Sam and Dirt reunited at last

This funny little boy just loves dirt!  :)  Jed seran wrapped our pots and even secured it on with packing tape, with just a little gap between the stems for watering. And guess what Sammy found!  "Aha! a hole in the armor!"  :)  I know exactly how it came about: while he was chasing down his orange ball (with his adorable army crawl), he got sidetracked by the pot, peeked his head over it to investigate and then lifted himself up on it to get a better look. The rest is history. :)  He's done this a couple times with both plants. Sneaky little boy!

an update on the kiddies

Ben
Ben is still enjoying his all-day Kindergarten.  He still voraciously reads books. He still loves playing games with us.  And he's still a tease.  :)

If Jed gets home before dinnertime, he and Ben will most likely play a game of Sorry. Ben loves that game. Every night Ben gets to stay up a little later than Sam and Eliza; it originally started out as being a time for him to read quietly, but Ben and I started playing card games together one-on-one during that time, and it is so fun! We play with a pack of dinosaur cards that my friend Janese gave us, and we play Crazy Eights, Go Fish, Solitaire, Gin Rummy, and Memory/Concentration. It's a lot of fun because he is very competent at playing, so we both have a great time. :)
I've noticed lately that he is pretty outgoing and not intimidated of striking up conversation with people. The other day when I was packing everyone up to leave the library and go home, Ben went to the front desk to wait for me as I strapped Sam into his carrier, and when I got there he was chatting with the librarian, and she was amused by how friendly he was. He's always been comfortable like that with people - makes immediate friends with new kids at the park, went to Nursery and now Primary willingly and alone, talks to all the kids sitting near him at school (sometimes too much :)), etc. He also loves hanging out with his bus-stop friends, and it's fun for me to watch him as he interacts with them.

They other day, he found my jar of CeraVe hand cream and a piece of orange ribbon, and he thought of a great idea. So he  wrapped the lotion up in tape with some paper, er, I mean in paper with some tape :), and tied a ribbon around it and gave it to me as a special present. It was SO cute!  :)  He felt so happy when he presented it to me, and we opened it together.  What a darling.

Eliza
Eliza still loves princesses and fairies, Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, and dress ups and jewelry. Every night she wants me to sing to her. I used to get to sing Primary songs, but all she wants lately are Rapunzel songs, but that's okay because they are fun to sing with her. She likes to pretend to be Rapunzel and I get to be the creepy Mother Gothel :)  and we sing our parts. So she says, "I think he likes me." and I say, "Likes you? Please, Rapunzel, .... don't be a dummy, come with Mummy. Mother-" and she says, "NO!" then I sing the Mother Knows Best reprise.  And sometimes (because Jed downloaded the song clips from the movie and we watch them sometimes for fun) she will even do some hand motion that Mother Gothel did in the song and instruct me, "do this." It is too funny!  And the other Mother Gothel song is the same way - she sings her little parts in the song - like I sing, "Cannibals and snakes! The plague!" and she says, "No!" and I say, "Yes! Also large bugs!"  :)

One day Eliza and I were doing her Tinkerbell puzzle and she left for a couple minutes and then came back like this. It was too funny when I looked up to see her climbing into her chair all decked out in her jewelry.  :)

 
Sam
Sam is our darling baby! He turned one year old last week but he's still army crawling around and I love that! I like to keep him my baby for a just a tiny bit longer.  Once he starts walking he will seem like such a big boy! He is a big eater - I feel like I spend his meal times racking my brain about what else to give him, and scrounging up more things for him to eat, because as soon as I give him a pile of one thing he gobbles it all up quick. He's so cute. :)

Sam is obsessed with balls. It is so funny!  So we brought out our collection, and now if you walk around the living room you will see big balls and small balls, pink balls and blue balls, racquetballs and basketballs, plastic balls, rubber balls and even wood balls. It doesn't matter to him, he loves them all!  He bangs them together, rolls them, throws them, and most of all, chases after them. And don't let me forget that he also gets them stuck places, and then he cries in frustration when he can't reach them. For instance, he is usually pretty dexterous about climbing up and over the horizontal bars between the chair legs (going around them would be way too simple!)  but every now and then the tangle of chair legs will be too much for him to conquer and he will start to cry when he can't reach his ball. And in this picture below, he got his racquetball stuck in this toy and was crying out in frustration about it-- until I got out the camera and then he smiled of course. :)
He is so funny! He loves that toy in the picture. He sets his wooden balls in it and then hammers at them haphazardly until, with some luck, they fall into the toy and roll out the bottom. He does it all while he's on his tummy, reaching up to it.  He also loves to roll a ball back and forth. He's really fun to play with.

