Recapping the last two weeks

I never got around to updating the blog last week, so this will cover the past two weeks, mostly with pictures and just a bit of text thrown in for good measure.

Wearing his kilt to school

Bowling with Daddy

A little over a month ago we took our cat to the vet as she had lost weight and wasn't eating.  Two weeks ago we knew it was time to have her put down.  She had lost even more weight, she wasn't eating, she was having diarrhea daily, and was having trouble jumping onto the bed and couch.  We brought Bennett with us so that he could say goodbye, and also so that we could maybe explain things a bit better rather than him coming home and wondering where she was.  When we got back from the vet he said to the other cat, "Tony, Brit not here.  She still at the doctor."  We drive past the vet daily, so we've had a few more conversations about Brit and we just keep explaining that her heart stopped beating and she stopped breathing, and that means that she died.  And when you die, you go to a cemetery.  Pretty sure he doesn't fully understand the cemetery concept, but we can explain that one more another time.

On Saturday we continued the weekly trips to OSV.  They were baking down at the Freeman Farm, including a pork & apple pie.  Here Victoria measures molasses for a gingerbread.

Lance and Henry in the snow

Bennett discovered our Legos, or more precisely, Daddy built the Grand Emporium, or "the mall" as Bennett calls it.  He loved looking at everything and moving the people around.

Inspired by OSV, I made my own pork & apple pie.

On Sunday we celebrated Auntie Hanna's 19th birthday!

Naps have been a bit wonky these past couple of weeks.  One week he only napped two days, the next he napped 3 days.

Watching a parade.  Or were they in the parade?

We finally upgraded the cardboard barns from Bennett's barnyard to the wood ones.  This also meant the big barn got a roof.  It's a little snug, but he's doing ok with it.

The sheep were given some hay.

The chickens laid eggs. 
When we next went to OSV we told Dave about this. 
Dave asked where they laid eggs and Bennett said
"In the chicken coop, in the nesting boxes." 
Hmm, do we really need to make nesting boxes?

The pigs are eating toast. 
Previously the toast had been electric blankets for the cows and chickens, a la Click, Clack, Moo

More playing with the mall.

This past Friday Bennett was sent home from school with 102.9 fever.  After nap we checked again and even after some Tylenol it had gone up to 103.1.  We took him to the doctor but since there were no other symptoms, his ears were fine, and the strep culture came back negative we just needed to wait it out.  By Saturday morning the fever was gone and he was feeling fine.  We skipped skating but then went to OSV where we went on sleigh ride around the common, saw the stagecoach in the parsonage barn, and helped fill the parsonage wood box.  We're getting used to these quiet winter days at the village.  The crowds of summer are going to be a shock to us!

On Sunday Daddy went to work to make up for the time he had lost on Friday when Bennett was home sick.  Bennett turned his toy workbench into a forge and played "blackmsith".  He watched a bunch of Curious George and then played in my craft room while I tried to do some sewing.

Wearing one of his capes.

More pie baking this week.  On Monday since I was home for MLK Day I baked a cherry pie.

My weekend pie was a quiche for dinner on Sunday.

So what's this sewing I've been working on?  I'm making an 1830's outfit to wear to OSV for a couple of their upcoming Dinner in a Country Village events that we are going to.

Corded petticoat.  3 sections of cording. 
Bottom section has 35 rows, middle has 20, top section has 15 rows.

Here's my shift, stays (I will be remaking these), corded petticoat, and 2nd petticoat. 
I still need to make sleeve supports and likely a small bustle.

And the mock-up of the bodice.  Need to change a couple of things.

Food battles, the mind of a three-year-old, and adventures at OSV (including pig butchering)

Lately we've had some challenging meals with Bennett.  Unless it's a food that he LOVES (pancakes, mac & cheese) he often picks at things a bit.   Depending on what the food is, how much is on his plate, and how he's done with the food in the past we will either encourage him to eat X more bites or to finish everything.  We also give him the choice of eating his dinner or going straight to bed without bath or books.  Normally, when presented with this choice, he chooses to eat his dinner.

