Goin' Places

And, once I got her turned around she goes back....

Ben's Birthday

We had a such a fun birthday celebration for Ben this year since it happened to fall on Easter Sunday, April 4th.  The kids got Easter baskets in the morning, got all dolled up for church, and after naptime we had the family over to celebrate:  Grandma and Papa Hagman,  Mormor and Morfar Bolstad, and Auntie Kari and Hailee.  The kids did an egg hunt first thing, then we enjoyed a great ham dinner that everyone brought something to contribute to, and present opening and cake.  Ben thought it was so cool to have everyone here to celebrate, he was so exhausted from playing but could hardly sleep!  The next morning he woke up at 5 am wanting to play hockey with his new net.  Mike got him back to bed but when we got up at 6:30 he was up playing...little turkey had closed our bedroom door so as not to wake us up, turned every other light on in the house and got down to playing!  Too funny.  Can't believe our baby boy is 3, but he says just the funniest things and has been so good about going on the potty.  Such a big boy!

Brooke so sweet after church in her Easter best!

The three kiddos all decked out and ready to party!

My mom got ben a cool new croquet set for Easter that they love!

Look Mom, I found an egg!  They found lots of them and it was a blast!

Ben opening his new hockey net from Grandma and Papa, should have left this one for last because he didn't even want to open any others, just wanted to play!

Ben with his Lightning McQueen cake I made, while we sang to him.

Great action shot of him blowing out his candles.

"Yesssss, I did it!"

Spring Update

This time of year is always fun because between the two sides of the family we have a TON of March birthdays!  Mine the 8th, Mindy's the 9th, Vi's the 13th, my dad's the 22nd, and Joe's the 25th.  Poor Ben has been so patient in waiting for his turn and now his is just 9 days away, on Easter Sunday this year!  He's so cute about it and is getting really good at singing Happy Birthday and eating cake!  I'm having a hard time believing my dear baby boy is about to turn 3, I don't know how that's possible.  But, he amazes us every day with the sentences he comes up with and things he can help out with.  He loves to take care of Oscar and let him in and out the dozens of times a day he requires, and also feed him his dinner each night.  He still plays hockey relentlessly and I just discovered that Ice World starts offering lessons starting at 3, so we will probably look a little more into that as the year goes on since this seems to be an obsession that is not blowing over!

Brooke looks more like a little girl and less like a baby every day to me, and she will soon be a year old!  She can crawl so well and is getting a little TOO adventurous in pulling up to things and climbing, and has ended up with a few bruises as a result.  She definitely likes to keep up with Ben and much to his annoyance try to take his toys from him...little did I know the "fighting" would start this early!  But, for the most part they are so sweet to each other.  As busy as she is she still loves to snuggle and amazes us with the amount of food she can put down...she literally will eat three times as much as Ben at dinner and I'm not exaggerating!

I've recently started working 4 days a week instead of 3 and it's been thougher for me than I expected, I thought I was ready for it but come Fridays I REALLY miss time with my kiddos.  But, makes our time together that much more special I guess.  Ben's days at Sally's are numbered and starting in August he will start pre-school and we even just got him signed up for swim lessons through the school!  I know he will absolutely love it and really expand his little growing brain, but it will be a sad adjustment for us all since he's loved Sally's so much and I have felt so comfortable that they are there together.  Oh well, it has to happen sometime and I know he's ready for it. 

Okay well, I always struggle with what to include in these posts, I just know that it's WAY overdue and I'll try to add to it as I think of things!  I'm sure a post about Ben's birthday will come soon!  And now for some recent pictures...

Big Boy Now

Okay so (one of) my resolutions this year was to be better about blogging. I so love going back and reading through it, and easily forget months later some of the funny little things that happen day-to-day. Our latest excitement is Ben's new skill of going pee in the potty. We've tried a few times over the last few months to get him interested in going, and at times he would have a day or two where he'd do it a few times but then lose interest. So we kinda just gave up, had Christmas, then tonsils, and were planning to re-visit. Well, on his own a couple weeks ago he decided he was just going to go pee in the potty from now on. We weren't even good about reminding him, he would just tell us when he needed to go! Like they say, I guess when they're ready they're ready! Well last night he actually got up at night and wanted to go...that was a first. He's gotten better about doing it all on his own, and this morning while Mike was in the shower he sees a sleepy Ben go walking by, go to the toilet, hears a flush, and sleepy Ben cruises by again. Not even a word, hilarious! Last weekend he even peed in the snow bank on the side of the road coming home from a friend's cabin. Ohhhhh how our little guy is growing up. Makes me so sad and excited at the same time! Yaaaaay Ben! Now, let's get better about the #2s....

p.s. he had his first "caught in the zipper" incident yesterday....poor kid! May not be interested in going comando in his zip-up jammies anymore!

Crawling Machine...

Brooke really has this crawling business figured out now, watch out world! Ben was running in circles around the house, so you will see a blur go by that is him. :)