Farm Days

We attended NC State's Farm Days.  Basically, they open up one of the farms and have chickens, cows, a horse, tractors, knee high fields of grass, and some of their delish icecream.  It was fun, but what Spence and I realized is that it was a bit ridiculous for us to stand in line for 20 minutes to sit on a tractor, when the boys can go to YaYa and PawPaw's house and take a ride anytime they want.  Being a country girl, I just wasn't that impressed, but my boys loved it.  And hey, my parent's house doesn't come with the yum icecream :)  The funniest part was that the boys enjoyed running in the field more than any other part.  The Allison clan and us had to drag the kids away.  They loved rolling down the hill and hiding in the grass. 

 The closest any chick better get to him

 and him too

 The Gaston clan joined us and we had such a blast

Petting a sheep

 Holt and the sheep

 Katie and I chanted to ourselves "Please don't jump that fence, please don't jump that fence!"

 Top three people I don't want driving a tractor

 Goofy boys

 Best part of the day

 Pic of Mary Grace that Zeke jumped in

 Zeke had a blast just playing in the field

 Chilling

Pondering life

Easter 2012

Easter is my favorite holiday.  How could it not be?  The celebration of Jesus raising from the grave is the core of what our family believes.  How can we not celebrate that?  During the week leading up to it, we talked about Jesus dying for us and that he did not stay dead, but that he rose from the grave.  We sang "God's not dead" a lot.  We didn't talk much about bunnies, chocolate, jelly beans, or eggs.  Did we have all these things, sure.  Our they the focus of what we celebrate, nope.  We dyed eggs earlier during the week, had tons of egg hunts with our baskets and plastic eggs, and watched Veggie Tales Easter movie.  The boys got to go to stay with Nana and Bampa (with a visit to YaYa and PawPaw's thrown in too) for a night.  They went to Pop's house for an egg hunt with Will and Elizabeth.  Sunday, we got up and went to church.  After nap, the boys got to see what they got in their baskets (note to self: either do a "spring" basket instead or do baskets on Saturday).  We then rushed over to Abby and Chris' for dinner with them and the Rudolph family (no pics from that chaos- 6 adults and 9 kids ranging in age from 7-almost 2 months, of course we didn't have time to take a picture).  We thoroughly enjoyed our Easter weekend and hope you did too. 

 Ben would have dyed himself

 Careful instructions from dad

 Finished product (I attempted to dye one of our eggs with the koolaid recipe, HUGE fail, the color rubbed right off.  Glad I didn't plan on using it for everything)

 I really should have included the 42 outtakes.  This is the best one we got, OH and it is only the 2nd picture of our family of 5

 Taking a picture of a 3 year old, 2 year old, and 7 week old by yourself is hard work, do not judge

 Ellie and Aunt Mary (yes that flower is almost the size of her head)

 Ellie and Elizabeth

 3 baskets!

 close up of the boys chairs

 Zeke went straight for the cars

 and the whistle

Ben went after the chocolate (he's totally mine)

Ben at 2.5

Profile of a 2.5 year old:
Interests: baseball, basketball, soccer, guitars, make believe
Enjoys: being outside all the time, kissing and hugging on Ellie, eating snacks
Turn-Offs: losing to Zeke at anything, being told no, leaving places before he is ready
Vices: still waking up at crazy hours, hitting in anger, throwing things when mad
Strengths: super snuggler, so funny, loves to help

Favorites of my 2 year old;
Foods: any fruit, fruit snacks, cheese, carrots
Songs: The Robot Song, Hosanna Rock, the Doxology
Shows: he asks for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but doesn't really watch it.  He will watch Curious George or Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  He follows Zeke's lead and talksa bout Sid the Science Kid or Super Why, but doesn't really watch them
Books: library books, but no real favorite
Toys: sports stuff (golf clubs and balls, baseballs and bats, soccer), cars, the kitchen- he constantly makes us stuff
Activities: anything outside, writing, cooking with Mama

