Ben's 2nd Birthday Party

This morning we had Benjamin's 2nd birthday party, a few weeks early but with me being due with the baby a few days after his actual birthday we opted to celebrate early. Since I'm 38 weeks pregnant, we did something small at home with just the 7 kids from his playgroups and their moms.

Ben has been talking about his birthday party for days and was VERY excited that the big day had finally arrived. All of his best friends were here at once to help him celebrate, there were lots of games and treats to eat and the theme was Sesame Street. What else could a two-year-old possibly want? :)

With a theme as cute as Sesame Street, I could not let my craftiness sit idle so I started preparing a few months in advance and came up with some cute decorations for the day. Here are the invitations that I made and sent out to everyone. Of course featuring Ben's favorite Sesame Street characters - like all kids, Elmo; but also Big Bird and Cookie Monster.

The sign I created for the front door. I forgot to take a photo of it hanging on the door this morning since it was so foggy outside at the time..

And here are the little themed candy cups that I placed at each child's spot at the table during our craft time. Nothing like M&M's to keep one to three-year-olds focused for a few extra minutes!

We started out with free playtime and a very simple game. Here are almost all of the kids playing together. The youngest one is about 18 months old and the oldest two just turned three a few months ago.

Andrew took a long lunch and was able to come home for the party, which was so much fun for Ben. He loves having his 'Dada' around during the day! Here, Andrew is playing with Tyler and Elaina with some of Ben's fake food.

We played an Oscar the Grouch beanbag toss game, starring homemade Oscar beanbags that my mom and I made together. There's a photo of them later on. Everyone got one and just had to throw them into the foil-lined garbage can. Of course Ben loved this since he likes anything involving throwing lately.

Ben's trying to encourage his friends to throw their beanbags into the can.

Here, Tyler and Elaina join in the fun while Samantha and her mom watch from the sidelines.

Next, we did a very short Big Bird craft. Each child got a "naked" Big Bird at their place and a gluestick and had to glue feathers onto him.

Ben splitting his craft time between crafting and eating M&M's and Goldfish!

All of the kids busy at work crafting.

And voila! Ben's finished creation...

Next up: lunch. Kids loves pizza so we took advantage of this and ordered out instead of making something instead. So, I just had to make a few simple side dishes, nothing fancy since kids like plain foods. We had tossed salad, ABC Jello Jigglers (HUGE hit with the kiddos and everyone enjoyed taking the letter that their names start with!), star-shaped cheese and crackers, strawberries and Elmo and Oscar the Grouch cupcakes.

Ben and Tyler.

Teddy.

Samantha.

Caroline and Olivia.

Gifts were next on the agenda and boy did Ben have a good time. He didn't waste any time waiting to open them as he had last year when he turned one. It was cute because just about all of the kids were so excited to give Ben their gift that they had brought.

Finally, the favorite part of any child's birthday party: dessert! I made Elmo and Oscar the Grouch cupcakes: Elmo because I figured all of the kids would want those and Oscar because they looked so cute and I couldn't resist. (Plus we call Ben, Oscar sometimes when he wakes up from his nap cranky!). To my surprise, every single child except for one chose an Oscar cupcake instead of an Elmo one!

Singing Happy Birthday to my TWO YEAR OLD. I can't believe he is two already!

Ben took an Elmo cupcake at first, ate the marshmallow eyes and then said "No....green!" and pushed Elmo away. He wanted Oscar as well and thoroughly enjoyed that one!!

Yummy! Finger-lickin' good...

All of the kids eating their cupcakes. I apologized to all the moms for the red, green and black icing :).

Finally, here are the favors that all of the kids got to bring home (in addition to their Big Bird craft): an Elmo goodie bag, a giant chocolate chip cookie in a Cookie Monster bag, and their Oscar the Grouch beanbag.

What a fun party and Ben had the best time. He even burst into tears when the last of his friends left!! He really enjoyed the day and loved having all of his best friends and Sesame Street friends there to celebrate the big 2 with him. I'm just glad I didn't go into labor before the party and was able to have it for him!

