Three Weeks and Counting....

Ben's third birthday is three weeks from today and I can hardly believe how quickly the last three years has flown by. In honor of my sweet baby boy, I will post my favorite picture from each year over the next three Saturdays. First up: Ben's First Year! Enjoy=)

Warning: The pictures below will cause major BABY FEVER. Look at your own risk!

Newborn Ben, fresh from the oven. Wasn't he the most beautiful newborn?

Ben at one month old. I love how his pacifier is as big as his little face=)

Ben at 2 months old. His first documented smile! Sort of;)

Ben at 3 months old. His first Christmas!

Ben at 4 months old. His shirt says it all!

Ben at 5 months old. Getting so big!

Ben at 6 months old.

Ben at 7 months old. My little trucker baby.

Ben at 8 months old. Learning how to sit on his own!

Ben at 9 months old; fresh from the bath.

Ben at 10 months old; getting squeaky clean!

Ben at 11 months old. Everyone thought he was a girl=)

Ben's first birthday!!!

Emily, The Softie Snatcher

This grayish, pink rosebud bedecked scrap of material is known as Softie(aka Softie Pants). It is Ben's beloved Lovie/Transitional Object/Woobie/insert your own name here____. He can often be found with it slung around his neck or with it balled up into a pillow while sleeping. It is a pair of my pj bottoms that he discovered as a baby and has yet to part with. He will HATE this about himself when he is a teenager, but I think it's so funny and sweet! Anyway, long description short--he is very emotionally invested in these pants.

Emily, it would seem, is not one for Lovies. She has a blanket I always keep in her crib, a few stuffed animals she likes, but none are really THE lovie. I thought I was lucking out; but my children have found yet another way to throw me for a loop. It appears that Emily is also quite fond of Softie, much to Ben's dismay. Any chance she gets, she will swoop in and snatch it for herself. Once Ben realizes she has it, he screams at her, she screams back and then a toddler-version of Tug-o-war ensues. This usually ends up with hitting, recriminations in babynese and bitter tears.

Why can't she just pick her own thing?! Oy. Now, some have suggested that I cut it in half--but I worry too much that this will somehow diminish Softies awesome powers to soothe. Or that Ben will get mad that I altered it, or that he'll just have two halves to lord over her from now on. So, I'll just have to keep trying to find The One for Milly, while trying to protect Softie from her clutches. Sigh. No one ever said motherhood was easy.

Ready For School!!

Ben starts preschool in ONE WEEK! Can you believe it?! My sweet little baby is getting so grown up. He will be going to preschool two days a week for 2.5 hours. It is a parent-participation/co-op preschool, which means each parent is assigned a day to work in the classroom as a teacher's aide, along with a multitude of other responsibilities and obligations(both physical and monetary) to the maintenance of the school and it's various parent-run committees.

At first, I was so excited to be able to go to school with Ben! Now that I realize there is SO MUCH MORE to it, I'm sort of feeling like we might have sold our souls to his preschool just to save $100 or so per month in tuition;) In all actuality, though, both Dan and I are thrilled that we get to be such a big, hands-on part of Ben's early education. It makes the fact that he is old enough for organized learning a little easier to swallow. I am looking forward to working so closely with his teacher and to meet the other parents, too. It will be a learning experience for ALL of us, which is pretty cool!

Ben is excited(although I'm not sure if he realizes what's in store. He's mostly excited about the Wheat Thins they had for snack on the day we visited.). We are all getting ready for his first day; the first thing on our list was to pick out the perfect backpack. I'm not too impressed by it, but Ben adores it. He has been dragging it around since I brought it home last night. He is currently nestled in his bed, with his "pack pack" beside him. If Emily tries to touch it, he screams at her. I think I might need to get her a rolling backpack, too!

Seriously, why have I been lugging all their crap around in a diaper bag when I could just pack their own little rolling backpacks and make them schlep it around?! I think I'm onto something here, fellow toddler moms;) On the negative side, once they decide they're tired of dragging it, I will probably be stuck dragging it(or worse, wearing it!), so maybe I'll stick to my fabulous designer diaper bag instead. Anyway, here's the big Preschool Boy modeling his two new favorite things:)

Milly In A Box

Dan brought this box home with left-overs from his company picnic and it has been the highlight of their week. They fricken love this thing! I'm thinking of going to Costco to buy another just so we have two(ok, and so we'll have tons of mini bags of chips. Mostly for the box, though.) Emily had some solo playtime while Ben and Hazel napped today, so of course she was thrilled to pose in the box for me! Isn't she cute!?


"Yay! Alone-time with THE BOX!!!"

The most fun is climbing in and out several times in a row.
Woohoo! Too much fun for me, Emily! I'll leave you to it;)

"Don't tip-don't tip-don't-tip!"

"Damnit! It tipped:("

Crawl On Daddy!

