Walk Day and Graduation Day- warning, picture heavy!

A huge thank you to everyone who supported us as we raised money for Boston Children's Hospital!  (Official Thank Yous will be sent out in the next week or so.)  The walk was on Sunday and the weather was perfect.  We got there early so that we could try out the games, face painting, etc. and then headed out before the crowds.

The "official" team photo in front of the Hatch Shell.



I added our team name to the back of the shirts. 
Cutting out the stencils was a bit tedious, but freezer paper stenciling is pretty easy.



Bennett liked playing in the bubbles.

Getting his face painted for the first time.  He wasn't so sure what to make of it.



Hmm, would Bennett be a tortoise or a hare?



Bennett and Fiona pre-walk.




And we're off!



Perhaps the cutest moment of the day was when Fiona took Bennett's hand as we started off and then held his hand for the entire walk!   He asked a couple of times to be picked up, but we suggested that he take Fiona's hand instead and he kept on going!



Bennett and Fiona are just 2 of those 500,000 patients!


Another way they raise a little more money is by selling these "honor flags".  They are pretty inexpensive (only $20 each) so I'm surprised that more people don't buy them.  Alicia thought in the future there should be an "add-on" option on the donation pages so that donors might be able to more easily purchase them.

With our flags.

After the walk we went to the playground that was next to the start/finish line.  There was a climbing structure with a nice big slide.  This is not an easy climbing structure!  It got even worse at the top where you had to maneuver between two small platforms that had widely spaced netting between them.  Bennett kept wanting to go up again but Daddy couldn't handle it anymore.  I think twice was two times too many for his liking.

Instead the kids tried out this spinning disk.  Bennett seems to love all of these "thrill" type activities.  Can't wait to go to an amusement park with him!



Hugs as we said goodbye.

 Now let's review what happened the rest of the week.

I have a helper in the garden.  He also tried watering it one day recently by taking a microfiber towel, dipping it into his pool, and then dripping/squeezing the water out over the plants.  Not a very effective method, but it kept him happy.

He's also been very interested in puzzles.  Of course his favorites are a set of four Curious George puzzles that we have, but those are only 12 pieces each so they aren't very challenging.  We also have a few 24 piece puzzles that he enjoys.

I'm not sure how it happened, because I certainly didn't get any older, but Hanna somehow turned from the three-year-old that I first met into a high school graduate!



During the processional.  I wonder if they are smiling because someone else was taking their picture.  I was so far away they would have had no idea that I had a camera aimed at them.  (Yay zoom lenses!)

 And speaking of growing up, when did this happen?  He looks so much older to me in this picture.  (Taken during a mini run-around break during the ceremony.

A note to all people who will be on stage at a graduation, especially those who will be handing out diplomas or shaking hands with the graduates and thus having your picture taken:  Please be aware of the school colors and don't dress in conflicting colors.  The school colors were maroon and white.  The person handing out diplomas was wearing an orangey-coral.  It looked horrid next to the maroon robes!  (It doesn't look quite as bad to me in this picture, but in real life it was horrible!  Even Chris agreed.

Of course the wind picked up just as Hanna had to cross the stage, so she was fighting with her cap and her hair the whole time.

Throwing caps.  It looks really cool, but it must be a pain to try to find your cap again.  I asked Hanna how hard it was to find her cap and she said she only did a mock throw.  Smart girl!

In typical teenage fashion, after the ceremony locating the boyfriend was more importand than locating the family.  :)



With the proud parents.

The whole family.  Ooops, Uncle Kevin is stuck behind Hanna's cap.

Bennett walked back to the house with Grandpa. (Until Bennett had to take a potty break in some bushes.)

There's a tradition in town for families to hang a banner to acknowlege their graduate.

Let's not rush things too much, but here's my "graduate".

Hope you enjoyed seeing our week!

It's beginning to feel like summer

Bennett definitely is a fan of the nicer weather.  Every day he's asking us, "play outside?" "playground?"  It took us a little while to figure out that playground actually meant the backyard swingset.  But with the warmer weather and more hours of daylight, we are now usually to play outside for a while after school.

This video is of the second time that Bennett got spun around.  Chris said he seemed to like it more the first time.

For the most part, Bennett has been doing pretty well with potty training and not having accidents.  And if he does have an accident, he is usually pretty upset about it.  There was one day this week though where he just did not care.  He had about 7 or 8 accidents that day and he didn't seem to even care that he was wet.  He certainly wasn't telling us that he was wet.  I threatened to take Curious George away for the night, thinking that that might help convince him.  He had another accident.  He didn't even seem to care about not being able to take George to bed.  Ugh.  When we dropped him off at school the next day we told them that they had our permission to take toys away- anything to show that there are reprecussions.  (We didn't mean real accidents where he was trying and just didn't make it in time.)  We were expecting them to be resistant to this method, but they were ok with it.  And luckily they didn't have to test it.  He was accident-free the next day.

