Look at my SCARY FACE

Jumping Ben

These pics are dark because I turned off my flash so I could take them through the mirror. Ben likes watching himself jump in the mirror.

Ben is looking in the mirror and making a "scary face."
Ben in mid-air as he's jumping on our bed. This is our usual tactic for getting him calmed down before bed.

Hospital Hill Half Marathon

We all went up to see Darin in KC this weekend. Saturday morning the guys ran the race and came in 29th and 30th place in their age group. This is the second race Darin and Jake have ran together. The rest of the weekend Darin showed us around downtown KC and the plaza. We had a blast. And, Ben has a new best friend.

Watching TV

Some cute pics of Ben while he's getting in his daily dose of Curious George.



awww...I just missed a great smile. nice farmer's tan

Vacuum Bat

The rain has made for some interesting play today. Ben just said, "Where's my vacuum bat?" We've played with every single item in our house and it's all on the living room floor. Let's hope for sun tomorrow.
The vacuum bat and ball.

So much water!

Flash Flood Take 2

The rain is overflowing from the ditch behind our fence.
Our patio is full!
The ditch in the back is overflowing so much it's coming into the front yard! And, you can see Jake's handy work in progress. We moved the stones out so he could dig up some dead bushes. I guess we won't need to water for a while.

S'more of Ben

This is Ben's favorite face to make. He says it's a scary one.

Eliot and Ben

Ben's friend, Eliot Posey, came over to play last night.
As you can see, Eliot is the nice quiet child and Ben is just a little more hyper. ;-)

Here they are saying "hammer" (that is what Eilot is holding) as LOUD as they can!

Random Pics

Sir Pail-Head

Jules turns 34.
Ben refuses to smile.

Happy Birthday Grandpa Curt!!

Ben is showing off his fluting skills. The flute breaks down into three parts and Ben prefers to only play with the part that makes noise. He has just now started actually blowing into the flute correctly instead of just humming to make the sound himself. Funny stuff.

Happy Birthday Grandpa Curt! Here are some songs from Ben. I couldn't get Ben to say the whole phrase, "Happy Birthday, Grandpa Curt." But, he did get in a happy birhtday inbetween his fluting and giggles. He gets right up close to the camera so forgive my excellent filming skills.

Happy Birthday Dad. Love ya.

Summer Fun

As you can see, Ben is full force this summer.
Ben playing with some tools.
This is Auntie Auntie's tool box that she made in middle school. She gave it to Jake as a gift and we still have it! Ben discovered the tool box in the garage and put his tools and gardening tools in it. He loves to carry it around and play tools and dig in the dirt.

Jess, Neil, and Maggie

We had a wonderful weekend with our Milwaukee friends, Jess, Neil and Maggie. (Jess and I met at a knitting class and struck up a great friendship. We have a lot in common: music, walking!, motherhood, exploring any city, enjoying family, going out to eat, knitting...the list goes on.) They made the trek out to Siloam Springs to check out our quaint town and to officially introduce us to Maggie. As Jess says on her blog, we were moving here as Maggie was being born. It was very bittersweet. Jess visited us in the hospital when Ben was born, but we were driving south to our new home when Maggie was born. But that has changed!
Here are Jess and the Magster at the park in downtown Siloam.
Maggie is already winning Ben's heart....she likes sports!
Ben showing Maggie the finer points of playing with trains.
Ben telling Jess and Maggie about the trucks in his book. I think we read this book about 57 times a day. We learned quickly to have Ben tell us about the trucks...he's very good at "reading" the truck book now. His favs are the backhoe and the GIANT trucks.

Fayetteville Farmer's Market

Saturday morning we caravaned with Trisha and Eliot Posey to the market. We had a great time listening to bluegrass, eating some amazing baked goods, and hanging out watching all the folks. Here I am with Mags, Jake, Ben in the backpack, Trisha, and Eliot.

Maggie and me bonding. She is cuddly sweet.

The Rice-Bergs.

Ben's future girlfriend

Here's Miss Maggie in all her plumpy cuteness. She's nine months and lovely. She's full of smiles and easy to please. Sounds like a good mate already :-)

Sharing some grapes on the couch...well, Maggie wasn't eating them but she was helping Ben.

Favorite Ben Quotes

Ben is talking so much and he is constantly making us laugh and we delight in his conversations and sayings. Some favorite sayings these days:

• I have an idea....



• What's that all about?



• Oh, okay.



• It's not scary, it's just nice. (Anything that he thinks might be scary and we tell him it's really not scary, he's says "oh, okay, it's not scary, it's just nice.")



• I don't wanna change diaper!



• Let's play Tiger Woods.



• I see daddy (when he's in trouble with mom)



• I see mommy (when he's in trouble with dad)



• Love you, Mama...'night 'night Mama



• Love you Daddy...'night 'night Daddy



• Let's go see....(and he'll rattle off everyone he can think of...Grandma Jo, Grandpa Curt, Auntie Auntie (my sister), Grandma Deb (go to California...he's says that so well), Grandpa Gary, Ruthie, Uncle Nate, Kim...he'll say go to the farm and see Gramps' tractor, play with Mema, play with Granny....he doesn't mention me at all in this game!



• Let's go to campus.



• Let's go church and see friends.



• I want white yogurt (vanilla)



• How 'bout we....(and then he'll give a suggestion as to what we should do next.)

I'm sure there are more...he is full of IT!

I wear my sunglasses....in the bath.

The story behind the sunglasses. Aunt Kris left them here when she came to visit. One morning when Ben woke up and Jake took him into the kitchen to eat breakfast Ben complained of the bright lights, saw the sunglasses, and proceeded to eat his oatmeal with shades. Since then, the glasses pop up and we always get a kick out of it. Now the glasses are in the tub. When he put them on he told us he was in a cave! So funny! How does he know what a cave is?

Flash Flood

Good thing we have a privacy fence made of wood in case we need to build an ark! Here the water is rushing through our yard and joining the drainage ditch. You can see our neighbor's yard is full too! We've never seen the ditch this full. It would probably go up to my knees if not a little higher.
The water is overflowing from the ditch behind the fence, coming through our yard and then flowing back into the ditch (thank goodness). You can barely see under the weeping willow a pile of leaves. Ben and I have been working on picking those up. The funny thing is that he let's me use the red wheelbarrel and tries to use the gray one....both fell over from the rain.
I guess I won't be planting anything by the tree...I'll have to rethink that little space.
This is blury but the water is just about to go over the ditch and into the street.
The water is all dry now (excpet that we have more rain in the forecast) and Ben just loves to throw rocks and sticks in the water and get soaked. Hours of fun.