baby ben is 2

so baby ben turned 2 this weekend. i really can't bear to think he's a big boy yet, so he'll keep his title until further notice. at least in my book.

a few things about our benny boy:

- he is still a little guy of very few words. his repertoire includes:  MOM/ mommy, dada, wow, owie, bayoon(balloon), hi, bye-bye, yeehaw, pease (please), no, do (dog), and peepee and poopoo {ya know, only the important stuff}
along with a myriad of sounds: lots of "uh!", beeps, various animal noises, and tons of giggles

- the above does not in any way hinder him from communicating exactly what he wants around here.
he's deservedly been dubbed bossy ben- using lots of grunts, pulls, and pushes to get people moving. plus all he really has to do is look at anyone with one of his cute, dimpled little facial expressions and he's good to go.

- his favorite book is "goodnight moon". we have to keep it on a special shelf in his room, read it before   nap and bedtime every day and then afterwards say good night and pat about 10 different objects in his room. this tradition must not be broken. the repercussions are intense.

- balloons are his dearest objects of affection, second only to his beloved blankie.

- balloons also bring out the very worst in him...i'm thinking idol maybe? ;)

- he loves to watch and mirror his brother and sisters like crazy

- his favorite foods are bananas and chocolate, in any form

- he loves to climb...tables, counters, dressers, cribs...which means he has also had his fair share of falls already.

- a few of his nicknames include: benny boy, benster, benny boo and chubby bubby (used almost exclusively as a nighttime salutation by madeline and sophie)

- he loves, loves, loves to color on himself with a marker. mostly just on his hands, but sometimes it reaches his mouth.

-he loves to be tickled, especially by daddy who can almost always get a real good belly laugh out of him

- he also loves to carry around water balloons filled w/ just a little water and he HAS to have a smiley face drawn on them. (handyandy would very much like this routine to phase out...something about the hazards of carrying around a balloon filled with water inside the house??...)

- he loves following his brother and sisters everywhere...especially into the lego room, into their forts, on their bikes, and in their rooms. and always while sporting an impish grin that gives away the fact that he is fully aware that he is driving them a tad CRAZY.

-he loves to swipe dollies, nail polish,lego guys, other people's snacks, silly bands and everyone else's' markers and hide them in his back pack.

- he doesn't sleep the best. we still have a crib tent over his crib to keep him in bed and are most definitely delaying the inevitable training that needs to occur once we take the tent off...

- he just started being interested in watching cartoons with the other kids. yay for a 20 min. of containment!

- he loves that his daddy flies airplanes. every time this is mentioned he giggles and points with an "eh!" to the sky.

- he still loves mommy...(maybe the best)
he'll still snuggle with me after he wakes up and will give me air kisses if i ask {especially if he's trying to get something} and he doesn't mind {too much} when i snatch him up multiple times a day to squish and cover him with kisses.

happy birthday {big} baby ben!

Birthday MUD PARTY

will turned 7 this month. after the blast we had at our little mud party earlier this summer, he decided to carry the theme over for his birthday. see invites here we had so. much. fun. it was seriously the best time ever. there's just something about seeing kids splashing, and rolling in mud that makes you feel all is well in the world. anyway, i've had several people ask me, what one exactly does at a mud party in the city so i thought i'd give you a little picture outline. :) enjoy the mess!

our mud pit isn't extremely large. half of this area in our yard grows our squash and pumpkins, so handyandy just laid a huge beam in front of the veggies to create a boundary line. then he dug a couple pits on either side and filled them up with water, to get the mud a cookin.

we told the boys to wear old clothes so they could get as dirty as they wished. they built reservoirs, canals, floods and then when it was almost time to hose off, the bucket dumping began. it was the best part for sure.

Happy 7th Birthday! we love you will!!

then we ate pizza, had dirt dessert and then let the boys have a clean water fight with water balloons and sprinklers until their parents came. super easy, lots of fun.

and a great big shout out goes to handy andy for embracing and loving such a crazy messy party even though the neat and tidy OCD part of his personality was freaking out a little bit. good work, babe! you made the day super fun!

birthday buddies

7 years ago i got the best birthday present ever- a little baby boy! And it was a gift that keeps giving- this year i asked for a 7 year old with blonde hair, who loves ninjas, climbs trees and plays with legos....and i got it!