We also tried taking the bike onto the bike path one night.  Unfortunately he didn't make it very far at all.  Far too distracted.  We'll have to try again later.

Friday was disgustingly warm with temps in the 90s.  We set up the pool for Bennett.  At first he was a bit unsure of it, but Chris started splashing him and then he realized it was fun. 

He then asked for us to move the pool to the bottom of the slide. (Was he really remembering us doing this last year?)  We obliged.  We got the slide wet to make it easier to go down, but then he wanted the slide dried off.  Ugh.


Please excuse the horrible sound in these videos.  A neighbor was mowing his lawn.  And even though these thumbnails of the videos may be sideways, that's not the case with the actual videos.

On Saturday Bennett spent the morning with Grandpa and Nana.  He had a blast, and enjoyed wearing Nana's hat.

After we picked Bennett up we went to Sturbridge for their Antique Car Rally.  Some may think it's odd to have cars at Sturbridge, but it's actually a fun part of their history.  When the museum first opened, it was customary to drive your car around the village, stopping and getting out at the various buildings that you wanted to visit.  So in honor of this piece of history, cars that were from 1946 (the year the museum opened) or earlier were invited to participate.

Napping in the car on the way to Sturbridge.

Customary photo in the visitor center.



The pump on the common was a great way to cool off!



Using the pump on his own.  (He then tried to pump and stick his head underneath at the same time.)

Snack time after a visit to the "cookie store".

Bennett's favorite car.  A Fire Truck. 
(Ding dong, ding dong.  HurryHurryHurry!)

On Sunday, after 2 years and 8.5 months, we took Bennett for his first haircut.

Please excuse the horrible "cheese" face in the after photo.

He was a little nervous at first and didn't want to sit down in the chair, but overall he did great.  I think being able to look in the mirror to see what was happening also helped.  And now he looks so grown up!

And that was our week!

Weekend away

As I mentioned last week, Bennett has a new friend- Curious George.  One morning last week Bennett was giving George raisins and then George was sharing them with Bennett.

Bennett also helped with the laundry.  I probably won't encourage too much of this particular behaviour or I might need to replace the dryer door, but it was cute.

There's also a video of this.

And here's a conversation we had in the car on the way home from school one day.  Not really all that intersting, but I tried to get him to say of of the words that we think are fun.

Then Mummy and Daddy went away for the weekend (celebrating our 10th anniversary!) and Bennett stayed with Uncle Andrew and Aunt Gentry.  Gentry works from home on Saturdays, so Andrew took Bennett to the Children's Museum to get him out of her hair.  While there they visited the "barber" and Andrew sent me this picture claiming that he had taken Bennett for his first hair cut.

Right next to the Children's Museum is the Boston Fire Museum.  How excited Bennett looks!

On Sunday they went to Sturbridge for Wool Days.  Bennett got to see a sheep be shorn, and Andrew and Gentry learned that with a small child in tow, it's really hard to spend time in the exhibits!  Then on Monday morning they went to a sheep farm.  As much as Bennett loves looking at animals, he wanted nothing to do with petting them!
Meanwhile on Martha's Vineyard, the weather was cold and rainy.  Saturday had the worst weather, but we still had a nice time walking around the various towns on the island and checking out the shops.  Sunday we went to one of the lighthouses where it was extremely windy.

We also checked out the Tabernacle and the cottages in Oak Bluffs.  We stopped at the Cottage Museum and enjoyed talking with the guides there.  Unfortunately it was right before closing, so we weren't able to talk for very long. 

Of course Monday had the best weather but we didn't stick around for very long as we wanted to try to beat some of the traffic on the way back.  And we did luck out!  Overall, it was a nice getaway, but probably a bit more low-key than we typically like.  Other than poking around shops there isn't much to do.  Maybe in nicer weather it would have been different because then we would have brought out bikes.

When we got home Bennett was a little more clingy than normal, but that was to be expected.  We gave him his souvenier- a Martha's Vineyard potholder- and he immediately brought us some "cookies" fresh out of the oven in his play kitchen.  We did some gardening and lawn mowing, and then we took a belated monthly photo.  (It might be just about time for a real hair cut!)

Bennett has a new best friend

Not anything that happened this week, but I finally posted photos from the last two years of the Pinewood Derby.  Those pictures can be found here.  And for anyone who is interested, this year the Derby will be on August 24th. 

