Waterpark Getaway

I was on Facebook on Wednesday night & I saw that some friends of ours had taken their kids to the Wasserbahn Waterpark & Resort in the Amana Colonies for the night. Matt & I have been wanting to take Bennett there sometime this winter, so our friends decided to stay another night & we headed to the hotel on Thursday.

I was so excited! I knew Bennett was going to have so much fun! He's too young to experience the anticipation, but I think I took care of that for him. 

We got to the hotel right at check-in time, so there was a massive line at the front desk. Matt took Bennett to look at the pool while I waited to check us in & that's when Bennett's excitement hit. Unfortunately, it took us     f o r e v e r  to check in, so Bennett wasn't too happy. He couldn't understand why we couldn't just go get in the pool.

Once we got to our room, he immediately opened the door and ran down the hall trying to get to the pool. He can't open any doors at our house yet, so we were surprised! Once we corralled him back in the room and let him choose which of his suits he wanted to wear (he picked the "onge" one) it was time to head down to the pool.

We swam for an hour or so and then went to get some supper at the Maid Rite across the parking lot. After supper, it was time for...more swimming! Bennett spent a lot of time jumping off the edge, letting Matt catch him. Well, really there was no jumping involved. It was more like walking off the edge, but he was still having a blast.

We had some snacks in the hotel room when we were done swimming and then it was time to try to sleep. History with Bennett would tell us that he does not like to sleep in hotel rooms. There is generally lots of screaming involved. Our room had two queen sized beds, so Matt took one and Bennett & I took the other. I tried to put him in his pack-n-play, but after a lot of crying and a promise that he would go to sleep in mama's bed, we ended up snuggling for the night. 

At first, I was loving it. I don't remember the last time Bennett snuggled up and went to sleep like that! But then my arm went numb. &I couldn't move. I think it took me 5 tries to get my arm free and I still woke him up! The rest of the night was spent half awake trying to make sure Bennett didn't fall off the bed. I'd pushed the pack-n-play up against the side of the bed to act as a make-shift guard rail and put some pillows on the floor where the pack-n-play didn't cover. I finally fell asleep only to be awakened to a thump and cries. I think he must have fallen feet-first onto the pillows on the floor because he didn't cry much at all &went right back to sleep. Me? Not so much. I half-slept the rest of the night.

Oh! Also- Matt & Bennett invented what might be the most fun hotel-only game ever. 

Christmas('s)

I really should've been posting about each of these as they happened, because we celebrated Christmas with 6 different families this year!

We started by having a baking day at my parent's house. My mom and I made what felt like so many goodies, but they were gone pretty quickly as we filled tins to take to our neighbors. Bennett got to help my mom cut my dad's hair that day too. He loves helping with anything he can!

Then, we got together with my dad's extended family. I forgot to take any pictures, but we had a really great time! Bennett got some neat presents including a couple of "diggers", a book about the Little Drummer Boy, stacking toys, &a sock monkey that my grandma made for him!

The next weekend we went to my mom's parent's house to celebrate Christmas with that family. My cousin has a daughter who is just about a month younger than Bennett & it was so much fun watching them play together this year!

Some ladies at our church had a cookie exchange and I made 13 DOZEN cookies! It was quite messy!

On Christmas Eve we spent some time with Matt's mom's extended family before we headed to our church for a short Christmas Eve service. Then it was time for Christmas with Matt's family. When we go to their house, Bennett immediately heads for the toy cupboard to play with the little cars, some of which were Matt's when he was little. The only way we pried him away from the old cars was to tell him that Grandma had got him new cars. The first present Bennett opened was full of clothes. He threw each article out of the box, over his shoulder. When he got to the bottom of the box and saw there were no cars, he put his hands in the air and said, "Where are the CARS?!" and walked back to the old cars. It was hysterical! We finally convinced him to open the package that had the cars in it, but that was about the extent of him opening presents. I had to open the rest for him!

We went to church on Sunday morning and then to my parent's to celebrate with my family. My mom crocheted Bennett a monster hat that he wore the whole time we were at their house! He also got a Melissa & Doug brand semi truck with a car trailer which he calls "Matt". I think he means "Mack" from "Cars", but he also knows his daddy's name is Matt, so who knows?

We let Bennett open his presents from us Sunday morning, but we had to leave for church pretty much as soon as we were done opening. When we got home from my parents, Bennett was so excited to finally be able to play with his new toys! We got an awesome (free) hand-me-down kitchen set that he loves! He really loves peanut butter &honey toast/sandwiches &he found the play honey, peanut butter & bread &was pretending to make some toast. It was so cute!

Well, as you can see, we had an awesome Christmas! I hope you all enjoyed time with family and celebrated the birth of Christ!

21 Months!

I think each new stage Bennett is in is my favorite. He's just so much fun right now! He loves to play with cars and will do so, independently, for quite a while. We've seen the movie "Cars" a million trillion times and he likes to reenact his favorite scenes with his play cars.

Bennett Likes:
Cars, cars, cars
Watching movies
Fruit snacks
Jumping
Seeing family

Bennett Dislikes:
Sleeping
Only getting one cookie (we've had multiple fits over this)

Struggles This Month:
Sleeping!

Triumphs This Month:
An ever-expanding vocab


It's officially after Christmas, which meansssss... I get to start planning Bennett's birthday party. It's only 3 months away, you know. Seriously, I already have a  board dedicated to the event. We won't have a big party, but it's still fun to plan!

Snow!

We've slowly been gathering all the necessities for playing in the snow this year. You know, a warm coat, snow pants, boots, etc. & it finally snowed enough to play a little! Bennett was too little to play last year, so I've been so excited for there to be enough snow for him to go out!

Immediately after breakfast this morning, the three four (I guess I'll include the dog) of us headed out to the beautiful white stuff (I say this now. Ask me again in February & I'll have another word to describe the snow, I'm sure.). 

He LOVED it! He kept hitting the snow like he was trying to brush it off the ground, telling us that he was "helping". He's been trying to convince me to take him back out all day. When we went to the store earlier, he headed around the back of the house instead of to the garage & was quite sad when I made him get in the van.

As you can see, there wan't too much snow. I can't wait until we really get a storm so we can really play!

Beatboxing Tractor Tipper

Just a few fun videos for your weekend!

The first is proof that Bennett has seen the movie "Cars" way too many times. This is him playing out the scene where Mater goes tractor tipping. He did this all on his own & spends most of his day tipping some sort of car, pretending to be a tractor.






This next one is Bennett's newest skill. Matt "taught" him to "beat box". It's quite possibly the funniest thing I've seen in a very long time! Except for a second in the middle when Matt joined in, all that noise is Bennett!




Have a great weekend!

Oh Christmas Tree!

 Bennett helped us put the Christmas tree up this year! He got into the ornament box and broke two ornaments before they got the the tree. One was a homemade reindeer from a glass ball that I made when I was younger (they must not have had shatter-proof ornaments back then...who in their right mind would make something out of a  glass ornament with a little kid?) and one town memorial ornament from Matt's childhood. We quickly decided that our pretty glass ornaments would stay in their boxes and just the fun ornaments came out this year.