(Just a Few) Things I Love About Ben

*The way he holds a sandwich with his little hands

*The way he strokes my face when I put him to sleep

*The quiet "sssshhhhhh, it's okay, Sam," that he says when Sam is fussy in the back of the car

*His independence and curiosity

*The way he calls Daddy, "Mike", and when you ask him who Mike is, he says, "Daddy"

*The way he refers to Sam as, "My Sam"

*When he calls "scissors," "fissors"

*That every other word is, "Why? Why mommy?"

*His love of books

*When he "helps" me fold the laundry

*Baking together

*His growing imagination and creativity

*When he says, "I love you, Mommy"

 

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Year In Review

I get sentimental...a lot. I could spend hours looking through old pictures...wedding albums, friends, pictures of Ben (and not Sam)...it never gets old. When looking through all of the photos that I took from the last year, it was amazing to me all of the firsts Ben experienced, and all of the firsts I experienced through Ben's eyes.

The Zoo, Disneyland, pre-school, the Dentist (of-course the list goes on and on). I wanted to upload some pictures that looked back over the year. It was hard, there were just too many to choose from. So I picked these two.

There is something so sweet about Ben and his daddy staring out at the ocean (his first time on the sands of Venice Beach). 

Then I chose this picture of Ben and Sam...brothers. Smiling. I look forward to capturing many more of these smiles together over the years.

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Christmas at the Schwuzzards

For the past 4 years we've been spending our Christmases in Charlotte, North Carolina with Mike's family. This year we decided to stay close to home since it might be more difficult traveling with two, and to start some of our own family traditions with Ben and Sam. Ben was really excited about Christmas this year! He seemed to really get the idea of Santa and his reindeer. We had a little Elf named Red, who lived in our house during the month of December. He kept a close eye on whether Ben was naughty or nice. Ben would wake up every morning and go searching the house for Red, asking him about his travels back to the North Pole to see Santa. He was very sad to wake up yesterday morning, only to discover that Red had gone back to North Pole until next year.

Ben wouldn't wear his Mickey Mouse ears in Disneyland, but he busted them out to parade around the tree...go figure!

A friend of ours, Marc, was in-town visiting from Vietnam (where he's been living for the past 10 months). He shared our Christmas Eve and Christmas morning!

Petey!!!!

Uncle Mark, passing out gifts.

Can you find my dad? He's hidden behind the bag of garbage (one of four bags of trash...a little excessive????) What a MESS...

Playing with our new toys. Life is good.

The rest of the day was spent eating, eating, and then eating some more. Special Pancake for breakfast (a tradition in my family), hot dogs for lunch (a new tradition????), and turkey/cranberry enchiladas, which were delicious! I'm definitely going to have to make use of that gym membership!!! HA!

Happy Holidays!

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Halloween

Last year for Halloween, Ben was one and wasn't so sure about the whole trick-or-treating thing. What a difference a year makes!!! Halloween was three days ago and Ben is still carrying around his bucket (with four pieces of candy in it...because I sent the rest off to work with Mike), and asking to go trick-or-treating. He loved dressing up as a train engineer (because he is obsessed with trains right now), and once he got warmed up, enjoyed walking up to the doors and saying, "trick-or-treat!".

This year we also carved a pumpkin, which Ben helped scoop the seeds out of,

and then daddy carved it up!

Sam helped by sitting around and looking cute in his giraffe costume...

Sammers

Ben 2008

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Now I Know My ABC's...

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Oakland Zoo

Since Mike is heading back to work soon (we're going to miss him...he's been home almost 2 months!!!), I decided I needed to make the most of the time we have left. It had been a while since Ben and I got to do something special just the two of us, so I took him to the Oakland Zoo (threatening rain clouds and all). Luckily, the rain held off until we left, but we had a great time together!

We rode the carousel,

saw the giraffes,

climbed atop tomato frogs,

indulged in some pb&j with fries,

rode the steam train (Ben's FAVORITE part),

and left very happy. I love spending time with my bog boy!

Posted via email from Dara's Ditties