Love this little guy so much and we're both super excited for "our" mud party next weekend.

a mud party...

 the thought came to me spontaneously as i was writing out our summer list this year. i wasn't really sure how, when or where we would do this, or if i reeeeally wanted the mess, but it just felt like the right thing to do so i wrote it up there anyway. :)

and then one afternoon it just happened. out came the hose and puddles formed, sticks started mixing the gooey goodness, toes got splashed and i realized that today was the day! off came shirts and madeline's fancy dress and in they went.

squishing fingers and toes in the fabulous mud...

smiling and splashing...

building canals, dams, bridges and pools...

 throwing out inhibitions...

and looking more and more like amazonian natives...

 then ben woke up from his nap!

oh joy! oh bliss! he could hardly contain himself! his little baby dreams were coming true!

it was a great, great day! we recommend everyone having a mud party of their own...in fact there's talk over here about a birthday mud party for a certain soon-to-be 7 year old. so, so fun.

summer list

well, since today is officially the first day of summer i thought it would be a great time to post our summer list. a week and a half ago we got our little family together and had a summer list brainstorming meeting. here's our list last year

i finally wrote it up on the chalkboard yesterday and now we can begin crossing stuff off...just in time for Target to put out school supplies. does anyone else feel a tad robbed of their summer when this happens so early? grrrrr. maybe i'm just overly sensitive to the big blank spot in the bottom corner which should have written on it: "PLAN SCHOOL". oh well, for now i'll just focus on the fact that today is "make ice cream" day. woohoo ;)

i'm linking up with sweet Alicia for her "happy day project." go check her happy challenge for today. :)

We {heart} daddy

Happy Father's Day Handy Andy. We love you "yots".

 i love that i was able to capture the filth that is stained onto my children's sweet little feet. They're hard-core "bare-footers".... and well, their feet show it but they make their daddy proud. ;)

**here are 2 of about 20 outtakes. sheesh! these kiddos make it hard to take their pictures. although hats off to big brother Will who put himself in charge of keeping Ben's legs down so i could snap a coherent picture! bless his heart.

 oh ben, you and your squishy face...

summer spray

Summer is here. hip hip hooray!

I'm loving these hot-enough-to-get-the-hose-out-in-regular-clothes kind of days.

sophie is loving it too. :)

Summer Learning FUN!

We ended school for the year. i didn't post about it because there wasn't a lot to say and my feelings about the success of the year are a little iffy. One thing i was certain about is that i wanted to continue some learning into the summer but i knew it had to be FUN...or at least as fun as possible. :)

 So, here comes my brain child. ha. i actually did spend a lot of time thinking about this- even waking up in the night trying to figure out the best way to motivate Will and get some goals crossed off my list.
My 3 main goals for the summer  are:
1) FORCE, i mean encourage Will to practice reading
2) Finish our Handwriting book
3) Get out in nature and purposefully explore

Here's what i came up with. My title is kinda stupid but it was the best i could think of before i walked out the door to Kinkos. So, it's just a little board game type chart hung on the fridge.

 For every blue circle he picks a blue "DESTINATION" card. I have a lot of repeats and a little variety thrown in to make it interesting.

Here's a full list: Read a book, Do 2 Handwriting pages, Read a summer poem, Read a book with mom and dad, Retell a story to your sisters, Go outside and a find an object in nature the size of a quarter, draw a picture of it in your journal, Listen for 2 bird calls and try to find the birds they belong to, Go outside w/ the small camera and find a bird or bug and take a picture of it. Write about it in journal, Recite your summer poem, READ a book, READ a book!

 THEN, once he has done 3 "DESTINATIONS" he gets to pick a "TREASURE" card.
This envelope is mostly filled with "Pick from the BOX" cards but i also included some fun ones too:
- Bike ride to Safeway and pick out an ice cream topping
-Bike ride to Safeway and pick out a cold drink
-Pizza party with the family at the pool
-Frozen Yogurt at Aspen Leaf
- Dinner at Red Lobster

The Treasure box is filled with all kinds of snacks and little toys. I'll also use this box to reward the girls for their own version of this chart.

Today was the first day and all 3 were pretty jazzed. Will did his 2 handwriting pages with only a small sigh and the girls did a little color matching activity. They each put a sticker on their chart and were asking "can we do more summer sailing, pleeeeease?!"