Walker Family Movie Night : BOLT

Ben had to stay home from school last Friday because he had been sick in the night. He woke up feeling great, but still had to stay home for the day. It was a bummer to miss school (and Parent Hour) and have a boring day at home instead, so that evening we borrowed the movie Bolt and had a Walker Family Movie Night!  The kids were very excited!  We rarely watch movies - now that Ben is in school all day he doesn't have time, and Eliza doesn't beg me for them (yet), so this was a special event!  I made popcorn and cookies and personalized their plastic cups with pictures of Bolt the Super Dog. :)   We hadn't seen it since we took Ben to it in the theater a long time ago, so it was like our first time again. We had a great time, and it's such a cute movie. :)

Sammy hung out with us for a little while until it became is bedtime and he signed out. :)

Sam turned ONE!

I can't believe this sweetie is already one year old!  We celebrated his very first birthday this month.
This picture is so typical of his happy personality. :)

It looks like Ben is showing the camera how much he has grown. :) 

We gave him a big slice of his birthday cake, and he gobbled it up FAST. He thought it was oh-so-good. :)

Happy Birthday Sammy!

Detroit Auto Show 2011!

Last January Jed and I went to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.  I really wanted to go again, so we set the date and called some friends to join us. It was a fun excursion!

The six of us friends drove downtown together. We parked in the parking garage and then took the elevator to the Cobo Center entrance. As we were leaving the elevator, Jed held the door open for an employee who was pushing an extra empty wheelchair. Jed struck up a friendly conversation as they walked out of the elevator, and then the guy said, "How many are in your group?" Jed replied, "Six" and he said, "Follow me."  So we all followed him down the hallway, he disappeared into an office for a moment and then came back with six tickets for us. Score! Each ticket is $12, so Jed was the hero of the evening!  Courtesy pays off! :)

Here's Jed and our friend, Cory, showing off their free tickets! :)

We wandered around and saw all kinds of cars. The most expensive car we saw were the three Bentleys on display.  At least, we thought they were the most expensive, but maybe that doesn't count the crazy concept cars.  We saw the Bentleys when the auto show was closing down for the night, and while we were looking at them, the Bentley employees took out special covers for the cars and covered them up. Their covers were perfectly fitted. Selina made the funniest comment, "Oh, look, they have little jammies!"  :)

Here we are in front of a race car...

There were impressive displays....

 

Me and my man trying this ride on for size.  :)

Our friends Selina and Cory.

Our friends Jenny and Randy.

This one was my personal favorite. It was the Mach7 Motorsports Falcon. They said it would be sold around $200,000 when it would be produced this year.  You can't tell but it had two gaping holes in the hood. Now can you see them? It was a wild looking car. Can you see me driving this thing? Yeah, me neither.  :)  But I still thought it was cool! :)

While I was just feeding Sam in the kitchen, this is what I heard from the living room, where Jed is playing a board game with the kids:

Jed absently sang, “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the Old Man is snoring. Bumped his head, went to bed, couldn’t get up in the morning.”

Ben said, “Why couldn’t he get up in the morning?”

Jed: “Because he had a subdural hematoma.”

*pause*

Ben: “Why couldn’t he get up in the morning again?”

a visit from Grandma!

Michel came to visit us for a couple days in February.  We were so happy!  Jed got work off on Monday and Tuesday and Benjamin didn't have school on Monday or Tuesday. She arrived Monday night (would have been Sunday but her flight was delayed due to snow) and after the kids were in bed, the three of us stayed up and watched two movies together!  It was fun!  :)   On Tuesday we went to Ann Arbor and ate lunch at Mongolian Barbecue and then went to the Ann Arbor Hands-On Childrens Museum. 

 

Benjamin liked the tornado exhibit. He would destroy the tornado as soon as it reformed itself. :)

Eliza discovered the corner mirror.