Golf Cart

As many of you know, our pending move has been on hold for over seven months due to title issues and now we recently found out that the seller has declared bankruptcy so that brings up some further issues we will need to get past since the house is now part of the bankruptcy estate. We are, however, trying to work through this additional setback and since we do not have any plans to move over the next few months anyway because of the new baby, we figured we will sit tight and see what happens. We will keep everyone posted on the situation.

That being said, today we went to our storage unit and brought the items we had stored for a few months back to our house. Many of them are baby items that we will be needing shortly and others were items that the realtor had suggested we store as we showed our house a few months ago. Included in that was Ben's golf cart rocker, among other toys that we had been forced to store in order to declutter, that he had received from Grandpa G and CC for his first Christmas. Well, what better place for this little vehicle than in Ben's new car and truck-themed bedroom.

How cute does it look?

I think Ben may have been more excited about this toy than ever before, now that he is really into vehicles as well as kid-sized seats and anything at all that rocks. All we heard all afternoon was "beep beep" and "golf." He had a blast rocking on it and loved playing with the golf club and ball that the cart comes with even more. Andrew was thrilled that his son literally spent about 2 hours running around our house practicing his putting. A boy after his own heart!

Fort

We had a new dishwasher delivered yesterday and what an exciting thing the box has become! Andrew took the bottom off of it and Ben immediately claimed it as his fort. He loves to sit in it, bring his toys inside to play and hide from us in it.

Making silly faces for the camera!

Finally, here is one clip of Ben being silly. He's inside his fort playing but it's become a joke that when you ask him how old he will be in a few weeks he tells you 9, 6, 5 - any number but 2! Of course he always eventually tells you the right age with a smirk and will sometimes even say "Nooooo" after he fibs about his age! Despite all of his joking, though, Ben has really become good at his letters and numbers lately. He knows just about all of his letters, most of his colors and can count to 10 when prodded. He likes to point out the letters and numbers whenever we see them in books and signs.

Our favorite letter story is one he has finally gotten over but it was very cute while it lasted. He loves B the best and thought a capital R was a broken B for the longest time. Whenever he would see an R he would become concerned and start saying "Oh no! B!! Uh oh! Oh no!" Now he recognizes that it's an R and will tell us so, but his former confusion is one of our favorite stories.

Team Martin

Ben must take after his dad because he has developed a definite penchant for team sports lately. He loves anything involving a ball and has quite an arm and a kick. He has been throwing and kicking a ball clear across the room for a few months now and can really aim at his target well. I foresee sitting in the bleachers at Saturday morning sports meets in my future :). And poor Andrew is in for a challenge when it's time to teach him to really play sports because Ben is a definite lefty. Must take after his Aunt Michelle since she's the only one in the family who is also a lefty!

Here are a few photos of Ben with his latest con out of me - a soccer ball from the Dollar Tree yesterday. Also, someone at Andrew's company gave him a hat they came across that says Martin on the front so Ben has taken a particular liking to the hat, even though he doesn't understand what it says, and this morning was running around with his soccer ball, clad in his Martin hat.

Poor Bullied Barney

Poor, poor Barney! He has become Ben's largest toy and being the good-natured guy that he is, he just sits there and takes it. Of course he loves the attention even though he acts all annoyed and bothered - sighing and giving us a "please help me" look, as all dogs do.

One of Barney's (few!) tricks is that he can balance his cookie on his nose until you tell him to "go get it" and then he will toss it in the air and catch it in his mouth. Ben likes to do this with Barney and just this morning he and Andrew tried to pull the same stunt with Ben's Matchbox cars on Barney's nose. The big yellow dog just sat there and let them balance the cars on his snout, while Ben had the time of his life watching and switching the cars around, but luckily Barney is smart enough to know not to toss them in the air and try to eat them!

Elmo!

Like most kids, Ben loves Elmo! In fact, Elmo and Big Bird are his Sesame Street favorites and he is very excited because he will be having an early Sesame Street birthday party next Friday morning with his best friends and all of his favorite characters. Here he is with his giant Elmo. It's basically like his baby dolll - he carries it around, shares his chair with Elmo, feeds him his snack and his cup, talks to him, etc.

