What to do on a Hot Summer Day.

We have had an incredibly hot summer so far. Yesterday's high was 104, but the heat index was 108. That's a bit too hot for my liking. So needless to say, we keep most of our outdoor activities to mornings or late evenings. But we have managed to enjoy a little water time and get cooled off a few times.

Benjamin and his friend "cisty" (Christy)
We got Benjamin a slip 'n slide for his birthday this year. He hasn't totally figured it out yet, but it's a nice way to cool off a bit.

We had a 4th of July party with our Sunday School class and Benjamin enjoyed the kiddie pool

Party Time!!!

Well, I have certainly been a slacker in the blogging department lately. I can't believe I've waited more than a week to blog about Benjamin's birthday.

This year was such a fun year because Benjamin began to really understand that we were celebrating him. We talked about his birthday for several days beforehand and he woke up in the mornings saying "birtday?" I am loving this stage of him just beginning to put things together. He no longer says words just to copy us, but is really starting to understand what they mean. We celebrated Benjamin's birthday with our friends Brian and Katie and their son Cale. Benjamin was SO excited about having Cale come over and talked about it all day long. When Matt got home from work that night before Cale got to our house, Benjamin was pretty disappointed that it was not Cale walking in the door.

I think one of Benjamin's favorite parts of the day was when he finally got to get his hands on his cake. I found a delicious gluten free cake recipe that uses "Pamela's Gluten Free Baking and Pancake Mix" as well as a few other ingredients and it was very tasty. But more important to Benjamin than the taste was the fact that it had rescue vehicles on it. He is totally in love with all types of vehicles and was pretty upset when I was making the cake and he couldn't have the trucks right then. So as soon as he blew out his candles (video coming at some point) he was quick to pull off the trucks!

During the day for Benjamin's birthday, I wanted it to be a special time too, so Benjamin and I went to Toys R Us where he is signed up for the birthday club and got to pick out a free toy. He of course picked matchbox cars. Then we went out to lunch before heading to Barnes and Noble to play with their awesome train set in the kids area. And then, because he is only two, we headed home for a much needed nap. :)

Stay tuned for Birthday celebration number 2 after our upcoming trip to Indiana.

The Fire Truck Cake!

Birthday Decor

This was so cute. Right before we were getting ready to pray, we told Benjamin and Cale to hold hands and they did.

Hat is on, he's ready to party!

Mmmmmm!

Showing off his favorite part of the cake - the firetrucks!

Little Cutie!

Here He Goes!

The Twos

I don't like the term terrible twos. I mean, I will be the first to admit that this age comes with some terrible days, but it comes with some super funny and wonderful ones too, so I won't refer to the whole year as terrible. But...this past week Benjamin sure showed off his "two-ness." Mr adventuresome that he is, he decided to pull down the curtains in his bedroom rod and all. I was cleaning in our bedroom and he brought them to me and told me they were an umbrella. He was quite pleased with himself. I'm thankful that I didn't spend a lot of money on the rod that I bought not even a week before he pulled it down. It's rather bent, but I've decided it will work until he's past this stage. Hmmm. Does he get to that point?

