Interview with Ben on his 3rd Birthday

Favorite Food: Pizza
Favorite Sport: Soccer
Favorite TV Show: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
Coolest Person in the World: Ellie
Favorite Thing About School: ABCs
If you could go on a trip anywhere, it would be: playground
Favorite Color: red
What do you want to be when you grow up?: doctor
Favorite Song: Scooby Doo (theme song)
Favorite Book: Wheels on the Go
When I was little, I used to: cry
Favorite Season: winter
Favorite Snack: Scooby Snacks
Best Friend: Harrison

Ben's Party

Ben had a wonderful 3^rd birthday party.  We are so grateful to Gigi, Nana, and Mrs. Shaniqua for their help with the food.  Ben absolutely had the best time!  He was such the little host and greeted all his friends and gave them each party hats to wear.  It was adorable.  He let his friends play with his new train table in his room, and they all had a blast playing on the play set in our yard.

We had a pinata and the kids enjoyed collecting all the candy. Ben got loads of presents and he did a pretty decent job of saying thank you to all of his friends.

This was the first party that he was able to have all of his friends attend. All of his best buddies from Mrs. Gloria's house came to help him celebrate his special day.

 

Happy 3rd Birthday Ben!

Dear Ben,

I can’t believe you are already 3 years old!  The days leading up to your birthday have been so much fun because you really understand what is happening this year.  You were beyond excited that Mommy and Daddy surprised you with a train table.  Your sisters gave you your own scooter this morning.  Hopefully you will be able to keep up with the neighborhood kids now!

2 years old has been a busy year for you.  Your speech really took off this year, and you went from barely saying anything, to speaking in full sentences.  I was so worried that you weren’t talking, and now I can’t seem to get you to stop talking.  You have also mastered potty training this year.  We had a rough start, but once you understood the idea you did wonderful.  You became a big brother this year.  You adore your sisters.  They are so lucky to have a brother like you in their life.  You and Hannah play together all the time.  It’s rare to find one of you without the other.  You love to tag along with her and play with the big kids.  You occasionally get on each other’s nerves, but for the most part, you seem to get along very well.  You are Ellie’s biggest fan.  You love to watch her on the monitor, and your favorite thing to do is wake her up from her nap and turn off her sound machine.  You tend to love on her a bit too much sometimes, but I think as she gets older she will be able to hold her own with you.  I pray that you and your sisters remain close as you grow older. 

At 2 years old, you can be a very demanding little boy.  You tend to want things immediately and will not stop until you get things done to your standards.  Although it can be difficult to negotiate with you at times, I know this quality will suit you well as an adult.  You LOVE to read.  You crack us up with your renditions of “Wishy Washy” and “Green and Eggs and Ham”.  We find you several times a week in our “library” reading books to yourself.  You are also an excellent puzzle solver.  You love to build your ABC puzzles, and could spend countless hours at Aunt Betty’s house catching the fish on her magnet puzzle.  You enjoy taking the pieces and creating characters so they can talk to each other.  Each of your dinosaurs is named after a member of our family.  Even Auntie Ashton’s mom, Mrs. Pam, has a dinosaur named after her.

I’m so excited to see what this year will bring!  I know you are going to continue to keep us laughing every single day.  Not a day goes by that Ben doesn’t do something that has us all hysterical.  You are an amazing boy and I feel so blessed to be your momma.  You teach me new things every single day, and I love exploring the world through your eyes.  You mean so much to me, and not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for blessing us with you.   You will always be our baby that was an answer to our prayers.  We love you Ben bear!  Happy Birthday, little man.

 Love,

Mommy

My Lobster

Ben is SO excited to show off his lobster hat that he made today.

He made this hat today at "school" and he is VERY proud of it.  He had me take about 15 pictures of him wearing the hat at all different angles.

Hannah had soccer practice tonight, so I got to spend time with my two little guys.  Ben helped me make Ellie's dinner and he fed her the first few bites.  I decided that him yelling, "Eat it Ellie!!" while shoving the spoon in her face and slamming it against her cheek and nose was not the best way to feed the baby.

Ben was telling me all about his day over dinner.  The theme this month is the ocean and they have been doing puppet shows with ocean animal puppets.  He told me that he got to be the orange whale and the red sea "horsie".  He then tells me what all of the other kids used for their puppets.  He never fails to put a smile on my face!

SO proud...

At the end of January, it was announced that Hannah had the most Accelerated Reader points in the kindergarten!  We are beyond proud of her.  She is a fantastic reader, and she really likes reading nonfiction books and learning about new things.  We have learned all about bucket trucks, motorcycles, the water cycle, and cows.  I find it hilarious the books she chooses to read.  She is starting to read chapter books, and we have to make sure we check back in her room after bed time because she is often reading after lights out.  She reads to both her brother and sister, and Ben is beyond jealous that Hannah can read all by herself.

Ellie at 8 Months

I'm so very far behind.  Ellie is actually 8 1/2 months old now, but we have been very very busy.  Ellie remains the sweetest baby in the whole world.  The only time she cries is when she sees her brother coming toward her.  He has a habit of laying on top of her and smushing her, and she's realized that if she cries before he gets to her, someone will usually rescue her in time.  She has started moving around, but not yet crawling.  She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, occasionally moves backwards, but never forward.  She seems to get where she needs to go though!

She loves to go after my phone.  If she could chew on the case all day long, I think she would do it.  She is also a rascal around the remote.  She will do anything in her power to get her hands on the remote, and then she loves to change the station. 

Ellie has been sitting with us at church on Sunday mornings.  She loves to look at all the people around us, and when the choir starts singing, she falls asleep.  She FINALLY has some teeth.  Her bottom two teeth came in almost at the same time last Wednesday.

