Happy Birthday, Nanner!

Today is my grandmother's birthday.  Melanie took a few photos of us at the creek by our house to send in her birthday card.  We only have one other photo of all four of us and it's from when Ben was just a few months old, so this was a great excuse to try to get this boys to sit still, ha!

Lego Pirate Ship - Queen Anne's Revenge

Sam and Chris finished building the Lego Pirate Ship.  They spent several weekends working on it while Ben was napping.

Sam is very proud of his pirate ship.  It had over a thousand pieces but was organized very nicely into several stages and numbered bags which took about an hour or two each.  It has lots of cool details, like cannons that fire out of skull covered flap doors, a bi-level captains quarters, and skull railing.  The minifigures with swords and guns are a big hit too!

Building the captain's quarters.

Playing Legos with Ben.

Random picture of Ben eating peanut butter waffles ... yummy!

Pics from the Park

Books and ABCs

They cannot get enough books before bed!  Green Eggs and Ham is currently Ben's favorite.

Sam isn't getting read to as often as he is reading to us now.  He is supposed to read at least 15 minutes every night.  We're gonna have to figure this whole homework thing out.  I think the only option is to pick them up from school earlier because we can't cram any more in that window between dinner and bed!

Benny singing ABC's.

Legos

Ben loves Sam's Legos.  His favorites are the Ninjago minifigures.  He keeps taking them apart and putting them back together.

Sometimes it's just too hard for his little hands to take them apart and he says, "Momma, break him's head.  Break him's pants."

This pirate ship has over 1000 pieces.  Gonna take a while!

Benny on Wheels

We celebrated New Year's by teaching Ben how to ride the tricycle.

He was instantly in love!

A brand new perspective.

He was turning the wheel every time he looked at something so it was hard to keep him going straight.

"We don't ride the bike like this, Mommy!  We don't jump on the bike!"  Seriously.  His favorite thing to do right now is to say what he should not be doing while he's doing it.

Big brother was jealous and had to run and go get his bike too.

We went on two more long bike rides over the weekend.  He was actually excited to wear his helmet!

Gymnastics

I went to Sam's gymnastics recital at school in December.  It's always fun to see how much stronger he's getting each year.  One of his best friends, Surya, is in his class with him.

He always loves getting his medal!

Here's a little video of Sam showing off.

Christmas Videos

Opening presents!



Benny playing with his new toys.