This week was actually pretty light on photos.  I used to try to get at least one photo a day.  There certainly were some days that I missed, but I think on a "bad" week I would only miss 2 days.  This week was really bad!

Here's one that I got of Bennett looking at a book with hidden pictures.  It was cute how he would put his finger on the side of his face while searching for something.

On Saturday Grandpa came over for dinner.  Grandpa kept Bennett entertained while we got dinner ready.  And we were impressed that Bennett actually got *in* the sandbox.  Normally he just plays from the outside while awkwardly leaning in.

The most fun part of the week though was yesterday when we went to The Curious George Store in Harvard Square.  At first he was extremely overwhelmed by all of the people and traffic.  When we were driving around trying to find a place to park, I think he enjoyed looking at everything, but it was a different story when we got out of the car!

But he was VERY excited when we got to the store.  He said "mine" about almost everything that he saw with George on it.  Sorry buddy, as much as we wanted to get you everything we had to limit it.  We settled on a couple of new books and a stuffed George.    

Trying on The Man with the Yellow Hat's hat.

There were multiple stuffed Georges to choose from. We offered him two choices and he immediately grabbed one of them. We asked again just to be sure, and yes, that was the one he wanted.  When we checked out the cashier asked if we wanted her to cut the tags off.  Yes, please! 

When we went to lunch Bennett sat down in a chair and then put George in the chair next to him.  And he did an awesome job of holding tight to George as we walked around Harvard Square for a while after lunch.  He may have just gotten a new best friend!  

Here's Bennett with his new Curious George as they are greeted by the doorman at the entrance of the store.



And finally, no trip to Sturbridge this weekend, but I have put together a book of all of our visits over the past year.  (Mel, be forewarned that there are some pictures on pages 22 and 23 that you don't want to see.)



Click here to view this photo book larger

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Walks, wardrobes, and weekends...

We are so close to meeting our goals for the upcoming walk to support Boston Children's Hospital.  In fact, Bennett has met and surpassed his goal.   I met my original goal and decided to aim to be a "Miracle Maker".  I'm just $45 away from that goal.  And Chris is a measly $15 away from reaching the minimum amount that he needs to raise.  Would you consider donating to help us reach our goals?  Pretty please?  You'll receive a lovely photo thank you card after the walk....

In the category of cute things that kids say, we have the following two entries.

• "Trash can truck- dump dump"  Each week he likes helping us bring the trash can to the curb.  And when we can, we like watching the trash truck come and pick up the trash can and dump the contents into the truck.  But Chris and I like how he blended the terms together to get trash can truck.  And the "dump dump" is just describing the action of the truck.
• Happy Birthday Mummy Mumma's Day

For the past couple of nights Bennett has been lining up all of his toys in the tub.  Another one of his OCD tendendcies?

We've been trying to get Bennett to dress himself.  For the most part he can do it, but if we are near him he always says that he needs help.  The only thing we weren't sure if he could do was his shirt.  So one morning this past week Chris picked out Bennett's clothes and left them in his room and asked him to put them on.  Then he left.  A few minutes later Bennett comes into our room completely dressed.  Undies and socks were on correctly, but the pants and shirt were backwards.  Oh well.  We decided to leave him as is and sent him to school that way.  And he was even still dressed that way when we picked him up.

On Saturday night we had a game night with friends.  It's been about 5 months since we've seen everyone.  Schedules are just way too busy!  Proof that it's been too long- one friend commented that Bennett is now speaking intelligent words.  We feel like he's been doing this for a while now!

Sunday was Mother's Day andd we went to Sturbridge.  Moms got in free (not that it mattered to us since we're members) so it was pretty busy.  Bennett continues to get comments from everyone about how cute his is in his hat.  If only he wouldn't smoosh it down onto his head.  It makes visibility a bit tricky.

We also got a picture of him in the final opening of this mult-person cutout.  I'll have to photoshop all of the images together at some point.

And of course we visited Doc and Blue (the oxen) and also looked at the cows.

After nap Bennett gave me his Mother's Day present that he bought with some help from Daddy.  It's a little hard to see here, but it's a "bouquet" made out of a few skeins of yarn with knitting needles as stems.  I had seen the idea and passed along a link to Chris.  I had a feeling this is what I would be getting but I hadn't known which option it would be.  There had been multiple choices in various colors and prices.

And then to finish the day we went outside and did some gardening.  Bennett helped me mix some compost into my garden beds.  I still have a bit more work to do, but need to get some more supplies before I can finish.  Hopefully that will happen later this week or next weekend.