Happy Birthday Ben!

Well, five years ago (in and hour and 26 minutes!) I became a mom! It has been a MUCH harder five years than I expected, but I love and treasure my little boy!

Ben is born!!!
Ben turns 1!!!

Ben's second birthday!!!

Ben's 3rd birthday!

Ben turns 4!!!

Happy 5th Ben! We had cereal with frosting (frosted mini-wheats) and then went to Ikea with a friend.

VERY naughty girl

So - I have been enjoying the Twilight series along with most people in the US right now. However, there 4th book came out last weekend, and I haven't even had a chance to buy it yet. Knowing that i have a very busy next few weeks and honestly don't have time to neglect my life for 750 pages of reading, I did the unthinkable! I googled the book and read the entry of Breaking Dawn on wikipedia. To me the ultimate book-reading sin is to read the last page(s) of a book! Sorry to all those I have criticized. I'm so sad to know that my life is too busy right now to read, but once I get into a book I have no other option than to keep reading. Call me a softy and get on with it. At least now I know what happens!!!

Just Keep Swimming...

One of my favorite parts of Finding Nemo is Dory on the Main Menu page, "just keep swimming, just keep swimming, etc." That's what is has been like for the last two weeks and will continue to be through the end of August!

First, yesterday I took Annie for her speech testing at the school district office and she qualified for the speech preschool! Yay because hopefully it will help (if her progress is anything like Ben's was she will soar!) and sad because that means she really is missing that many sounds. Both speech pathologists were amazed at how easy it is to understand her despite missing MOST beginning sounds. When she can't make a particular sound she says her favorite 'd' sound. I think its because we have done so much with Ben, so she tries really hard to enunciate each sound that she does know! Hopefully Emily has had enough proper examples that she won't have the speech issues also...

Second, Ben cut his hair this morning! Scissors have all been put up very high because for some reason he wanted to know if his scissors could cut the leather on our recliner (they can) and through our bedspread that my aunt made me (they can), so it was time to put them away. This morning he was making a puppet out of a brown paper sack with pipe cleaners, wooden sticks, colors, and glue stick. i gave him all the stuff to do it with! He came to show me his self-portrait puppet. It was very cute - until he pointed out the hair! Apparently the puppet needed hair, so he cut some of his to glue on!

Looking back, i think i made a little bit of a mistake by fixing the problem instead of him just living with it and looking silly. Maybe if peers ask enough questions on why his hair looks funny he wouldn't do it again! But, I had already started cutting it - with a 1!!! That's how short he made it! He is quite excited because for over a year, he has been asking me to make him bald like Uncle Ned! I told him if he ever cut it again I would not fix it and he would have to walk around looking silly.

Emily has developed an attachment - yes, another one! She now loves the washcloth that we wipe her mouth off with after eating. Yesterday morning she took it to a friend's who was watching her for Annie's appointment. She carried it around with her while there. This morning she had a huge fit because I wouldn't let her keep it after washing her mouth with it!

I'm sure there is a lot more going on, but the show the kids earned is over and we are back to work to make our house spotless for company this weekend! I love weddings!!!