Stunning Summer!

It's time for the weekly recap!

Puzzles continue to be an almost daily activity.  He zips through them pretty quickly now.  Time to either mix them up a bit so that he isn't doing the same ones all the time (tricky since he likes these so much) or get him some more difficult ones. 

This week he wanted to play wiht his LEGOs again.  He hasn't used them in a while. One night he built a fence and then got the horses from his Little People farm sets to put behind the fence.  Cute! 

Silly glasses from school got played with.  Given how cheap they are and the fact that the lens from one is popped out, maybe it's time they got relocated to the circular file, but Bennett doesn't seem to mind.

For a while now I've been thinking about getting Bennett a child-sized carrier so that he can wear his dolls.  I wasn't sure he would be into it.  But then one night we wrapped George on his back with a towel while Bennett was on his way to bed after his bath.  Ever since then, Bennett wants George on his back after bath.  So maybe he would like a carrier after all.

I went ahead and got one for him and when it arrived he happily tried it on.  But then after a couple of minutes he wanted it taken off.  Apparently, in his mind, the Boba (this is the brand) is only for use at Sturbridge.  I guess this kind of makes sense since that's pretty much the only time that I wear him in my Boba.

So on Saturday when we went to Sturbridge we brought the Boba Mini and George along.  He was very happy to wear George!  He took George off for potty breaks and at lunch but then happily put him back on again.  Now we just need him to use the Boba at other times and maybe it will really have been worth the expense.

Speaking of Sturbridge, here's our traditional photo in the cut-out.

Doc and Blue, the two oxen shown below, were out and about when we arrived.  Bennett was very excited to see them and showed off his knowledge of which one was which.  We were told that they needed a bit more cart training, so they had the lovely task of hauling some manure. 

For months we never went in Cooper shop. Then a couple of months ago we went in and now Bennett always wants to go in and try out the draw knife.

Betsy had a calf her day before, right after closing time.  She was keeping her distance from everyone.

As we were leaving I put Bennett up on my shoulders.  The only thing that could make it even cuter would be if George was on his shoulders rather than his back.

We forgot to take this picture on Saturday so we were a day late.  (Which is better than I've done in some previous months.)  Bennett is now 33 months old.  I like that he has the Curious George book in his lap.  Very fitting of his life right now.  Thought about switching Paddington for CG but decided to stick with the traditional stuffed animal.  And since Bennett is such a creature of habit, he may not have even allowed me to make the change.

On Sunday morning we went to visit Mimi.  Before we left I was cleaning up the front hall and came across a picture of a giraffe that Bennett had colored.  I suggested that he bring it to Mimi since she likes giraffes.  He was cool with that and then he ran off to get a library book of his (Cecily G and the 9 Monkeys) since it was about a giraffe.

After our visit we came home for lunch and nap and then headed off to Auntie Mel's house.  The boys played outside for a bit and then we headed off for the pool.


I think I have this less than awesome expression on my face because I was getting splashed.  The downside of Bennett still being pretty young is that I had to get into the water more quickly than I wanted.  But he was rushing in, so I had to keep up with him.

 

He had a blast jumping off the side of the pool!  Sometimes I held onto him and sometimes we just let him jump on his own.  He kept jumping over and over again. 

After the pool we went back inside, got changed, played outside a bit longer, ate dinner, and then headed home for a late bedtime.  It was a great summer day!

Christmas comes but thrice a year...

I always hate coming up with titles for blog posts.  But then all of a sudden I thought of the line from the song. "Christmas comes but once a year".  Only in our case, that's not correct.  Sunday we had the first of our Christmas gatherings.  Then there will be the actual celebrations on Christmas, and then we'll celebrate on Saturday when we're in Georgia.

Nana and Gradpa watched Bennett on Wednesday.  They tried doing a messy craft/activity with Bennett (playing with shaving cream and food coloring- smearing it all together) and apparently Bennett did NOT want to get messy.  This is very strange to us, because we haven't had any problems with messy stuff, as is evidenced in these pictures.



