December

We have had a busy month and I haven't had time to update the blog! Here's a recap of what the kids have been up to these past couple of weeks! Carl and Ben had their first overnight campout. The didn't venture too far (the backyard) but both had a great time! They raked up pine needles and leaves before pitching the tent and Ben had fun running from one pile to the next! Ella and I joined them for hotdogs, Smores, and campfire songs, but opted to sleep inside the house! Fortunately, Ben didn't seem to mind that we were gathered around the grill instead of a fire!

Despite rain, the boys slept in the tent all night long! Ben woke up once and Carl asked if he could hear the rain. Ben told him that it sounded like an airplane and then fell right back to sleep. The next morning, I asked Ben what his favorite part about camping was and he replied enthusiastically, "the marshmallows!!" My mom came back for another visit the first week of December. We missed my dad, but he was unable to get away from work due to the crazy farming season that they are having in Illinois! The kids loved being spoiled by Nana and I was able to get many errands run and projects finished without kids. It will be so nice when we have grandmas (and aunts and cousins!) readily on hand when we move back!

My mom busted her lip while trying to retrieve something from my tiny excuse for a pantry. When Ben saw her holding the ice up to her lip, he thought that he needed to "eat some ice", too. As they sat at his table, Ben would periodically lean over and say "How ya' doin' Nana?". Ben loves holiday baking! Between cookie exchanges and Carl's presentations at school, we have been in the kitchen a lot lately! Luckily, Ella likes to sit in her bouncy seat or excersaucer and watch what we're doing. I will explain to Ben what ingredients we are putting in, and then he will turn around and let Ella know what we're doing!

Ben knows that he is not allowed to get out of his bed during naptime. This is how I found him the other day!

Ella is loving her early Christmas present from Nana and Grandpa Nelson. She has figured out how to spin herself around in circles and likes playing with all of the different toys. She is also sitting up well with a little support from the Boppy pillow. She looks so grown up when she is sitting and playing with Ben!

A new favorite past time for Ben is having dance parties. He usually requests Classic Rock, and Carl has taught him how to play the air guitar. He also enjoys a little Michael Jackson or Black Eyed Peas when he's ready to change it up a bit! While we were in the car the other day, I told him that we were listening to Christmas Classic Rock. This obviously did not fool him because the next time I put him in his carseat, he said "I want to listen to REAL classic rock this time, Momma".

Both kids have enjoyed walking around the neighborhood to look at Christmas lights. Ben is also very excited about riding the airplane tomorrow. He knows once we get to Illinois he gets to do laundry with Grandma! I'm a little concerned about how he will feel about the weather in IL right now. I took him to the grocery store the other night and when I opened his door he said "Momma, roll down my sleeves, it's FREEZING out here!!". I looked at the thermometer and it read 61 degrees!

We are all packed and looking forward to our trip back to IL!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we are thankful for our two healthy children. We celebrated with my sister, the Schwantje's, and our Florida family, Auntie Marcia and Auntie Myrna!

We enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving meal and Ben was completely spoiled in every way. He knew it was going to be a great day when he walked in and saw candy on the table and presents waiting to be opened! But, he passed those up as he walked straight back to the laundry room and grabbed 2 empty Tide bottles! His day continued like this:

-Auntie Marcia slipped him a plate of marshmallows as an appetizer

-he sat next to Auntie Myrna at dinner and she graciously fed him the marshmallows off of her sweet potatoes

-he was able to put the soap in the dishwasher and start it

-did a load of laundry

-ground coffee beans and made coffee

-played outside with the men and was allowed to dig in the dirt

-was slipped at least 2 pieces of candy (that I saw!) by his aunties

-got lots of hugs and kisses

-had his own drawer of goodies to play with and Auntie Vicky to help put lotion on!

And to top off the night, we had an ice cream sundae dessert bar complete with sprinkles and whipped cream. Oh, the joy Ben felt that day! And oh, the meltdown he had when we got home that night!!!! He normally only gets sweets on special occasions at home, so we were slightly concerned that he may fall into a diabetic coma in his sleep! When he woke up Friday morning, the first thing he said was "I had candy last night!". Thankfully, he has forgotten about the doggy bag of candy that Myrna and Marcia sent home with him!

On Friday, we put up our Christmas decorations and enjoyed putting up Christmas lights in 70 degree weather one last time! The day after Thanksgiving is also an exciting day because it means I get to start listening to Christmas music 24/7!

Ben and Ella have both been having lots of fun with Aunt Kimmie and are excited to visit her up in Chicago when we move back to IL!

5 Months

Ella turned 5 months old on Sunday! She is now rolling from back to tummy, standing and playing in the exersaucer, putting everything in her mouth, and sitting up with the help of a backrest. She has turned into an easy-going baby and loves to be outside and watch her big brother. Ben loves to make her smile and giggle (and is pretty good at it, too!). She hates being in her carseat and lasts about 20 minutes before she starts to scream. After hearing her scream for 2 straight hours on the way home from Orlando, we decided to buy play tickets and fly back to IL for Christmas!

Ella had her first taste of solid food last night. She has been sitting in her high chair during meal times for the past few weeks and has shown a lot of interest while watching us eat. And it is impossible to say no to this girl when she looks up at you with her big brown eyes and bats her eyelashes!

Ella was a huge fan of oatmeal cereal.

She looked for more after each bite

And started to eat it off of her bib in between bites

And was NOT happy when her first, and second, bowls were empty!

Feeling content after finishing off her third bowl!

