Ben, Ben the Music Man

Ben is my music boy. When he need to calm down, all I have to do is play PP&M's "Garden Song" and he's dancing and smiling or shaking a maraca right away. It's adorable. The outdoors did it for Charley, and while Ben loves being outside, I think he loves to dance more. :)


Here's picture of him gnawing on a drum.


Ahh so cute!

Early Happy Father's Day!

The grill is the early Father's Day present, not the Porche Boxter below! Actually, I think the grill is kind of a late Mother's Day present as well since I don't have to cook as much when he's grilling! Look at that . . . it works out well for both!


First lesson in push-ups :)



Making peanut butter butterscotch chip cookies with Dad, Cheers!


Porche Boxter on loan from a friend out of town. Happy to watch your car anytime! Will and I got to go to the PP&M concert in this as well.

Sachuest Point

This past April, when the weather finally got a tad warmer, we visited Sachuest Point, a wildlife refuge on one end of Aquidneck Island. It was really pretty and we all had a blast running up and down the paths and even ventured onto the rocky beach. Unfortunately, we kept the boys out too long and had a major meltdown on our looooong way back. ugh! It was still good to get out and see part of our pretty island. The top pic is Charley pointing at a plane I think. :) and the bottom pic is Ben in the back pack with Will and Charley all climbing on the rocks. It makes a great day or afternoon outing and the paths are stroller friendly for the most part, although
I'd still recommend a backpack for really little ones. http://www.fws.gov/refuges/profiles/index.cfm?id=53543 is the web site for anyone who's interested in checking it out.

everyday things

Here are some cute things that have been a part of our day lately . . .

Daddy & Charley cooking together

First try at solid foods didn't go so well

Daddy loves snuggle time with his boys

Charley loves to drive in his Cozy Coupe Car

Of all the things, a real life mini-excavator came to pull up shrub roots next door. Charley was enraptured!

Some cute pics of Ben at 3 1/2 months old. He loves to sit up and play with and "gnaw on" the toys on his swing. He's rolling over easily now and pushing himself up for a good
amount of time. I can't believe he's growing so fast!!

One last cute picture

The boys at Cam & Mary's townhouse when we stopped for naps on the last day of our visit.

There were so many other people whom (?) we saw and forgot to snap a picture of, and it makes this little record feel incomplete, but at least we have some wonderful memories. We forgot to take a picture of our friends who are newlyweds, Tim & Jada (thanks for letting us stay with you), and Cam & Mary (thanks for letting us nap at your place while you were at the beach). We also got the chance to have breakfast with Dick and Verna, and lunch with Ian and Rachel and their daughter Audrey. Oh yeah, at the last minute we got to see some missionary friends of ours from Tab, Carton and Shannon and their son, Parker. They serve over in Brussels and happened to be home for a visit. Our trips overlapped by one day! On our day in Annapolis, Will ran into the plebe we sponsored when he was up here in RI at NAPS. His name is Tyller. I'll have to post a plebe pic of him now that he's at the Academy.

There were others that we had plans to see, but things fell through at the last minute because the boys needed to nap and I needed them to get sleep since we were pushing them hard with a crazy schedule. They took some 3 and 4 hour naps! I felt bad because both boys came home and got a small cold, but I think that was because of the night that we drove through on our way home and it kept them up a lot. They're getting over it quickly though and haven't missed a beat.

One good thing lately though, is that Charley hasn't been getting up as early as he was before we left. I don't know if he's still catching up on sleep, or if he's just changing his schedule. If he had kept getting up that early, I decided to just let him (or make him) stay in bed and let him know that it's not time to get up yet. A short conversation with Verna helped convince me of this. But I think that if I hadn't tried adjusting his schedule in other ways, and realizing that he still needed sleep, I wouldn't feel comfortable making him stay in bed. Fortunately, I had tried everything, to no avail, and now realize that it's a training/discipline issue. He hasn't gotten up before 6:30 or 7 yet though, so I'm not too worried. We'll see what happens though :)

I'm just glad we'll have a long time before our next trip. We'll drive to TX in December, if all goes well, and take a long vacation through January when Will has more time off. We're planning on going skiing and on going to the Caribbean somewhere. We haven't firmed up plans or dates yet. That will be an incredible and long trip! Stay posted :)

People we saw in Norfolk

We really enjoyed our time last week in Norfolk. We tried to remember to get pics of everyone, but I know we missed a few so apologies to those folks. Here are a bunch of pics of people and kids we saw. We can't wait to see you all again.

