Ben's Party and Fourth of July

We celebrated Ben's birthday on July 4th and invited our family and some friends from back home to join us for the day.

I dread making cakes...at least ones that go beyond frosting them while still in the glass baking dish. I decided to attempt Ben's cake this time since I had figured out a way so that most of the decorations didn't have to be made of icing. It's no where near as good as Brandi could do, but at least this one I didn't want to put in the garbage before the guests arrived like I did with the last one I made Rosemary.

He is such a happy boy.

Rosemary really was not too keen on getting this photo.

If you couldn't tell, he likes cake.

A lot.

It was a really nice day out. Jonathan set up the little pool, slide, and sprinkler for the kids. Rosemary, Abby, and Ben splashed and played the afternoon away.

Everyone enjoyed the shade.

Becky and I got a chance to catch up. Thanks for coming all the way to Gainesville!

Jonathan ended the night with our own personal fireworks show.

Some were a bit loud.

Ben's First Birthday

Ben turned a year old on Thursday. Jonathan and I took the day off and we went to get Ben's pictures done then had a picnic at the Alachua splash park. It was great fun and we would have gotten some great photos...if we'd remembered the camera.

Ben seemed to have a good time. We took him for pizza for dinner...his favorite...as far as we can tell. This little guy ate two pieces of pizza and two pieces of garlic bread.

On top of all the pizza, Ben got to enjoy his birthday cupcake that Rosemary and I had made earlier that day.

Happy Birthday, Benjamin!

Here's a glimpse of what Ben will look like with a goatee like his Daddy's.

Check out our boy with his gator.

And he is over the gator photos.

In the past month, Ben's moved up to his knees from his standard army crawl. He's cruising around furniture too. At meals he consistently signs 'more' but we haven't quite mastered 'all done.' Maybe that's because he never is all done?

For now, I'm going to savor the last few weeks I have before toddlerhood sets in. I have a feeling that Ben's going to be ready to get into everything.

Happy Father's Day

Love you.

Sick Weekend

Rosemary and Ben are sick...poor things. You know it's bad when Rosemary falls asleep like this.

SeaWorld...again

We headed down to Orlando again for the weekend and spent one day at SeaWorld. The night before mom and dad watched the kids and Jonathan and I had some delicious Cuban food at Bongo's at Downtown Disney. Then the last day mom and I hit Ikea.

Ben looking all like a big boy in the front seat of the stroller.

And Rosemary finally took a picture with Shamu...her seventh time there. We'd waited in the line for pictures a few other times then she changed her mind right at the end. This time she even gave the whale a hug.

We don't have a pic, but Jonathan and I got to ride Manta...very fun and very different. I'd never ridden a roller coaster where you're pretty much lying on your stomach like you're flying. I was actually a little nervous (the troughs underneath where you load up really don't calm any nerves either, I must say) but it was so smooth.

The Ballerina

After over a year of watching Lawrence Welk and dancing most Saturday nights, we have officially signed Rosemary up for ballet lessons.

I think that I was more excited about her first day of ballet than I was for her first day of preschool. I think she was excited too. If you know Rosemary, you know that it's sometimes hard to tell with her, but the fact that she talked about it so much and so willingly got ready and participated was a good sign.

Moms were invited to stay for the first class, but since she was so excited, I took off rather than throw things off. Just had to get a quick photo of her front and center on her little mat.

Her little bun. And notice the paint rollers? If it ever stops raining in Gainesville on the weekends, we might actually finish painting our house.

Ben at 11 Months

It's hard to believe that in just a few weeks our "Baby Ben" will be one. I'm trying to savor this time as much as I can because I know that "baby" Ben is slipping away right before my eyes and in a blink will be "toddler" Ben with all the vestiges of baby-dom behind him. I remember being amazed with Rosemary at how that one year old mark just triggered so many changes in her.

I know that I'm biased, but I think that Ben is about as close to a perfect baby as you can get. He's so sweet tempered and mellow and inquisitive at that same time. A joy to be with and tons of fun. I love how he will smile, scrunch up his little nose and snort when he's excited about something. I love how he wants to be wherever we are and enjoys being held, at least for a little while. And I just love him.

