Neh Neh and Bim

One for the scrapbook:

Christian calls Ben - "Bim"
Ben calls Christian - "Neh Neh" --- obviously, that sounds nothing like "Christian"

"Bim" is my little hitter. He gets mad a his brother and SMACK! I often hear Christian at the other end of the house saying "Bim! DON'T HIT ME!" followed with screaming. I've never had trouble with Christian hitting. The general rule at our house is that you can only hit Daddy. This may seem strange, but Aaron really likes to play fight with them, and he lets them hit him as hard as they possibly can. I wonder how long it will be before their punches really start to hurt. I suppose we will switch to boxing gloves then.

Christian is getting to be so mature. He helps me cook, and it's actually helpful. He takes his dishes to the sink, after asking to be excused from the table. He still prefers his hands over his fork-we're working on that. This little kid can even buckle himself up in his car seat (thanks to Poppy). He and Ben carry on conversations all the time. Christian can understand Ben better than I can. Maybe it's a second child thing but Ben doesn't put a lot of effort into enunciating his words. He has his own little language that is very hard to understand. He talks constantly, but it's just gibberish. I'm not sure if I should be concerned or not. I have been warned by many that the second child can sometimes speak slower or develop proper speech patterns a little later than the first. Time will tell.

Our Boys

Thanksgiving

I loved this tree

The boys really liked shooting, especially Christian. He unloaded every time he got his hands on the gun. Poor little Ben got his finger pinched and was done with the whole thing.

This is just the adults shooting. My first time with a 357, and I actually liked it. Aaron insisted that I shoot it, but I wasn't going near the 30 ought 6. <---is that how you say it??

Chipmunk Cheeks

Making a "fire"

Bashful

Ben Kisses

We did things a little different for Thanksgiving this year. We went to my Dad's hunting camp. It was nice to get away from the business of our lives here lately. Dad's house doesn't have a television, internet, cell phone signal, or running water. Just kidding about the running water part! It was fun to walk around and take some pictures and disconnect from the world. It was relaxing. Christian went deer hunting for the first time, and he did really well. They didn't shoot anything, but he was pretty quiet for the most part. The boys got to see Daddy (for lack of better words) gut and skin a dear. It didn't bother him as much as it did me.

Annihilation

So, we are about to leave to go out of town and I'm helping Aaron pack up the car when I notice a vibrant pink color out of the corner of my eye. My roses are blooming? Huh? I don't understand how roses work but they bloom in the fall also, or at least mine do. Is that normal? You have to understand that I have never taken care of these bushes. They were here when we bought the house, and it seems like every little old lady that comes over stops by my roses and begins to tell me that I need to prune them, throw fish guts on them, water them, and so and and so forth. I have still failed at doing any of these things. These poor roses have always kept on blooming in spite of me. Anyways, I was really drawn to the color BECAUSE it's winter and everything is dead. Even the rose bush looks dead, aside from these blooms. I took a couple of pictures because I wanted to remember how pretty they were, because they may be dead before next year comes. Oh, and the annihilation came shortly afterwards. My boys noticed Mommy's sudden interest in them and they too became interested. After I took my pictures they took a baseball bat and golf club to them. I had my back turned while this took place, and turned to see all of these "vibrant" little pink pedals scattered about the dead grass. It was kind of sad...

WARNING...

Blog overload! It's been a while since I have posted anything, and there are a ton of things that have taken place in the last month. Here are some highlights below. I still have more to go...maybe another night.

Halloween

My Little Firemen! How cute!!!! I didn't think we were going to be able to go trick-or-treating this year because they had been under the weather BUT they woke up Halloween morning bright eyed and bushy tailed. I didn't have a costume for them so we made a run to our local Wal-Mart. I found these costumes and they were really for an 8 year old little boy. I decided to buy them anyways and altered them MAJORLY. They turned out pretty good, though, and the boys loved to waltz around in them. Christian kept calling his ax a "hook" -strange... They still were them around the house.
They were really good about saying "Thank You" after they got their candy. We went to a friends house for our traditional Halloween party, then we just went around our neighborhood. I love our neighborhood. Every is so good to the kids.

Baby Shower

This is my good friend, Natalie. We grew up together and I had the honor, with some other friends, of throwing her a baby shower. This is her first pregnancy and I am thrilled to say that her butt is FINALLY bigger than mine. He He.. Just kidding Natalie. Those of you that don't know her need to be informed that she has always been fit and trim and I have totally been jealous of how easy it is for her to stay that way. She is an adorable pregnant women, and I love her dearly. These pictures aren't very good, but I was a little preoccupied with the event itself. Congratulation again Natalie, you are going to make an excellent Mommy.

