October 2012 - Fall Break

For Benjamin's fall break we headed to California for a few days. We left Mae back with Grandma and we spent 2 full days at the beach! Benjamin was either in the water with Sam (too cold for me!) or buried in the sand. We also met up with a new friend of his from Kindergarten so spent 1 of the days playing with him.

October 2012 - Pumpkin Patch

Mae wasn't so sure about the animals in the petting area. We had to hold her to get her to pet any of them. And she refused to get on the pony for the horseback ride. However she was very excited to jump around 

and go crazy in the bounce house!

 

 

  

Cooling down after a morning in the sun and heat:

Mae turns 2 - October 2012

At her 2year appointment Mae weighed 25lbs (25th percentile) and was 36.5" tall (97%). All of her teeth were in - which you sometimes doubt as she still eats and chews everything!! She sits at the table with Benjamin and I as he does his homework, but for the most part I can't let her color as she will eat the crayons or bite the tips off the markers. I really would like this stage to pass...
 Like her brother - she is very energetic, outgoing, adventurous and loud :) However, we have discovered she gets more stressed than he ever did. We attempted the 3day potty training with her right before she turned 2. After 4 days, almost zero success and a very wound up and non-sleeping child, we quit and returned her to her cloth diapers and figured we would try again in 6 months. She had different plans. Once the stress was removed, she took off her cloth diaper and took herself to the potty. She then super quickly learned to only pee/poo a little at a time so she could go more frequently and get more treats :)  She is also very caring and a huge helper. She goes and hugs anyone that gets hurt and pats their back. If she ever sees me emptying the dishwasher she will run to help and pass me 1 item at a time. You will also constantly see her walking around the house with 1 (or more) of her babies singing  'baba black sheep' to them as she rocks them or bundles them in blankets to go to sleep. 

 

 

 

 Enjoying her new skirt & headband from her Great Grandma:

August and September 2012

 Homework time:

 

 

Catch Up

Once again, I have fallen behind in keeping this blog up to date with the kids activities. I am very sorry dear family!! Balancing work, school and after school activities has left me little time for updating. Luckily I am terrible these days at taking pictures (sorry Mae!) so there isn't much missing from here :) However, I haven't given up so expect some very long, picture filled posts coming shortly!

First day of Kindergarten

On August 8, 2012 Benjamin (he requests we call him that now as that IS his name he says) started Kindergarten at Neely Traditional Academy.

Mae of course had to come outside too to join her big brother (she is constantly found walking around eating toothbrushes & toothpaste if we don't put them high enough out of her reach).

California 2012 Part 3

We spent a day at Seaworld. Benjamin's favorite part was getting soaked. He and I went on 1 of the drenching rides twice and for the shows he kept making me sit in the splash zones (hence no pictures since I didn't want to wreck the camera). I'm not even sure he saw much of the shows since he was so obsessed with getting wet :)

The kids other favorite part of Seaworld was the giant playground. I think next time we return to California we will save our money, go to a really big free park for the day for them to play then come home and just spray them with the hose so they can get 'soaked'.

California 2012 Part 2

Benjamin and I spent 2 days at Legoland, with Mae and Sam coming for the 1st day (Mae got a high fever the day before we returned for Legoland day 2 so they stayed back to let her recover).

 

Mae was just too short for almost all the rides. This was fine since she was so happy to watch and play in Duploland but I still wanted her to go on some. She was just a little too short for the shorter height rides so we purchased a shoes with the thickest soles we could find, in a couple sizes too big so we could put inserts in -and it paid off!! The top of her head just touched the height line and this next picture is of her having a WONDERFUL time driving a car in a ride she wouldn't have been able to go on otherwise. She grinned the whole time.

There was an area full of legos where you could build a car to race down tracks against the other builders. Ben attempted a couple which didn't make it down the track or lost so he stopped and just watched the winners. After a bit he went back to the tables and redesigned to the below (zero help/comments from me!) and returned to win race after race. He was ecstatic!!

California 2012 Part 1

The week before Benjamin started Kindergarten we rented a house in Carlsbad, California and enjoyed a vacation with Nana and Grandpa.

We spent most of our time at the beach. And I think next trip there (we hope to get there every summer), we will spend ALL the time at the beach. Everyone was the happiest there and we just had a wonderful time. Sam brought his boogie board and spent a lot of time surfing and after Benjamin watched for a while he was out there joining him.

While 90% of the time Benjamin was in the water, he did take some breaks to make sandcastles. Which Mae then destroyed.

As fast as anyone could build a sandcastle, Mae would be running over to smash it. It was her favorite activity at the beach next to...

eating sand. She would put her face straight in the sand, lift up and grin, then repeat. She didn't mind at all if she was chewing sand along with snacks!

Gymnastics

Benjamin requested gymnastics lessons so we enrolled him where he's taking swimming lessons (since the 2nd activity was 1/2 price). He is loving it and it in fact has become our 'carrot' to keep him in swimming lessons. We keep asking if he wants to return to soccer, or try baseball but he just wants gymnastics. I'm usually chasing after Mae for the lessons so I don't have many pictures and I always seem to miss the action shots or else they are extremely blurry!

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