Band-aids

What is it about owies and band-aids? Benjamin is now obsessed with band-aids. Every time he gets hurt, he immediately needs a bandaid before the crying will stop. The other morning he fell and bumped his nose on the couch. It ended up being a nose bleed and so after the bleeding stopped, he needed a band-aid. It covered his entire nose and half of his face, but he was happy with it. He even wore it to a play date. The other mothers didn't say anything, but just gave me a funny look. I didn't get a picture of it. I wish I had. It was picture worthy. Then a few days later, he fell again and this time bumped his chin. Another band-aid was required. He found a very large one from my surgery last year and knew that this was the perfect thing for his owie. This time I did get a good picture.

Pumpkin Farm

I have been waiting and waiting for a nice day to go to the pumpkin farm. All weather reports pointed to a partly sunny Saturday and so with anticipation, I waited for a beautiful autumn Saturday to come. That beautiful day never came. Instead we had a week's worth of rain and a rainy Saturday. I decided, begrudgingly, that we should go any way. We ended up being ankle-deep in a muddy mess, but we had fun. Although I have learned my lesson because of muddy shoes. All the other children at the farm had rubber rain boots on and so being the newbies, we were unprepared. We will have to get some for next year. The mud was incredible. Stephen said that he hasn't seen that much mud since his mission in Argentina. In spite of the mud, there were two really great things about the farm. First was the cost. Admission was free for all, but we had to pay $3 for Benjamin to do things in what they called their courtyard. It was really an amazing deal for everything that we could do. The courtyard activities included a ride on the cow train and other little fun activities. There was also a barn with small animals to look at and feed. They also had a goat feeder that allowed you to put feed into a cup and then use a pulley to hoist it up to the goat up on a walk 15 feet up in the air. We took a hayride around the farm too. The second thing that Benjamin absolutely loved was a giant barn filled with corn. In a sense, it was an enormous sensory table big enough to get in that was full of corn. They allowed children and adults to take off their shoes and jump in it. Stephen and Benjamin hopped in. Stephen recounted that it felt like a massage on his feet. There were also diggers in the corn that Benjamin loved playing with. Overall it was a great day in spite of the rain, mud, and cold. Enjoy the pictures!

"When you see eggs, yell eggs."

Benjamin was playing by himself yesterday while I cleaned up from dinner. He brought his shopping cart downstairs and put both "old arf arf" and "new arf arf" in it. He then got a piece of paper and said to his stuffed animal dogs "Arf Arf here is the shopping list. You keep it. Remember when we lost this list? Help me remember that we need eggs. When you see eggs, yell eggs." I kicked Stephen in the middle of this to listen. It was verbatim what I tell him when we go to the store. He gets to be the keeper of the list and when I hand him the list he always says to me "Remember when we lost the list?" I still remember when we did. I lost the list at the store about a month ago. I was pretty distraught because it was one of those lists that I had been writing on for a few weeks all the little things I was missing in the house from the move. When I lost it, we retraced our steps multiple times looking for the list. We didn't ever find it, and it took me a few weeks to figure out all the things that were on the original list and get them. Now, I make Benjamin be in charge of the list, and he always reminds me about when it was lost. While he in charge, he is also responsible for looking for the next item and telling me when he finds it. I do always say "we need ____. When you see _____ say ______." I mostly do it to try and keep him occupied during our shopping trips. I think he now feels the need to do the same for his unruly stuffed dogs!

The Official Potty Announcement . . .

I have an exciting announcement. . . I am officially declaring Benjamin potty trained. Our last accident was two weeks ago and it was a we just barely didn't make it to the potty. The pooping was a bit difficult, but with the right reward system of earning a small car every time he went (behaviorism at its best), we finally succeeded. He is so proud of himself and constantly declares himself a "big boy." He is my big boy, and I so love him!

Quick Tip: Google Reader

It takes a lot of time to check blogs and websites one by one to see if there are any updates or new posts. Google reader solves that problem by checking all of the sites you look at for you and combining the results into one website.


Google describes the service as "a personalized inbox for the entire web." You check google reader like you check your email. I have been using it for a while now (and even got Rebecca to start using it). If you use blogger, you can click here to start using it. If you don't already have a google account, you can sign up for one here. Bloglines offers a similar service.

Jerry's Store

Two weeks ago, we decided to take a family adventure and find a Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream store in a neighboring town. A coupon had come in the mail for buy one get one free and who am I to pass up quality ice cream and a great deal like that? The problem was that we are still so unfamiliar with the area. We ended up really frustrated and just decided to go home after not being able to locate the shop. We couldn't find the exit off of the freeway or the street that it was located on in the GPS. Well, quite by accident on the way home, we discovered the exit and found the store. It was almost bedtime by the time we went in to order and so everyone was a little on edge. We ordered the works, chocolate covered waffle cones and everything. I sat in the back seat and shared my cone with Benjamin the whole way home. Ever since that night, Benjamin has been dying to go back to "Jerry's Store." We keep trying to placate him with statements like "that would be fun. Let's go again sometime." Then during the break between morning and afternoon Saturday session of conference, I suggested that we get out for a bit. Benjamin comes running up to say "Let's go to Jerry's store. It is like Disneyland!" We all got the best laugh out of that. I ran and got the camera to capture it again. This video shows the second interaction.

Fall Photos

Between the Sunday sessions of General Conference, we went out for a photo shoot in the fall leaves. It was a bit of a challenge to take the family picture. Our set-up was a tall laundry basket with the camera on top, then Stephen pressing the timer and shouting "bazooka" right before the camera would take the picture so that Benjamin would look right at the camera and smile. We think that we got really lucky as there were some great pictures and one that is just perfect of the family! Click on the picture below to see a slideshow of the photos.

Dollar Store Finds

My sister called and told me there were cute spiders at the Dollar Store so Benjamin and I went today. We ended up finding some stuff for fingerplays and songs. I have volunteered to do playgroup once a month for the ward with music and movement and an interactive literature (basically a book and activity). So, I am looking forward to using our new finds for playgroup. We found this cute elephant hat and spider web basket. Benjamin and I had fun acting out the song "One elephant went out to play. Out on a spider's web one day." We also found some spiders to do "Itsy, Bitsy, Spider." For Family Home Evening activity tonight, I made up a new game of tossing the spiders into their spiderweb (the basket). It was a hit! Benjamin loved tossing them and jumping up and down if he made one in the basket. Mom and Dad even got a bit competitive with each of us tying by getting 3 of the 5 spiders in.