Art Splash 2012

A few weeks ago, I braved the heat with both boys to head to Sioux City for their annual Art Splash. It was a cool 98 degrees that Sunday afternoon but we sure had a great time!

The idea is that you walk around, looking at vendors to buy their or art or.... you buy tickets to allow the kids to make all sorts of different art projects.  Both boys got involved and had a pretty great time!

First time on a "public transportation" bus. They LOVED it!

Keeping cool in the shade and listening to some music

Finding treasures to glue onto a personlized teddy bear!

First ink - an alligator

Rock painting - he went with his favorite color

Stepping off the bus, ready for a nap!

Well-rested!

My Baby is FOUR

It happened. Somewhere along the way, my little Ben changed from a baby, to a toddler to a BIG BOY. He woke up this morning, another year older and asking if now that he was four was he "way so tall?" I told him he was, then snuggled with him for a few minutes before rushing around to get ready for school, knowing full well he will not want a birthday snuggle ten years from now!

A few hours old - September 20, 2008

1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

Today - 4 years old!

Is this how fast the next four years are going to go?  Or the next 14?

Some fun things about my 4-year old:

-He still wants me to "lay with him for a little bit" every night, even if Daddy puts him to bed

- Loves giving hugs to his little brother, even if Cooper could do without

- LOVES the show Wild Kratts on PBS

- Recently learned the days of the week and likes to tell people what they are

- Thinks that now that he is four he should be able to buckly his own seat belt (Mom agrees!)

- Would not hurt a fly and is usually very sensitive to others' feelings...usually!

- Loves being a little boy and everything that goes with it

WE LOVE YOU BEN-Jammin!

A Family Vacation Non-nightmare! (part 1)

We got back from a 10-day roadtrip/vacation a few weeks ago and I am finally just now able to post about it.  All together, we put 2,200 miles onto our car and spent several hundreds of dollars for gas (yikes!) and had a great time doing it!  In that 10 days, Matt and I stayed in 6 different beds (the boys in 4), attended a wedding, saw ALL of the boys' grandparents and step-grandparents, caught up with some great friends from college, ate some good food and relaxed greatly!

Now...be ready for some picture overload! This first group is from our trip out to Estes Park by way of Salina.

A right of passage...

Last weekend, Cooper got to do something that we've been waiting quite awhile to do with him. His first K-State football game!  I don't know who was more excited, Coop or Daddy!? We had originally planned on taking Ben but he came down with bronchitis and the beginning of pneumonia so we wisely thought that a college football game might not be the best idea for him!

So that left an excited Daddy, ready to take his youngest son to experience what every young K-State fan should be able to experience . . . a Wildcat victory!

Cooper did a pretty good job most of the game but started to get a bit restless during the 4th quarter. Luckily we had room for him to play with his cars in front of us!

He was also happily distracted by some nachos for a little while too!

We also got the much anticipated K-State picture with out little guy. Now to just get both boys to a game at the same time!

A little bit of craziness

One day a week, I have a part-time "job"  other than making sure my own children survive the day and don't starve.  On Thursdays we get to have another little boy come play at our house while his mommy works her part-time job.  He's just a month older than Cooper so they have a lot of fun together and I get to see what it would be like to have twin one-year olds (something I don't mind doing. . . one day a week!)

A few weeks ago, I also kept my friend's little boys over the lunch hour and oh my. . . I don't know how some of you mommies out there do this! Of course, three of them are just a year old and the older two can't help but be silly when around each other. And yes, some of them have their shirts off.  They were pretending to be swimmers like Michael Phelps and I thought it would be okay to leave them off for eating purposes!  What a group of boys!

Summer in Iowa

When you live where we live, you can't go to the beach every day, go hiking through the mountains or enjoy many of the things that big cities makes available to their community.  But we do have Demo Derbies!!! For those of you who don't know about what a Demo Derby entails, it's pretty much souped-up cars driving around in a dirt/mud pit crashing into each other, trying to be the last one running. 

So that's what we do around here when we want to have a good time. . . watch cars crash! We've been to two this summer so far and now Ben looks forward to them with the same enthusiasm I had when I was little and knew we were going to a Demo Derby.

In July, we watched the derby in a neighboring town during their county fair with our little cousin Layla.  Afterwards, we took the boys around to look at the exhibits (cows, cows and more cows) and climb on the tractors.

We're just loving life with our little boys and look forward to many more years of their exploring personalities!