wip 3.26.11

total slacker on the blog this week.
life's been a bit busy...  lots going on. but that's okay.  something just had to give and it just so happened to be a few blog posts!

crazy busy few days last weekend!
i'll start with thursday since it was wee man's birthday! but i'll also add that monday since we celebrated then too.

monday:
festivities with nick's dad's side of the family. at our monthly family night dinner.

our new birthday banner. {just saw the price went up, so glad i bought it when i did!}

 ben loves pressies!

sometimes i think he loves standing on big boxes more! 

checking out his new clubs.

being a patient boy and waiting for us to sing to him. i have no clue why i only put one candle on there. maybe because it was just a tiny little treat?!?

do you think i can fit this whole thing in my mouth?

fast forward a few days...

thursday:
ben stayed home with daddy. had fevers on and off for most of the day...
i brought him a pressie when i got home from work. thank you brandee and fam. ;)

crayola has some new colored bubbles. fabulous! i even bought some for ben's easter basket.

uh, not so fabulous. although the bottle said washable, it was nearly impossible to get off of ben and the carpet. who knew they couldn't be used indoors? needless to say, i will be returning the ones for his easter basket. ;( i'll give the blue ones another shot... but only outdoors!!

then grandma and grandpa stopped by for a visit. just brought beaner some balloons. 

and of course, the bow on head shot.

ben was so tired he went to bed by 530... didn't wake up until the next morning. poor guy!

friday:
lazy day at home until ben's 2 year check up.
when we got home we were finally able to open his presents from us. a few books, his camera, a drum, and some blocks. nothing major.

friday evening was an impromptu dinner date with nick's mom. was nice that she came because i got to see my boyfriend in a movie. and i totally give the movie two thumbs up!

saturday:
used our new juicer! yay for credit card rewards!

and ben enjoyed some peanut butter and celery. 

say cheese!

saturday afternoon was the twin's birthday party.
ben totally enjoyed their cupcakes!

sunday:
a quick trip to lighthouse mall. yay for quick and relatively inexpensive shopping trips!

that afternoon was family night with nick's mom's side.

lots of pictures courtesy of the fabulous miss megan. ;)

cousins: noah, ben, and gabby.

i don't think ben has quite figured out how to use his birthday present!

his face cracked me up...  it's like he's having a stand off with mr. t rex or something.

just think this is hilarious. an every day, not so perfect shot. love it.

two candles this time?!

um,  this is tasty. {i only used 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar}

and a not so happy ben when it was all gone!

crazy good weekend. nice to have some random down time after the past few weekends! looking forward to one last birthday party this weekend.

wordless wednesday.3.30.11.

found this evening in our garden. ;)

wip 3.19.11

road trip!
headed here for the weekend. stayed at glacier canyon lodge {option b}. was sooo nice. the walk to each of the water parks was a total haul. but we had a good time so who cares!

friday:
a crazy morning trying to finish getting everything packed. i was a total procrastinator this week. oh well. nick was cooking our pasta dinner to take with and had given ben some noodles to eat....

finally got everything organized and ready and headed off to meet at nick's aunt's. stopped at sonic for lunch. yum.

had a pretty uneventful drive. played lots of trivia. ben saw lots of airplanes. thank you ohare.

stopped at one rest area that did have a playground, which was nice, so ben could run around and get rid of some energy!

don't have any pictures of our rooms... not sure what i was thinking!
but i do have this one of a lot of stuff. mostly kitchen stuff. we were well fed!

friday evening, we walked around and checked out all three water parks, some gift shops, a bar, the play area, laser tag, and i can't remember what else. the place is huge!

after beaner went to bed, the kids {nick, myself, hailey, and megan} headed out to play some laser tag. had a blast! was much more fun than i thought it would be, even if nick did beat all of us!

saturday: water park{s} day!
ben totally wasn't sure what to think of all the action and water. he was very tentative, at first. once he warmed up to it, he didn't want to stop!

his favorite part was this one kiddie slide. i swear, he went down that thing like 50 times. ben went down it seated and on his stomach feet first. at one point, he held up his hand and said, 'momma. no. no. no. no.' he didn't want me to catch him! was totally being mr. independent.

found this on our camera when we got back from riding a slide, love it!

don't have any good pics of ben on the slide.
but here are some of my favorites from the day...
ben ended up shirtless because we changed locations and it was much, much warmer.

had to go under this little water spout every time we walked by it! he eventually would put his entire head under it regularly. ;)

checking out the little sprayers. love the whodi swimsuit. it's 24 mos... he's just a bit short!

that face.

again, with the pants.

family portrait. of course, ben wouldn't look at the camera for either take!

love.

all prune-y at the end of the day. chilling and enjoying his snack and juice.

that evening we did play a round of golf and then came back to the hotel room for some games and a movie. i fell asleep...

sunday:
the end.
after we packed everything up {in the crazy rain!} we went and played another round of golf. both courses they had were black light. different. and you could wear 3d glasses. we passed on that!

another family photo.

and wee man enjoying his sucker before we headed home.

the drive home was ridiculous. it was monsooning like crazy. thankfully, it wasn't snow!!

we had a blast. would definitely do it all over again!

