Ben counting!!

Ben can COUNT!  He still sometimes skips one (as you'll see in the video) but not all the time!  It is so fun to hear him add numbers.

"Bless you, Mommy"

So, tonight, Ben did the sweetest thing, and I just had to write about it.  Daddy and I were sitting on the couches, and Ben was on the floor playing with his bus.  I suddenly sneezed, and without a glance, Ben just said, "Bless you, Mommy", and kept on playing.  Daddy and I just looked at each other, puzzles, because it seemed to just come from nowhere, and it was SO DEAR.  Then Daddy fake sneezed, and Ben said, "Bless you, Daddy".

We have the sweetest, most considerate son, and it warms our heart!!

A few favorite things

A few favorite things to note about my fabulous son....
he is doing SUCH a great job developing his speech.  He can say 3 or 4 words together, such as "Sit down, please" or "I love you, Daddy".

he is starting to COUNT!  He can count to 10 ... sometimes!  But he ALWAYS skips one.  It is too cute.  He starts with two every time.

he adores his cousin Owen, and on mornings when we ask him what he wants to wear, he goes to his closet, finds a flannel shirt, and says, "Owie shirt"

He loves to talk about Uncle Jon, or "Un Gull Gon".  When I ask him to say Uncle Steve, he will say, "Un Gull Gon Steve".  Too cute!! (or MOST recently, he now refers to Uncle Matt as "Aunt Matt" ---- he came up with that ALL on his own, Matt!)

If his nose it hurting or running, he will point to it and say, "nose hurt" with a sad face.

he LOVES to hug.  He is the best cuddle bug ever.  And he still is an amazing sleeper.  When he is ready for a nap, he grabs my hand and leads me to his room, saying "nigh nigh"

when he sat on Santa's lap, even though he was so so excited, he still cried.  Then once i joined him, he told Santa he wants a Choo Choo train for Christmas.

Every cupcake or sweet he sees, he says "Ice Ceam Cone".... although he's never had one.

He LOVES to go to his 'school' now!  He used to cry, and now he just walks right in, gives me a hug, and starts playing.  It is adorable.  They even had a concert, where Ben was on stage, and although he had to bring Mono (his stuffed animal monkey) with him, he didn't cry!  I was so PROUD of him!

When he is going to bed at night, we hear him singing his own rendition of either Twinkle Twinkle LIttle Star or the ABC's.  Makes us smile every time -- adorable!!

He is just at such a darling stage right now, and we can't believe how much more we can love him every single day. 

GO PACK!!!!!!!

Happy New Year

After saying "Happy New Year" to Ben a few times, later on in the day, Ben went up to Daddy and said, "Happy New Year Ho Ho Ho."   So that is our new New Year's saying!

Big helper

Ben is such a big helper.  He loves to help his Mommy and Daddy, and he is so enthusiastic!  This fall, he has helped us rake, vacuum, mow, wipe floors, throw down dirty laundry, throw down clean laundry :)... you get the picture!  Here are a few pics of our little man.

 Here he is helping Daddy fix the bottom of the door

 Helping take his own temperature

 Helping wipe his nose....

And helping put the Christmas tree up (Yes...we already put our tree up!) 

Halloween!

For Halloween this year, we started the festivities by going to a pumpkin patch/ animal zoo, so we could feed the animals and take a hay ride pulled by a tractor!  That was definitely the highlight of the day for Ben!

Then we went to gymnastics, where we got to dress up in our Halloween costumes!  We had originally planned on Ben being a golfer for Halloween, but it wasn't warm enough for him to have it outside, so we got to wear it to gymnastics!!

The little girl right next to him in the picture above is Emma, and he thinks Emma is SO great.  And Avery is on the right.  The three of them get along really well!  And... they both have baby brothers that Ben likes to show off for :)

This was Ben's very first sucker!!  He enjoyed it a LOT!  Thanks Teacher Sasha!

We had a lot of fun doing our pumpkins!!  After a few "yucky" moments where Ben didn't like anything on his fingers, he finally started digging in and getting his hands dirty.  We had so much fun outside carving our pumpkins!

And a week later...... :)

FInally, for Halloween, Ben dressed in his WARM Bernese Mountain Dog outfit again.... !  He had it on last year, and it still fit, imagine that.  We had so much fun. Grandma Oma came over to see Ben and went to a fun festive block a mile away from our house where all the houses went ALL OUT, and it was so cool. They even had dancers and musicians in the middle of the road!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN ALL!