Assembly Required

With just a few short weeks left until the new baby arrives, our first "two child" item arrived at the house earlier this week - our double stroller. How exciting! Ben kept looking at the unopened box and saying "baby" with a very serious face on. He must have remembered how we talked about getting a new stroller before the baby comes while we were test driving them at Babies R Us!

I have been sick with the flu all week so I have not had much inclination to open up the package earlier, but today I am starting to feel better so Ben and I took it out of the box and assembled it this morning. What a big helper he was. He immediately took Andrew's screwdriver and made sure to check all of the visible screws on the entire stroller and to also provide a full QC (quality control) check on all of the factory-assembled pieces as well!

Hmmm...do I need to use a phillips head or a flat screwdriver for this?

Now that the screwdriver is all set up, Ben gets right to work. Just like his dad, he loves tools and has known what to do with his own toy tools and the few real tools he has been allowed to handle without us ever telling him how to use them. He toddled around the stroller "assembling" it and kept muttering "tools" under his breath as he worked. He also would let out an exasperated "uh oh" whenever he would get to a part that I had not yet attached. I suppose my needing to read the instruction manual was holding up his work!

Stopping to pose for a quick photo...

...or two...

And voila, the finished product! Ben loves his new big boy front seat. He has two cupholders for his cup and snack, a sunshade that he can easily adjust himself and his very own basket under the seat that he is able to access where he can store his toys and other things when we go out. He really liked this feature and immediately filled it with his Matchbox cars.

We took the new stroller for a few strolls around the house and Ben certainly enjoyed the ride while I practiced maneuvering a stroller that is so much longer and bigger than what I am currently used to. I'm sure with a little practice I will get the hang of it!

Finally, a short clip of Ben helping with the assembly. As I mentioned, I have been sick all week so I sound a bit more, eh, masculine, than usual thanks to my cough and scratchy throat.

Valentine's Day Photos

Ben had some Valentine's Day photos taken this year at The Picture People so he wanted to share them with all of his online valentines! :) I was too lazy to scan in our purchased photos so these ones are taken from the online website and therefore have the "Zazzle" watermark on them so just ignore it when viewing...

Pregnancy Update - 33-1/2 weeks

I thought I'd give a quick pregnancy update since I was at the hospital this morning for an ultrasound and had told many of you that I was getting it. The last time I was at the doctor, my uterus was measuring about 3 centimeters smaller than average and I had lost some weight despite already having very low weight gain this pregnancy. The doctor seemed a little concerned since I am diabetic and am therefore prone to larger babies and higher weight gain so this seemed out of the ordinary. So, he sent me for a high resolution ultrasound to make sure that the baby was thriving and that everything looked okay.

I had it this morning and thankfully everything looks great; possibly the baby was pushed more towards my back when the doctor took his measurements so he appeared to be much smaller than he really is. He is healthy and has a heart rate of 139, which is within normal range. He is currently weighing in at approximately 5 lbs. 1 oz., which is in the 48th percentile for this point in the pregnancy - totally normal! Like Ben had at birth, this baby also has tons of hair! We could see it clearly on the ultrasound. That explains the chronic heartburn I have had since about 13 weeks!!

We could also see that the baby is in the downward position already to prepare for birth so I know that he is not breech. At close to 34 weeks, I can assume that he will stay in this position until I deliver.

My due date is accurate and I am still due on 3/24/2008. I am scheduled for another ultrasound in one month to check up on things again so I will keep you posted. Thanks for all of your prayers and concerns.

Truck Book

When Ben was born he received Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy Town book from our brother-in-law Kurt's parents, Paul and Jenny, because it was Kurt's favorite book when he was a little boy. Well, over the past few months it has quickly become Ben's favorite book as well and we cannot go a night without reading through some of it before bedtime. It now stays on Ben's nightstand at all times so that he can leaf through it before he falls asleep and once he wakes up.

Usually he will read it and then toss it onto the ground before he goes to sleep. Last night we were laughing, though, because Andrew went to check on him and found him fast asleep on top of his prized possession as if it were a stuffed animal instead of a hardcover book!