Ahh yes, and then there was this past Friday. It began as any other day begins with Benjamin waking up soaked and in great need of a bath. I stripped him down and bathed him before changing the sheets. Then I did my usual slathering of his legs with his lotion. And before I lotioned him up, I took off my wedding ring. I always do this. But I usually put it right back on and for some reason on this particular morning I forgot. It wasn't until about an hour later that I even realized I wasn't wearing it. By that time I had done dishes and fed my sourdough starter, and since I also always take my ring off when I do those things, I figured I left it around the kitchen somewhere. I began to panic when I couldn't find it in the kitchen, and panicked even more when I realized that I must have left it on the floor in Benjamin's room. I rushed upstairs to see if by some miracle he had left it there. Ha! Of course not! So after turning his room upside down in search of my ring, I moved on to the rest of the house and searched everywhere I could think of. I kept asking Benjamin what he did with my ring, all the time feeling bad accusing him of taking it when I wasn't for sure that I had even left it in his room. He thought I was saying rain and kept taking me over to a book we have with an umbrella on the cover. And so my normal day turned into a day of sadness mixed with frustration, mixed with despair over ever finding my ring. By the time Matt got home from work, I was an absolute mess. And yes, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I got that consumed with an object, but I did. After we put Benjamin to bed, Matt and I looked everywhere we could think of and then some. You look in the most ridiculous places when you've lost something precious. By 8:30, I was ready to wait and see if it came through Benjamin's diaper (yes, I know that's gross, but I was thinking that was a better alternative to having flushed it down the toilet), but I was still racking my brain trying to think of what else he could have done with it. And then it hit me that the air conditioning return vent was right outside Benjamin's room and that the holes in it might possibly be big enough for my ring to fit through. Matt and I took the cover off and the first thing we saw was a bobby pin. That gave me hope because I knew Benjamin had to have put it there. Then, off in the corner, there it was! My ring! I was so happy I almost cried!!! And well, I had to laugh when I pictured Benjamin, ring in hand, bending over to look up at the holes of the return vent to see if my ring would fit before dropping it in, safe and sound. Silly Boy! And yes, he will be two tomorrow and it shows! I'm just thankful he made it to the return vent before going three steps further and making it to the bathroom.

Father's Day, Big Boy Beds, and a Cute Benjamin Story

This past weekend was actually a celebration of both Mother's Day and Father's Day for us. For Mother's day, Matt had given me a gift card to Starbucks and a little money and told me that some Saturday I could have the morning off and go sit at Starbucks and relax and read or do whatever. Well, the past month and a half has been crazy, so this past Saturday was the first time we had time to do it. And it was SO wonderful! I spent over an hour at Starbucks drinking yummy coffee and working on my Bible Study. Then, since I had a little money to spend, I stopped in at Old Navy because their tank tops were $2!!! I love a good deal! When I got home I felt so refreshed and ready to get back to normal stuff. Thanks honey!

Father's day was a fun family day of going to church, reading together, and eating some yummy Salmon sandwiches. There's a restaurant in Bandera that we've been to a couple of times and they have the best Salmon sandwiches. I attempted to imitate them and while they didn't come out quite as good as theirs, they were still delicious! Benjamin was so cute about the card he picked out. When I was out shopping for a card from me, Benjamin spotted a card with a monkey on the front. He REALLY wanted that card, so I decided it could be his card to daddy. He colored all over it and was pretty sad when I closed it up in the envelope. Then, when Matt opened it, Benjamin wanted it back. He really likes monkeys!

We also redid Benjamin's room this past weekend. We started him off in a toddler bed since we had it with our extra crib, but we will soon be starting the process to adopt another baby, so I am getting in nesting mode and felt like getting his room turned into a big boy room. Benjamin's passion is trucks, cars, buses, SUVs, cement mixers, and well, anything with wheels really. So I found a super cute bedding set with cars, trucks, and buses all over it to put on our twin bed. We also got some wonderful blackout curtains to help him sleep better during nap time (still working on that as he likes to climb out of bed), and some new bigger letters to paint and put up in his room. It's still not done, but he's officially been transferred to the big boy bed and he looks so grown up!

And for the cute story, this morning Benjamin got our camera off the ledge upstairs and held it up to his face and said "mile, mile." Guess he knows what to do with the camera. Imagine that! He handed me the camera and I told him to smile. Here's the smile he gave me:

Yep! I sure do love this little kiddo!

Catching Up

This month is passing far too quickly for me. June is our summer this year. Matt decided to take the month of June off from studying for the CPA so that we could have some much needed family time. It's been wonderful, but the time is going way too fast! Here are a few highlights from the month so far:

June 1st was our 7th wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been seven years since I walked down the aisle toward the most amazing man in the world. We didn't have babysitting for our anniversary, so we took Benjamin with us a did a mini-celebration dinner. Then last weekend we had an actual date night and celebrated for real. I'm so blessed to be married to my best friend and I'm thankful to get to go through all of life's ups and downs with him.

