surviving the new year...

hello again! well, we did survive the bermuda triangle of events that happened to ben in january, but there seemed to be a new set of them in february! oh my. i guess this is what life is like with a preschooler, a toddler, and a baby on the way - fun fun! actually, it is pretty fun most of the time, just a little crazier around here this year than we are used to. but things are getting settled down a bit more now, although ben and i are both still sick a bit. we usually don't get sick much at all, but this winter has taken a toll on us and momma is over it (although secretly she loves holding me all the time, which is what i want when i'm sick, so it's really not a bad gig for her since i'm super snuggly)...

anyway, next time we really will post pictures of our christmas fun and ben's birthday, but momma found more cute ones from december that she wanted us to put up first, so here goes - our final, final post from 2011. hey, it was a good year, what can we say? we just wanted to hang on to the good times a bit longer...

family boat ride in the woodlands...

momma loves taking pictures of all my different faces...

and here's what momma actually looks like, in case you don't remember, since it's a rare occurrence for her to make an appearance in front of the camera...

and this is what i look like if you try to put me in a vera bag. very uncool. apparently this particular one is just not one of my favorite patterns, sorry...

but i do get a good laugh out of ben putting himself inside a suitcase. momma should have started documenting the hours we spend playing with various luggages around the house. they're definitely in our top 5 toys ever...

also in that list would be cell phones, which is ironic since momma despises hers and avoids talking on it as much as possible. apparently that didn't get passed down in the genes, because you can see how i'm really cracking up at this particular conversation i'm having...

it doesn't take much to make me happy (as long as you don't stick me in a bag). and despite all of ben's ailments and injuries, he is staying pretty happy too. in the pictures below, we are trying on our snow boots that momma ordered for our christmas trip to indiana (follow up to that story later). ben loved wearing them around the house for several days before our trip!

and we'll close it out with yet another goofy face i'm making. that's about all we do around here is play with luggage, pretend to call people, and make goofy faces. and eat - i can't believe there were no pictures of us eating during this whole post - amazing!

okay, see you again soon! bye!!! :)

ode to holly...

oh my - hello there!!! it's been so long since we've posted that only our true, loyal fans are checking in to see if there's an update... so, surprise to you!!! :) and this would be a good place to say something like we made a new year's resolution to be better about updating this thing, but that wouldn't be meaningful, or true, so we'll just try hard to do better, but we'll always make it up to you with cute pictures whenever we do update, now matter how frequent or infrequent that may be... blah, blah, anyway, moving on... this is luke by the way, so... christmas was awesome and things are going (mostly) okay so far this january - but more on that to come. first we have to catch up with our special visitor all the way from november!! look at this beautiful face, folks - we love aunt holly!!!

we actually really do love her. especially me. i was smitten with her and also loved getting to see her again (although briefly) in indy at christmas. i look at pictures of her almost every day... :)

too bad i wasn't smiling very big in those pictures above, but just trust me on the loving her part. i even wrote her a little poem, titled "ode to holly." here it goes:

roses are red,

violets are blue,

then why are they called violets?

who knows, but holly, i sure do love you!

i'll probably get that published in a book of poetry pretty soon... and now to finish up the year, we have some pictures of other things ben and i were up to around the house. nothing too exciting, but we wanted to share them anyway...

fun on daddy's mower...

yay for momma's chocolate chip cookies!!!

cute hat...

ben pretending to be a gypsy pirate (i guess)...

my reaction to ben's goofyness...

brotherly love...

awesome tire swing daddy hung in our backyard - we love it!!!

okay, i know that doesn't seem like much, but that's it for now. hopefully that will tide you over and you'll still check back in on us again soon. and hopefully we'll be back again soon, which would mean that we have survived the bermuda triangle of events that have happened to ben this month so far. first he fell a couple weeks ago and knocked his top two front teeth loose and we're still waiting to see if they'll tighten back up on their own (please, please), or if they'll die and have to be pulled out (boooo). then he fell this weekend and luckily momma talked the ER doctor out of stitches and they did the skin glue instead and that seems to be working well so far. but mostly he's distracted by this terrible cough he has, which has left him sounding like a troll with whooping cough. he did also turn four last week, which was a very fun day for all, and we'll update more on that later too. but now i have to get off the computer because mom needs it back in order to search the web for a bubble to put ben in for a few weeks while he gets better, so that nothing else happens to him. we have lots of fun christmas toys to play with though, and we make bread in momma's new bread machine all the time, so we're definitely still having fun and enjoying things. we're just hoping nothing else crazy happens around here for awhile!!!

okay. bye!!!!!!!! :)

october visitors, part two...

okay, we're back for round two of our fall visitors!! next up is SELT - yay! we had a great time during their visit. luke and i really had fun playing with the girls in the back yard. here's lauren pushing me in the swing and taylor walking around with luke - so sweet!

and here are the four of us up in the playhouse...

we also went to visit space center houston, the visitor center for nasa, while they were here. we all really enjoyed our time there and then went to visit kemah afterwards. they have rides and games there, and my very favorite thing was getting to ride a train - yahoo!!! here's me waiting in line with aunt elaina, pointing out the train because i am so excited! you'll notice me in a winter hat (and clothes, for once!) because it was actually quite chilly some of the days they were here - sorry SELT!

we didn't have a lot of pictures from their weekend, but we had so much fun and were really glad they came to visit over their fall break. thank you SELT! can't wait to see you again at Christmas in Indiana along with the rest of the gang. :)

soon after they left, it was halloween! i was excited to be a train conductor, but luke stole the show in a tiger costume aunt elaina made a long time ago, which has been worn by several cousins - cute!! momma wasn't sure if he'd actually wear it, but he did and really seemed to like it - check out that grin!

here's a really bad picture of me and luke in our costumes inside, which i'm only including so you can see the full get-ups (luke did not wear the hat long at all)...

and we're off...

we just went around on a few streets in our neighborhood and managed to rack up some major candy in a short amount of time. this was even my first trick-or-treating experience, and i had a lot of fun and was very polite and grateful. i did not like or understand the scary-looking decorations that some people had up (neither does momma), but we by-passed those houses and had a great time in our dress-up clothes loading up on sugar and chocolate. i'm in favor of halloween and am already talking about what i'd like to be next year. :)

we still have one more round of visitor posts coming up (arguably the most important visitor, some would say)... so check back again soon - bye!!!!!!!!! :)