Navy friends Tommy & Amy w/ daughter Anna

Amy & new baby girl, Sabrina "Izzy" (born the day before Ben). Thanks so much Tommy & Amy for letting us call you up at a moments notice to come crash and eat or hang out at your house. You were life savers. Thanks for being so flexible with your time and open with your home.

Charley (2 yrs old) & Lydia (3 yrs old) watching Veggie Tales. Thanks so much, Barry & Jenn, for letting us stay with you while we were there. I hope everything goes well for you in the move to D.C and with the birth of baby #3 "Baby Boy" in December. They also have another daughter, Katie, who is 16 mo. old. Our prayers are with you Jenn and Barry and your handful of arrows :)


My younger cousin, Alicia (13 yrs old) and me and my Aunt Teressa holding Ben and Will in front. Most of the inspiration for coming to Norfolk in the first place was to watch Alicia pole vault in the Junior Olympics. She did a great job and it was amazing to watch her jump. The heat index that day was well over 100, I think it was maybe 115 or so (no joke). They got to go hang out at the beach while they were in town and we really enjoyed spending time with them since we don't see them often in Rockwall, TX (near Dallas) where they live.



I got to catch up with my old high school friend, Daniel, while we were there. He's a SeeBee in the Navy now and is stationed at Oceana in Virginia Beach. He's doing great since he moved back to the states from Japan. Of course, he and Will talked Navy the whole time, but that was fine because you can only talk about people from high school for so long. : ) He enjoyed holding Ben and did a great job, probably from all the experience he's had from visitin Dana & Dave and holding their brood :) Thanks Dana for the current e-mail address. It was so good to see him.



Here we all are at Outback Steakhouse with Art & Anna . Anna is due with their first baby in January! Yay! Thanks guys for letting us stay with you our last night, and swim in your pool and watch your big screen . . . :)

On a side note, (for those of you who don't know) Anna was present (in the delivery room) for Charley's birth, since we didn't expect him 2 weeks early and my mom couldn't be there. She just came to visit us this past April just 2 weeks before Ben was born so we thought she might be there for him too, but he was 5 days late. This is the friend I always talk about meeting at the dog park just before I got pregnant with Charley. She's become a great friend since then and I was a bridesmaid in her wedding last July. I can't wait to see their beautiful little baby. We're not sure if it's a boy or girl yet. I'll keep ya posted!



We visited with some good friends from our Sunday School class at Tab Church in Norfolk, where we used to go. From L to R is Evelyn (17 mo.), Christianne, me, and Christy holding Ben (3 mo.). We were also all in a small group together. We had a lot of fun hanging out and watching our husbands play X-box :) By the way Christy, I have to say you have a gift . . . Ben looks nice and comfy.

And here are our husbands . . . playing X-box. From L to R are Will (my hubby), Will, and Dave.

This is Dave holding Owen. I couldn't leave out Christy & Will's new baby, Owen (9 mo.). He's probably saying, "Hey, you're not my daddy." He's super cute and it was the first time we had the chance to see him since we moved away from Norfolk before he was born.

One more just for fun . . . the two redheads wrestling and turning . . . redder :)

WHAT A FUN & BLESSED TIME!!

Fave Family Foto

(No red eye, yay! I just wish Ben was looking up)

Things that make your heart grow 3 sizes

I had to post this really cute picture of my boys reading together. Charley loves reading to Ben and they're at the age where it's safer than it was before. I can't wait to see all that Charley will teach him. Charley loves being a big brother and holding and helping Ben any way he can. When I'm nursing Ben and he unlatches, Charley will often put his hand on Ben's head and try to guide him back to latch on again saying, "Go ahead Ben, go ahead," it's soo cute! Sometimes I feel like my heart will burst from being so full of joy while watching my boys.