Ella first tastes of cereal were also exciting for Ben. She started out without a bib and as soon as she spit out the first couple of bites, he told us that she needed a bib and ran to the drawer to get her one. He's such a great help!

Animal Kingdom

Carl had Wednesday off, so we headed down to Disney World. We decided to do Animal Kingdom this time since Ben is really into the characters right now and it is easy to see them there. We got back to the character area first thing in the morning and Ben did not have to wait in a single line! He was so happy as he ran from one character to the next! He had been practicing his big "squeeze hugs" for days in anticipation of this moment.

This was Ella's first trip to Disney, but I was having so much fun watching Ben, that I forgot to take her picture when the characters were interacting with her! My sister has been saying for years that the second child always gets the shaft!

Ben also enjoyed the petting zoo area. We had to watch him closely because he kept trying to sneak under the ropes. However, we obviously were not watching closely enough when he picked up a goat pellet. At that point, I put the camera away for the remainder of the day. . . . .

He was pretty nervous about seeing the Lion King Show and sat with his head buried in my shoulder the entire time we sat waiting for the show to start. Once the show got under way, he occasionally peaked out to see what was going on and eventually really liked it.

His favorite part of the day may have been eating lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. We sat between three huge apes and an aquarium, which combined with the thunderstorms every 15 minutes and all of the other things to see in the jungle, he barely touched his macaroni. And if you know how Ben feels about his mac and cheese, this is pretty surprising! The day after we got home I found him lying under Ella's play gym. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me that he was playing in the jungle!

When we got home Wednesday night, we asked Ben what he thought about Disney World. He said "Exciting!". Later that evening, he told me that Mickey and Minnie were his best friends!

Ella Bella

Doin' Wash

This is a glimpse of how Ben spends his days!

Halloween

The kids dressed up as Ben's favorite characters this year - Mickey and Minnie Mouse! My mom did an amazing job sewing their costumes and even hand delivered them from Illinois. It was so nice to have her here for a few days and I am getting excited to live closer to her in a few months!

I thought that Ben would be more into carving pumpkins this year, but he looked at me like I was crazy when I told him how fun it was to take all of the goo out of the pumpkin! Maybe next year. . . . .

Ben and Ella looked identical to their little Mickey and Minnie dolls - it was so cute. Ben also had 2 white buttons on his shorts, but his glove is covering them up.

This was the first year that Ben actually walked up to houses to collect candy. A few of the houses were scary, but that didn't deter him from getting more candy - he just held onto our hands a little tighter!

Ben sat on the front porch and helped Carl pass out candy when we got home. Last year he had lots of fun putting the candy in the Trick-or-Treaters' bags, but this year he was more concerned about which piece of candy he was going to eat next. And staying up way past his bedtime combined with the crash from his sugar rush led to his very first Halloween night meltdown!

Can't believe we just enjoyed celebrating our last Halloween in 80 degree weather!

Underwater Camera

Ben and I (Carl) have been working on this post for some time. It all started when we bought an underwater camera in preparation for our big rafting adventure in August, and we recently completed the roll of film. Unfortunately, only 5 of the 30 pictures turned out. But the ones that did provide a little glimpse of some of the fun things that we did together this summer.

Here are three pictures from our inflatable rafting trip on the Santa Fe River, about 30 minutes north of Gainesville. We enjoyed spending time together and seeing the wildlife and scenery. This included several large turtles and one adult alligator that surfaced about 15 yards from our raft as we hunted for turtles near the edge of the river. Ben's favorite part of the trip may have been stealing drinks of water from my Camelbak.

We also spent a lot of time at the pool this summer. Ben loves to swim and also really likes his big yellow goggles!

Showing off his breast stroke.

Swimming to Mom.

Fall Fun

The weather is cooling off a bit and it is finally starting to feel more like fall down here. I have been obsessed with cooking all things pumpkin and Ben is always up for helping in the kitchen. We've been cooking with pumpkin so much, that when we went to pick out a pumpkin to carve, he got excited because he thought we were bringing it home to eat! Our neighborhood is decorated for Halloween like those in the Midwest decorate for Christmas and Ben loves going on walks to look at all of the pumpkins and orange Halloween lights. The kids even got to participate in the neighborhood Halloween parade last weekend. They dressed up as a Bears football player and cheerleader.

Carl had an all day conference on Saturday, so Auntie Marcia and Auntie Myrna came to be a part of the parade, too! I had to wake the kids up from naps, so I think both were half asleep as we walked around the park, but Ben perked right up after eating the frosting off of a couple sugar cookies and a 1/2 bag of popcorn! He's just like his Grandpa Nelson!

Thanks to Grandma Drake for the football uniform and Aunt Kimmie for the Cheerleading outfit!

On Sunday, we took to kids to the Coon Hollo Corn Maze. Ben loves eating sweet corn and was pretty excited when we got near the corn maze. I forget that he's never seen a real cornfield before (at least that he remembers!). Since we grew up in IL, we forget what a novelty that must be down here!

Ben's favorite part of the day was playing in bins filled with corn. All of the kids were having the best time in there - who knew corn could be so much fun!

Ben and Ella also took their very first hay rack ride. We rode out to a pasture filled with cows and then stopped and fed them for about 10 minutes. The farmer had buckets full of nasty smelling cow treats that the kids could feed to the cows. As soon as we stopped, the animals quickly came right up to the trailer and would eat the food right out of our hands. As soon as he ran out of treats, Ben quickly ran to get more. We were impressed at his scrappiness as he expertly weaseled his way through and around the other kids and adults to grab another handful!

Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!