24 months.

zomg.
where does time go?
and now that i'm getting ready to do this review, i'm kinda mad at myself for not doing it more over the last year. sigh.
the last one i did was 17 months.
ben's 12 month post is here. it's crazy to look back at and see how little different he looks!

the benster is currently at home with daddy. {i cannot say it enough, we are so lucky to have flexible jobs!} decided his present to himself would be a 102.8 fever yesterday when we got home. sigh. poor beans. was up to 103.8 last night when we woke him up at 930 to remedicate him. thankfully, this morning it's down to 101.2. already have an appointment with his pediatrician for the two year appointment tomorrow. hopefully, it's nothing serious....

a few of my most favorite recent photos. taken on fat tuesday so don't mind the beads. however, he does love bracelets and necklaces. ;)

let's see what i can come up with for his list...

- loves fruits and veggies. the kid even drinks v8! i think his least favorite might be raisins.
- not a fan of bread. can usually sneak in pb and j on a tortilla though.
- loves to run around the house. and he'll tell you that he's 'wunning'
- is obsessed with balls. baseballs, footballs, golf balls, plain ole balls. it's a bit ridiculous. i think basketballs might be his favorite. fitting since he was born during  march madness.
- can drink from a big boy cup. and as soon as he's moved into his new room at daycare, he'll have no more sippys while he's there.
- is talking up a storm. he will repeat anything you ask him to. it might not be the greatest, but he's trying.
- loves all modes of transportation. will point out airplanes, motorcycles, buses, and trucks. and if he hears a train, he'll repeat the noise.
- has had some killer temper tantrums. let's hope those are few and far between!
- doesn't really get startled by loud noises. he enjoys the vacuum, the blender/food processor, and my hair dryer.
- sleeps from 7ish to 7ish. and takes a 2-3 hour nap at daycare. when he's home with us, we can sometimes get two naps out of him. an early morning one for about an hour and then another 2-3 hour one in the afternoon.
- is wearing 18-24 mos clothing. {mostly tops. the 18 mos bottoms still fit. he's a shorty.} will have official stats on friday. updated to add the official stats: 25.6 pounds {22%}, 31.8 inches {<3%}.
- i'm pretty sure he has a whole mouth full of teeth. i'm not sticking my fingers in there to find out though! i try to count when we're brushing his teeth but that's a bit tough when i'm concentrating on brushing him or him not poking someone's eye out while he's brushing them!
- loves our cell phones. can figure out how to unlock them and get to 'his' apps.
- still loves to dance. we're working on raising the roof this week.
- says 'nub nu' and gives hugs and kisses. so sweet. sometimes we don't even have to ask, he just comes on over and gives ya a squeeze. ;)
- is a huge fan of the camera. i think he's gonna like his pressie... {love that i grabbed it on hella sale and just hung onto it!}
- only watches sports, wheel of fortune, wipeout, or dinosaur train on television.
- will say 'no' when he hears a song on the radio that he doesn't like.
- wants to do everything by himself. if you're doing something for him and he wants to do it, he'll say... 'ben'
- loves chocolate. aka mocolate.
- is a bit bossy. likes to tell people to 'sit down' {like a super busy man in a chinese restaurant. i know, i know. not totally politically correct. but he gets this crazy accent when he says it.} and forgets the please... 
- can name all of our family and friends in photos.
- will repeat the alphabet but has yet to sing it on his own... in front of us at least.
- can tell you that he's two. and can count to two! ha. we're working on it.
- can recognize some letters of the alphabet.
- knows many shapes and loves to play with the tick tock.
- knows his colors but is lazy and reply that something is either blue or green without looking at times.
- is majorly obsessed with circles. {i think it's related to his ball obsession...}
- knows body parts all of the easy ones and some trickier ones like elbow, knee, thumb, neck.
 - wants to talk on the phone whenever mommy and daddy are on it. he usually becomes very shy and stops talking as soon as we hand him the phone.
- is still using a binky.
- and takes his blankets every where. i swear his middle name could be linus.
- is super friendly. says hi and bye bye to everyone.
- has two parents who love him so very much and are so grateful to have him in their lives. and we are so very excited to watch him grow and learn and experience this crazy thing called parenthood with such a great little boy! <3.

wordless wednesday. he liked it!

wilderness lodge wisconsin dells. ;)

february 2011 shuttercal

another month done!
i'm really diggin this project.
hoping i stay on track.  it's still early in the year! ;P

wip 3.12.11

friday:
met a friend at the mall and hung out in the play area. ben totally enjoyed himself. would have had an even better time if he would have napped before we went. oh well! can't complain, he was well behaved.

ben loved the merry go round. more on that later...

sliding down in the ben preferred position.

cutie. that hair was out of control from his hat! loved the little front park poking up. ;)

cheese.

look at those little feetsies!

curious ben.

then we came home and napped!

that evening was dinner at bartlett's with the family.

and albert einstein was at dinner!

saturday:
had the empire guy out for an estimate. holy not cheap. visited a local place who totally had better pricing. trying to figure out what we're gonna do in the future about our carpet... fun times.

had to run out to costco. found out some friends wanted to go to the mall, so we decided to meet up and let the kiddos play.

ben got to the ride the round and round at the mall!
he was in complete awe. guess all that pointing at it the day before was legit. he really loved it!

would be cute minus my crazy hair!

love little miss drea's face in the background. she's a photo crasher!

the kids enjoying their ice cream treat.

ben decided to hang out in the girls' stroller with drea.

i had to try some of gabby and drea's ice cream and have a crazy blue mouth...

then it was off to get pedicures! the main reason john and bill were going to the mall. so we all got them!

john and shan

bill and the kids. love this one. nick did good!

blurry nick. had to have proof that he did it too!

and i found this one on the camera. love when there's a random fun one!

then it was dinner at portillo's. yum.

sunday:
lazy day. coupons. and shopping. sometimes we just need those!