* i decided to add a few stars to random blue cards so that every once in awhile they would get a bonus treasure from the box. we're all about motivation over here.
* I also added more than enough treasure cards so i'm hoping he'll be motivated to go through the chart more than once.

lollipops + cousins= yum

I've had the pleasure of hanging out with all 7 of these little peeps a couple times this last week and its always a lot of fun...and a lot of crazy. But since 3 of the 7 will be moving to Iowa in a few weeks, i'm happy for any opportunities to soak them up. This morning was made extra sweet thanks to...

Sister leaving a bag of these lollipops for us to enjoy. We try not to do a lot of sugar in our fam but sometimes, its nice to have a treat. We discovered this brand awhile ago and just love them.

100% natural, organic, no high fructose corn syrup, real fruit extracts like black carrots and pumpkin!, sweetened with cane juice and brown rice syrup and have fantastic flavors!

My nephew's favorite is (in his words) "flamango mango" :)
Anyway, just thought i'd pass the fun along in case you've never heard of these.
oh and i've found them at Sprouts and even stores like TJmaxx and Marshalls.
So, there you go. bet you're craving a "too berry blueberry" right now.

just a little design sponge

While waiting to go to church, Will spied the Design Sponge at Home book from the library. He cozied up on a chair with Sophie and spent a good deal of time absorbing some design inspiration.

 Sophie was just happy to be in a chair with Will, regardless of the book choice.

"hmmm? what? just a little design perusing, that's all."

These were two of his favorite pages. He totally loved the sliding barn doors (so do i!) and thought maybe we should have this picture of the "wasp" (bee) in our club house since they keep building nests inside. :)

Get your own book here and you can absorb some awesome design inspiration as well. :)

Green Green Smoothies...It's green but what else is about it?!

My kids aren't super, super picky eaters but i can easily go a day without getting anything green into them if i'm not on top of it. This is where the green green smoothies come to the rescue. They are our favorite easy go-to dinner choice...(we usually only have these for dinner when Handy Andy is flying even thought he's a pretty good sport as long "smoothies" aren't on the menu too often. ha:)

Ok, so here's whatcha do for approximately 5 Green Green Smoothies

* about 3 cups plain yogurt. If i'm low on frozen fruit sometimes i'll add some strawberry yogurt or just a little extra honey to sweeten it up a bit
* at least 2 frozen bananas ( tip: i always freeze bananas in chunks so they are easier to blend)
* maybe a cup of frozen blueberries or strawberries
* fill the rest of the blender full with Spinach
*a splash of milk or juice to help get it moving
* a couple of ice cubes

{sophie was set on a picture of her with her hand in her mouth. i don't know what it means.}

then BLEND! i usually throw in some more spinach leaves at this point. just for extra fun.

Ok, now pour it into bowls.
Next step is to make the extra super double green shot.
Here's what i do:
* With the left-over shake that is still in the blender i add maybe 1 cup extra yogurt,
*a couple more handfuls of spinach
* 1/2 of an avocado
* a couple of chunks of froz. banana
*BLEND again. It will look kinda weird. like guacamole. in fact, the first time i did it i was planning on just giving it to ben because i figured he wouldn't notice the extra green goopiness. But then i thought i should taste it to make sure it wasn't gross or "dross" as we say in our family now. And guess what??
It was yummy. so i added some super double green shots to each of our bowls and it made them look fancy and beautiful. :)

Ok, since i just made a reference to "dross" i just have to ask, have you guys watched the kid history videos??? DO it. You will laugh. "It's green. but what else is about it?"

We let our kids watch it with us and they memorized the lines almost instantly and now they have become apart of our everyday language. Especially when we eat something green. It's great.

Ok, next sprinkle some yummy granola on top and enjoy. with a spoon. :)

What do YOU do to get more green into you and your kids??

ben loves his blankie

ben's blankie is supposed to stay in his bed...definitely in the house...but it doesn't. somehow it always follows him everywhere. and it makes this little boy so happy i just can bear to put it back where it belongs. 

 

will says ben looks like linus. linus is will's favorite peanuts character...well, besides snoopy, of course. ironically, baby ben is wearing his snoopy t-shirt in these pics. awww.

this particular evening ben was so pleased to sit on the driveway with his blankie and a new better homes and garden magazine...that is until he noticed his big brother and neighbor playing down the street. 

 he quickly got up to join the big boys...but was sure to bring along blankie...and bhg. :)
what's a little dirt, right?! i think so.

later he decided to be big and carried out this little ladder in order to climb the basketball pole like will.

his blankie was a big help. 

oh boy, i love this boy. and since he loves his blankie, i love it too. :)