Having two toddlers can plain wear you OUT. Thusly, you have to create ways to play with them that optimize your oportunity to rest. Some of my favorite games are, "Mommy's Sleeping" and the one pictured below, called, "Crawl on Mommy/Daddy". All you have to do to initiate either of these is laydown and close your eyes;) They will first try to "wake you up" by yelling your name over and over until you open your eyes. If you roll over, that tells them it's time to crawl all over you. Hey, at least you're supine while still entertaining them!

Nummy Tweet--aka Ice Cream!!

As promised, we left the playzone and got ourselves a little treat. One ice-cream cone coming up! MacDonalds will serve your cone in a cup, which makes it so much easier for me. I just scrape off what I know Ben won't eat and share that with Emily. Mmmm!


I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! My children took that
poem quite seriously and screamed until I handed over the goods. They did NOT appreciate having to wait!

Ben vs. The Ice Cream Cone

"mmm! Not bad!"

Trip To The Mall #452

Since the mall is within walking distance, we go here A LOT. Sometimes we we go for lunch, other times for dinner. We always stop and play in the Playzone. We much prefer it during the week when it's not so crowded. On the weekends, there are inevitably way too many over-tired, over-stimulated children running around like maniacs and it's a little overwhelming to B and E. We usually have fun, no matter how long or short our visit is. Today was a pretty short visit because Ben just wasn't feelin' it. The little girl pictured kept following around, coveting his awsome new SpongeBob hat and he actually told ME it was time to leave! I managed to snap a few pictures before we took off, though:)


She loves to slide!

Ben, trying to protect his beloved hat from the overzealous admiring from his new, er...friend.

They were both all smiles when I told them we could leave to get a "nummy tweet"

Ribbons and Bows

I have spent a small fortune on adorable clips, bows and hair ties for Emily. She has always had enough hair to wear them, but she makes the personal choice to refuse. The most I can hope for is a pony-tail on top of her head or two pigtails--if I'm lucky. I know at some point she will pull them out, so I have stopped trying to make her wear clibs in public; she just loses them and ends up with weird hair. However, every once in awhile she'll keep one in long enough for me to get some pictures! I hope one day she will like wearing them because they make her look even cuter than normal;)


"Why did you put this flower on my head, mommy?"
I had this headband custom-made for her and she NEVER wears it:(

"Ok, enough with the camera. We both know
I'm ripping this off in about 2 seconds"

Milly's 1st Shiner:(

I mentioned earlier how she fell down the slide? Well, Little Miss Accident-Prone got her first black-eye yesterday:( She was crawling up the stairs at the Children's Museum and lost her hold. She face-planted right into the next step and ended up with this little beauty for the rest of the day. My poor little smooshy:( After a reasonable crying jag, she was off and running again! Is she too young to learn about the fine art of applying under-eye concealer?


The stuff around her mouth is some hard-earned chocolate.

Saddest picture EVER!

SpongeBen Square Hat

Ben's new favorite show is SpongeBob. We watch it ALL.THE.TIME. I don't really mind because at least the humor is a little more mature than say, the Teletubbies=) We were at the mall today and Ben wanted to go into the store, Lidz For Kidz(Ben's version of Heaven--a store filled with child-sized hats). I showed him this really cool SBSP hat and he put it on instantly. Well, of course we had to get it for him! He has worn it all day long, even to bed. Here he is posing for me!

Fun At The Park

Dan has been on vacation all week, so we've been trying to do fun things with the children. Yesterday we took them to the park and had so much fun. We played on the slide and in the sand, had fun in the water-feature and enjoyed some time on the see-saw. We had a minor accident involving Emily falling down the slide:( Poor girl tumbled half-way down and was very scared. She wasn't hurt, though, and still wanted to play!

Catching some rays on the see-saw.

Daddy helps Milly bounce on the see-saw

"Get that camera out of my face!" She's practicing for future paparazzi=)

After her "accident", we were much more careful helping her! She was doing great on her own, but we both felt terrible that she got hurt:(

She's such a big girl! She's so proud of herself on the slide. She even claps when she's all done.

Look closely at her hair! The static makes it stick straight up. So cute.

All done! Round of applause, please!

Ben, of course is an old pro at the slides.

I love this face=) He looks so happy!

I also love this face;)

And this one, too!

Running through the water feature is so fun on a hot day. If no one else is there,
sometimes I run through, too=) I don't like to excite the suburban dads with my wet t-shirts, though, so usually I just stand off to the side.

Ben finally has the patience to sit and play with the sand. He played here by himself for a good 15 minutes. It helps to have cool sand toys, I'm sure!

This toy is ALWAYS the hit of the sandbox. It also inspires much hitting and sand throwing when Ben doesn't want to share or another child tries to take it. Needless to say, it doesn't see many public sandboxes during peak play-hours.