Words:
Ben keeps us on our toes by his funny phrasing and also his made up words.  Lately everything is "WAKADO!"  He also talks about stealing sunshines (from "You are my sunshine") or shadows (from Peter Pan).  He enjoys being silly and calling everyone by different names, Fred is a fave around here

How Ben is like...
daddy- loves anything athletic and outside, must.eat.as.soon.as.awake, such a TARHEEL
mommy- so grumpy when he wakes up, quick temper :-/

Treasuring Details of our 2 year old Ben
* early riser, if he wakes before the 5:00 hour we can typically get him back to sleep in bed with us, but most mornings he is up around 5:45

*does everything BIG
*adores Zeke and always wants to be with him
*was potty trained daytime in November and naps and nights in December, but has regressed some since Ellie came home
*misses his daddy so much while he is at work
*his clinginess is so much better, but he still asks me "hold you" often
*loves having friends over or going to play with friends.  he asks almost every morning where we are going that day
* wears 18 month pants, but they are getting a bit short on him

* weighs 29 lbs
*wants snack all.day.long
*pretty decent eater, and will try most stuff once
*would live outside if we let him
*asks to go outside and scream
* knows his letters and a lot of their sounds
* loves pretend play
*would brush his teeth all day if we let him
*wants to be big and tells me often that he is
* LOVES Ellie and has really done such a great job transitioning.  We have really only had the hiccups of regressing with the potty (which can be annoying when we have to change his sheets a couple times in one night) He runs to get diapers, the boppy (or bobby as he calls it), her paci (he hasn't tried to put it in his mouth in a while now), or anything else we may need for her

* will get dressed faster if we tell him he is wearing a "daddy shirt" or "Max pants"

* started going pee pee standing up to be like "Evan and Brayden"

* can't wait until he is big enough to go to Awana like Zeke

 Go Tarheels!

 Very independent, which results in lots of messes

 quite the charmer

 loves drawing or writing letters to people

 loves his PawPaw and asks to see him a lot

 Ben is getting better about playing on his own

but still prefers to play with his two best friends

It's a bird, it's a plane...

NO! It's Super Zeke and Super Ben!  I had been eyeballing these super cute capes on pinterest for awhile now.  I finally just grabbed a couple of Spence's shirts and went to work cutting them.  Ben's was my first attempt and it works pretty good, but I made some adjustments to Zeke's and his looks more like a real cape.  I plan to remake Ben's but for now he is happy with what he has. 

what do you do with 1 3 year old, 3 2 year olds, and 3 babies...

Join the rest of the crazy masses at Pullen Park on a Friday morning!  This was our first visit to the park.  It has been closed for a while now for renovations.  I went a couple times in college and even have friends who got engaged at the park.  There are the typical park features with swings, play structures, sandboxes, and even see saws.  Then there are the extra cool features: the train, boats, carousel, resaurant (that has LOCOPOPS!), and tons of pretty areas just screaming "photo op!"

We met up with Matt and Alicia with their boys Brantley and Brayden, and also Jason and Leslie with thier boys Max and Charlie.  Max, Brantley, and Ben were all born in the same week so they have a neat friendship.

 We were all haveing flashes forward to about 13 years to a car full of boys

 Alicia and her boys

 Ben cried everytime the train pulled away until we got on it.  EVERY.SINGLE.TIME

 Aaaand Brantley cried when they had to get off the boats

 This sweet chubby boy did not make a peep the whole day.  He was so pleasant and happy

 Silly Ben

 Sweet daddy/son moment (or Zeke being disciplined for acting a fool)

 Douglas family

My big boys 

 The carousel is inside and these boys were in awe

 Ben was excited... Spence was more excited

 Zeke refused to ride an animal, so he Ellie and I chilled on this

(I ended up being happy he did, this is the fastest merry-go-round I have ever been on and Zeke began saying "wow, I'm getting dizzy, this is sooo fast" about half way through)

 Leslie and Charlie

 Our lunch spread

 My sweet girl

 a little bubble action

 Ben's fave mode of transportation lately

Soulmates!

 Finally on the train!

 Attempting a family pic (btw this is the only pic of the 5 of us since the hospital, might need to remedy this)

Ben and his buddy Max