told her he was going to the pool that night and then she asked me if it was Daddy's birthday!!!It's hilarious only because he LITERALLY says it's Daddy's birthday EVERY.DAY.
Proof:

That's a lot I guess for now. I'm sure I'll think of more later and want to add it, but maybe I'll save it for later. We love you BEN!

I owe ya one

So... let's see. Last we spoke I mentioned that Ryan and I were heading to St. Simons Island, GA for a wedding that I was going to photograph. Well, that was almost 3 weekends ago so I guess I have some catching up to do.
The Thursday before we left there was some serious packing to do, and rather than it be all scattered everywhere I sent the boys off the the Elton's pool to go swimming and I stayed home and got most of our stuff ready. Friday I took a half day and after I got off work ran some errands and as soon as Ben was up from his nap at daycare I went and picked him up. I got the car mostly packed up before I went to get him, so we only had to go home for Ally basically. Me, Ben and Ally headed over to Nana & Poppy's and no one was there yet, so I started to unload the car of Ben and Ally's things, they got to have a 2 night sleep over! The longest we'd been away from Ben! Anyway... in the process... I got locked out of the house. AGAIN. Only this time Ben, Ally and my keys were in the house! Ben shut the door, that wasn't unlocked when I walked out, and yes- locked it somehow. I wasn't super concerned because luckily I had my phone with me, and Ryan was on the way in like 2-3 mins. So we laughed and I joked with Ben. It was pretty funny to hear him screaming "Mommy! Open the door!" to me from inside the house. I tried to talk him through unlocking the door but he didn't understand. Oh well, Ryan came and had a key and opened the door up. We just laughed!
So we left Ben and Ally that night and drove to Brunswick, GA which is just outside of St Simons and is about 4-5 hours south, near Savannah. We were very safe but saw about 2 or 3 accidents on the way down- one on the opposite side of the highway I'm so glad we weren't on because it was backed up for MILES. We're not sure if it was a fatality, but there was a helicopter there to pick up patients and people on stretchers! Yikes! We said a prayer that they would be okay!
Saturday morning we got up and headed to the Lighthouse where the wedding was going to take place and scoped out possible picture spots. We then met up with the Kranendonk family (a very large one at that!) and went to the beach! We didn't go for too long, but it was long enough! Some is better than none! We found a lot of sea creatures under the sand... not scary ones though. We played with Sand Dollars that were still alive and other fun shell-life-like things!
We went back to our (kind of dumpy... okay REALLY dumpy) hotel and showered up for the wedding. Holy crap it was hot that day. SOOOOO hot. And humid, and stormy looking. Luckily it all panned out even though all of us almost passed out from heat exhaustion it was a very nice wedding and we got some nice shots. That night, after the wedding we went swimming with Jared and Kaela and Noelle (Jared, Noelle and the bride are all siblings. Ryan pretty much grew up with them and I know them from church) at the hotel pools, in the rain! All of us happen to have 2 year olds but all of them were being babysat by grandparents at the time (Ben obviously back home with Nana & Poppy), and we felt so liberated! So much so that we went out to eat at IHOP and closed it down! We closed down an IHOP! We stayed out so late! All of like 12am... but for three sets of parents with 2 year olds- that's late! It was super fun!
We headed home Sunday to go get Bubba (Ben) and Ally. We missed him a lot. It was GOOD for us to be away though to be just us with us and not be mommy and daddy. We kept looking back in the car to see if he was okay... and remembering he was just fine with Nana and Poppy. We laughed a lot, listened to our music as loud as we wanted... slept as much as we wanted. It was good. And we didn't want to subject him to that pressure of a wedding, although because we know the Kranendonk's they really wouldn't have cared if we brought him. Plus, it was SO hot so I'm glad we didn't have to have him out in that. But on the way home, we decided to take a pit stop in Savannah for lunch and to check it out. Ryan's never been there and I've only ever driven through it... which is basically all we did except for stopping for lunch. We ate at a BBQ my sister recommended, we were the only ones there until we left. And it was nice. BUT we're glad and feel blessed that we did stop because probably right around the time we would've been on I16 there was a fatal accident and we just missed it by probably the hour we stopped to eat!!! We were grateful that were safe and even though the detour and delay getting home was an annoyance, we were safe.
Anyway, it was fun! I'm starting to get more photo business! This is a good thing!

Labor of Love

Look at the fruits/vegetables of our labor! I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but man this is exciting stuff! It wasn't nearly this cool as a kid! I feel so... accomplished. Like we're doing good for our family!
Well here's to our first "weekend" sans Ben! He will have a lot of fun with Nana and Poppy and Ally is going too.

