What a trip!

We're back from Germany. It wasn't exactly the trip we'd expected. My grandmother's birthday party (the reason we went) never happened because she broke her arm, needed surgery, and was in the hospital the day her party was to take place. However, despite not seeing the extended family or eating the delicious pastries, we tried to make the best of our trip anyway. I think Benjamin still managed to have a good taste of German life and especially of German food. As do I, he loves bratwurst.


My favorite place in my grandma's village is up the hill behind her house. From there you can see over the fields all around. There are often horses and cows nearby and it's probably the most peaceful spot I know.


My second favorite place is anywhere in the surrounding forests. Benjamin had a lot of fun here too.



I love the old German villages with their old homes and cobblestone streets. Benjamin loved the fountain in a town we went to for lunch. It depicts a wolf and a lamb. Benjamin found them both perfect for riding.


That wasn't all he found to ride, though. In one of the department stores we went into there was a carousel just perfect for him. We couldn't pass up the photo op.



Benjamin found these cars fascinating - especially the little decals people often put on their front grills.


Other ways Benjamin found to entertain himself was by following Grandma around while she mowed the lawn. Of course, great-Grandma had to come along too. :)


And by jumping in the puddles after the rain.


But his favorite diversion of all was carrying around the basket that holds the empty water bottles for recycling. All other toys were forgotten when the basket was around.


So, in summary, despite it not being what we'd planned, it was a fun trip. We got be with friends and enjoy the outdoors and Benjamin got to hear nothing but German for 3 weeks, which was great. I can really tell he understands, even if he doesn't speak back yet. It's really exciting to start communicating.

Off We Go!

We're leaving for Germany tomorrow, so there won't be any posts until the end of September. We're really excited and I think Benjamin will have a lot of fun over there meeting all the family. In the meantime, enjoy a few photos we've taken in the last few days.

Benjamin loves to climb in our cupboard. It used to the cereal cupboard but that only lasted a few days until way too much cereal ended up on the floor. The child lock also proved worthless as he learned how to open it after watching me a few times. So now it's empty except for the phone he put in there for his entertainment. It turns out it's good for my entertainment too.




We decided to take advantage of the remaining beautiful days of Summer and rent a rowboat in Kensington Park. Benjamin didn't seem scared at all and had a great time playing around and helping to row. It was so distracting for him that he even forgot about his hat and I finally succeeded in keeping it on him the entire time.

Happy Anniversary!

Kelly and I have been married 6 years today!! Time flies when you're having fun. It's been the best six years of my life. May we have an eternity more! :)

Making the Most of our New House

We have been having a blast with Benjamin in our new place. The big kitchen, big basement, pool table, and back yard have been such an incredible source of entertainment for our little explorer. Starting with the kitchen floor that needs cleaning daily. Benjamin is always ready and willing to help.




Every pool shark needs someone like Benjamin on their side. He loves to either sit on the table or stand next to it on a stool and fish the balls back out of the pockets (hopefully Kelly's balls, not mine!) He's also dropped one in for me on occasion.



Thanks to the mild Michigan summer, we've spent a lot of time in the backyard. Benjamin's favorite things are blowing soap bubbles and playing with the hose. He'll splash around in the water all day if we'd let him.




We also bought a new grill and have been cooking and eating outside all week. Tonight we had chicken wings and Benjamin just couldn't get enough of them or the squash kabobs we had with them. It made me so happy he was eating meat and veggies again because for weeks now he's refused both. He would only eat bread or dairy products. I guess everything's a phase for kids this age. Yes, I know, the white onesie probably wasn't the best attire for this meal. :)



Otherwise we've been just amazed at how quick Benjamin is to imitate us. He's been folding his arms by himself each time he sits down to eat, as if he were going to pray. He'll come lounge on the couch whenever Kelly is. And he'll stick my pen in his mouth and pull faces, just to get me to laugh. He's such a joy. I wish these days would never end.




I still haven't posted any pictures of the house itself yet because we're getting new carpet. We hope by next week we'll have it in. This carpet is making us sick, literally. The previous owners had 2 dogs and a cat and you can smell them throughout the house. We all have daily allergy attacks and I can't stand the idea that I'm walking on this:


That's after a professional steam cleaning and 30 passes with the vacuum. It's high time for new carpet. I just wish we'd decided this before we brought in the furniture!

