Easter

Mae wasn't so sure about getting her picture taken on Easter.

 

I think this will be 1 of my favorite Easter pictures. Nothing quite like wearing your 'finest' to church Easter Sunday. Mae all dressed up....with her gun. And Ben.....well, you can see he dresses himself :)

 Below is Benjamin with the eggs he and I decorated on Saturday. Easter Sunday he proceeded to hide these for Sam and I to find. And as we found them...he'd go and rehide them. He thought this was awesome!! Sam and I did for the 1st bit, until after an hour we were still searching for eggs that Benjamin couldn't remember where he'd put. It's not as much fun searching for eggs that you need to find so they don't stink up the house vs chocolate eggs you can eat when you find them!

Both Ben and Mae had a wonderful time finding their eggs. We just had a few out for Mae which was good as she would stop and sit to eat the treat inside (either a little cookie or jelly fruit) whenever she found an egg.

I put clues in Ben's eggs for him to put together to find his easter gift (nothing very elaborate, usually a book and a chocolate bunny). This year he was able to put the clue together and read it all by himself!!

March 2012 - Mae

 

 Mae LOVES to 'help' with the dishes.

 

 

 

March 2012 - Ben

Benjamin's last game of soccer (for this season) followed by his award ceremony:

March wasn't warm enough for swimming in the pool (water was too cold) but it was hot enough to require lots of sprinkler/water time in the backyard.

We all enjoyed carnival night at Ben's preschool (Bethany Learning Center). Mae especially loved the toddler area with a bounce house just for little ones like her!

February 2012

The boys are off camping this weekend so I am finally taking some time to catch up on the blog. There are not a lot of pictures of Ben as he has been boycotting the camera (refusing to look at it or running away completely!.

Mae loves the piano. We now keep the step stool beside the bench so she can climb on up and play as she wishes.

This climber is about to be taken down as we keep discovering Mae climbing up the pink rungs you see beside her (from the grass on the other side) and flipping herself over the top to drop (fall) on the platform. Why take the easy way of the stairs when you can give your mother a heart attack!?!

Mae is definitely a 'girl'. Some of her favorite things are shoes (she will not go barefoot and is constantly bringing us shoes to put on her feet) and hats. Toy buckets are constantly dumped so the bucket can go on her head.

Benjamin - 5 years old

Our boy is getting so big (45", 47lbs - both 90%) and fast!! We've had a busy year with him: he learned to ride with no training wheels on his bike and now he speeds off everywhere on it, he has developed a real love for soccer and is 1 of the hardest kickers on his team, he has learned how to swing with no help from anyone and go WAY too high for his mom's stress level, he has learned to write his letters (although we definitely still struggle with flipping them), and he has learned to read simple/beginner books where he can sound out the words or read 1 of his 30 sight words. We just had a parent/teacher conference with his preschool teacher and she made me laugh as school-wise he is very like his father and not his mother :) He is smart and will do as directed but he will only do as much as he's asked for (he's not an extra credit student!) and as soon as 1 child is finished and playing he hurries through the rest of his work to go and join in. The teacher agreed with us that he definitely needs a very structured environment for school so that made us very happy with our choice of Kindergarten - which is good since he is already signed up to start in August!!

He also has an awesome imagination. I think we spent most of his 4th year in 1 dress up costume or another. And we'll hear him all the time playing out different things in his room during 'quiet time' (we gave up naps about a year ago). But he definitely prefers to play with others and just loves having Mae around for that. He doesn't like it when her nap runs longer than his quiet time as he wants her in the backyard playing with him.

He is also developing a very strong love of video games (also like his father). For good behavior he gets a 20 min reward in the evening. Benjamin always chooses the video games. He then chooses his partner (Sam or myself) and when he chooses me he has to explain to me what I am to do since his skills greatly exceed mine! Sam and I were just discussing today that we don't really recall the last time Ben watched tv at home.

