Cuteness Personified

Hello everyone! Sorry I've been lagging a bit behind with my posts lately. Greg was gone on a business trip all last week and by the time Friday rolled around, I was literally praying to God that I could stay awake until Ben's nap-time. I basically spent the weekend "recovering". Seriously, I don't know how single mothers do it!!

Ok, enough small talk. I'm going to just jump right into the goods.... First, a few cute "Ben" things. The last time we went to the children's museum, he was very much into their "space" display. There is a "space shuttle" there that the kids can get into and crawl around in. And there is a button they can push for the countdown to "lift-off". Once they push the button, a woman's voice comes on and counts "3-2-1-liftoff" and then there are all these exciting sounds and such. Well, ever since then, Ben constantly counts "3-2-1" and then says "woooo!!" It is so funny. Speaking of counting, he can count to five. He doesn't do it very often, but given the right circumstances, he will do it. He can also identify several letters of the alphabet. Which leads me to the next cute Ben thing.....

He is OBSESSED with Wheel of Fortune. He asks for "Wheel" several times a day. We have actually DVR'd a couple of episodes so I can play one during the day if I need to. We usually just watch it together as a family at night though. When it first comes on and you hear the people saying "wheel-of-fortune" Ben does this pulling-down motion with his arm and says "wheel of" along with them but then stops because he can't say fortune yet. He loves to repeat the letters when they are called by Pat and the contestants. Who knew good old "Wheel of Fortune" would be such a hit with the toddler circuit!?! Greg and I always like to reminisce about the days when WOF had that revolving platform that displayed a bunch of random prizes on it that the contestants could "buy" with their winnings after each round. Remember that?? And some of the prizes were really bad. Like horrible art pieces and stuff that nobody would ever buy. And when the contestants got close to the end of their cash supply, they would have to buy the lamps or the crappy art or the exotic animal statue......Ha! Good times!

The third and final Ben activity that has been cracking me up is his dancing. He has become very adept at jumping. And jumping has become his primary dance move. He usually adds some arms movements and spinning in there too, but jumping is really his favorite. He used to just bob up and down when he "danced", but now he is all over the place. And he doesn't like to dance alone. He always wants us to join in with him. The other day, I was busy with something in the kitchen and he was dancing to a song on T.V. and he kept saying "mommy" and "up" which was his way of getting me in there to dance with him. So, I cut a rug with him for awhile and afterwards, he hugged my leg, patted it and said "awwww, mommy". Such a little sweetheart. He also tries to sing along with songs on T.V. or on the radio. It is adorable.

Time for some pictures.....

This was taken right before we were heading out to go somewhere. I thought his choice of companions was kind of funny, so that's why I included this pic. He has Barney (of course) and..... his cobra snake. He always takes things with him in the car and this particular combo just made me laugh. He tries to share his food and drink with both his cobra and Barney on many occasions. He gives them lots of kisses too. I'm a little nervous about what he might do if he ever runs into a real snake.....

Here he is playing with a toy we recently got.

Playing with toys is serious business....

Other than all the Ben cuteness, I'm looking forward to my annual "girls trip" with some of my college girlfriends. We didn't get to do it last year, so I'm really excited for this year's trip. We're going to NYC this year!!! We'll be there the last weekend in April. Can't wait!! Also, we have a Vegas trip coming up in June for Greg's CLU conferment (CLU is an insurance designation). We'll be staying at the Palazzo. We've never stayed there before, but I know it's very nice. And the fact that it's FOC is even better!!!

And finally.....running. My first race of the season is at the end of the month (the 26th) and I'm starting to get nervous. It seems like every time we get the snow melted away...it just comes right back with a vengeance a few days later. The trail I'll be racing on is mostly in a rural setting, so there are a lot of trees on both sides. This means that it takes FOREVER for the snow to melt because of the lack of sunlight due to the trees. If it keeps snowing, there won't be enough time for it to melt and I'll be racing this 10 miler in 5 inches of snow. Also, the weekend of this particular race has historically BAD weather. I ran this race the last 2 years (although I did the 5k and not the 10 miler) and both times almost skipped it because of how bad the weather was. I can deal with 20-something temperatures and high winds for a 5k, but for 10 miles?? No thank you. So if you could send some good weather vibes our way, I'd appreciate it.

Have a great day!

Brooke