I survived...

taking Ben and Jack on a trip all by myself. Luckily, the only time I was really by myself was while we were flying. Our flight out there was a little rough but what do you expect from a two year old. Sitting for 2.5 hours on a plane is hard as an adult. Two year olds don't understand that they need to stay in their seats. We were happily greeted by my sister, Stephanie. Or as Ben knows her, aunt Bob (when Ben started saying a few words, one of them sounded like Bob so Stephanie said that Ben was trying to say her name and it stuck. A whole lot easier to say Bob than Stephanie). It was good to be back in Colorado after 15 months and not much had changed. The trip was spent visiting with family. Everyone got to meet Jack and I think they all agreed that he was the most content baby they had ever seen. Ben warmed right up to everyone and loved all of the attention. He played so hard but refused to take naps when I wanted him to. Instead, he would fall asleep on the couch right before dinner. I got a few hours away from the boys and spent an afternoon with Stephanie doing lunch and pedicures. It was great to have some much needed sister time. My Grammy was so happy to see her Great Grandsons. We spent a lot of time at Pam and Jim's house where Ben played with his cousins. By the time we got home Monday night, I was exhausted.

My camera didn't make it out of the bag much on our trip to Colorado. Good thing others got some pictures with their cameras. Hopefully they will send them to me and I can post them.

Playing at the park Friday afternoon. I forgot what Colorado wind felt like.

Pam enjoying her time with Jack

Ben and Jim playing with the guitar, one of Ben's favorite things to play with

Stephanie and Joe

Jack's skin wasn't used to the dry weather and altitude and his

poor cheeks became dry and chapped.

On our first night there, Ben fell and hit the side of his face on the coffee table.

Six days later, he still has a big bruise on his cheek

Ben and Jack playing with Grammy

An afternoon in the pool

These were from last month and I just realized I never put them on here. We spent a weekend in Fresno and went swimming at Papa and Noni's (No-No as Ben calls her). Ben loved laying on the raft and playing in the pool with the boys. Jack stayed in the shade with the girls.

Ben at the park

Drew and Ben went to the park Friday afternoon and Drew got this video of Ben playing in the water.

Video link

I am trying out a new way to share videos. It takes a long time to upload them onto the blog but this way doesn't take any extra time. Once I upload the videos onto the computer, they will go onto this shared site.

Try it out here

Let me know if you have any problems viewing the videos.

Boys will be boys

I wish I knew what was going on here

Ben can be a loving big brother one minute

To knocking his brother over the next minute (which is what was about to happen here)

The boys are back!

My new hard drive has been installed and my computer is working great now. It is so good to have it back. I can't believe how much faster it is now that my 45 gigabytes of pictures are gone (they are on the external hard drive). You all probably don't care about that and just want to see pictures of the boys.

Here they are...

Can you tell how well he is sitting up?

He often has this puzzled look on his face

He does like smiling for the camera though

Ben found our old camera

He is growing up so much

Of course Ben won't look up for the picture

Jack will though

This one makes me laugh. Not quite sure what is going on here.

This is after eating a hotdog

Last night, the boys went "camping" in the family room. It included hotdogs, s'mores and stories with the flashlight

It won't be long

After almost two weeks of my computer being down, it won't be long before I have it back. I received my hard drive back yesterday, along with my external drive which has just about all of my pictures and videos on it. Thank goodness the data recovery guy was able to save it all. It included 2 days of cloning my hard drive and then hours and hours of transferring everything. It's amazing what some people are able to do with computers. I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon at the Apple store and should be getting my new hard drive installed (I would have had it installed sooner but learned last weekend after a 45 minute trip to the Apple store that you need to give them your old hard drive to get a new one. Because I sent my hard drive to the data recovery guy, that wasn't possible). I am hoping that they are able to install it while I am there since it only takes a minute or two but I am prepared for them take a few days. Whenever it is done though, I will definitely be updating with pictures. I do have pictures on my camera that I am anxiously waiting to upload.

Ben and Jack continue to do well.

Ben is a terror. I think it's a two year old thing. Or maybe a boy thing. Whatever it is, I hope he outgrows it. He talks more and more every day which I love. It is so much fun being able to communicate with him. Half of what comes out of his mouth is about baseball. He is learning about the game and loves to play it. A lot of times it's with an imaginary ball and whatever he can find to use as a bat. He likes to pretend he's sliding into a base or catching a fly ball (which he will tell you that's what he's doing). After he swings, he will yell out either single or homerun. Or sometimes it's a strike. In a few weeks, Ben will be starting parent/child soccer. It is for 2 and 3 year olds and introduces them to the sport. If anything, it will be good for him to be around other children his age. Ben has become very interested in books and we spend a lot of time each day reading them. It's usually the same books, over and over, to the point that he has a lot of the pages memorized. He is also into music and instruments. We think he has acquired some musical ability but we aren't quite sure how since Drew and I are far from being musically inclined. He likes to play the drum, guitar, piano, flute, anything that makes a sound. He also likes to tell other people what instruments they will be playing. He is quite bossy. As far as being a big brother, he's still learning the job. He doesn't understand that he needs to be gentle with Jack and we often catch him pushing him over or throwing balls at him. I wait for the day that Jack is bigger than Ben and "pays him back" for everything.

Little Jack Henry is still the best baby. We can go several days without him crying. He sleeps great. Smiles constantly. Laughs at everything his brother does. Puts everything he can in his mouth. He has mastered sitting up on his own. He will get on all fours and is starting to move his knees. I am so not ready for my 5 month old to start crawling. We will giving Jack his first solid food in 3 weeks. I think he is ready but we will be traveling a lot in the next few weeks and want to wait until we are back home on his normal schedule before trying it. Jack continues to grow. It won't be long before he starts thinning out once he starts crawling. I continue to enjoy my time with Jack, knowing that it won't be long before he is running around with Ben.

I hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend. We are going to enjoy three days with Drew, not doing too much. On Thursday morning, the boys and I are leaving for Colorado to see the family we left behind there. We will get back the following Monday and then leave three days later to spend five days at the beach with Drew's family. It's going to be a fun couple of weeks.

A lesson learned

There is a reason why I haven't been updating the blog lately.

My computer died.

Well, the hard drive did.

My hard drive is now in the hands of a data recovery guy

Who hopefully will be able to save all my pictures and videos

Which I unfortunately did not back up

Not an easy (or cheap) lesson to learn

Until my computer is back up and running, you won't see much of us on here

In the meantime, I will keep praying that I get my pictures back

A reason to celebrate

Ben's Birthday

isn't for another 114 days

but it's not too early

to plan his birthday bash

Our wonderful, little Ben

has proven to us that he is special

right from the beginning

we knew he would be

It's going to be a celebration

of the first three years of his life

There will be fireworks

lots of sweets, parades and rides

We'll see animals of all sorts

maybe take a dip in the pool

We'll be spending a week

on our first family vacation

It will include a plane ride

across the country

We'll land in Florida

where we will be greeted

by Mickey Mouse

We cannot wait for our family vacation. We might be a little crazy taking a 3 year old and 9 month old with us but we wouldn't have it any other way. It's going to be a wonderful time for us all with fun-filled days at Walt Disney World and hopefully long, restful nights of sleeping.

Why so serious Jack?

Although he certainly has a serious side, he also has lots of smiles