A few milestones from this month:
Calling us mama and dada (he kinda started this at the end of last month, and I'm pretty sure that he said "mama" first. Woohoo!)
Pretty much completely on table foods. He gets an occassional jar of baby food if we're out or if I think he needs some extra vegetables.
He's a climber...probably even more so than Rosemary...which is terrifying! Practically a Houdini, he can even get out of the straps in his highchair.
Ben had his first night away from us over Memorial Day weekend. Jonathan and I are painting the house so the kids spent the weekend with my mom and dad.

Moments like this

It's late and I need to get to bed, but wanted to post about something that happened today in Sunday School with the three year olds.

It was time to clean up after playtime and both Rosemary and Dynah weren't terribly excited about that. They'd each picked up a few things with all the melodrama three year olds can muster then Dynah sat down and said that she didn't feel well. (They're usually both great picker-uppers, but I think that sometimes they take turns as to who is most reluctant). Rosemary heard this, came over and said, "God will help you feel better, Dynah. I'll pray for you."

So she prayed,

Dear God, please help Dynah to feel better. Amen.

So sweet and completely unprompted. And her prayer was answered. Dynah was fine after that.

Gardening Part 2

Our green beans were ready to pick this week so Rosemary and I went out during Ben's nap on Friday to harvest our huge crop.

That's all of them. Practically a bumper crop, don't you think? We cooked them last night and ate them all. Honestly, they didn't taste that great, but hey, we ate something that we grew and we'd never done that before. Now we just are waiting on the carrots and cucumbers.

We also picked some hydrangeas and gardenias on Friday and put them in the foyer. The hydrangeas are so pretty and I love how the gardenias make the front of the house smell so good. I hope we can bring more in throughout the next few weeks, but since we just cut the hedges all back to get ready to paint the house, this might be the only bouquet we get.

Mother's Day 2009

We got back into town the night before Mother's Day but Jonathan and the kids still managed to get me flowers, a gift, and bring me breakfast in bed. At church we had a family photo taken and after church, Jonathan took us to lunch. Then I went shopping all by myself. So nice.

Ben at 10 Months

This is the only alligator photo of either of our kids not taken exactly on their month 'birthday.' With all the packing and traveling, I just missed the day. So here's Ben, just a touch over 10 months old.

Highlights:

Moved to the big tub

Pulling up

South Florida

Updated: Below is a more detailed look at our trip down south.

We drove down Saturday and settled into the condo then got some dinner on the boardwalk. The next morning we went to Tamarac to go to church at Community Christian Church and met up with the Campbell's.

Clint and Sarah gave us the tour. Here's the entrance.

When we got back, we ate then got ready for some beach time.

Rosemary gave Ben his first boogie board ride...on the floor.

Ben's first beach experience.

Rosemary playing by the water. See that red flag? Apparently that means "Don't go in the water here." It seems that there was a rip current right there. Thankfully it wasn't too much of an issue for us.

Ben wasn't a huge fan of the water, but did seem to enjoy hanging out up with me in the tent.

That night we had plans to meet Seth for dinner. It didn't work out. Rosemary got sick and started running a fever so we spent Sunday night and Monday just hanging out at the condo. I don't think Rosemary's ever slept so much!

We were getting a little stir crazy on Monday night and Rosemary was doing better so we went for walk on the beach after dinner.

Rosemary's little footprint.

Our condo.

Before heading down to the pool on Tuesday. Rosemary was herself again and the fever was gone.

On Tuesday night, we had a great dinner with the Campbell's at Fuddrucker's.

After dinner, we headed to their house and Rosemary got to see lots of their animals. She even touched a snake and a gecko. When she got up the next morning it was the first thing she started talking about.

Wednesday was a full beach and pool day.

Wednesday night we went to First Christian Church Pompano Beach to share with them about Campus House.

We wanted to give our sunburns a break on Thursday so we walked down the boardwalk for lunch then attempted to go on a boat ride. It didn't work out so we went to a playground instead.

Mmmm...pizza!

This playground was in one of the roundabouts on Hollywood Boulevard.




After playing awhile, we headed up the street for some gelato.

Rosemary had 'blue' gelato.

Jonathan had chocolate.

I had pineapple and strawberry.

And Ben shared mine.

We had dinner with Seth on Thursday at Chili's. It was good to catch up.

We had one last beach day on Friday.

Some people build sandcastles, our family builds sand snowmen.

Not lovin' the sand and sun.

The one picture of our family...I think I asked someone who was Russian and was very scared to use our camera. Ah well. At least it's all of us!