i'm a superhero...

oh no! what's that over there?

it looks like a stretch of road without a yellow one!! oh no, i must defend the universe against too-fast drivers and put a yellow one on that road immediately... and wait, is that another road i see off in the distance, without a yellow one?

oh geesh, i can't keep up with all this superhero business. the world is in need of too many yellow ones for just me to handle...

i think i'll just go play at the park instead. my superhero dad (no outfit needed) can push me. ahhh, much better...

hi. so, yes, i was a superhero for halloween. i don't even really know what a superhero is but was excited about the outfit and watched a few videos on youtube of "real" superheroes flying in the air and that looked fun. but when momma asked me what i wanted to defend the universe against, i answered, "the horns" (as in the texas longhorns). sadly, the universe (and the horns' opponents) are doing okay defending themselves this year - no superhero needed there - so aunt elaina suggested i defend against not enough yellow ones for me to go over. cool! luke wore my outfit from two years ago. the shirt says "hair wolf" and i was a few months older and finally had hair, so momma spiked my hair up. it was cute. luke is still bald. but he's cute too, so you rock that "hair wolf" shirt, luke, and surely you'll get some hair here before we know it...

we all went to the halloween party at the park together. here's luke and daddy. they're handsome...

here i am playing on one of those bouncy things. some kid was trying to help me up this wimpy slide. obviously i can do it myself. i'm a superhero. mom, could you please tell this kid to stop touching me... (i didn't say this outloud, but momma could tell that's what i was thinking. i barely like her and daddy touching me, so i certainly don't want a stranger invading my space!)...

there were lots of fun halloween-y things to do at the park that day. there were crafts, cupcakes, games, a costume contest, and lots of kids. as usual, i just wanted to swing...

luke wanted to be a superhero too!

eventually i got off the swings and did enjoy some other things. i was very excited about the markers. momma lets me do a lot of things. markers isn't one of them (except the crayola mess-free kind, which i love). maybe when i'm 16. so when i got to color with these at the park, i knew that was a big deal. i stayed here for a long time...

eventually luke became less than thrilled, so he and daddy went home to grill...

momma and i got to stay longer at the park together and that was really fun and special. the weather was awesome. i got to eat a whole cupcake! i had to take my "mask" off because it was getting in the way of my eating. check out the red marks on my face - ha!

we played on the playground and looked at all the other costumes (there really were lots of kids, momma should have taken pictures of more of them). but mostly i just walked around like it was any other day at the park because that's how i roll. i like to play it cool. i even stopped to pick up some "salt" from the ground...

and sprinkle it around to season the "ice cream" (this is what i told momma i was doing when she asked). i do a lot of food-related things in my pretend play, have you noticed? it's all about the food, to me... i should have been captain snack-time, defending the universe against moms who don't provide at least an hourly snack to their children...

after a great afternoon at the park, we walked home. i played on my magical ikea rocking thing. last week it was a firetruck, then it was a zamboni. today it was a police car... not sure how that relates to superheroes, but does it really matter?

it was a good weekend. hope yours was too! here are a few more pictures before i go. thanks for stopping by!

put me in the zoo...

hi, ben here. as promised, pictures of our trip to the zoo in waco a couple weeks ago. i really, really loved the zoo and all the animals. we had a great time as a family and it was neat to see bears, giraffes, elephants, lions, and all kinds of other things! the pictures don't quite do our experience justice, but here's a bit of what it was like...

first off, i love alligators. i'm not sure when or why i started liking them, but i have a couple at home i like to play with (not real ones, silly!) and somehow i just decided i like them. it was cool to see them in real life. they are swimming in this water tank. i watched them for a long time...



i'm not sure what i'm looking at here. probably a little bug. i get distracted easily...



luke had a pretty good time, too, i think. sometimes it was hard to tell. he looked like this a lot...

can you believe the size of these cheeks?!?! he could be a zoo exhibit himself with those things...

and he even dozed off a couple times. i don't know who can just fall asleep in the midst of buffalo and monkeys! luke, i guess...

he's awake again in this one, but still not so enthused... but i guess i'm not really either in this picture! i think this was towards the end...

momma took pictures of the animals too, but i won't include them here since you all probably know what they look like. i guess you know what luke and i look like too, but that's different. :) see, here's what we look like on a wooden bench in front of a green and red building, not giving momma sweet smiles at the same time...

but here's a really good one of me and daddy. we were watching the elephants. totally cool.

and i got to ride a horse - neat!

oh, luke did have a good time - see!!

yes, the zoo was fun. i already want to go back.

and now, a few more pictures of luke at his six-month photo shoot with momma. six months!!! and i sure am glad he came along... bye!!

watch where you're going...

hi. it's ben.

i can wink!!

i try to save my best winks for momma (i'm not very touchy-feely affectionate, which is sometimes hard for her, and she loves it when i do something like a wink as i sign of love instead), but i sure did have fun showing off my winks last weekend when beamee, grandma suever, and aunts ginny, chris, and debbie were around. you might notice the gash on my cheek, which not coincidentally resembles the corner of a table. like a metal-edged slide-out table used at the gap for folding shirts. not cool. after i stopped screaming and wailing, i took it like a man. i showed that table who's boss...

i'm having a great time with my letters of the day and different themes each week. this week we're on musical instruments, but i really liked the penguin day (two weeks ago now, yikes!) and did this fun puzzle that momma made. you can't really tell much in the picture, but we thought it would be nice to include since i'm standing nicely with a good smile on. and again with the long-sleeved moose shirt, still not weather-appropriate but i do love that moose... and orange...

i realize this is a family blog. maybe a picture in daddy's boxers isn't appropriate. since i'm the one wearing them and not daddy, momma thought that it was okay. much better than, say, momma skyping with SELT while an unknowing daddy is actually wearing his boxers in the background. whoops. anyway, i digress. sometimes when i miss daddy a lot during the day, i wear his clothes around and do things that he likes to do... pretty cute...

here's me and luke at a nearby park. don't you love how different we are?

i'm actually not grumpy in real life, i just smile on my own terms if you know what i mean. luke, on the other hand, just smiles. usually. and always when he's on the swings.

thanks for stopping by. i'm off to pack my bags for mimsie and grandpa's house - yes!!!! i'm super excited to see them and won't even mention how excited i am to see maggie dog too. see ya!

north bound...

don't worry grampee - we've decided to just come back to indiana with beamee. we're getting buckled in now...


we're going to have a quick layover in raleigh to play the ping pong ball game with gabrielle, then we'll be headed your way. see you soon!