Moving = Exhaustion

It's been a long time since I've updated the blog, but we moved into our new house on the 21st and with spending every free moment of every day either packing/unpacking or cleaning, there just wasn't a lot of things to photograph. Oh look - here's Michelle cleaning the disgusting dog fur out of her new freezer! Oh look - here's one of her cleaning dog fur out of the washing machine! Oh and these are good - here's a picture of Michelle packing the toiletries and one of her unpacking them again the next day in a different location! Fascinating! Thought I'd save you that fun stuff. How about pictures of me at the doctor's finally getting anti-biotics after dealing with a sinus infection for 5 weeks thinking it was just a pesky cold? Or a thousand pictures of Benjamin with a runny nose and a double ear infection? Didn't feel the need to take those either. Let's just say it was a stressful, not suitable for blogging kind of month.

However, amoxicillian is a wonder and luckily Benjamin and I are both doing much better. So, here are a few pics from the last week while my mom was back again helping us crazy sickies get things done. Pictures of the house itself will come as soon as things look a little more presentable.

One of my favorite things to do with Benjamin in stores is to find the toys and let him play with all the stuff I'm too cheap/too sensible to buy him. Bless all the toy manufacturers who package their toys in open boxes that say, "Try me!" on them. Free entertainment.


Just hanging out with Dad on the couch after church. (That's a pen he's playing with, by the way).


Now that we have stairs, Benjamin is learning how to go down them safely. He's done it before on smaller stair cases, but ours is pretty hefty. For some reason, he always wants to go down forward (sliding on his bum) rather than on his stomach like he goes up.


We played with bubbles at German mom's group and he loved it immensely. So we had to go buy some to play with at home too. He's definitely a fan, but even more of the wand than the bubbles. He took the wand from me and wanted to dunk it himself, blow them himself and then rub the wand all over the yard. He kind of figured out how to blow, but never thought to put the wand in front of his mouth as he was doing it.







Sometimes Benjamin insists on getting up before he's really awake. This time Kelly indulged him and provided a warm, if perhaps a slightly bony, pillow on which to continue his snooze.


Benjamin loves putting things on his head and tonight he kept doing it with a dishtowel. He'd put it on his head and then go running over to the mirror we have at the end of the hall to see how he looked, before running back to me so I could see him too. Somewhere in that process, it would inevitable fall off and so he'd struggle to replace it and go running off again. It was so adorable. My old camera and the natural delay between pressing the button and taking of the picture, caused me to miss the best shots, but here's a cute one of him running back as it started to fall off. He had so much fun. He was laughing the whole time. I love watching him developing a sense of humor like that. The little things he finds funny are so charming. During lunch it was the sound of his sippy cup rolling across the table. He rolled it back and forth about 20 times, laughing uproariously the entire time.

Happy Birthday Benjamin!!

This week was Benjamin's first birthday!! We celebrated the momentous occasion with a visit from Grandma, his first bite of cake, and a dinner at Red Robin (one of the few non-smoking establishments in this state). Later in the week we also went to a nearby beach. Benjamin seemed to have a great time. He also got plenty of cool presents and new clothes. What a lucky kid!

He also managed to fall face first on a pine cone and cut his cheek just in time for all the pictures. :) So, that's what the marks on his left cheek are, in case you're wondering.

Here are some of my favorite pictures:

We decorated the kitchen the night before and surprised him with the cake and decorations in the morning. As you can guess, the streamers were his favorite.


His first taste of cake. Chocolate with chocolate pudding on top. Guess who made the cake? :) Surprisingly, he stayed really clean. This is as messy as he got.


He got lots of birthday cards and loved looking at all of them.


Then we went to Red Robin. He had a blast playing around, but his favorite part was when they brought out the big icecream and sang to him. He clapped as they approached, but once they started singing to him, he was too enthralled to do anything but stare.




Later in the week we went to the beach and played in the grass.





All that excitement left him pretty worn out in the afternoons.


Just a few more cute photos of our fun week.