On Monday we were having leftover chicken pot pie, or more accurately, leftover filling- no soggy crust.  He had done well with it when he ate it the night before but on this night it was a struggle.  After a few bites and lots of struggling/encouraging him to eat, he spat out a bite.  I asked what was wrong with it.  Sometimes he'll spit things out if his bites are too big, but on this occasion he said, "I didn't like it."  Sorry kid, that's not a valid reason.  Since it had been quite the battle up until this point he had to go straight to bed.  He wasn't a happy camper about this, but he did quiet down pretty quickly.  I guess that was a sign that he was likely pretty tired to begin with.

Opening a surprise Christmas gift from Auntie Mel.

On Tuesday Bennett used his imagination quite a bit.  He started off by playing grocery store- scanning items and putting them into a bag.  Then he used a piece of ribbon as a jump rope.  And finally he piled all the animals in the pig pen.  Not sure exactly what that was about, but likely they were all sleeping.

Wednesday night Bennett woke up at 1:45 and climbed into bed with us.  It was quite the uncomfortable night for Mummy and Daddy.  At 5 Daddy put you put you back in your own bed.  No idea why he woke up or felt the need to come into bed with us.

If Chris and I call each other on the phone Bennett always asks to talk. We generally put the phone on speaker.  Bennett will say hi but then he usually asks if he can "make Daddy go away".  No idea why he loves pressing that red button so much!  Well one night this week he hung up on Chris before we said that he could.  So I told him that he made Daddy sad by making him go away and Bennett started crying.  Not exactly the reaction I was expecting.  But then he asked for a tissue because "my eyes are leaking".

He also is always asking to take his hat off in the car.  Based on some comments that he makes, I think he gets hot and cold mixed up.  Because apparently, "My hair is cold" and "can I take off my hat?  It makes my hat cold."
Another fun moment from this week was when he named two of his Duplo people Victoria and Dave (two of the OSV interpreters) and put them in his farm.  He also turned part of the barn into the farmhouse and put Victoria inside.

All smiles when we picked him up from school on Friday.

On Saturday at skating we tried Bennett at the next level but he just couldn't keep up.  As the kids were marching/skating across the ice, Bennett was the slowest and then about half way across he just stopped and started watching everyone else.  So they moved him back to pre-tot where he happily marched across the ice to pick up balls that his teacher threw for him to retrieve.

After skating he went to Nana's house where he got to wake up Auntie Hanna, did some baking, and had a playdate with the grandson of one of Nana's friends.Back at home, after nap he woke up pretty grouchy.  It also didn't help that he wanted to watch George and I insisted in watching Nemo.

This weekend was the annual pig slaughter at Sturbridge.  It starts on Saturday with the gutting, hair removal, sausage making, etc.  On Sunday they do the inside butchering where they make the various cuts of meat.  When we got there Bennett recognized right away that it was a pig hanging in the barn and also one on the table inside the house.  Later he asked where the pigs were.  Daddy told him that the female went to a new farm and he wanted to go visit her.  He did great with seeing the pig being butchered.  Lots of questions of what people were doing/ what's that.  He helped Dave fill the wood box. We also learned that various buildings have basements- including a trap door in the bank porch (although we couldn't find it) and a basement in cooper shop with a transformer.  We also got to feed hay to the cows and the sheep.

Carrying a flake or two of hay for the cows.

Putting the hay into the stanchion

Carrying hay to the sheep

The cows each get 3 flakes of hay and the sheep get 1 flake for every two sheep.  The sheep also get a different kind of hay called "second cut."

And now, this is your warning.  Please stop reading if you don't want to see pictures of a pig being slaughtered.

We found it very interesting to see how much fat/muscle/,meat is above the spine at the back of the neck.

