Copy cats, part A

Prasti has been doing something with Emma for months that I love. I've been a bit intimidated by the creativity to do it with Ben. Each month I feel a little bit more like a slacker, so I sucked it up and we headed to the craft store to get some basic supplies.

Prasti and Emma take a different letter each month and do different things with it like cook something, make a diorama, go somewhere that starts with that letter etc. We started with letter A and heres what we came up with:

Ben put on his Alligator pajamas and we learned a few facts about them like they live in swamps in the south, they have claws and they use their tails to protect themselves.

Ben put on his Apron and made Apple crisp. Unfortunately, we used the wrong kind of apples and it was terrible!

We thought about people with A names like miss Ami or Mr. Alan. We also remembered that aunt starts with A and Ben has an Aunt Corrie and Aunt Prasti (I know that ones a slight stretch).

We found stickers of Air planes, Arrows, an Ax, Anchors, an Ambulance and an Arc.

We talked about the Army and the Air Force. I told him that people in the military protect our country (among other things). Ben asked me to go to the military with him. Ben learned that uncle A and Papa were in the Air Force.

We went to Applebees and had Appetizers.

We did some Arts and crafts and made an Air plane sun catcher.

We checked out several books with an A title from the library.

We learned a french word, Au revoir.

We told a modified story of Abraham and Isaac. We also learned about Akron, where mom went to school.

I think Ben had a lot of fun with it. I'm sure we'll slowly evolve on the crafts, but I think we had a good start. Thanks for the great idea Prasti!

Oh Christmas tree

We put up our Christmas tree today. Ben was really excited about putting on ornaments this year. Sam just wanted to eat them!

Remember in the last post when I said we had no intentions of going out on black Friday? Imagine my surprise when my husband suggested that we go shopping. We didn't get up at the crack of dawn and we avoided the mall so it actually wasn't too bad. We ended up finding a deal on a tv that we couldn't pass up. While we were there, channel 3 news pulled up and put Jon on the evening news. Unfortunately, we missed it, but we heard Jon looked great!

Heading out:

It was a long morning:

Happy Thanksgiving

For the first time since Jon and I have been together, we stayed home for a major holiday and enjoyed some quiet family time. Jon got up early to start preparing a feast for us. Cleanliness is next to godliness:

When we got the boys up we asked Ben what he was thankful for today. He gave us a long list that started like this:

"I'm thankful for my house, my doorbell, my umbrella, my buttons, my kitchen, my animals, my bed, my stove, my fridge, my soap, my kitchen, my hot and cold, my kitchen, mama, dada, Sam, Bailey, Katie, my buttons, my kitchen...." We have a very thankful boy, especially when it comes to his kitchen.

We spent the morning relaxing. We watched the parade, played hard and checked out all the black Friday adds even though we have no intention of going shopping tomorrow.

When the turkey was done, the house smelled great. Jon did an amazing job on the food.

Gram and pap stopped over in time to sample some turkey and have some play time with the boys before heading over to Aaron and Prastis house for their dinner.

We all ate so much even the animals were too tired to chase each other.

We all have so much to be thankful for. I'm most thankful for such amazing boys and being able to spend a great day together!

Happy birthday bunny

Tonight we had the honor of attending Jake Max's birthday party. For those not familiar with Jake Max, here he is:

Jake Max is Tates blue stuffed bunny. He turned 5 today (oddly enough he just turned 4 a couple months ago). Tate insisted on a celebration so the Calaways went all out. We had blue balloons, blue bunny pictures, blue milk and blue cake with sprinkles. There was singing and candles and lots of fun. I'm so glad we could be part of such a special day!

Play time with daddy:

Weaned!

