A House FULL of Fun

A few months ago, I was talking to my mom on the phone about how we absolutely love living in Texas, but that the bad part is we never get to see anybody from my side of the family unless we travel to them.

Since that conversation I have been visited by my dad, Courtney, Logan, Rachel, Evelyn, Adalie, Jackson, Griffin, and Ashland, who is pregnant with a little girl due at the end of July.

So I am eating my words all right, but I am doing it with a smile on my face, because it has been so much fun!

Here's the story. Logan is going to Dental school in Ohio, and Griffin is going to Law school in Oklahoma. Because they are both students, they both got summer breaks this last week. Matt however, is not in school (although he has officially signed up to take the GRE for Hospital Administration in July. Cross your fingers!). Anyway, no such break was given to him. But because we all wanted to see each other, Logan and Griffin's families drove several thousands of miles to get to our home for one crazy week.

Everybody arrived Sunday night and got the standard tour of our home and shown their rooms. Griffin and Ashland got the cowboy room (because pregnant ladies always get the good stuff), and Logan and Rachel got an inflatable air mattress on the office floor, surrounded by three pack n' plays gathered up from various friends and neighbors. Logan and Rachel are troopers :)

The rest of the week was full of morning walks, backyard fun, movies, delicious food, playing at the park, visiting Matt at work, a trip to the Austin Children's Museums, Monopoly Deal, BBQ's, shopping, hanging out with cousins, and a photo shoot.

Six adults and four kids, all under the age of two and a half--five kids, if you count Jace, who was here three mornings of the week...six if you count Griffin and Ashland's baby :)--made for a pretty noisy time, but I would not have traded it for anything. It was cool to be with my brothers and their families as the "grown ups" and to watch our kids play as "the cousins." I guess this was really the first time we have ever done anything like this independently from my mom and dad, so it was new and exciting. And, did I mention? Very fun. Here are some pictures from the week, with very few captions underneath because I have learned from sad experience that putting captions under every picture when there are more than 50 pictures is just insane. Sorry.

Along with the pack n' plays I borrowed a few booster chairs to accommodate all the little bodies. This is a look into our morning feeding time, which began directly after all children in the house were awake...usually by 6:00 am. No sleeping in around here!

The adults ate pretty well, too. Logan is a "breakfast guy" and created fabulous dishes for us each morning, including bacon egg sandwiches on chibbata bread, and Eggs Benedict, a new favorite of mine. He is an excellent cook, and an excellent presenter. Each dish was plated beautify. :)

Most mornings we would walk around the neighborhood, but one time we went to the park and just played until the kids were ready to go home. It was here I realized how much Bennett loves the slide. What a funny boy.

One day, Evelyn found Ashland's mascara. I found Evelyn. Rachel found the makeup remover.


Matt was extremely busy this week, since it was his first week as the new Executive Officer and his unit is getting ready to do month long training in Louisiana and then deploy to Iraq. He didn't get home until after 6:30 most nights, and one night not until almost 9:00. Matt is a hard workin' man!

He called one afternoon to say that he had a break in his schedule, though, and asked if we could come see him for a little bit. So we all loaded up the cars and went to check out his new office and go out to lunch. Poor Matt, working so hard when we were all having fun without him. What a good guy I married!

Bennett and Evelyn were such good cousins on this visit. They played together pretty well, even though a lot of their play was only next to each other and not really with each other. When they did acknowledge the others' presence though, it was very cute.



One popular bonding activity Bennett and Evelyn did do together was playing in the mud in our backyard. This was a load of fun for the whole family.

Notice the trail of tiny footprints from the back door to the kitchen...

Griffin and Ashland had to be back in Oklahoma by Thursday, so we had a hot dog and s'more roast the night before to send them off.

Thursday morning, Logan and Rachel's family went with me and Bennett to the Austin Children's Museum. It was so cool! I have never really been to a place like this, and Logan and Rachel (long-time veterans of museums) said it was small, but good, so I guess it was worth it. Bennett had a blast because he could touch, climb on, jump off, chew on, anything he wanted and not get into trouble. I had fun because Bennett is my excuse to get to play with super cool toys.

It was a great day, and by the time we got home I think every body was ready for a nap.

Friday was a shopping day, and we started it off with a visit to my favorite store, Goodwill. I LOVE this store! While there, I got the cutest little toddler bed and lawn chair for Bennett. Bargain hunting is so much fun, especially when you find the bargains.

Our parade of shopping carts

The bed I found for Bennett is sitting in our garage in pieces, but this is a picture of what it looks like (minus a few nicks and scratches we will have to clean up later.) I am so excited about this!

The lawn chair. Bennett thinks he is so cool in this, even though it's purple.

At the very beginning of the week, my mom sent a package for the grandchildren of matching denim outfits, which was a pretty strong indication we needed to take pictures while we were all together. We decided to take it one step further and all match in denim and red shirts. Surprisingly, I had enough red shirts in the house to outfit my entire family, including a red maternity top for Ashland. I never realized how popular this color was at our house.

Me and my brothers.

Logan and Rachel

Logan and Rachel's adorable little family. Evelyn is two. Jack and Addie are eight months. I was the photographer for all of these pictures, and I have to say I did a pretty good job getting all of these little ones to look in my direction and somewhat smile all at the same time. I don't mean to brag, but when you're good, you're good.

Griffin, Ashland, and baby girl. These two are hard to get a decent picture of, because they are both so goofy! (Not goofy looking, just goofy in general. I felt the need to clarify here.)

