Cute and he knows it!

I am often stopped in the grocery store, park, amusement park, etc. by people who tell me my children are adorable. What mom doesn’t love hearing that?!  From long eyelashes and curly hair on Benjamin to a giant grin that rarely leaves Abby’s face, these two tend to attract a lot of attention… and they love it. Benjamin carefully picks out his outfit each day just in case we might be taking pictures. He often is concerned that he will coordinate with Abby. I think I am creating a monster!

It is rare to get an actual smile out of Benjamin these days when I hold up the camera. A lot of photos look like this.

But sometimes I strike gold with a photo like this…

Look at these eyes!

Benjamin is growing into such a sweet little boy. He still drives me crazy when he refuses to share with Abby, or when he is pushing my buttons, but I cherish our many adventures together, our shopping trips and especially our evenings together when we curl up on the couch and read books, sing a few songs and say a nighttime prayer. He still thanks God for Kings Island every night.

Benjamin keeps us on our toes. He is full of questions, and we lose count of how many times he asks, “why” in a day. He is very interested in people’s names, what we are doing each day and what other people are doing.

Benjamin says many funny things, but this one takes the cake. At a new Sunday School class the other day, the teacher asked if he had any prayer requests. He asked the teacher “to pray for the mosquito bites on my penis.” That week he had been so badly bitten by bugs, I had to take him to the doctor. We later figured out they were chigger bites. He had so many, I resorted to drugging him with Benadryl each day. Anyway, the girl next to him then raised her hand and asked to pray for the mosquito bite on her vagina. The poor teacher quickly put an end to prayer requests and prayed for mosquito bites wherever they might be. She laughed so hard when she told me about it after class.

Benjamin loves to play with his friends, especially when we go on play dates to interesting places. He has had so many adventures this summer!

His friends came over to help me celebrate my 30th birthday.

He also loves to play endless games of hide and seek, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders and more. He still loves to be chased in circles.

Happily Ever After

What a better way to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary than at a castle!

It all started with a Mothers of Preschoolers meeting, when a woman mentioned there is a castle in Cincinnati. We had to check this out for ourselves! Indeed, 25 minutes from our house is the Loveland Castle.

Apparently, a man was declared dead in World War II. His fiancée married another man, and the “not dead” man devoted the rest of his life to living out his dream of medieval living. He and his group of boy scouts built this castle by hand. The guy even made his own bricks and hauled rocks from the river. He lived there until he died, even though there was no running water, heat or air. Sounds like great fun! (sarcasm to be noted). So, it wasn’t as impressive as a European castle, but considering it was a guy’s play castle of sorts, it wasn’t too shabby.

Summer adventures

I fear we may be spoiling our kids. It seems like each day we are either attending a play date, or we are off to a very fun place to play.But, it does make the days fly by when we have so much fun.

Water…

The kids LOVE water. The first few attempts at swimming were met with resistance. So, I must clarify that my kids love warm water in hot weather. Benjamin manages to turn blue every time we swim, because he has absolutely no body fat. We have been keeping quite busy playing in our backyard baby pool, going to our neighborhood pool and visiting Soak City at Kings Island. Benjamin took swim lessons this week, and he ADORED the life guards who taught him how to go under water, jump from the edge and blow bubbles. We are looking forward to more swim lessons later this summer. In the meantime, I have my hands full, trying to keep Benjamin’s head above water and keep Abby from wrenching herself out of my arms. She thinks she can swim without assistance. She laughs and squeals with delight the entire time she is in the water with us. She also cries every time we have to leave.

Thrills…

I have thrill seekers. Both of our kids LOVE to climb the biggest play structures, slide down the fastest slides and be thrown into the air, spun in circles or pushed high in the air on swings. So, of course Benjamin loves Kings Island. We have gone a few times, and he already has every ride and its location memorized. He thanks God each night for Kings Island, and he tells anyone who will listen that he loves the Pumpkin Coaster. Abby gets mad that she can’t ride most of the rides, but she too loves to go there.

Tourist attractions…

We have been enjoying all the new exhibits at the zoo this year, including a new Bengal tiger and an Africa habitat.

Entertrainment Junction is still a favorite place to visit. Abby loves going through the book store and watching all the train models. Benjamin loves riding the Thomas train and also the hand operated train cars.

We often go over to our garden, which is located next to the pool. Some of the other gardeners have kindly helped us weed, but I must admit, our garden is the “greenest” of the bunch.

Some days, we find random things to do, like attending the Touch a Truck event at the library. Benjamin loved checking out all the vehicles, sitting in a helicopter with Abby (see photo above) and beeping the horn of a semi.

We also spend a lot of time with friends on play dates.

Other days, we just hang out and do fun and goofy things at the house, like playing hide and seek, dancing, baking cookies, reading stories and eating a LOT of popsicles. 

Father’s Day

It was a wonderful Father’s Day weekend, but I was remiss and didn’t take photos of my kiddos with their wonderful Daddy! We will need to remedy this. Here is one a few days prior.

I decided to try a Pinterest idea this year for a gift, so I posed the kids with letters to spell Dada. The end result was a black and white set of three photos, but here are some from the photo shoot. It was hot, right before nap time, and I had to take photos as fast as possible. But, it worked out well, I thought.

 

13 months

It has been quite a fun-filled month around here, and it is amazing how much Abby is growing! She weighed 20 pounds at her 12-month visit and was 30 inches long. That puts her in the 50th percentile for weight and 75th for height.

Abby’s vocabulary increases each day as well. A lot of her words sound the same, so you have to listen with context, but she says what is on her mind…often loudly.

Her most often used words are the following: all done, buh (book) bath tub, outside, more, grapes, that, this, stop, I untis (I want this), yes, no, shoe, mama, dada, tata (papa), Daisy, car, hi, down, bye and thanks. We think she calls Benjamin, Ahdah. Not sure where she gets that, but she screeches it until he appears.

She also repeats almost any word we say in an attempt to learn it. So, often I will say something and hear a little parrot mimic me. Abby knows what she wants, and she wants to be sure there is no misunderstanding. So, she shouts from her crib, “ALLLLLLLL DONE!” And, she follows us around the house, begging,"buh! Buh,” while hauling one book after another. Sometimes, she wants to read the same book three times in a row. Other times, she is bored after one page. But, that girl loves her books!

I guess I have to admit that Abby has a personality a lot like mine. So, it makes me smile, and cringe a bit knowing what a handful she is going to be. I think her stubbornness she gets from both Jeremy and me, though. She makes us smile, laugh and rip our hair out a bit. But, we love and cherish each moment!