Unfortunately he still is severely allergic to all tree nuts and egg whites. He is also at the age that he is questioning why he's not allowed to eat some food, but other kids can. Luckily we have discovered soy butter which tastes almost like peanut butter so he's been able to use that in sandwiches, on celery, on apples, etc. We have kept his asthma completely under control with 2 daily steroid puffs from his inhaler (and daily zyrtec). His asthma/allergist specialist says that if we have another good year we will be reducing that. With his lungs improving, his eyes have now decided to act up and we are still working on keeping his left eye from crossing in. Glasses helped but didn't correct completely so currently Benjamin has to wear a patch on his good eye about 6 hours a day. Luckily he is an extremely confident and happy child and does not mind wearing it at all. He decorates it every morning before school and then wears it until the afternoon. When kids ask if he hurts his eye he just calmly tells them he's doing it so he doesn't go cross-eyed and then keeps playing :)

Transformer Birthday Party

Since we were in Greer on Ben's birthday, we had his birthday party a week later. This is the first real birthday party I have thrown for him and I think it was a HUGE success. He chose transformer theme (well, I kind of encouraged that theme since I had obtained all the decoration and plates etc on clearance:) ). We had 4 kids show up and it was the perfect number - any more and it would have been chaos!

When the kids arrived they were greeted by a large Optimus Prime Truck. I had built it out of cardboard boxes and table cloths, with Ben (and Mae's) assistance. I was sure the party would destroy it but it turned out to be super sturdy and is STILL sitting in my front room 1 week later. Not sure what I am going to do with it as it's too cool to throw out!
We also had a table set up with a bunch of Ben's transformer toys for the kids to play with.
After everyone had arrived, our 1st activity was making our own transformer pictures. I had precut all different shapes and colors of construction paper and gave each child a glue stick and blank paper to create their transformer on. This activity was completed in about 4 minutes :)Next we did the obstacle course. Benjamin helped me with setting this up and coming up with some of the ideas for it. 1st, you had to change into flying robot mode and fly over to the 'launcher'.
There you climbed on up it and had it launch you into super speed (go down the slide), then you flew over into the large boulder (ran over to the covered back section of the climber) and shot through the black hole (the tunnels).
After you emerged from the tunnels you had to fly through the asteroid belt (hanging streamers & punching balloons) and then you landed on earth. Once there you had to hide the energon cubes (blue square jello) from the decepticons (carried it across the patio on a spoon. Once at the other side of the patio it was eaten since the best hiding spot is your stomach).
After depositing the energon carrier (the spoon), you picked up an autobot bomb (red bouncy ball with the autobot symbols all over it) to defeat the decepticons (had to knock over the cans with the decepticon pictures I had stacked up on the table).
They then received their prize for defeating the decepticons which they had to hold on to until everyone had completed the obstacle course. The prize was a can of silly string which they used to attack each other. I think THAT was the biggest hit of the party :)
After the obstacle course it was time for the birthday cake.
The kids then played some more in Optimus and once their energy started ratcheting up we headed back to the backyard for the autobot vs decepticon battle. Everyone had balloons tied around their ankles and the adults were designated the decepticons. The teams had to defeat each other by popping the other teams balloons - of course the autobots won :)
Benjamin then opened his gifts and we ended the party with a scavenger hunt for the various items in the kids loot bags. The last item they found was a little transformer for them to take home.
And Mae is not in any of these pictures - as she slept through 75% of the party :) Something Benjamin would NEVER have done at that age!

Greer

Every year we take Benjamin up into the mountains to experience snow for a day. This year was extra fun as we spent just over 24hrs there and got to spend it with good friends of ours. The 1st night we enjoyed making smores:
Nathan is reading Ben their bedtime story. The boys got to share a pull out couch for bedtime and were just ecstatic - and surprisingly didn't take THAT long to fall asleep!All ready to go sledding!
We had to drive just a little outside of Greer for the great sled hill. However, thanks to the kids getting up nice & early we were there by 9am when it was completely empty! 2hrs later there were so many people we had to wait in line to go down the various 'runs' but that was fine as we were all pretty wiped by then and didn't want to do the climb back up!


Ben is sitting in front for this next video


After spending the morning tubing we returned to the cabin for lunch and then we spent the afternoon going down the tiny hill behind the cabin (perfect size for the kids as they didn't need any adult assistance) , having snow ball fights and building snowmen.
The trip occurred right on Ben's birthday so we brought a cake and a couple gifts and celebrated it there with him. Nathan made it extra special as he kept letting Benjamin go first (down the hill in the back, saying prayer at mealtime) since it was his birthday. We had a very happy birthday boy ALL day!After a day of sledding outside in the cold, the boys ended the day with sledding inside on the stairs.
Mae is not in any of these pictures as she stayed back in warm Gilbert with Grandma :)