Victoria invited Bennett over to her side of the table and then got down on his level to explain things to him.

Victoria and Ryan removing the bacon from the ribs

Starting on the second side

Happy New Year!

We kicked off the New Year with a brunch at Leslie's (Daddy's co-worker) house.  Bennett loved playing a game with a couple of the other guests where they would look all over for Spencer, Leslie's cat.  Was he in the closet?  Nope.  In the shower?  Nope.  What about in the toilet?  Nope.  In the office?  Nope.  Under the bed?  Yay!  We found Spencer.  And repeat...


Down at the play farm, much like at the real OSV farm, the rooster was put in time out "for biting the chicks".  The back story to this?  We noticed at OSV that the rooster was in a cage.  We asked why and Farmer Dave told us that the rooster was in time out.  Apparently the rooster has been acting up, biting the farmers, etc.  So it's time for him to find a new home.  I guess that conversation/punishment resonated with Bennett.

This photo must have been from after his nap because his hair is super curly.

On Thursday it started snowing.  Just a dusting in the morning, but when Bennett looked out the window he announced that there was enough snow to go sledding.  After school we opened up Bennett's new fire station Duplos that he got from Grandma and Grandpa Tedford. He's had a blast playing with these, and was using the people to open the doors, spray the hoses, etc.  I've never seen him play with dolls/action figures in this way before, so that was neat to see.

By Friday the snow was much worse.  Mummy and Daddy still had to work so Bennett went to school but was one of two kids there.  The benefit of not many kids in?  He got to do whatever he wanted!  After dinner we baked cookies.  I had hoped to make this variety before Christmas but we ran out of time.  They were ok, but not my favorite.  One of those kinds that sounds better than they actually are.

Saturday was the first week of a new session of skating.  We definitely should have put Bennett in the next level!  He had passed pre-tot but since he still seemed pretty timid we had thought it might be best to have him stay at that level for another session.  Nope, he did awesome all on his own!  They tried to move him up to the next class right then, but he resisted.  Next week he doesn't get the choice.

Here you can see him in action.

After nape we went sledding at Jericho Hill and got to use the new toboggan.  We weren't sure how Bennett would do because he hadn't been a fan of this hill last year-- too much snow in his face, I think.  Since it used to be a ski hill, it's fairly steep.  No problems at all this time!  Bennett loved it and kept asking to go again.  And the snow in his eyes issue?  Well he solved that problem by covering his face with his hands.

Blurry video, but you get the gist.

When I asked Bennett about why his animals were all lined up I was told that they were in a parade.

Sunday we went to Sturbridge.  We're not sure if we will once again try to have weekly visits.  We kind of want to but also think that it's a little crazy.  But since we want to have the option of weekly visits, we needed to go.  Bennett really does love it there and gets excited when we mention that we are going, so I guess that means it's worth it to go, right?  It only becomes an issue when it's pouring rain or we're sick or something like that and I insist on us going so that we don't break our streak.  So far we haven't run into a situation like that (really cold and/or light rain doesn't keep us away) but I imagine we could have to make those decisions this year.

On this particular visit all Bennett wanted to do was go sledding behind the cooper shop.  I don't even remember us mentioning that we could do that, but he knew it was something we could do.  But first, it was time to help the farmers with seasonal work.  We were the only ones there so they decided that feeding corn husks to the cows would be a good task. 

It was awesome!  We started off just tossing the husks over the fence but quickly moved on to them eating out of our hands.  Really neat to feel them pulling the husks out of your hand.  This is another one of those occasions where we wonder if "normal" visitors would be given this opportunity or were we given this chance because they knew we were familiar with the cows and that we should look out for Lance and Henry's horns.  (Which admittedly I did kind of forget about in an effort to get husks to one of the girls being pushed out of the way.)

Finally we got to go sledding.  Bennett started off going down the hill with Daddy.