We are free! When Sam woke up Saturday morning I got to keep sleeping. For the first time in 13months, Jon went in to feed him. Sam wasn't thrilled, but he did ok. Unfortunately, he did slightly worse Sunday morning and even worse this morning. It was definitely time, but I'm feeling a bit guilty since its not going well. We are about to buy stock in cabbage (if you don't know, don't ask). Sam is extra cranky and has slowed down on drinking milk all day long. He's never been very willing to try new foods, but he's been extra annoyed at meal times this weekend. If we give him something he likes, he will eat twice as much (and twice as fast) as Ben. Looks like he'll be living on bagels and bananas until he adjusts!

Thanksgiving part 1

Cross Point Church had its annual Thanksgiving meal today after the service. We had turkey supplied by Boston Market and everyone else brought in the side dishes and tons of desserts. Once again, Prasti did a great job of decorating. We had a huge, delicious feast. It made me even more excited for the real thing on Thursday.Check out the matching shirts. How cute are they???

Ben got an early Christmas present this week. He's been sleeping with his "old blanket" (the airplane blanket that came with his crib set which is too small for him now) and a "new blanket" which has alternated between a huge, soft blanket a friend made for him when he was born and an old blanket we had around that has some holes in it. We finally ditched the blanket with the holes and replaced it with a Mickey blanket. He is so excited to sleep with Mickey every night and didn't want to take it off even when it was time to get up.

Sam is becoming a music lover and was fascinated by the Veggie Tales theme song. Notice the one shoe on and one shoe off. He and Ben are definitely related. Ben always had one foot hanging out!

I love antihistamines

Colds have been going around our friends and family for a while now so I guess its our turn. Ben has had projectile snot with every sneeze, Sam is a bit more cranky than usual and I'm now stuffy with a sore throat. The only thing that is making this cold slightly more bearable is that I get to take cold medicine for the first time in almost 2 years! I admit that I am a huge baby when it comes to having a stuffy nose (so I'm sure that Jon was thrilled when I was averaging a cold each month through most of my pregnancy with Sam) so while I'm not a big medicine person, I'm all about anything that will help me breathe.
Obviously you can't take anything when you're pregnant and medication while nursing can dry up your milk supply. Now that we are weaning, I'm not too worried about my supply so I am counting down the hours until I can take some Nyquil and crawl into bed.

Enjoying the warm weather:

1 step towards freedom

Notice anything different in this picture???
That is my boy with an ice cream mustache. Yes, I said ice cream. You might remember that Sam wanted no part of ice cream in the past. Last night he finally proved he was my son and devoured some ice cream. On top of the ice cream, he drank 2 (almost full) cups of milk. His new desire for all things dairy, made it possible to skip our night time feeding last night for the first time ever! Sam did great. He woke up around 3am to eat (he usually gets up around 5:30), but he still slept until 7:30 this morning. I'm just praying that last night was our new thing and not just a fluke. A few days of that and we can start thinking about weaning him completely!

More library time:
Sam and dad showing off their hoodies:
Relaxing in their pj's:

Invasion of the chains

We live in a city that prides itself on all of our mom and pop shops. They are everywhere. They are charming, unique and usually have everything you need (although you might have to visit 2 or 3 rather than going to 1 big box store).

Realistically, Lakewood is covered in chains. We have Einsteins, Donatos, Burger King, Subway etc etc and thats just on one small portion of one street. Panera opened today and Five Guys and Dunkin Donuts aren't too far behind. I admit I will go to all three of them (we actually had breakfast at Panera this morning), but I do feel a little bit like a traitor to my city. I'm glad Lakewood is growing. At the same time, its kind of sad that all of them are moving in and will probably attract more. I don't know that I view these three restaurants as a huge threat like a Walmart or a bigger name restaurant like Fridays or Outback would be. Maybe thats how they get you. They start small then before you know it, you're over run with big names. I'm hoping Lakewood wont change too much with these additions. We just have to remember the coziness of Peppers, the pub chips at Buckeye Beer Engine or the 5lbs of bacon (ok, maybe not 5lbs, but its a lot) on the cheeseburgers at The Drink.

Play time after breakfast this morning: