Ben Turns One!

Our little baby turned one on Thursday! It is hard to believe that a year has gone by so quickly! On Thursday Ben opened a few presents at home and went out for supper. Afterwards we came back and enjoyed a birthday cupcake!

Ben enjoyed climbing on his presents and crawling on the boxes, much more than he did the actual toys! But as you see below, JJ and Mark enjoyed playing with Ben's new toy!

And now for the cake! It did not take Ben long to destroy his cupcake! He was a little tenative at first, but once he saw that mom was not going to stop him, he dug right in! There was nothing left of the poor cupcake once Ben got ahold of it!

Ice Cream Fun

Jeremiah LOVES his ice cream! And it seems that even now more gets on his face than in his mouth at times! Plus he loves to ham it up even more when the camera comes out!"I am going into chocolate overload!" "I LOVE SUGAR!!!"

I have to admit, I did play a little role in setting up this picture!

And where is Ben in all this? Sitting in his highchair making his own faces!

Swimming at the Copa

I decided to the take the boys over to the Copa swimming today. This was Ben's first time to go in the pool. The last few times he was too tiny to be going in. I thought for sure he was going to love the pool since he loves water. But I was surprised that he was not too impressed. He was a little hesitant at first to touch the spraying water, but after a few tries it was no big deal. He did enjoy going down the slide with JJ. The best part for him was the unlimited space to crawl and all of the chairs to crawl under! He enjoyed that more than the water park! It was a fun day, but very tiring!

Outdoor Boys

We are quickly discovering that Ben loves the outdoors as much as his big brother. When we get home from school, JJ usually stays out in the backyard and plays for awhile. At times I have to go in for one reason or another and take Ben in too. He throws a huge fit when he has to go in, when he would rather stay outside and play too like JJ! Below are a few pics from our outdoor fun one night!

Here is Ben getting adding a few more greens to his diet! He is still very much in the stage of putting everything in his mouth, including dandelions.

Yummmy! Gotta love those dandelion seeds!

Jeremiah has to try out all of his old toys when we bring them out for Ben! Here is on his push tractor! What a character!

Memorable May Moments

We have had some memorable moments this month! Last weekend Jeremiah learned how to ride his bike without training wheels! It was amazing how fast he was able to master this! We took the training wheels off on Saturday afternoon and by Sunday afternoon he was riding like a pro! Now, we can't get him off the bike. Every day when we get home from school he has his helmet on and he is off to ride. If I can't be out in front with him, he rides it around the back yard!

Another fun moment this month has been Benjamin's love for swinging! Our sitter has a swing and had mentioned how much he enjoyed it. So while out rummaging, I found a swing for 2 bucks!! When Bob came down one Saturday I was going to have him hang it for me. We were not able to hang it from a tree, because all of our tree branches go straight up! So we decided to hang it from the rafters in the garage! So now Ben has a great time in his swing, while JJ rides around the yard on his bike!

Our final memorable moments have to do with teeth. I don't have any pictures to share, but Jeremiah lost his second tooth this week at supper! We thought he had swallowed this one, but thankfully found it among the lettuce on his plate! He didn't want the tooth fairy to take his tooth, so he wrote her a note telling her that he wanted to keep it. Thankfully, the tooth fair was able to bring him 2 dollars anyways and allowed him to keep the tooth. And Ben finally got his first top tooth in and is working on his second one! So we will be up to four teeth! WOO-HOO!

Just helping out around the house!

Mark had the broom to sweep the kitchen floor. Ben decided that he needed to help sweep also. He pulled himself up and walked around the kitchen with Mark and pushed the broom. He was not happy when Mark took the broom away! Too funny!

Ben's New Talent

Ben learned a new talent a few weeks ago! He is able to pop lids off of containers with his two bottom teeth! He enjoys the game and we can sit for quite awhile simply putting the top on and then him popping it off again! And then repeat! It is quite a skill!