Sick Days

An unusual target for sickness has been struck in our house: Benjamin. I can't remember the last time he was really sick more than just some cold symptoms. He seems to cycle through periods of feeling really stinky and then has little bursts of energy. He's got a sore throat, cough, fever, and says his tummy hurts. I'm going to take him to the Dr. tomorrow if he's not better. The sad part of this is how hard sleeping has been on him. He wakes up screaming/crying and his whole body is shaking. I have a hard time calming him down from it and we end up out on the couch. When he finally calms down, he just passes out on me........



Today has been mostly a TV day as I'm worn from a long night taking care of him and he's mostly just laying around. I got out his couch/bed and he got all comfy and asked to watch Prince of Egypt. Anna (who thankfully seems fine) was really cute and would sit next to him like this and keeping leaning over and asking, "Happy? Bej-min!!!! Happy?" To which Benjamin says, "I'm happy Annna. Are you happy too?" Anna: "Happy!"


Watching the movie together.......


Anna enjoyed sitting in her rocking chair during the movie. I was so surprised when something fell over and broke in the movie, Anna declared "Oh, no! It fall down. Broken!" She's never put that many words together that quickly before. She's getting so big!!!!


She's such a happy girl!

Benjamin and Anna have created a new game where they get two stuffed animals that sing songs, turn them on, and then run in circles/dance/shout like mad people. They always laugh and fall down and then repeat. It's quite funny to see. We didn't realize until a little later, but after last night's round, Anna got a yucky scratch by her eye!

A few days ago when Benjamin wasn't feeling so bad, he and Dave gave me a big surprise. Benjamin gets up quite early these days and Dave is kind enough to get up with him and let me sleep. When Dave came in to tell me goodbye before leaving for work, he gave me a kiss and said "We cleaned the refrigerator." Boy did they!!! It looks great and I was so shocked they did such a sweet thing for me so early in the morning! Dave was even kind enough to take pictures of the process for me..........

Here he is showing off their hard work. (The pictures on the door behind him are some of Benjamin's recent creations.)

Dave was nice enough to move over the foot stool from our love seat to the couch so I could put my feet up more comfortably. This has made Milo very happy and he loves to sit right next to me. Nobody probably cares, but I had fun snapping some cute pictures of him the other night.

PS This is my 300th post! How crazy is that?!?!?!

Air Force Museum

We had fun this weekend and drove to Ohio to visit with Dave's brother Jimmy and his family. It was a lot of fun getting to spend some quality time together and getting the cousins all together! We spent Saturday at the Air Force Museum there and us and the kids all had a blast. Walking in together......


Benjamin sat down with this map and declared, "Okay, everyone come here and listen to this!"


I got several cute pictures of the three kids checking out the different airplanes together:

I told the kids to hold hands for a picture together. They struggled for awhile and kept making a circle. Once they finally got it right, they stayed that way for about 2 seconds before they......

TOOK OFF! They were going so fast, we were afraid they were going to "crack the whip" with Anna being the whip and all fall down. But they did surprisingly well running hand-in-hand together!

Benjamin pointing to the teeth on the airplane!

Standing underneath a big airplane!

Dave and Benjamin posing in front of Dave's favorite airplane.

Watch out moon! Here comes Astronaut Benjamin!

and Astronaut Anna!!!!!

Benjamin with Uncle Jimmy climbing into the first airplane we got to actually go into. He was really cute and would follow Jimmy around and ask him what we were going to do next!

Inside the airplane above. Dave thought this was a good shot documenting the chaos that existed most of the day!

Cute little pilot!

We went outside the museum and ate a picnic lunch and then drove over to the hanger that has all of the Air Force One airplanes in it. This was Benjamin's favorite part and he told us that over and over again! We got to climb through three of the airplanes (all of which went down to 17 inches wide - I fit!)

Dave and Benjamin pretending to be flight attendants inside the airplane above. It's the one that Kennedy's body was flown on and that Johnson was sworn in as president on. Pretty cool, huh?!?! :)

It was a great visit and we had a wonderful time!

Water, Play Dough, & Movie Night

With a title like that, I bet you wish you lived at our house! As you should, we've been having a lot of fun! It's been raining buckets around here lately, so one evening we strapped on the kids rain boots and headed out to the puddles. Our neighbor drains their pool sometimes out into the street and it made the perfect size water fountain for the kids to play in!



Hi!


Even Benjamin can see the joy on her face!


Look at his face!

Once our neighbor realized the kids were playing in it, she started turning it on and off for them, which they loved!

