Baby Prep?

Not sure if it's the baby coming or just Ben's imagination growing, but in the mornings, he started asking me to hold his monkey, Cookie, wrapped in his precious burp cloths, rock in the rocking chair, and feed him a pretend bottle. Let's hope he's this happy about it when it's a real baby!

ORANGE

I never knew how important a color could become. Ben has only learned (consistently) the color orange and points to it everywhere. It's amazing how often that color turns up. He wants to wear clothes with orange on them, he wants to read books with orange on the cover, he asked Daddy to buy an orange car (after asking me, I referred him to his father), he gets excited about orange trucks, orange cones, and orange food. Someday we'll learn another color, but for now....it's all about ORANGE!

Easter Sunday post church pictures

Easter morning egg hunt

Easter Dinner

We had our Easter dinner on Saturday with both sides of the family. It's always fun to get a picture of Ben and Carl V. Of course it's difficult to get one of both of them smiling at the same time.

Right before our yummy dinner! (Missed you, Jen!)

Who else would sit at the head of the table?

A post-dinner story. Ben is oh-so-interested.

Easter Eggs

Saturday morning, we decorated Easter eggs with Kathy and Don. Ben started out with this plastic smock, but soon realized Ben wasn't really doing as much dyeing as he was directing. Sorry, didn't realize how ridiculous he looks in it until I saw the pictures.

Ben and Papi

Ben and Mommy...and his new thing where he says "cheese" but doesn't look at the camera.

Eggs post "sticker-ing"

Visiting the Easter Bunny's House

Christa and I took Kate and Ben to see the Easter Bunny at Linvilla Orchards on Thursday. Ben was very excited to see the "Easters Nunny" and still talks about giving him a hug (even though he was pretty hesitant when we were actually there).

Not sure what's going through his head here. He was actually enjoying himself, but just couldn't smile for some reason.

Trying to get a picture of them both looking at the camera was pretty much impossible.

Easter kisses. He was equally excited about the "Easters Nunny house" and the "tractor moving" that was pulling our hay ride.

Happily posing. I realized afterwards that I don't think he even knew he had the bunny ears on the whole time because they were on top of his hat. We'll see how he does if I try to put them on him this weekend!

Pre Easter cleaning...

Such a big helper!

Two cute things...

Two cute things that Ben's been doing lately:

- When he sits on my lap, he can feel the baby moving against his back. He starts giggling and says "Mommy! Baby moving!" Sometimes, he feels it before I even realize it. He is becoming more and more aware of the baby growing. He talks to and kisses my belly daily.

- Ben knows I can't resist it when he says "I love you, Mommy!" He often yells it from bed either right after I leave his room in order to get me to come back or as soon as he wakes up to get me to come in. I realize he's playing me, but hearing him yell that he loves me (and often Nick too) un-prompted is just so cute!

Rainy Saturday

When we got back to DC from Aruba, we spent a day with my family. Ben was so cute when he went into the sunroom, climbed into this chair, arranged his milk, snack and blanket and then asked for some music while watching the rain.

Later that day, Ben was caught in the act when he grabbed a bottle of wine and a coaster.

He continued and set up a whole party including snacks and drinks (which we switched to water) for everyone. He was a happy host. :)

Lauren's Pictures of Ben

Lauren sent us a few pictures while we were gone....

Does anyone remember these chairs from our wedding??

Aruba

Last week, Nick and I were fortunate enough to go to Aruba to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary (which was last October). We were a little nervous to leave Ben for 5 nights, but we quickly saw/heard how much FUN he had during a week with my family and how NICE it was for the two of us to spend some time together! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa!

We did a lot of beach and pool time and took advantage of the unique opportunity for complete relaxation. Not too many pictures, but we did capture the sights around our fantastic resort.