After that first run we decided that we should have him try on his own.  He loved it and did great.

But the best part?  He even pulled his own sled back up the hill!

Here's one of Bennett and Chris going down the hill together.

Back at home, Bennett decided that his oxen needed to pull sleds.  (He had seen Lance and Henry's sled, used to haul logs and such.)  Bennett found the sleds and I obliged by making a pipe cleaner yoke and hooking up the team.

And that pretty much sums up our week.  Feels so long ago now, since it took me almost a whole other week to finish this post.

Wrapping up 2013

Not too much happened in the days between Christmas and New Year's so this post will be pretty light on photos.

On Thursday Bennett went back to school and I went back to work.  Chris started the job of rebuilding the farm buildings out of wood rather than cardboard.  I got a call at some point during the day that Bennett was complaining that his ear hurt and that he was out of sorts.  He's commented off and on for a few months that his ear hurts .  Normally after one complaint he's fine for days/weeks until the next complaint.  But on Thursday he complained multiple times.  I was able to get an appointment for him.  The doctor removed some built up wax and saw that there was fluid in his ear but it wasn't infected yet.  He said we would know within the next 24 hours if it were to get infected.  Luckily after removing the wax and a dose of Tylenol at home he was fine.


Friday Bennett was back to his old self again!

Saturday we had skating and then had to hurry home for one more Christmas celebration.  Uncle Andrew, Aunt Gentry, Grandpa, and his friend Susan were coming over.  Grandpa brought a turkey which we served with various leftovers.  However, Bennett wasn't eating well and was likely tired from a busy morning so he made the choice to go upstairs for nap rather than finish eating.  This meant that we had to open presents without him.  Of course he woke up from his nap just as everyone was leaving and then he opened his presents- some puzzles, a hat, and for the family, a toboggan!  Can't wait to be able to use that.




Bennett continues to play with his farm (which is good since we put so much time into it and it takes up a lot of space) but some some reason he likes to pile all the animals together so that they can "sleep".

On Sunday we rounded out the year with a final trip to Sturbridge.  This brings our count for the year to 40 visits.  We'll have to see what we decide to do next year.  A winter activity for them is to dip candles, so Bennett go a chance to give it a try.  Other than that, it was a pretty quiet day at the Village.  We got to see Doc and Blue working (and misbehaving quite a bit) as they pulled a cart from one end of the village to another but otherwise not too much to report.

Monday was a pretty normal day back at school/work and on Tuesday Bennett was picked up early as it was New Year's Eve.  Nothing special going on for us.  Bennett went to bed as normal and Chris and I stayed up watching Harry Potter.

And that pretty much wraps up 2013!

The remainder of Advent and Christmas Festivities

On Monday when I picked Bennett up from school they proudly showed me that he had written his name.  For the lower one, the teacher wrote his name first and then had him trace it in multiple colors.  And then he wrote his name on top.  Yay!

When we got home I didn't have anything special for Advent because I goofed and let him watch the planned movie over the weekend.  (A Curious George Christmas movie.)  For dinner I made pancakes including one that looked like Frosty the No-man pancake, as Bennett calls them since he doesn't pronounce the S.

Tuesday was Christmas Eve.  Bennett went to school in the morning so that we could have time for wrapping presents, last minute shopping, and scrambling to finish his big gift.  More on that later.  I picked him up after lunch and we came home for nap.  Of course it took him a while to fall asleep.

After nap (which we had to wake him from) we put on spiffy clothes and then headed off to pick up Nana and Auntie Hanna before heading to church.  After church we went back to their house for dinner and presents. 

Bennett started to play with bowls, measuring cups, etc and Nana gave him an apron to wear while he "cooked".

Lighting a candle with Nana.

Opening presents.

