Silly boys...

So Ben has started to speak for both of them.... he'll say "we want to" do something instead of just "I want to". Today, he was saying he was still hungry after eating his lunch and I looked at Chris who was whining and banging his cup and said "are you hungry too?" and Ben said, "yeah we're still hungry, Chris is still hungry". Ha!

One thing that they have been driving me NUTS with is their (mostly Chris' but then Ben joins in) obsession with pulling wipes and tissues out of the box. If they ever get a hold of a box, that's the end of it. Chris likes to stick the wipes in his mouth. He pulls one after another out until I stop him. On his own, Ben usually will just pull out a few tissues and mess around with them. Well, Ben's NEW thing is to pull the tissue out of the box, then wipe his nose with it (because THAT makes it okay that he pulled it out right?) Then he comes to me exitedly and tells me, "I wiped my boogers on the tissue!" LOL.

They've started mimicking each other more, as a game. Yesterday in the store, Ben was making the same sounds as Chris (bababababa) really loud as he "helped" push the cart and they were "talking" back and forth like this, getting progressively louder. In the bath this morning, Ben was saying no, no, no to getting his hair washed or something and Chris started going "do, do, do" and they went back and forth laughing like it was the funniest joke. So cute!

Well, as I was typing this, they were, guess what? Yep, pulling wipes out a few feet behind me (I'm too oblivous!) I told them no, and told Ben he knows better and he told me in his best apologetic voice (another new thing) "Oh, I sorry Mommy, I no mean to!" Oye.

Off to the store.

Awww, cuties!

I thought I'd give it a shot and do some portrait type photos- something I rarely attempt with these guys because they are just NOT cooperative when it comes to actually sitting for me. Ben is okay for about a minute, but Chris thinks it's a big fun game to get up and come towards me to grab my camera. And if we're outside trying to take one, fuggedaboudit! He's off like a racecar. Anyway, the last ones I took were at Valentine's, so I needed something new. I thought these turned out pretty darn cute! Just in time for fall, they kind of look like school pictures with the tan background, ha! (That's just my living room wall a few feet behind them)

And because I have three big frames over my mantle where I keep a photo of each of them with one of both in the middle frame... I had to attempt an updated group shot. This is the best I could get. I think it's the only one where they are both even looking.

Sure! I'd love to!

This is what Ben says now when I ask him if he wants to do something.... so cute!

Dat me!

Grandma and Grandpa brought the boys some cool lift-the-flap scripture books from their trip to Utah. Ben LOVES them. One is Book of Mormon stories and the other one is Bible Stories.



Tonight we were reading this one and we got to the story about King Benjamin and Ben says "Dat me! Dat meee Mommy!" Oh, and have I mentioned I love how Ben says his name "Be-ben" (Benjamin) For a long time he really didn't ever say his name, then when he did- it was "Beh" (I guess it still is) but when you ask him what his name is, he usually says "Be-ben"

"Cheeeeeese!"

So I posted a while back about Ben and this old 35mm camera. He likes to take our picture with it. Now Chris just started holding it up and saying "Teeeeee" (cheese). SOOOOO cute, I was cracking up!

Fingerpainting!

We haven't pulled out the fingerpaints in a while, because when we first tried, Ben wasn't really interested- too messy! Since then, he has enjoyed painting with brushes. Today, we tried fingerpainting again and he loved it! Except for when I wouldn't let him squeeze the paint out with his messy hands... he covered his face at first and got paint on it, which made him even sadder....


But, not to fret- he was fine about a minute later! We looove fingerpainting!

Did I mention...

we have another WALKER? He is so cute, toddling around the house. Once he got the confidence to go, he was all over this walking thing! He went from taking just a few steps for a week or two to really going:

Leh Pay Gase! (Let's play games!)

How to play the Dora ABC game, Ben style:

Open the box and take out the board- see that the back is 'backpack" and turn it over to look and get all excited and sing the song.... "backpack, backpack...."

Put the board down on the table and pull out all of the ABC cards- have your mommy put them all out with the letters facing up while you mess around with them. Put the Dora on the board at the beginning of the alphabet.

First Mommy says something, then you YELL your response...

The first letter is....

A!!

Where's the A card?

Here it is!!

Right! A is for...

(Turn over the card) Apple! (a-oh)

Okay, Put it on the picnic!

Put the card somewhere at the bottom of the board, being sure to mention who it is you're putting the food by.... except the kite! The kite goes up in the sky!