4th of July weekend

Wow! I have to say, that this was possibly one of my favorite 4th of July weekends I've had in a LONG time! Not that the others were bad, this one was just great. Maybe it's because we have a functioning little guy who can appreciate some of the things we are doing with him nowadays. The weather was really quite tolerable this weekend too which was a plus.

Friday afternoon I got off early. I went and picked Ben up and well, we didn't do much of anything exciting that night. I washed A LOT of dishes and cleaned up the house while Ben played. Here is a pre-clean the floor picture of my silly boy with an oven mitt and my shoes on! After dinner we went over to Nana and Poppy's to pick some stuff up and got some fresh veggies from their ginormous garden! One for ours to live up to one day! Saturday we did some yard work in the morning. Ben and I enjoyed a fudgsicle out on the front porch together. I think that was his official Popsicle... at home anyway. They may have given them to the kids at his daycare, but as far as I'm concerned... it was his first- and I got to share it with him! I taught him the art of how to lick and then suck off the melted stuff... but he still made a mess, and that's ok. He enjoyed it. He didn't quite finish it- but I don't think he's really all that in to sweets and I'm perfectly, perfectly fine with that! It was sugar free anyway. I think I washed even more dishes Saturday... we had a major back up. And did some laundry. Then that evening after Ben woke up from his nap we, along with the Terry's, went to the Elton's for a swim and dinner. I should've, but didn't take any pictures. We swam, mostly talked and played with Ben. Jacob and Mark had discussions of what kinds of things they would fill a pool up to swim in; like jello, nacho cheese, pudding, etc. It was a discussion that lasted a lot longer than one would expect- but not from them! Ha ha! Afterward Ryan (mostly) made dinner for us all. Hillary and the baby sat out and watched us. She enjoyed the fresh air. Their little guy is SOOOOOO cute and tiny. I just can't even believe Ben was that small or smaller once. We enjoy our friends and are so grateful to have such good ones.
The 4th we spent getting ready for our little BBQ we had that evening. The Terry's provided the ribs the night before and Ryan decided to be the grill master. He really IS a grill master! Everything he cooks on the BBQ is DELICIOUS. He watched an Alton Brown tutorial and got to preparing them at like 10am. We cooked a lot that day, and I have to say that even though our kitchen is tiny- one of my favorite things to do with my husband is when we cook together. I love that we're a good team when it comes to cooking. And we make GOOD food, and we both LOVE to cook and especially for our friends. He's honest about how something I make tastes, I test noodles for him, etc. We're just good together, yes we are! (Ben in Daddy's silly slippers!)
Clint and the Terry's came for dinner and we had lots of yummy food and afterward went to see the fireworks at Roswell High School. Even though Ben had a nap he was still pretty tired. He hardly even played really. He sat in his cute little orange chair and hung out. Watched all the people and kids around us and when the fireworks started (after 9 which is past his bedtime normally) he was zoned out. He wanted me to hold him so he could lay on me, and kept telling me "Momma, I wanna go home" or "The Car, go home" or "go get Ally". So, basically, he was tired and no one was bothered with the notion of leaving, so we did. We got to see the grand finale driving away though, and that was good enough for me!
The next morning we woke up fairly early and met up with Ryan's mom in Dunwoody where he grew up to watch their city parade. I think that was Ben's (and Ryan's) favorite part of the 4th festivities. That was in fact Ryan's first parade! Ben got lots of candy... none of which he's eaten or probably ever will. He wanted a sucker and I let him have it... I know I sound like a stickler, but we just don't give him lots of sweets. I'm not saying that people that give their kids are bad... but both Ryan & I are overweight and Diabetes runs in the family and what he doesn't know wont bug him, etc. So we just have never really given him goodies. We occasionally give him bites of brownies, cookies, ice cream... stuff like that. But even then he doesn't ever really want it or ask for it. Which, I'm glad for. I mean, I know this probably wont last forever. And I'm not totally naive to the fact that they give him goodies at school when I'm not around. That's why we keep it to a minimum at home. Plus... like all other kids- it makes him a little wired for a minute or too. Anywho... he sucked on the sucker for a little while and then he gave it back to me and said "All finished mommy". And that was that!So there were lots of cool old cars in the parade. And it was just nice to sit and feel a lot of pride for our country. There were military bands and they got me a little choked up. In fact, the girl I'm doing the wedding for this weekend was marching in the Marine Corps band! Pretty neat. Ben enjoyed the Cop cars, fire trucks... well anything that resembled a truck really, the dogs, the music... oh and there was a pirate float and one of the "wenches" gave him a Pirate Rubber ducky that he loves. He also got a million political candidate stickers that we kept piling up on his shirt!
It was a little hot, but overall the weather was super.After the parade we went and got lunch did a little shopping at the mall with Nana and then came home. Both Ben and I crashed (him a lot longer than me) and then we ran an errand after nap time. It was a wonderful and fun and patriotic weekend. Now it's back to work for the week... a shorter one which is good. I am taking a half a day Friday to get ready for our trip. Our work/relax/first weekend with out kid/beach weekend! Yay! Wow I'm tired...off to bed.

