To Ben:

Well buddy, you're a kindergartner! I can hardly believe it. You still seem so little to me, and even littler when I see you at school with all the big kids. You keep telling me that you miss me too much to go to school all day, and I miss you too much to be away from you all day too.

The thing is, I can't help but want to keep you here. You are such a special little guy. Your daddy and I have talked about how much we love your innocence and your openness. We've never met another kid who feels things the way you do. You wear your heart so close to the surface that everything seems to affect you so deeply. Love and praise make such a difference to you and I know the reverse is true too. You want everyone to love you, and you try so hard to make the people around you happy. And you do. All the time.

It's so easy to make you happy, and it's also really easy to hurt you. We love the softness of your heart. We love how you look out at the world with such innocence and faith. We don't want that to change and we worry about you out there without us to protect you every minute of every day. But you are growing up.

It seems to soon to send you out there to start to make your own way, but I know you're going to be amazing. I know that your kindness and gentleness will make a difference to the teachers and kids at your school. I know that you are smart, and talented, and so funny! You'll make lots of friends and learn lots of amazing things, and I'm praying that when I can't be there, God will guard your precious little heart and keep it safe from harm. I know that there are bound to be some tears and struggles, but I'm trusting that they will only help you grow stronger and braver, not knock you down. I'm praying that you will learn to trust God to take care of you, but also that you will learn to trust and believe in yourself, because that's what school is for... To teach you the things you need to know to be able to walk without me holding your hand every step... But Ben? Even though you're getting bigger, and even though I know you need to be able to do things without me, will you keep holding my hand sometimes? You don't really need it as much as you used to, but I do and that will never change.

I love you buddy. Just exactly the way you are.

Christmas In May

Here's my Benjamin singing a Christmas carol to help all the springtime snow get you into the Christmas spirit.

Your Face

I love your face buddy.

"First" Picnic

Ben's been begging me for months now to go on a picnic, so today I dug the picnic basket out of a corner of the garage and obliged him. Sammy got to come too. And then of course, there was one of Ben's special friends. (Who he insisted needed to be in that first picture. I made sure to take a close-up of it just in case you couldn't quite make it out there on the basket with the boys.) We had one of Ben's favorite snacks: cucumbers and "quey-quey" dip. (Creamy cucumber dressing.) I thought the cheese-man sandwiches would be a big hit, but the boys were strangely reluctant to eat any parts of their men. Sammy especially had trouble deciding where to bite his guy and kept putting it up to his mouth and changing his mind. I had to bribe them with Smarties in the end to get them to eat my special treat sandwiches. Sigh. They were a bit of a wasted effort I guess. Where was Hannah during all of this? Taking her usual afternoon nap on her stomach. (Yes, I know that's not allowed, but it's the only way she'll sleep. You stay up with her all night long and nurse her every hour and we'll see how hard you'll try to make her sleep on her back during the day. The poor little thing was exhausted.)

Ben the Policeman

The day finally came. Halloween. I don't think I've ever seen Ben look forward more to day before, unless you count visits from Grampa. And we don't usually tell him about those ahead of time for obvious reasons. Halloween is impossible to keep a secret though, so the anticipation was pretty intense this year.

It all started with his preschool party the day before, but I'll post about that another day. On the actual day it all started with carving his pumpkin. Ben picked out a spider pattern, even though I tried to persuade him to go with a cute little cat or something equally pleasing to Mommy, but his mind was made up.
In the end, pumpkin carving was a little grosser than he was expecting, poor guy. I made him think I was going to force him to help scoop out the insides, only because I thought the pictures were funny.
In the end we went with something a little less messy, and for him a lot more fun. After I had each section cut out I let him "poink" out the pieces.
This was quite thrilling for him, and if you saw my blog, you saw how pleased he was with the results of all our (my) hard work. I'm hoping next year he'll be more into the whole process, but if not, there's always poinking to be done.
After pumpkin carving it was time for the big event. Trick or treating. Ben really enjoyed that part last year, he has collecting tendencies that I think make it hard for him to stop, so I was expecting pretty much what we got. Lots of trick-or-treating.