Repeat with each letter of the alphabet. Get a little tired towards the end. After all, you do have the attention span of a two-year old =)

Ben is LOVING games these days. We have a few so far that he can play so far (modified a bit) and he thinks it's great. After Dora, we played "Wheels on the Bus". They love this one because the little bus sings the song. Chris goes nuts and wants to play too, but he just wants the bus the whole time. When we're done playing, we give it to him and put the game away whenever he's tired of it. He loves to keep pushing all the buttons over and over and rolling it to make it sing. This is Chris' FAVORITE song right now, I think that's why he likes it so much.

Silly kid...

Ben just asked to watch Wiggle Bay for the third time today... as I turned it off, I said, "No way! I'm so sick of Wiggles, I could just... puke!" And he said, "no way, that's gross!" hahaha... I didn't think he knew what puke meant!

8th of July

We celebrated with the fam the Sunday after the 4th. We had dinner, they played in the little pool for a while, while we all got bitten to death by mosquitos... then did some fireworks. The kids mostly liked it. They were interested at first ;) I think Ben liked picking out the fireworks more than actually watching them. He picked a chicken and a car... lol. He thought most of them were "too louder!" when they lit them. Chris was more interested in just playing with Grandpa. He almost fell out of his little chair once, but he sure liked sitting in it!

Here are some more pics from the day:

4th (8th) of July

Box fulla cuteness

It's funny how much fun a kid can have being pushed around the house in a cardboard box. So cute how they were loving being squished in there together!

The wagon...

This was the highlight of their week, I think... I took them for a walk and let Ben pull Chris in the wagon. They thought it was so fun and just hilarious. I was snapping my camera the whole way, and it was so funny- I would run ahead to get the shot and Ben would start running too, and then Chris would laugh and the would both just laugh and laugh! I had to do a scrapbook page.

Party time!

We celebrated our birthdays together with a lu`au party. Not a *real* baby lu`au, but the food was authentic! I really need to make Hawaiian food more often! We had kalua pig, lomi salmon, rice, and potato salad. And pineapple upside-down cake, yum. Chris' cake was this sugar free carrot cake (big pain to make) from the "What to Expect" books. He was not interested at all! It kind of ticked him off, in fact. But the next day he chowed down on it, so I guess it wasn't the cake, it was just too close to bedtime by the time we got to it. He was pretty cute though, he loved his gifts. It's hard to believe he's already one! We got him the Little People garage- which we didn't realize (duh) wasn't put together in the box or we would have put it together before we wrapped it. But it was still cool, he liked it. He got lots of cool stuff. Me too- it was a fun birthday party, even though I have to be 30 now.


More pictures from the party:

Christopher's first birthday party

Happy Birthday Christopher!

Good mornin' birthday boy!!!

I can't believe he's one! Our little baby... he's getting to be so old! He's doing so much, he plays independently and laughs and just has so much fun. He stands up everywhere and walks along things, all those big boy things.

Chris likes to carry little things around. He'll get attached to something for a day or maybe a few days he'll keep going back to it. Today it was this rubber spider. You can see in the album below a couple more pics, but he had that thing with him all day! He's so funny...

Today we just played a lot and then went to Chuck E. Cheese's when Daddy got home. They had so much fun. Chris loved the rides, which was totally different from Ben when we took him on his first birthday- he was not into those. But Chris just rode everything and would smile and get all excited. He especially seemed to like the Barney and Bob the Builder ones. They both loved the skeeball. Chris wanted to put all the balls in the next tray over. Ben loved the music show- he ran up and was dancing and checking out "the band". He loves that place. We went not too long ago, so he still remembered and was so excited to go. Good times!

Dave's mom is out of town so we'll be doing the cake and party, etc. next week!

More birthday photos:

Christopher's first birthday

We don't write on our brother's head...

Yeah... I couldn't really be mad, it was my own fault that I wasn't paying attention. Plus it was kind of funny that he wrote on his little bald head... I've been really good about keeping pens out of reach, but Ben is into getting up on chairs at the kitchen table and messing around- so he got my pen and wrote ALL over Chris' head. Nice.

Poor little brother, always getting picked on. It didn't seem to bother him, though, or I would have known what was going on- believe me, he LETS ME KNOW when Ben is hurting him or bugging him. It was a gel pen, so I guess it didn't hurt...



Ben in the corner, he got a little on his face too: