Nana

Yup.  I've convinced Nana, once again, to share her cake and ice cream with me...

It's delicious!

Benny loves Nana.  Its pretty cute.  He takes her hand and shows her things all over the house.  If Nana is around, she is his personal and very best playmate.  So far, she is the first person where he uses her name consistently to get her attention.  If I ask him what's my name, he says "mama." When Kevin gets home from work, he is very excited to see him and shouts "dada"  But, he doesn't regularly use our names as a means to get our attention, but he does with Nana.  For example, we were outside and he was walking towards the shed in our backyard where we keep some of his outdoor toys.  Nana stopped following him.  He was almost to the shed and he turned around and motioned to her and yelled "NANA!"  I'm sure his little head was thinking "Come on Nana.  Keep up.  I thought you were playing with me."

Nana + Benny=BFFs

(Not to mention, Nana is married to this really nice guy named Papa who gives Benny excellent hair cuts.)

Happy Father's Day!

Benny and I got kinda crafty and creative with this year's Father's Day gift....

Benny says "Let me get you a beer daddy.... Oh yes.  And a piece of chocolate cake with chocolate icing to share with me."

Gotta say, Kevin is a pretty good Daddy and a really good husband.  He loves Benny and I very, very much and takes good care of us.  We *heart* Daddy!

Summer of the Bah Mower

Who would have known that this lawn mower would have been one of Benny's favorite toys?  Should have known...it has wheels.  Anything with wheels ranks pretty high for Benny.  He says 'lawn mower;'  it comes out as 'bah mower,' ---something like that.  This is how he asks to go outside---he looks at me and says "Bah Mower?"  Mommy's interpretation---"Hey mom.  Can we go outside so I can play with my lawn mower?"  When we go for walks, he is very excited about anyone using their 'bah mower' to cut their grass.

Here he is in action with his beloved lawn mower.  However, as I write this, I think he might have a new outdoor passion that trumps the lawn mower.  This is digging in the dirt.  I planted some flower seeds with him outside maybe two weeks ago.  He thought it was great.  Now he has a little spot in one of our beds that I let him dig in.  So much fun.

For indoor play, Benny enjoys his barn and animals.  He puts the animals in and out of the barn, has the farmer drive the tractor, gives the animals a drink of water, and feeds the animals from a play bucket of apples.  Yesterday, he came up with an even better idea.  The animals need to eat Cheerios.  He got a handful of Cheerios, put them on the coffee table and let each of the animals have some.  There you have it.  Benny's farming secret.  You ought to be feeding your livestock Cheerios.

Farmer Benny.

Gotta give the animals a drink.

2nd Annual Mother's Day

Before its June, I need to post about Mother's Day.  All around, it was pretty good.  Adam came over on Friday night and brought me this giant cookie and flower.  Thanks Adam!  Kevin got me hanging baskets for our deck.  They look fabulous.  I regret I don't have a pic of them...  On Sunday we just hung out with Kevin's parents.  Nothing much, but a grand day with my sweet little Benny.

Grandpa

My grandpa passed away last Saturday, May 4.  He was a simple person with a simple life.  He was 94 years old and lived with his wife in their farm house until just a few months ago when he went into the nursing home.  Here is a pic of him from last summer.  This is how I will always remember him.  Wearing bib overalls and his WWII veteran hat.  He was a dairy farmer.  As a child, one of my favorite things to do in the summer was to help Grandpa milk the cows.  He never 'updated' his milking system.  He went out into the field, brought in two cows, and put them into stalls where they ate grain.  He had to strap the milker onto each cow and then dump the milk by hand into the milk pail.  When it got full, he carried it up and dumped it into the milk cooler.  Talk about hard work!  I was honored to play the organ for his memorial service on Wednesday.

After the memorial service and lunch, we went back to Grandpa Stevie and Granny Lindy's house for a nap and then some fun!

Grandpa Stevie got this cool new lawn mower.

They had baby lambs!

They also had a tree cut down in their yard the day before.  Walking on the log was so much fun!

A little swinging with Lindy.

After you cut the grass, you get to feed it to the chickens.

Just a random pic cause I think its cute.

My Little Singer

By now, everyone knows I love to snuggle my little Benny.  Here is our morning routine:  he wakes up, I give him his binkie, and I bring back to bed with me.  We start the day with about 20-30 minutes of snuggling.  He likes to put his cheek against mine and play with my hair.  Sometimes I'll sing him songs.  Lately he has decided he will sing to me.  Its usually just random humming (he has the binkie in his mouth.)  But today I could pick out every song.  He hummed "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," "Jesus Loves Me," and "Where is Thumbkin."  His sweet little eyes are closed, and he is humming away.  I hear another melody and can't quite decide what it is.  Then I realize it is "I Am Jesus' Little Lamb."  That isn't even a song I sing to him.  Its the song Grammie always sings to him when she rocks him. 

Benny knows how to melt his mommy's heart.

When we were out and about this morning, he was singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" complete with hand motions in his car seat.  His best line of the song is 'out came the sun.'  He's such a cutie!

The Resurrection

The egg hunt.  Mommy says to go get the egg.

I got it!

Two cuties.

I don't see any more eggs.

It seems that a lot of little children are afraid of the Easter Bunny.  Not Benny.  He was so excited about the Bunny.  He cried when we had to leave the Bunny.

Easter morning at church.  Benny getting ready for his solo.

 

The whole family.

 

Afternoon fun at Grammie and Grampie's house with Faith and Callie.

 

All in all, we had a great time celebrating Easter.  Sadly, about 24 hours after our joyful celebration we learned of our dear Uncle Paul's passing.  He was imperfect, like all of us.  But, he did know the love, grace, and forgiveness of our Savior, and for this we are thankful.  I hope he knew how much he meant to us.  This week I was thinking about all the happy memories with Uncle Paul.  He came to our wedding and wasn't afraid to pull out his very best dance moves for the occassion :)  He bought us a KitchenAid mixer for our wedding gift because he knew I liked to bake.  I use it all the time and think of him.  He was our first overnight house guest in our very own home.  He came into town during the fall of 2012 and wanted to surprise Grampie (his brother) by showing up unexpectedly at his retirement party.  Much of our belongings were still in boxes, but I was excited he was staying at our house.  During this same visit, it happened to be his birthday.  We went out to dinner to celebrate his birthday.  After dinner, he insisted on taking us shopping to buy us a crib for the baby we were then expecting.  I told him he wasn't allowed to buy us gifts on his birthday.  But, that's just the type of guy he was.  He was so generous and liked sharing with others.  To top it off, after we got home with our new crib, he gave us lots of toys, diapers, and bibs that he had picked out on his own for our baby earlier that day.  He was so happy to surprise us with these gifts.  Benny plays with some of those toys everyday, and I think of his generosity.  We think of him when we hear our clock chime in our living room that he bought us for our 5th wedding anniversary.  Benny loves to hear it chime and proudly announces CLOCK each time it dings.  Most recently, he flew into town for Benny's baptism last February.  Uncle Paul never missed a joyous celebration.  Here he is below on our couch snuggling Benny.  We miss you Uncle Paul.