Aunty came along this year which added to the fun, and left Mommy free to take as many pictures as she wanted. This made me happy on many levels.
Ben is almost always polite and sweet natured, and we always make sure he practices his manners at each house we visit, but his four-year-old nature put a strain even on his generally well-mannered self. Actually, it was his four-year-old nature and Kit Kat bars that did it. Let me explain.

Ben loves Kit Kat bars. They're his very favorite. He calls them Kit bars. At the very first house we went to Sammy got two Kit bars:
And Ben got none. LOL.
Poor Ben. Sammy kept getting them too. This was, of course, hysterically funny for Ang and I. (I think his daddy felt sorry for him.)

FINALLY after two or three more Kit-less houses for Ben, this were looking grim let me tell you, a very nice man showed up at his door with a bowl of chocolate bars and let Ben pick his own. He was thrilled.
So thrilled, that he managed to convince the man to let him have three of them. I think he was worried this was his one and only chance. He had many more Kit bars in his future though, and after those first few moments of tension relaxed and had a lovely time walking our neighborhood chatting about his costume with the people that answered their doors.

After a few blocks, about twenty houses, he was all tuckered out, and since the wagon was full of his brother the firetruck, he was quite happy to hop on board another form of transportation for his last few houses and then the walk to the van.
I think it's fair to say all of us had a blast making all of Ben's little Halloween dreams come true this year. It's fun to take out the little ones in their costumes just because they are so stinkin' cute, but I think it's even funner to take out my little boy now that he actually understands what's going on. The funniest part was that all week he was looking forward to eating all that candy, and I actually told him he could eat as much as he wanted that day and I wouldn't say no, and in the end I think he probably ate about five things. That won't last though will it? Not if he takes after his mother, that's for sure.

Overheard at the park today...

"I'm quite sure your mommy wouldn't like it if you play so rough.
How come you play so rough?
See... You have to play nice, or your mommy won't like it."

(All with expressive hand gestures, and a calming hand on the shoulder.)

Sigh. That's my Ben. Odd as can be.

The Party's Over!

(I know, I know... I still haven't finished Sam's birthday posts, but it's just SO much easier if I do them right away! Once I get behind I just lose all motivation. I promise I'll get Sammy all caught up, PLUS work on his mushy lovey dovey birthday post from me this week! Sorry Sammy!)

Well, we actually managed to have a birthday party with most of Ben's friends here in Yorkton. With the way our luck's been going, I'm pretty amazed that we pulled it off.

Here are some pictures from Ben's big day: Oh... Ben. Your mommy worked so hard to make that cake just for you from scratch! And all you wanted to do was play with your new toys. Your lucky she thinks the whole thing was hysterically funny and just plain adorable, you little pouter.
Well, my Benjamin... I think you had a pretty good day. You got to play with your uncles Neal and Dale all afternoon, you had watermelon (as requested) for supper, you got some really fancy new toys, and you got all kinds of loving from you friends and family. You deserve it, my sweet little man. You're the best kid in the whole Earth!

Good Morning Benjamin!

This is how Ben woke up on his fourth birthday:

Ladybug! Ladybug! You can never go home!

Ben has a new obsession. Well, actually, it's not that new, only sort of.

He's been obsessed with ladybugs for a while now, he's just added capturing and keeping them to the mix. Honestly, if I let him, he'd sleep with a jar full of the things. I make him let them out after about two hours so they don't die. It's always a bit traumatic for him, but I can't watch Ben genocide our entire backyard ladybug population. While he has them trapped behind glass he is always very happy though, and what makes for sweeter pictures than a cute little boy and his jar of imprisoned insects?

Ben Likes Spring.

See that smile? That's pretty much how Ben looked the whole time we were outside today.

Afterwards he looked like this:

Sammy looked like this:
Caught in the act. Sigh. (He's pulling all the pins out of the globe and throwing them onto the floor, in case you were wondering.)

On The Phone

Ben loves talking on the phone. Today while he was talking to Dad he had to go do something so he handed me the phone and said, "Here, hold Grampa for me, and I will be right back to talk to him some more."