Day #8 of Vacation and Saturday

I'm a little behind. Friday we went to Zoo Atlanta. There were a few problems with this. First that it was a late start to the morning when we meant to be out the door a lot earlier because it's just been stinkin' hot here lately.We had a few places to run to before we left, and the Zoo is about a half hour away from our house. So we didn't end up getting there until about 11:30am. Second- it was CROWDED. We happened to go on a day where lots of day camps decided to come AND family reunions. Third- because of the time of day we went, it was HOT. HOT HOT HOT. Luckily there's lots of shade... and we bought some $4 Dip'n Dots (good thing they're SO worth it)... but we couldn't last more than a couple hours. Which, is okay I guess with a zoo. We saw lots of animals and Ben had lots of fun. Most of the pictures of us you can see just how hot we were! I think Ben's favorite stop was the Zebra and Giraffe exhibit. We stayed there the longest.Friday night we went to The Terry's house and Martha ("Marfa" according to Ben) came over too. Ben played the drums a little... and he also played a little Wii with Marfa. Cute!When we got home- at 10pm... Ryan noticed that the gutter in front of our house only was filled with water. Turns out, there was a crack in the PVC pipe in the Water Meter hole. Too bad that the County guy came out and said it was our responsibility because it was on OUR side of the water meter. SO... we placed a call with our Home Insurance peeps and they sent someone out. He told us it wasn't covered but that it would cost $500 to fix it + the $60 service fee for just coming out to look at it. RIDICULOUS. Ryan was NOT happy and the guy said he'd do it for $200 if Ryan dug the hole to get to the pipe himself. So... Ryan dug and saved us $300. $260 later we have a very expensive 6 inches of pipe replacing the cracked pipe. Ugh... We really hate those out of the blue expenses that come with owning a house. I'm grateful it wasn't worse and didn't cost more. And the guy was a very nice man and was super friendly.

So that started our day today. Kind of put Ryan in a funk. He wasn't happy about that, and neither was I really- but I tried to make the best of it. I built a "fort" for Ben and turned on a movie for him. While he played in it I made him some lunch and then let him sit in his fort while he ate. He ate dinner in there too! Ryan even has passed up the comfy couch for the fort twice today to play his video games in it! My boys are two of a kind. :)

After nap time, (don't worry I didn't let the blanket stay like that for long...) we also went swimming to get out of the house. This time we went to the condo the Terry's own that Ashley used to live in. We had fun.

(this picture of Ben cracks me up. He's so leeeeeetle!!!)

I got super depressed tonight though realizing that after tomorrow it's back to reality. My stomach sinks thinking of having to go back to work... I don't wanna! We had a WONDERFUL and relaxing vacation though. Lots of fun at the pool and resting and doing whatever. I'm grateful for it.
On a separate note- the garden is doing great. Our first tomato is ALMOST ready to be picked! And the first green pepper I give about 2-3 days before we can pick it too! I've got lots of Snap Peas that are almost ready, and the cucumber is going wild so I suspect we'll see something from it soon too! I love it! I love how good it feels to grow food of our own and tend to it and watch it and what a miracle and blessing it is! I'm pretty proud of us too, and can't wait until next year to have an even BIGGER garden! Also, I found a rouge garlic clove in the fridge that started to "root", so Ryan decided to put it in water to see what happened. Well that little sucker has grown and fast! So we might plant it, but for now- it'll stay in the jar. It's fun to watch that grow too!Well, I better get to bed. Got Nursery to sub for tomorrow at Church. I'm glad I get to hang out with my dude and his little buddies! Hope I can handle them all! Eek!
I'm going to miss being with this dude all day everyday... Look at this face.

Day #7 of Vacation

Basically, we've mastered the "not doing much" part of our vacation. The "working days" have not really happened... maybe hours more than days. Today was simply the same as the past. Spent at the pool. I have NO regrets, well except for the lack of sunscreen today. :)