When we got home Bennett put out milk and cookies for Santa and then got changed into his new Christmas PJs.  While visions of sugarplums danced in his head, the elves were hard at work scrambling to get Bennett's big present (a recreation OSV barnyard) finished presentable.  Last week Chris knew that everything wasn't going to get done in time so he decided to just focus on the walls and fences.  We lucked out and one of his co-workers offered to paint the walls for us.  Woo hoo!  So Tuesday morning/afternoon Chris worked to get the fences finished and painted.  Around lunch time he asked me, what do you think about having buildings temporarily made out of cardboard?  At last, a step in the process that I could work on!  So I spent Bennett's naptime working on barns and after he went to sleep we were up to about 1am working on gluing fences into place and crafting cardboard buildings.  It actually helped the process a bit because we could think through some of the construction process, decide which beams could be eliminated from the design, what needs to be changed for the final product, etc.

Monday night progress

And the end result?  Bennett loved it!  He'd received a few animals for his birthday so we had those set up at the farm-- pigs in their pen, the oxen in their pen, Summer (the calf) in her pen, and the horses out in the yard since they technically don't even go with the farm. 

The farm on Christmas morning

MERRY CHRISTMAS!  Bennett woke around his normal time, 7:00.  He let us lounge in bed for a little while and then we went downstairs.  Here's what he saw when he came down the stairs:

His reaction as he saw Doc and Blue.

And even better, here's his reaction in video format!

Shortly after we came downstairs Grandpa came over to join us for breakfast and watching Bennett open presents.  We started with stockings. Bennett got a couple of cows (dubbed them Lance/Henry) and a sheep and immediately went and put them in the farm.

Next we connected with Grandma and Grandpa Tedford via Skype so that they could watch Bennett open all of his presents.  There were LOTS of presents!  When wrapping we realized that tags on Bennett's presents were pointless as almost all of them were for him.  Plus they were the ones in the Cars wrapping paper. 

One of Bennett's presents was a bin with more animals, all of which had to immediately be put on the farm.  He now has:

• A team of oxen (He got these for his birthday.  We intended them to be Lance and Henry but he named them Doc and Blue.
• A pair of horses, Jim and Pete (birthday gift)
• 2 pigs (birthday gift)
• Summer, the calf (birthday gift)
• 4 cows.  These were intended to be Bonnie, Button, Betsy, and Rainy.  He named two of them Lance and Henry (the oxen).  The other two he named Bonnie and Button.
• 2 chickens, a rooster, a group of chicks
• 1 ram, 2 sheep, 4 assorted lambs

Currently 3 of the cows at OSV are pregnant.  I'm not sure what happens when they give birth.  Do we need to get more calves?  Does Summer graduate to being a full-size cow?  Also, one of the pigs is going to be butchered in a few weeks and the other pig will be going to another farm.  Will Bennett want to remove his pigs until they get new ones?

One thing that was interesting to see was how he immediately put the cows into the milking stalls in the barn even though he's never seen the milking stalls in use (we always left for nap before milking time).  How did he know that's where they were supposed to go.

Cows in the milking stalls. 
Chickens sleeping in their coop. 
Horses in the storage area. 
Mater driving down the middle.

All of the animals in their appropriate pens

Other gifts included PJs, books, puzzles, baking items for his play kitchen, a hand knit sandwich (bread, lettuce, Swiss cheese, tomatoes, egg slices), toy cars (Lightning McQueen and Mater), pattern blocks, a Curious George ornament, Duplos....  They boy definitely had a good Christmas!

The animals are "sleeping" so he covered them with "blankets".

Modeling his new dinosaur hat.  (It's a red present.)

After presents it was almost time for lunch and nap.  Shortly after he woke up, Mimi, Uncle Andrew, and Aunt Gentry came over for more celebrating.

After not wanting to wear his crown, he finally put it on and then wore two more as bracelets.

And that pretty much wrapped up the day.  Shortly after everyone left it was time for Bennett to go to bed.  Chris and I did some dishes and then relaxed for a little while.  One more celebration to go on Saturday!