Ellie REALLY loves to munch on her puffs.  They are becoming her favorite snack! 

It has been a crazy month!  I've had to abandon the 365 project which makes me very sad.  With Hannah doing basketball and now soccer, and having a broken foot, I needed to let something go and that happened to be it.  I'm still taking lots of pictures and hopefully I can get my act together a post more often!

A Bit Behind

We had a super busy weekend.  We started with the Chili Cookoff/Bingo night.  Hannah and Jay were big winners!!  The next night we hung out with one of Ben's bestest friends.  It was a great night with friends, and we had a blast.  On Sunday I got to babysit my puppy niece.  We're pretty sure that Hannah's got Fifth's Disease, and Ellie has been having issues with a partially blocked tear duct.  Needless to say, I'm exhausted and need another weekend!  Here is my 365 project for the past 10 days or so....

1/14 Ellie at Sophia's Birthday Party

1/15 She's starting to hold her own bottle...yay!!

1/16 Breakfast for dinner!

1/17 Hannah showing Ellie how to play with "the project"

1/18 Mr. Quackers (Ellie's version of blue bear/lovey)

1/19 Ellie and I always seem to fall asleep together at the end of the night

1/20 My VERY handsome husband

1/21 Daddy playing with his kiddos

1/22 My sweet niece Elle (Hannah and I made a bed for her in the laundry basket)



1/23 Playing with is favorite car



1/24 She head-butted the spoon

Ellie at 7 Months

Ellie turned 7 months old on Saturday!  We had a great day together including attending her friend Sophia's first birthday party.  We left the big kids at home, so it was just Mommy and Ellie.

It has been an interesting month for Ellie.  We went from sleeping through the night 100% of the time to sleeping through the night about 70% of the time.  We're not sure what is causing this not so fun phase, but it's not ears (I had them checked) and we are still toothless.  She loves to snuggle in Mommy and Daddy's bed, and when she falls back to sleep, Daddy moves her back to her crib. 

Although she's not sleeping the best, she's still the happiest baby!  She is sitting up without any help and she has started scooting around on the floor.  We limit her floor time because her big brother loves to lay on top of her when she's scooting around.  She has also started holding her bottle.  I'm sure the next month will bring lots of changes including teeth and crawling, so we are trying to enjoy every last second of this phase!

365 Project - Week 2

It's been a very busy week at our house.  We are SO excited to have a 3-day weekend to finally relax.  Ellie and I are off to a birthday party this afternoon for her sweet friend Sophia.  I'm excited to get some one on one time with my littlest girl.  Here are the pictures from this week...

1/8 My sweet super heroes

1/9 Hannah and Ben dress Ellie up

1/10 Yesterday wasn't enough, so today they gave her hair

1/11 Hannah teaching Ellie how to be a pirate

1/12 The sweet moments before bed when I feed Ellie

1/13 Hannah gets Ben a frisbee from the treasure box and he wears it as a hat!

The 365 Project

I was reading another blog and the person I was reading talked about the 365 project.  I thought it was a really cool idea, and I went to the website for all of about 3 minutes (one of the kids started causing problems at this point).  The main idea is to take a picture everyday for an entire year.  Being a perfectionist, I would have liked to run across this idea on 1/1/2012, but sadly it was 1/3/2012.  I haven't had the chance to read the website and sign up, but I thought I would do the 365 project on my blog because this is usually what we use to look back.  My goal is to post once a week with the week's pictures.  The week's pictures are just going to be the boring things that make our life special to us.  3 kids, working full time, being a wife, daughter, sister, and friend may derail this plan from time to time, but I'm going to at least try.  Here is week 1:

1/3/2012: Building block walls

1/4/2012

1/5/2012: Breakfast at 6:30am

1/6/2012: playing with Lewis' horse

1/7/2012: Sweet sisters

Merry Christmas

It has been a crazy 24 hours, but I've come to expect that with our little family!  Yesterday we headed over to Uncle Mike's to visit his and Auntie Ashton's church for Christmas Eve.  It was a great service with amazing music and a wonderful message.  They even gave away a puppy at the end.  Luckily we did NOT "win" (yes, Jay put our name in the drawing because he is insane!)  We then headed back to Nana's to eat dinner and exchange gifts.  While Nana put the finishing touches on dinner, Uncle Mike and Daddy headed out to Toys R Us to make a last minute purchase.  Baboo had sent each of the kids a gift card for Christmas.  Jay and I decided to put the money towards a large gift that all 3 kids could share.  A Christmas miracle occured, and Jay and Uncle Mike were able to walk out of Toys R Us on Christmas Eve with a brand new Power Wheel.  We know that Hannah and Ben will love this gift, and as Hannah grows too big for it, Ben can take over the driving and Ellie can enjoy riding along.

We had a fantastic dinner with Nana, Pops, Auntie Ashton, and Uncle Mike.  The kids loved opening presents from everyone.  They got lots of goodies including 2 remote control cars that they have been racing today. 

It was a late night and, by the time we got home, both kids were exhausted.  We had told them that they could exhange gifts with each other on Christmas Eve, but Ben was so tired he told us that he would "open pwesents later!".  Hannah was disappointed because she wanted to give him the gift she bought him at the Winter Wonderland shop at school, but he loved it just as much this morning when he wasn't a grump.

The kids all slept really late this morning which was great because Jay and I were up until 2am putting together Baboo's surprise gift!  The kids did an awesome job of each taking a turn opening a gift so we could all see what Santa brought each person.

We have had a wonderful first Christmas in our new home.  We feel so blessed to have a beautiful house with 3 amazing children to fill it up.  Merry Christmas!