Happy Birthday Mom

This is Mom's Birthday. She came to the house, and I think the boys were more excited about it all then she was. Don't worry, I won't reveal your age, Mom.

Game

I can't remember the name of this game, because I had never heard of it before this day. Maybe it was called...Man on the Mountain...or....Monkey in the Middle...I don't know...basically the person in the middle was like a "King" and you are suppose to overpower him to get his spot. They had a lot of fun playing it, because it involved lots of wrestling. Thank you Momma Beth for letting us rough house in he middle of your house. Thankfully nothing was broken.

Bowling Party

This is Bryson's Birthday Party, at the bowling alley. This is also their first encounter with a real bowling ball...very fun!

Please Stay Small...

...and cute, and sweet, and funny - forever. I love the way you two play together. You both make me laugh so much during the day. Just like now. Climbing up into a bookshelf giggling because you have to fold in half to fit. I am giggling too. You guys come up with some funny things to do. I love you both so much.

Abou that...

weird picture of the aloe plant. I am still not very good at using my camera. I just now figured out what aperture meant. Oh, so much to learn. Here is what I think: I am just going to use my point and shoot camera for the everyday snapshots of the boys. Meanwhile I will study my "nice" camera's manual, and use it whenever I am trying to be professional-ha ha, OR whenever I get better at it. I have been using my new camera in the wrong "mode" ever since I got it, bummer. The aloe picture was taken by someone who actually knows how to take pictures. I wanted to post it for comparison reasons. Basically to see how ignorant I am about photography.

Organizing

So, I'm in this crazy organizing frenzy. As I was working on Ben's closet, making some serious headway, the boys decided to make it their "hide out." I think that was my sign to take a break and just play with them for a little bit. Why is it so hard to just play with them more often? They are growing so fast. Isn't it more important to invest in them and than to dust the mantel? I am such a task oriented person that I find it hard to put the everyday "housework" to the side and just focus more one these wonderful little boys that God has bless me with. I just don't want to look back and say "Ya know, my house was clean when you boys were small...and...I spent a lot of time making sure your closets were in order...and...I wish that I would have had my priorities straight...if I had known that the time I had with you two was so short, I would have done things differently." A friend of mine says it right when she tells me that I have to look at things from an eternal perspective. As parents we are investing in our children's souls, and we shouldn't set our eyes on the things of this world. Don't get me wrong, we still need clean underwear, but there is a delicate balance. Somehow my scale tends to tilt toward the "task" side. Every so often I have this reality check, and then I think to myself, "I have to make sure I do more with my children than I do with the world, or the house." I guess that's the long and drawn out point I am trying to make. More Family, less everything else.

26

UUUGGGHHH! I'm 26 now. Ya know, I really don't feel 26. I feel like I am still 16, just with more of lifes experiences. Aaron surprised me with this cake. Isn't that sweet?

First Hunt

This was Christian's very first hunting trip. Aaron took him on a dove hunt, and also invited a friend. The weather was terrible and only one dove came into the field. It was a good experience and Christian had an absolute blast. Thankfully he doesn't know the difference between a good hunt and a bad hunt.

Check out the ear muffs! Aaron suggested these to protect Christian's ears from the gun shot. Good thinking, honey. That never even crossed my mind. Christian was absolutely freaking out at the thought of putting theme on his head. I mean REALLY upset about it. Of course Ben loved them, and especially loved that he couldn't hear anything when he had them on. That was just too cool for him. So after Christian saw Ben having so much fun with them he had a change of heart. As you can see from the pictures, he had no problem with it.

PS Mode vs IP Mode

Experiment...

I'll explain later....

Growing Up

They LOVED Aunt Jackie's IPOD

Ben looks like a little man in this picture.

Sportsman Lake

Mr. Cool

Bryson "showed up" Uncle Aaron in this last caption

Like Father Like Son

Bound & Determined to master the mokey bars.

Aaron and I had to take care of some business in his hometown one Saturday and we decided to go to this lake to let the kids run rampid. Uncle Josh, Bryson and Skylar met us up there and they all played together. Christian and Ben love their cousins dearly. The boys played on the playground, fed the ducks, threw rocks in the lake....just all kinds of fun kid stuff. They had paddle boats but it had been raining on and off the whole time and knowing our luck we would get all the way across the lake and it would come a torrential downpour.