Since this is our month off, we decided we needed to take advantage of our zoo membership and take a trip to the zoo. Benjamin enjoys it more and more each time we go. The zoo opens for members at 7:30 during the summer, so it was great because we spent a couple of hours enjoying the animals before the heat and the crowds got to bad.

We discovered a new part of the zoo we hadn't been to before that has a lot of hands on stuff for kids. Most of it didn't open until after 9, so we will have to go back to check it out another time, but Benjamin enjoyed driving the little boat.

Last week, we had a little friend decide to make itself at home on our patio. Benjamin was thrilled and stood by the sliding glass door saying "liderd!" all afternoon. This momma was not so thrilled and is glad that he has decided not to come back this week. I don't know what I'm going to do when Benjamin starts bringing me those kinds of things.

On June 12, my sister Rachel gave birth to a precious baby boy! They named him Stephen Matthew and he is simply adorable. At least, from what I can tell by the pictures. I'm anxious to get up to Indiana to meet him in person and take a few pictures of my own. And I'm so thrilled that Benjamin has a boy cousin to play with, at least as soon as Stephen gets big enough.

This week we traveled to Austin for Olana's memorial service. It was a day mixed with both sadness and joy. We were blessed to be able to meet more of Olana's family and are so thankful to have had that opportunity. But it was sad too as the memorial service was such a reminder of how much we will miss Olana. It was so good to gather together with others and celebrate her life though, and I'm so thankful for the hope we have in knowing that she has no more pain and no more tears and that we will see her again someday.

Benjamin enjoyed meeting all of his birthfamily and especially enjoyed trying on this cowboy hat that belonged to one of them. Silly guy!

And in between all of our activities, Benjamin continues to be Benjamin and we are enjoying this stage of discovery. He continues to amaze me with his verbal skills and his ability to remember things. This morning I took two boxes of books to Half Price Books to sell them and when I pulled into the parking lot, he started saying "monkey, monkey!" The last time we went to Half Price Books was at the beginning of April, and in the kids section they had some stuffed monkeys. I could not believe he remembered them just by seeing the outside of the store.

Benjamin also continues to love just about any type of vehicle and can't seem to go anywhere without a car or truck in his hand. Yesterday I was getting ready to go out to run some errands and I told him it was time to go. As I was getting my shoes on, he gathered up his goodies and stood by the door to the garage waiting for me. I laughed when I realized that he had piled his car, three trucks, and a train inside his bigger train so that he could take them ALL to the store.


Another of Benjamin's favorite things to do is walk down to get the mail. He has now taken to putting on my shoes and clomping over to me saying "mail, mail"

Benjamin certainly loves silliness. His favorite game right now is closing me in a room and saying "Bye, later" right before he almost closes the door. Then he pushes it open again and says "HI!" and busts up laughing.

And most exciting of all is that he is learning to use the potty!!! We are not officially potty training yet because we are traveling to IN in July and I don't want to start until we will be in routine for at least a month after starting. But, for the last four days, he has wanted to get on the toilet in my bathroom and he's actually peed! Woohoo! I swore I wouldn't talk about potty stuff with other people when I had kids, and here I am blogging about it, but ya know, it's just an exciting milestone so I can't help it. I wanted to post a picture of him sitting his cute little self on the potty, but didn't have the camera handy when he was there, so maybe another day.

Sorry this was such a random post, but it's been a while, so it was bound to be random. I'll leave you with a few more pictures of the boy.

Memorial Service for Olana MacArthur

Thank you to all of you for your sweet comments here and through e-mail about Olana. We will treasure them and it will be wonderful to share them with Benjamin someday.

We want to let everyone know that a Memorial Service will be held for Olana at 7:00pm on June 17 at Grace Covenant Church in Austin, TX.