After we put the kids to bed on Tuesday night, Jed, Michel and I played Scatergories and Boggle together and enjoyed each others company.  :)  On Wednesday, her last day with us, we all went to Tangled in the movie theater. We took Benjamin out of his Kindergarten class a couple hours early so he could come with us. :)  Michel enjoyed it, as we knew she would, and the rest of us loved it yet again!  That was the third time Jed and I had seen it, and the second time the kids had seen it, in the theater!  We're obsessed.  :)
While Michel was visiting, she got a firsthand knowledge of how much Eliza loves all-things-Rapunzel.  So one day she french braided Eliza's hair, and they picked out matching bows and flower clips to put in the braids, to look like Rapunzel.  Isn't that cute?

We were so happy that she came to visit us. We love you, Grandma!  :)

Valentines Day! 2011

Our sweet kids on Valentines Day morning:

Sometime between waking up and sitting in her chair for breakfast, 

Eliza managed to put on her princess crown, jewel necklaces and earrings, and fairy skirt.  :)

Ben is giving me a funny look.  :)  

Everyone got a Valentine from Mommy and a Hershey kiss on their plate, 

and we ate yummy crepes together. It was fun!

And Sam is full of joy!

Eliza had a Valentines Party at our house for playschool that morning. 

She and the five boys in playschool with her exchanged their Valentines with each other. So cute!

Ben also had a Valentines Party at school, so I got to go to his classroom party to join the fun. When we got home he immediately spread out and started looking at his Valentines from his friends and digging into the suckers. :)
When Jed got home we opened some Valentine cards we got in the mail from family, and opened up a package from Grammy Sterzer. It was full of all kinds of yummy things and little gifts. So fun! As you can see, Eliza lost no time in unwrapping the chocolate bar. :)

We had a great Valentines Day!

Benny's first Elementary School party!

Benjamin's elementary school had a 'Winterfest' at the beginning of February. Jed was working that night, so I took Ben, Eliza and Sam to his school party.  We had purchased tickets earlier that week so we could play the games in the booths. It was a lot of fun. Ben was so excited, he ran from booth to booth!  I was helping Eliza also play the games after Ben, and he was too excited to wait for us. He is so independent, it didn't surprise me one bit when he started to get his own tickets from the stash so he could run ahead and play games. I had to put the tickets in my pocket so he would have to come back to me between games, so I could keep tabs on him and also try to get him to wait for me so I could watch him play.  :)  At the end of the night, they got to cash in their points for some little prizes, which was very exciting!

another SNOW DAY!

We had a massive snowfall on Tuesday, February 1st, and so the next day was a SNOW DAY!!  Both Ben and Jed got to stay home!  The kids started their bonus 'Saturday' snuggled up in my electric blanket watching cartoons, thanks to their cool Daddy. (I can't take any credit for being spontaneous and fun... I wouldn't have even thought of it.) :)

Then we all trekked outside to shovel walks and enjoy the SNOW!  Our neighbor let Jed use his snowblower when he was done with his own driveway, and that saved a lot of time and effort!  Check out the steep edges of snow on the sidewalks.  It was a lot of snow!

There were big drifts along the fences and sides of the house...

Jed and Ben turned this big pile of snow that I'm standing on ...

Into a tunnel!  :)  It made a 90 degree turn, and it was a little tricky to get myself through it! 

There are my feet sticking out the back. You can tell it was a long tunnel!  I barely could squeeze through it. After I went through it, Jed said he was going to try it and I told him there was NO way he could fit through it. But he still said he would go through. So, he went down to go into the entryway, and he couldn't even get his shoulders in.  :) 

Here is Ben showing off the awesome tunnel that his Daddy made for him.

Fun fun fun!

Sam + Dirt = True Love

The other day I discovered Sammy in our living room, happily munching on the dirt from my potted plant! He had made quite a mess of it, too!  The next day I caught him at it again.  Oh no!  And he was way too pleased with himself!

Well, once he found how fun it was to play in the dirt, he kept gravitating to the pot. Then he quickly discovered the other pot on the floor in the living room, and it was all I could do to keep him away from those two plants! In a matter of a few days I had caught him red-handed multiple times! 

Finally I moved all the pots to the far corner of the kitchen, which definitely helped, but he still would head over there for some fun (and a taste!) if he spotted them. 

Then Jed had an idea. A brilliant idea. He seran wrapped the pots. I was a little skeptical at first, but he was sure it would work. And it did!  Samuel is proud to say that he is going on two weeks being soil-free!

Now, he's moved on to plucking the leaves off of the plants...

I snapped some pictures of him today:

"Look, Mom! I got one!"

Being a true 'taste' connoisseur (as everything he comes across must first be investigated by putting it in his mouth), he is rating this leaf on a scale of one to ten...