Beach day and Abe dancin'

I still need to write about Ben's 4th birthday, plus a little post about Abe and all of his exploits, but posting these pictures from our recent trip to the beach is a lot easier.

 

 I heard Ben say, "Mommy, I have something for you!" I looked up expecting to see a sea shell, but instead had a dead crab in my face. I guess that's better than a live crab? My reaction scared him so much that he immediately dropped his surprise.

 

 

And just for fun, here's a little video of Abe showing us his dance moves.

Easter 2012

We didn't do anything big for Easter this year. We went to church in the morning, and and actually made it to the 8:30 service. I quickly realized that getting everyone out the door to the early service was a BIG MISTAKE once I looked at the program and saw that there is no children's church at that time. Ben is pretty good at sitting still, but not for an entire hour when TV isn't involved. He participated a little, and colored a little, and played with some stickers, and started to get really restless until I had an "aha" moment and hissed "There are donuts upstairs and you can have one after church, but ONLY if you are quiet." Yes, I know. I am an awesome parent. But it worked! Well, until the very end when we were standing a listening the choir sing The Hallelujah Chorus and Ben LOUDLY asked, "Can I have my donut now?" And then proceeded to ask several more times until church was over. But we won't count that.

Afterwards we had quiche and strawberries, and hunted for Easter eggs. This was Ben's fourth egg hunt this year, and he was totally OVER IT. Totally. Since he is such a pro at this point, he found all of the eggs in about 5 minutes flat, immediately dumped them on the patio and started tearing them apart looking for treats. The real eggs that he had had so much fun dyeing were NOT as much fun when he realized they didn't magically turn into chocolate eggs overnight. Abe found 2 eggs, and then spent the rest of the time playing.

 

  

After the egg hunt I tried to get some pictures of the boys in their Easter outfits. Even now, as I enter my fourth year of parenthood, I forget that if you want pictures of your kids in their dress clothes you'd better do it immediately. If you look closely you can see dirt stains on their pants and sweaters. In fact, right after these pictures were taken Ben decided to make a mud puddle and have he and Abe stomp in it while my back was turned. Hello Oxyclean!

 

 

 

Tomorrow there is a little boy in my house who is turning 4!! I would like to just sit and cry meditate on that fact for a while, but I still have a cake to bake and a present to wrap.  While I'm busy with that, you might be entertained by seeing what happens when I ask Joel to take a nice picture of me and the boys.

 

 

Park City 2012

It seems strange to be writing about snow and skiing while I'm wearing shorts and thinking about what plants I'm going to buy at the nursery tomorrow, but here it goes! 

We visited Mimi and Poppy in Park City at the beginning of March. We stayed a week, and had a great time relaxing and finally getting to see some snow. You can tell that Mr. B was ready for takeoff in his camo pants, and with TWO Lightening McQueen water bottles in his backpack :)

 I tried my best to corral both boys at the airport, but it was tough. And that was just the first hour of our trip! The details have gotten pretty fuzzy at this point, but I can assure you that the actual traveling portion of our trip was miserable. Not only did Abe scream, throw multiple tantrums, and refuse to sleep through both flights, but he also projectile vomited during our car ride up to Park City. This picture was taken before the madness.

But once we arrived everyone had fun! We went for a little hike on the trail behind Mimi and Poppy's house. Ben looks super serious with his walking sticks.

And Ben went to ski school for a day and LOVED it. I think he mostly loved being able to pelt the instructors with snowballs whenever he wanted. During ski school he learned how to make a pizza wedge with his skis, rode on the "magic carpet" and, um....ate chicken strips for lunch. Then the next couple of days Uncle Aaron took over the lessons.

And here's Ben chillin' on the mountain.

 

Joe, Ben, Aaron and Joel

And if you're interested, (GRANDPARENTS) here is video of Ben skiing. That little speck in the middle is Ben. Joel is on the left and Aaron is on the right. This was his last run of our vacation and I think he was starting to feel pretty comfortable on his skis. 

 

 Daddy and Abe got to do some sledding. Fun fact: Mimi bought Able some super adorable Elmo snow boots in his (correct) size. When we got to Park City we had him try them on. We must have pushed and pulled those boots in every direction but it was no use. Abe has the fattest widest feet known to toddlers.

This picture was taken a day after we arrived. You can tell that Abe was definitely feeling the effects of a cold plus traveling plus the time change.

And Joel and I got to eat dinner in a YURT! One night we took a 30 minute sleigh ride to the top of the mountain, and waiting for us was this cozy little restaurant. We had a wonderful five course meal. Since there was group seating, we were placed at a large table with 4 other couples. We met people from Texas, NYC and what a coincidence...Chapel Hill, NC! I thought that having conversations with everyone was the best part. My more reserved husband might disagree :)

Here we are during our sleigh ride. I just realized that we are looking in two different directions. What is Joel looking at?

And since I don't ski, what did I do? Well, I did some shopping at the outlet mall down the road from Joe and Cathy's house. I ran a couple of times to keep in shape for the 5K I had the weekend after we got back (more on that later.) I finally read the Hunger Games series...it was pretty good! I got to see a good friend of mine from college that I hadn't seen in about 5 years, and I spent some kid-free time with my husband. I call that a successful vacation!