I did manage a few good ones. :)

Unfortunately, Matt was at work when we took these, so he is not pictured here. It was kind of fun to have a little shoot with just me and Bennett though (although I look like a psychotic crazy woman. Bennett totally carries us in these).

Evelyn Kate

Bennett Wayne

Adalie Jane (I LOVE her sumo wrestler stance!)

Jackson Kelly

The Twiners

Haha! This picture cracks me up! We were trying to get them all to look in the same direction and smile (we had very unrealistic hopes for these pictures) so we used a Tickle-Me Elmo to try to accomplish this. This is their reaction to that.

The cousins, May 2010

A Berry Bennett Blog

If you are the kind of person who feels like gagging whenever reading about other people's kids, and how cute they are, and how smart they are, and how funny they are, then this is not the blog for you.

Get excited.

This blog entry should actually go after the one where everybody came to visit, but I got messed up and put it first. Anyway...it has been an incredibly busy time in our lives here, as is evident from my numerous blog updates. However, I feel the need to post some random things that this boy of ours has done lately. Granted, I am his mom, so I am a little biased on his cuteness.

First order of business...we got Bennett a new pool!

Obviously this is not it. This was actually me trying to sweep the kitchen floor without him underfoot, so I put him in the sink just long enough to sweep my pile into the dustpan. Turns out that's all the time he needed to figure out how that shiny handle worked. On a related side note, we also did a fair amount of mopping on this day.

This is Bennett's new pool. If you will recall, we had a four foot deep pool last year that didn't make it through the summer due to extreme overuse. Hey, not one day under 100* for two months straight? You would spend a lot of time in the water, too. So this summer we wanted to get another water thing, but we didn't want to be constantly on the lookout for little guys who can't quite swim yet. So we settled on this inflatable splash park. It provides Bennett and me a good 30 minutes of entertainment a day, which is pretty good for a guy who's attention span is equivalent to that of a goldfish. A very cute goldfish.

Bennett has also started doing other new and exciting things as of late. Some of his newest adventures include...

Brushing his teeth. Bennett loves this activity, which is something I am encouraging. Whenever he sees one of us brushing he gets so excited he can barely control himself. We got him his own little toothbrush when he first started getting teeth, but for some reason his is never as good as mine or Matt's...

Point made.

We have also started playing games. Some of my personal favorites are "Hide and Seek", "Where Did it Go?" (usually played with the TV remotes), and "Laser Tag".

This is a game we started with our cat, and continue with our son. It is so fun to watch him try to figure out how something can be on him that he cannot feel or touch. A side of me feels like this game is a little bit mean...

We have started baking more, too. There just always seems to be a church function, military bake sale, neighbor in need, etc. where chocolate is required. And I am always more than willing to supply chocolate.

Bennett is an excellent helper in the kitchen. Like me, his favorite part of baking is cleaning up.

And speaking of being clean, this is the scrubby-brush we use to wash dishes, and Bennett can't get enough of that good soapy flavor. No, really. I can't keep this kid away from the thing. I am afraid that if I ever have to wash his mouth out with soap when he gets older he will ask me for more. Gross.

And now, the most exciting news...BENNETT IS WALKING!! kind of :) He has been trying to stand on his own a little bit lately, but never for more than a few seconds, and then it was right back to crawling. But this Monday he started trying to stand a lot, and for longer and longer periods of time. That night we went over to an older couples' home for dinner (Bennett's adopted Oma and Opa Von Reugish, from Germany) and all of a sudden he just stood up and toddled across the room to me. It was enormously exciting, to say the least.

The best part is that Matt was there to see his first steps, which was something we weren't sure was going to happen with all the training for Iraq he has coming up. I also feel ready for this new phase of Bennett's life, which is saying something, because if he had done this a month ago I probably would have pushed him down. But now I am genuinely happy and excited that our baby boy is becoming an honest-to-goodness toddler! Yikes!

Of course, Bennett has rarely tried to walk since these initial steps. He is quite content (and quite speedy) with his awkward hand-and-foot bear crawl. But the point is, he can do it. And he will do it, for the rest of his life. Walking is funny like that.

Nearly every person in the entire World walks, but when you see your baby doing it, it is suddenly the most miraculous thing ever. I will definitely have the camera ready next time.

Oh yeah. Get excited.

My Latest Excuse

I realize I never updated this last week, and I have a very good reason for that.

I was dead last week.

For three days and four nights, I existed only in the shell of a body which was trying its darndest to do me in. And I have to say, it almost won. But I pulled through in the end, thanks to the care and affection (and constant drugs) from my sweet husband. It is unfortunate for you however, because I discovered I have some pretty deep thoughts when under the influence of NyQuil, which I am sure the World is missing out on.

The point is, that I am back. And while our son has been a shirtless mess for the past week, surviving on a diet of "man food" and learning how to shoot squirrels through the bathroom window with a BB gun, we are all alive and doing much better.

No really, I could not have done this without Matt. He was wonderful to both Bennett and me, and he took excellent care of the house, the cooking, the laundry, and the Lysoling (to the point of spraying me down while I slept) during my absence. Thank you, Mattie!

So, life goes on. And I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, I have some very exciting things to update on this blog!

The bad news is, I am not doing it right now. Because, as I said earlier, Matt did an excellent job of taking care of the house while I was sick, but since he has turned it back over to me it has become a disheveled pile of half-folded laundry, strewn toys, and I'm pretty sure there is something living in the pile of dishes sitting in our sink.

But sometime soon I will post about Bennett's sickness (oh yes, it was a fun week), my San Antonio visit to Bekah and Nathan's new, and may I add, adorable, apartment, and our latest form of summer entertainment.

Until then, my friends.

Duty calls.