Our Two Boys

Benjamin's not much of a baby anymore. He passes by the baby toys every time to get to the cars and other big boy toys, and he and Seth are starting to interact more all the time. Now Benjamin can wriggle away if Seth lays on him, so to the casual observer it looks more like wrestling than the intended flirtation with fratricide. Benjamin is coming up on 19 pounds, compared with Seth's 30, so as he continues to close the gap Seth's experience of brotherhood is likely to change drastrically. We look forward to even sided fighting and being able to mix it up with some variations of "No Benjamin!" along with the traditional "Seth, leave him alone!" But to avoid giving the impression that Seth is always naughty, here is proof that he is often a very helpful and loving brother. "I love my Daddy/Mama/brother" is one of his favorite sayings these days, which never fails to warm a mother's heart.Seth is also a singing machine, adding to the "ABC Song" tunes such as Jesus Loves Me, The B-I-B-L-E, the chorus from Cat Ballou (don't ask), Frosty the Snowman and many, many remixes, medleys and orignal works. Come for a visit and you're guaranteed to have a few extra musical numbers thrown in for the price of regular admission. *They are anxiously awaiting next week's visit from Papa Roger - hurry!

Halloween '09

Saturday was the 2nd annual Hallow's Eve outreach at church. I spent a lot of Friday and Saturday morning baking my increasingly famous Oreo & M&M brownies and frosted sugar cookies, plus caramel corn and rice krispie treats. That was my contribution to the carnival because I knew with the two boys I wouldn't be able to help much that night. Seth had fun playing carnival games and winning pieces of candy, though I don't think he ate hardly any that night. He did get to frost his own cupcake but only ate half of it (the frosting half, of course) before moving on to more movement based activities. We had three bounce houses of varying sizes. Here he is trying to get into the 3 and under version, still getting used to being a monkey. By the way - thanks to cousin Connor for the monkey costume. He had a lot of fun being a monkey.

After that he went straight to the huge bounce house with a slide that was set up outside on the lawn. He spent quite a while making the loop down the slide and back inside to go again. That's how he ended up with these pink cheeks. He'll probably understand the carnival games a lot better next year but he did have a good time.

Once we got home he didn't think much about the candy he'd won, but he did notice the bowl sitting by the door. After I explained that the candy in the bowl was for the little kids who came to the door and not for him, he was so happy for each trick or treater who came because they had gotten their candy. After watching a few times he jumped right in and started dropping candy bars in pillowcases like a pro. I think he was intrigued that we had so many visitors and was quite satisfied that he knew just what to do. After each one said thank you (like they are always trained to do) Seth would yell after them "You're welcome! See ya later!" I think that was the most fun thing for me all day - that after he'd had a fun evening and was all tired out he could come home and relax watching "The Great Pumpkin" and be so happy for the other kids getting their candy. It may not be the same next year, but what fun memories from this one.