Lunch Time!

 Look who is sitting at the big kid table!!

Moon Sand

Cole-y Favorites

 Cole adores his penguin and his binky. He can say both now which is sooooo cute! He calls his penguin, "Pingoo." He finally says binky right.

 He loves to play in his crib. He could hang out in his room all day playing with his blocks and books in his crib.

 Oh that face!!! How I love his little giggle! This picture was taken about a month ago. All of his bottom teeth have almost come in now. All at the same time! Poor buddy!

 Notice the handmade fancy pants fleece teething guard on his crib. He has chewed his beautiful crib to pieces. So I tried to save some of the paint from being ingested with this handy creation.

I know I say it all the time, but look at those lashes!! They are sooo long!

Love you little man!

Oh Ben . . .

Ben: I want to watch a show.
Me: No more shows. If you watch anymore shows your brain will melt.
Ben: Don't worry about my brain. I'll keep it safe. I'll protect it.
Nice Ben.

Playing with the Big Boys

 Ben has always LOVED playing with the big kids. Parker and Luke Larsen are by far his favorite. They are so great about including Ben in their big kid battles.

 Sadly, there are casualties on occasion. But they are quick to rescue each other.

Ben and his weapon of choice: his Buzz Lightyear gun.

boy factoids

BEN:

He turns 4 in March!! He reminds me every day that he is now three and will be four soon and then when he turns five he will go to kindergarten and break my heart.

He is obsessed with Octonauts.

He would play Angry Birds and Cut the Rope all day if I would let him.

His favorite color is red.

He still comes in our room a couple of times a night.

He hates pooping and eating.

He is now a Sunbeam and goes to big kid primary with his bestie Brynner.

He loves Family Home Evening. I think it is mostly for the treats. But he asks to do it a few times a week.

He spells his name, "B - E - end(N)"

He is our little debater/attorney. He favorite topics to argue are bedtime, eating, and cleaning up. I know I have a battle coming when he says, "Mom, I have a great idea!"

He calls Aunt Kiersten "Chick" or "Chicken."

COLE:

He is a little ball of sunshine.

He loves to eat anything and everything all the time. 

He LOVES blocks and books.

He is the BEST sleeper ever. 

He obviously loves slippers. He races around in them saying, "VRRMM"

Mickey Mouse is his very favorite show, but Ben rarely lets him watch it.

He just switched to his big kid car seat and is so much happier.

He carries his stuffed penguin everywhere. 

He loves the bath tub. 

He is learning "please" and "thank you."

He can sing the Angry Birds theme song thanks to Ben.
He has a serious shoe fetish. He loves to put on shoes all the time.
He also loves putting on his coat because that means an adventure is coming!
In spite of Ben always picking on him and knocking him over, Cole gets very concerned when he can't find Ben. He will wander the house calling Ben's name while he is at preschool, "Bin! Bin!! Are you?"
He calls Aunt Kiersten, "Bok!" (Like the sound a chicken makes)

Little Artists

 This was Cole's first time painting! I think he really liked it. Of course he tried to eat it and that didn't turn out so great, but he loved dipping his brush in the water and in the paints. I don't think much paint made it onto the paper, but the table and the wall looked lovely.

 Ben isn't big on drawing, but he does like stamps and stickers a lot. Some of our ink had dried out and that was a source of major frustration.

Cole got distracted from his painting by Ben's ink pads. He loves to open and close things. Ben's despair worked for Cole because he got to play with the dried out ink and didn't even know he was missing out!

 

 What happened to Ben's pants? Oh he spilled the cup of water for the paints all over his lap of course. And then refused new pants.

Look at those lashes!!! It is really not fair that a boy gets these!

I believe . . .

The theme in church on Sunday was reading the scriptures. In her talk, Sister Campbell talked about how her three year old came home from school and had the Pledge of Allegiance memorized. She thought to herself, "If she can memorize the Pledge of Allegiance certainly she can memorize the Articles of Faith." What an awesome thing to have locked in your brain from the time you are three years old. You will always know exactly what you believe and what you stand for as a member of this Church. So I decided to start working on them with Ben. After Church I explained what the Articles of Faith are and why they are important and how we were going to learn them. We recited the First Article of Faith a few times and then his eyes lit up and he said,"Mom! I know what I believe!" I thought to myself, "Here it is!! A parenting pay off moment! I taught him something! Something important and good! Yay for me!" And then he said, "I believe in monster trucks. Big monster trucks." Oh. Not what I was expecting at all. But progress perhaps?

(This picture was taken while Ben was playing Super Man with his Daddy."

Playtime

 Why is it that boxes and boys have so much fun together?

 Cole still adores reading. Animal books are always a favorite!

 He is my little sugar ball of sunshine.

 Ben is a great big brother. He is making sure Cole stays up to date with technology.

I know that someday they will HATE me for this shot. But I love it. They can be the sweetest of brothers.

Tent Popcorn Party!!

 Oh my boys. They are wild and fun! Taking down the Christmas tree left a huge void in our front room. ( We haven't moved the chair back that usually lives there.) So the boys thought that it would be a perfect place to pitch their tent. But if you are going to put up a tent. You need pillows and blankets. And if it is going to be a party there must be popcorn.

 So we had a tent popcorn party. The boys pretended to sleep and made a giant mess with the popcorn.

 But they did have a lot of fun together wrestling and loving each other.

 Ben was soooo tired . . .

 Yeah right!

 It is a little bit scary how good Ben is at iPhone games. His current favorite is Cut the Rope. But Angry Birds still gets plenty of play time.

 When Cole went down for his nap, Ben and I searched for pirate things in his pirate book, in the tent of course.