Mother's Day Weekend

I had Mother's Day weekend off and we had almost nothing planned for a change.  The weather was GORGEOUS and we had such a glorious, lazy weekend.  Besides taking me out for breakfast and shopping Sunday morning, we stayed at home and played like crazy in the yard.  We slathered on the sunscreen and pulled shorts and hats and summer clothes out.  We turned off the heat and opened windows and doors.  We planted plants and trees (which were promptly killed by the swift return of winter and a foot of snow the next week :-()  We made a pulley system in the trees with the pulley system supplies Aunt Wende sent us.  They took turns pulling a teddy bear in a basket back and forth on a zip line.  We blew thousands of long-lasting bubbles with the amazing bubble stuff Oma and Opa sent.  We swung in the swings for hours.  We dug holes (I am still constantly digging up the horrid wild rose), and Ben cut the grass and the "owie plants" with scissors, and we watered the new plants and trees and made mudpies.  We let Wall-e out for the first time and he LOVES being outside with us, of course.  Ben tied a string to his Tonka truck and pushed it around the yard while Wall-e chased the string for a long time.  Then the boys played teddy-bears-in-Tonka-trucks-roll-down-the-hill, which is a blast.  Then Ben rode in his Tonka truck down the hill.  Then they rode their bikes around the driveway.  For the weekend, I completely forgot about work and fell in love with our lives.  We have a darling house with a wonderful yard for the boys to play in.  The boys have finally started playing together really well, and they have a blast a lot of the time.  Their giggles and laughter are wonderful to hear and I'm so thankful for their health.
Happy Mother's Day to all the other mothers out there, and I hope your weekend was as nice as mine!

Easter weekend

My latest work schedule has me working every other weekend, so we end up packing tons of activities into my weekends off.  I had Easter weekend off and we had no less than three Easter egg hunts, a potluck, an Easter dinner, a lunch/playdate, a bathroom to finish remodeling, and Tim was doing a race.  The only thing we didn't do is go watch Tim race, which I still feel bad about.  I worry about planning so much and wearing the boys out, but they did fine until Monday, when their fatigue became quite apparent.  We went shopping for groceries and I wanted Ben to pick out a birthday present for Oliver.  That didn't go so well and in the future I should not take both boys to buy one birthday present.  I finished shopping with two screaming boys and everyone looking at me with pity.  I really tried to tell myself it was because they were exhausted, not because they were truly selfish and greedy over presents.  Oh well.
I forgot the camera for every single Easter egg hunt, which is just horrible.  They were so cute, and Ben gave away almost every other egg he found.  "Look, Zoe!  I found an egg!  You can have it."

Ben updates

Ben has a made-up word:  "afterday."  It seems to mean "later this afternoon" or "after you get home from work" or "this evening."

One day I got pretty grumpy.  I stubbed my toe on the staircase and it hurt really bad, then we got in the car to go to a birthday party and I realized my watch was 25 minutes slow.  The car clock told me we were going to miss 25 minutes  of the fun birthday party so I got even grumpier.  Ben was quiet for a while and then he softly said something like, "Don't be mad, Mom.  I'm trying to 'pologize."  I quickly tried to reassure him nothing was his fault and he did not need to apologize and I would stop being grumpy.  He hasn't really been that aware of our moods until now.

Oliver's words

Updates on Oliver's language:
turtle = "teetle"
scissors = "shuhshuh"
clothes = "koze"
inside = "side"
outside = "side"
upstairs = "shares"
downstairs = "shares"
diaper change = "dipuh shange"
Often he calls Ben "Ben Ben" which we think is really cute.  Sometimes it sounds like Batman, but we don't think he is calling him Batman.
kung fu = "kung poo" (and he runs around the house karate chopping and yelling it)
Optimus (one of the Transformers) = Mopopus (too cute!)
banana = "neena"
again = "den"
pirate's booty (snack) = "pite booby"
necklace = "nekakace"
pretty = "pity"
piggy bank = "penpank"
And guess what he has learned to say?!:  "Watch Ben!"  He actually says that more than "Watch Mom!" or "Watch Dad!"  He he he ha ha ha Payback!
what's that? = "what dat?"  (he says this constantly.  If I am reading a magazine, he points to every single thing on the page and asks me "what dat?")