After the pool was done draining and the water fountain gone, we moved down the street to a part of the side walk that never drains well and the kids had some good ole fashion puddle fun!

After playing in the mucky rain water, we figured it was a good time for a scrubbing! So we dumped them into a bubble bath for more water fun!

I don't really enjoy toys that make a huge mess, thus my kids have never played with markers and other messy activities. Another thing I had been putting off was play dough. I finally bit the bullet and bought some the other day. It rained for about the thousandth day in a row, so after naps we got it all out. Anna was semi-impressed with it, but Benjamin really had a lot of fun! The first thing he made was this person.....

You can kind of see how long her hair has gotten in the back with this close-up.

I like his "working face" here......

Pleased with the porcupine he made!

Anna's semi-amusement with the play dough turned into fussy, clingyness for the rest of the afternoon. I think my hormones got the best of me and when Dave got home, I was pretty frustrated as I had been trying hard to get stuff done and she just wasn't interested in cooperating. Daddy to the rescue suggested we order a pizza (which we pretty much never do) and have a family movie night (which we did once before and it was a big hit). Family movie night consists of turning all the lights off, piling blankets and pillows onto the floor and cuddling up for a movie! The kids were super excited and it changed all of our moods quite immediately! We have Netflix and I had ordered Prince of Egypt, which is a movie I LOVE and was excited to show to Benjamin for the first time. As you can see, the movie and the pizza were a big hit!

My cuddle bugs, who love each other SOOOO much!

I keep meaning to mention that the pictures seem to be blurry on my computer once on the blog. They aren't really blurry, but I'm not very computer savvy....so I'm not sure why Blogger is making them blurry......sorry!

We had our ultrasound yesterday to see how big Little Three is. I was worried about my blood pressure and am relieved to say it was fine and that the baby's gender remains a mystery! Both of which I'm very grateful of! Little Three is as expected a big baby and at 36 weeks is an estimated 7 lb 6 oz (Anna was just 6 lb 13 oz a few days before her due date). The earliest they will do an induction is 39 weeks, so unless my body does it's job on its own, Little Three will be born on October 12th.

I'll leave you with another Benjamin story:

We were eating lunch after preschool when Benjamin tells me: "Soon when Anna is 3 like me, she will get to go to school just like me. Then it will just be you and Daddy."
Me: "Daddy will be at work, but the new baby will be here with me."
Benjamin: "But the new baby will get big and it will go to school too. Then you will be all alone."
Me: (Tried not to cry by the thought of that.)
Benjamin: "You will have to take ALL of us to school."
Me: "Wow, that will be a lot of people to take to school."
Benjamin: "It is Momma. It is A LOT, A LOT of people!"

"Camping"

Our small group went camping this past weekend. We went "camping" too. However, notice the quotations......we were day campers, just coming on Friday evening and Saturday during the day. The kids were surprisingly good for us and we were able to stay pretty late both evenings. It was really the best of both worlds.....the fun of camping, without having to sleep on the ground!

Anna looks like a camper, doesn't she?


Hi!


Benjamin had a lot of fun helping Daddy and our friend Michelle put up her tent. He's hammering in the stake here......


After some of the tents were up, our friends were nice enough to let the kids play in it. They had never been in a full-size tent before and they LOVED it! Pretending to go night, night!

This is our friend, Kacey. Anna has taken to her and loves to say her name over and over again. We thought it was cute that they were matching! She actually just saw me posting this picture and came right over and declared, "Kacey!"

Don't know if you can make it out, but Benjamin was really excited to go back into the tent after it was dark with a lantern!

On Saturday, Dave's Mom was nice enough to come and watch the kids during the day since we were having a big group meeting. Dave went and picked up the kids later and I was overjoyed to see them! I think it was the longest I'd been away from Anna that I can remember!


The kids had more fun in the tents that day and we were sitting around watching them. I mostly just posted this picture b/c it is a good side shot of my Little Three belly, so you can see how big we are! :) We're having an ultrasound tomorrow to actually see how big the baby is. Fingers crossed!

Anna loves playing this peek-a-boo game through our legs!

Are you ready for some football?!?!?

Touchdown!!!!

Can you tell what's going on here?

A friendly game of Chubby Bunny of course!

He's going to loose them!!!!

We had a great time relaxing outside at the camp sight, spending time with good friends, and watching our kids enjoy the fun of just being outside!

I finished Little Three's girl hat yesterday, so I couldn't resist taking a picture of the boy hat and girl hat next to each other. I'm going to try and make some more mittens to match them, but we'll just have to see if that happens!

Which do you think will get used?!?!?!