This time we headed up a few exits to Cumming at our friend Noelle's neighborhood pool. And I'm telling you, if EVERY neighborhood had a pool like this one- that would be awesome! (notice my lack of something witty to say there...) There was a HUGE kiddie pool with the raining mushroom umbrella thing and slides and stairs and buckets of water... of course, Ben didn't want that pool. (It's like he's saying "I declare!" This is him and Little Aubrey) He wanted the big people pool and all 3 kids (Ben, Noelle's little one Spencer and Kaela's little one Aubrey) wanted to go down the... dun dun dun... WATER SLIDE! YES! I know! A water slide! At a neighborhood pool!!! It was A LOT of fun. We all must've gone down it a million times. We had a lot of fun... and now Ryan and I are paying for it because well- we didn't apply the sunscreen like we should have. Ben's good though- don't worry. He had his water shirt on and I applied sunscreen on him. Anyway- we had fun in the sun and water... we hope to go again soon! The company was great too. It's funny because either Ben could care less about the Kiddie pool stuff or it scares him or both- but he's not even scared of the things we think he should be scared of. He even went down the slide by himself! About 2 hours in, literally all at the same time, all 3 kids (who are all 2 years old) started to have little melt downs. It was lunch/nap time. I tried to get a picture of the three of them together, and well... one would cry- then the other and it was just a domino affect. So I gave up. Ben and Spencer had the same cute trunks... so just imagine a very cute tan MUCH taller 2 year old with the same swimming trunks as Ben. Ha! That's really it for today. We all rested after that... mostly because I'm a lobster. Ryan and Ben burned their feet a little... and you know how men are, Big Babies! We did our Thursday chat with Grandma and Grandpa. I sure miss them. A lot. I miss all of my family. :(
Tomorrow, we're off to the Zoo! Yay! Ben's already really excited. He can't wait to see the "monkey, elfant, panda bear..." etc. Then... even though we still have the weekend, our week of vacation comes to an end. *Sigh* *sad face*.... *crying face*.... Oh well. We have 4th of July weekend to look forward to AND the weekend after that Ben's gonna stay with Nana & Poppy and I've got a Wedding to do and we'll be gone for 2 nights! Our first like "Big Kid" trip away! EEK! I'm excited.

Day #... which is it? Oh 6!

Much to Ryan's chagrin, we did not leave the house today. Well... we went out to the yard. Does that count? No... okay. We cleaned some today- mostly our bedroom which is always a disaster. But just like that, it will and can get messed up again. We did manage to make the bed though! I don't really know what we did this morning to be honest. I made pancakes.... uh... Ryan made a "fan page" for me on Facebook for my photography... uh... hmm. Yah... not much.
After his nap, Ben colored in his highchair and played with play-dough for like 2 hours. I know it sounds horrible or rather that we're horrible parents- but I kept trying to get him out and he didn't want to! He wanted to play with the play-dough! Plus we were cooking and he likes to hang out in the kitchen with us while we do that. He likes to show us all the things he creates with his play-dough like "pancakes" and "flowers". He says "look Mommy! A flower!" or "look Mommy! A 'pider!" He could have probably played with it all night, I actually had to take it away from him to feed him and he didn't like that.
After dinner we took him out to the driveway and played in the water. I mostly sprayed him and Ryan and that was good enough. Tomorrow we go to the pool with some friends, I heard there's a slide! So that should be fun. We plan on hopefully going to the Zoo on Friday too.
On the side... I can't get over just how smart our little guy is. He's learning his colors really well. He sings the alphabet in his muddled way all the time, oh and "Happy Birthday to ___ (fill in the blank)" too. He counts a lot, even if it's not in chronological order all the time. Once he gets past 5 or 6 he mixes numbers up and stuff- but he knows them! Tonight, when I asked Ryan what time it was- Ben was on my lap and got in my face to answer me "two tweddy" or something to that affect. But he knew what I was asking! He almost always answers "ya" to everything. Even when he throws stuff and he knows he's not supposed to and I ask if that was nice. And lately... in order for us to give him something or in the case of this week, go "swimmin'" he says to me "Mommy, I wanna be nice... I be nice." Ha ha! So cute. If he's in time out in his bedroom he'll say "All finished" when he feels like he's learned his lesson. It's hard not to let him just be finished! Ryan sent me a picture yesterday while I was at the dentist of Ben stacking books on top of another to make a tower. Ryan kept saying "This kid's a genius!" Well, of course we think he is. Maybe he'll grow up to make lots of money so he can support us. :) He already has $40.20 in his piggy bank... so hey! Anything is possible! (I swear the house looks messier than it really was...)
He's definitely becoming a handful... very 2 years old. Love the tantrums. Mmm-hmm, sure do. (can you sense the sarcasm in my tone?) He fortunately knows my "looks" when he has pushed me too far, but he's also becoming smart about figuring out how to change the subject or something... kinda like his dad. Hmmm... interesting! He also is starting to tell on people, like Ally (the dog) for one! "Mommy, Ally's kicking me..." "Mommy Ally hittin' me". He is so fun though. He plays really well for the most part but gets bored pretty easy if he's not doing something to keep his mind going. (Hence the 2 hour stint in the high chair today!) He watches a lot... and you can see the little wheels turning in his head. He's very observant that little one. I just love him to pieces!
Okay, it's past my bedtime... even for vacation. Night all!