Once he gets you on the phone he's pretty hard to get rid of because he has a lot to say on the subjects of fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, fire alarms, burglar alarms, and various other safety related issues. I'm half kidding. Actually, he hasn't been bringing up that stuff on the phone with people as much lately, which is, I'm sure, a great relief to Glen's mom, my dad, my mom, my sister, and Noah. He still checks for a smoke detector in every new building we enter though. He's very safety conscious.

Sam shocked the socks off of some of the moms at Ben's preschool the other day because of Ben's obsession. Us mommies were standing outside Ben's classroom waiting for "class" to be over and Sam pointed up at the smoke detector on the ceiling and said, "Tector!" Then he pointed at the extinguisher on the wall and said, "Estingisher!" Then he pointed up at the exit sign and said, "Exit! Light!" You should have seen their faces. Especially since he was in his Tigger outfit at the time and they had all just been saying things to him like, "Hi cutie! Are you tigger? You're tigger! See! You're a tiger! Can you jump? Jump? No? Awe, aren't you a little sweetie."

Anyways, if you've got some free time and feel like talking to either of my children about fire safety or just hearing "What are you doing?" asked over and over, give us a call.

I Can't Think of a Title For This

Ben's got a new friend.
Her name is Sophie and, as you can see, she's lovely and Ben is smitten.
They play together so nicely, it's so sweet.

Sophie has a little brother named Kenny.
I wish I could tell you that Sammy and Kenny get along just as well,
but they only tolerate each other...
It will come though. They are both pretty little.

Here are Ben and Sophie at the Zeller's restaurant
after an afternoon of playing at the playland.
(Where I work, or at least, where I have been working.)
There was no one sitting across the table from them,
but they both insisted on sitting side by side like that.
Cute. (Also, don't you love her hair? Sigh. So pretty.)

Here's Ben looking snazzy in nylons.
He was helping me sort socks and at one point I looked up
and he had tried on one of my knee-highs.

That's my Ben. He's not afraid to make a statement.
What a weirdo. Good thing weirdos are my favorite kind of kid.

Preschool Party

I figure if I post this today it still happened the same month it got posted. Tomorrow, it would be too late.

Ben had his preschool Christmas party on the 19th of December. They sort of do a mini Christmas concert and all the parents are invited to come and take pictures of their little Christmas angels.

Here's Ben wrapping his present for his teacher, Mrs. Haider. (At the beginning of the year a friend of mine who has a child in the same school told me that the teacher her son had the previous year is amazing, and that I should try to get Ben into her class. I was too late though. All her spots were full and I was stuck with the new girl. I wouldn't have worried if I'd met the new girl though. She's also amazing. Ben loves her very much. The other day I dropped him off at school and he kept telling me he didn't want to go to the purple room. He only wanted to see Mrs. Haider. I had no idea what he was talking about, since none of the rooms in the school are purple, but assured him he would see Mrs. Haider. When we got inside he was still adamant that he didn't want to go in the purple room. He only likes Mrs. Haider, not the purple teacher. That's when the light bulb went off. The other teacher's name is Mrs. Perpeluk. Mrs. Purple. LOL.)


Ben was kind enough to help Mrs. Haider open her present. My little gentleman.

No explanation necessary for this one.

He got pretty excited/embarrassed after that and ran round and round the room.

Check out his tongue here.

The level of skill and concentration required for preschool crafts is really unbelievable. No wonder he crashes on the couch when he gets home.

Some of the kids in his class have trouble staying in their seats during story time. Ben tried hard to sit nicely, but when there's a reindeer pop-up book and a whole bunch of kids standing in front of you... (Actually, it got much worse than this. A couple of the kids managed to shove everyone else out of the way and stood about two inches away from the book while all the others yelled, "I can't see! I can't see!")

This is more like it. (It didn't last long.)

And the Grand Finale... Jingle Bells. Poor Mrs. Haider. I've seen them do this with her in class with no parents and they belt it out. As soon as the parents get there hardly any of them sing.