Painting a piece of paper to later be cut into a bow for a wreath.

Bennett painted wrapping paper.  Here he's painting his feet to make footprints.



The funny part was watching him try to stand without getting paint on the floor.

  Yesterday he helped us with some baking.  He loves dumping the premeasured cup/spoon into the bowls and then mixing.  Don't worry, this spatula wasn't used again after going into Bennett's mouth.  And it would appear that he's a fan of peanut butter!

Someone turned 27 months old.  Eek!  And once again I was late taking the picture.  All week I kept telling myself to remember the picture, and then yesterday I realized I'd missed it.

As I mentioned, we had our first Christmas Celebration yesterday.  We went to West Street to celebrate with Nana, Grandpa, Auntie Hanna, Uncle Andrew and Aunt Gentry.

Bennett helped Grandpa cut out some cookies.  I think he got bored after just a few of them.

When I was a kid I remember my dad always setting up his childhood train around the Christmas Tree.  I was hoping that I would be able to put it up around our tree, but no such luck.  Instead Grandpa set it up at his house.  Chris and I saw it and started playing and then Bennett came over to watch.  I think we'll have to save up and get our own train.

Then it was time for presents!  Uncle Andrew made a kilt for Bennett. We had known about this in advance (had to provide some measurements) so I had ordered a sporran and kilt hose.  I'll have to knit him a better pair of hose because this pair was way too big.  And unfortunately these pictures came out pretty horrible.

Uncle Andrew later pulled a gold dollar out of Bennett's ear.  Wow!  How'd he do that?  Bennett kept checking for more dollars, and also trying to put his dollar back in his ear.  We also showed him that he could put his dollar in his sporran, and he liked that.

Another great gift was this mixer.  Bennett LOVES his play kitchen (Chris and I have plans to upgrade it for him, but that hasn't happend.)  The mixer came with bags of "flour" and "brown sugar" which he mixed up and we decided he was making bread.  Most likely the kind of brown bread that comes in a can.  He also got a play toaster which was fun because when you pressed the lever it launched the bread out.  The adults loved that!  It also came with a little wooden knife and some butter that you could slice, which was fun for Bennett.

Now on to some decorations.  I've mentioned our Advent calendar.  Here's a picture. This year I just have put cards into each stocking talking about what we would be doing that day- baking cookies, reading a book, etc.  In other years I might decide to include a small trinket.  I'm undecided. I had originally seen a very similar advent calendar on Pottery Barn's website but I hadn't liked the price tag.  Well, after buying all of the materials and the time put into making it, I should have just bought it.  I am happy with how it turned out, so I guess it was worth it.  Even if it's huge!  :)

I also thought I would share pictures of our LEGO winter village.  This all started last year.  Chris got me one of the sets and then after Christmas I picked up another set while it was on clearance.  Then this year I scoured eBay to pick up an older discontinued set, and for Chris' birthday I gave him this year's set.  And Black Friday weekend LEGO was offering a deal where if you spent a certain amount of money you got a mini set for "free".  Although there were many sets we wanted that would meet this dollar value, we didn't really need any of them.  Instead we bought a few smaller sets, and a certain nephew is going to be getting a whole bunch of LEGOs this Christmas.  :)

What's neat about these sets is that they don't just come with one building.  They have a building and then various accessories- benches, sheds, vehicles, etc.  So although this is only 4 sets (plus a mini set) it looks like so much more.   Plus some things show up in multiple pictures, so it looks like a lot.

Overview- sorry it's so dark.

Post Office, ice rink, igloo, woodshed, tree stand, postal truck.

Snowplow, bakery, and the postal truck and post office again.

Toy shop, tree, gazebo, sleigh.

Part of the cottage, the gazebo, tree, and the horse pulling the wagon.

The cottage

Toy shop, tree, horses pulling the sleigh and the wagon.