Baking with Ben

Ben loves to help me in the kitchen!  This week we enjoyed making cupcakes together for the church dinner today.  He was so proud of himself for getting to help while Nico was napping!  Please excuse the messes in the pictures-Ben and I are messy cooks!  And I apologize for the less than wonderful quality of pictures-it is a challenge to take the pictures and make sure the whole bowl of batter doesn't end up on the floor at the same time!

Putting the cupcake liners in the pan

Unwrapping the chocolate and butter

Stirring in the sugar (after Mommy melted the chocolate and butter, of course!)

Helping with the eggs

Adding the flour

Putting the Reese's Cups in the middle

Baking (please ignore the disgusting oven!!)

Yummy!

An unfortunate casualty of having a 2 year old cook!

After this we made a whipped peanut butter icing and used a decorator bag to ice the cupcakes.  Then Ben put on a mini Reese's Cup for decoration.  They were yummy!

FFF-Fun in the Sun

   This week's theme from Hannah's blog is Fun in the Sun.  These pictures would probably more go under the theme of fun trying to stay OUT of the sun!  We went to the state fair on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year.  The kids still had a blast and we saved a ton of money because nobody felt like eating any of the yummy expensive fair food!  These pictures show Ben's creative thinking.  We were sitting at a picnic table while the kids had a quick sandwich for lunch.  The tables were, of course, right out in the sun with no shade in sight.  Ben took a look around and then found the coolest place to sit and enjoy his lunch.

Leave it to Ben to find the one shady spot!  My niece decided it was a good idea too!

For more FFF, be sure to click on the button above and visit Hannah's blog!

Crazy about Zoos!

I think we may be raising a future zoologist/biologist/veterinarian!  Ben absolutely ADORES animals of any sort and the zoo is his favorite place to go.  This summer has been a dream come true for him since we went to 3 different zoos in the month of July alone! 

These next several pictures are from the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo.  We spent about 4 or 5 hours there while our nephew was taking his placement tests and registering for his college classes.  It is a very nice zoo and we had a great time!

Ben "driving" a pony named Jenny-he insisted that he was driving, not riding!

Ben hatching from a giant egg!

Ben kissing a frog

I have no idea what this face is about, but it was hilarious!

Feeding a giraffe

Nico was, of course, happy to be along for the ride

Nico with a giant turtle statue

I'll post pictures from the Indianapolis Zoo and the Columbus (Ohio) Zoo another day because these sweet boys are wanting my attention now!

Catching up...

We have had a very busy couple of weeks!  On July 15th Will and I celebrated 10 amazing years of marriage.  I can hardly believe it has been that long, and yet it also seems like he has always been a part of my life.  Funny how that happens, isn't it?  He treated me to a very nice evening out-dinner, wine, flowers, chocolate covered strawberries, the whole nine yards.  He had 10 gifts for me-one for each year of our marriage. Of course, we had agreed that we weren't doing gifts, so I had NOTHING for him.  Talk about feeling bad!  Regardless, he is a wonderful husband and I'm one blessed lady to have him in my life!

Last week we had VBS at church.  I have the awesome privilege and responsibility of being the director (thankfully our church is small or that job would be WAY too much for me!), so we were very busy with that.  Will got to participate and was our games leader this year.  The kids loved him, of course.  Even though our VBS is small (about 34 kids), they had big hearts and our mission focus was hugely successful.  We collected donations of wash cloths, towels, sheets, etc to send to the Dominican Republic this year.  Those 34 kids donated 140 items and $126 for this mission.  It makes me teary eyed just thinking about it!  In exchange for their generosity, we agreed to let them vote for staff members to throw honey comb (to go with our Bee-liever theme) at our shaving cream covered heads during the closing program. Will and I got voted for, of course!  Definitely made for some funny pictures!

Nico has grown and changed so much in the past few weeks!  He is now the proud owner of 2 bottom teeth!  He is sitting up for long periods of time and already trying to crawl.  He is still the happiest baby in the world and is full of smiles and laughs.

Nico getting some love from Mommy

Today Ben spent the day with Daddy playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  He "helped" in the garden, checked out the fruit trees, played basketball and soccer, and generally had a great time.

FFF-U Pick

This month the FFF theme is U-pick each week. My pictures don't really follow a theme, but they are some of my faves from this past week! You can click on the button above to see more FFF's on Hannah's blog.

I'm pretty sure this is NOT how the slip n' slide company thinks kids should use a slip n' slide! In fact it says it's not for kids under 5. But, in true Ben fashion, he was not going to be left out of the fun so he found a way he could join in on his own terms!

I love this big cheesy smile as he waits for his next turn on the slip n' slide. The million dollar water bill that I'm sure is coming is totally worth it to see this pure joy on his face!

These two pictures of Nico are some of my favorites because I almost NEVER get a picture of him not smiling. (I know-it's a terrible burden to have the happiest baby in the world for a son :-)! Seriously, though, any time I look at him he breaks out in a giant smile, so it is very, very rare to get a picture where he isn't grinning.

The two fingers in his mouth is standard-he always does that to put himself to sleep or soothe himself if he gets startled.

I love his serious face in this picture. And I ADORE those big brown eyes. I never need to use photoshop on those big brown eyes because they sparkle all on their own!

Growing up sooo fast!

Nico is growing up much faster than I would like for him to! Just since July 1st, he has started sitting up AND got his first tooth! He can only sit for a minute or two so far, but that is mostly because he thinks it is funny to fall over backwards and have me catch him. The new tooth is in the middle on the bottom, and it looks like the next one over will be through in the next few days. Where has the past five months gone? What happened to my tiny baby????

FFF-U-pick

This week's theme was supposed to be U-pick. I didn't really pick a theme, but decided to just use this non-themed picture of one of my sweet boys.

This is Ben posing in his Guatemala shirt that we found at Fiesta Indianapolis a few years ago when he was a tiny baby. He has grown into it now and is wearing it with pride!


For more FFF's, click the button above and head on over to Hannah's blog!