Not only does he speak Chinese...

My brother's girlfriend, Andrea, recently returned from 4 months in Eastern Asia. She stopped by for a visit today and brought us presents!

Bennett was excited to see Andrea today & he really loves the training chopsticks that she brought for him. He really wants to run around with them, but after a few close calls (read: chopsticks almost in his eye), we decided that they are best used when eating.

Andrea brought a beautiful table runner and chopsticks for Matt &me, too.

Yes, those are Spaghetti-O's in the video. This is the first time Bennett's ever had them. Actualy, the can says that they are actually not all that bad for him, &the can doesn't lie. There's a full serving of veggies in there. Annnnd the cheese &grapes even all the sodium out, right? Isn't that how it works?


Untitled from Shannon Linser on Vimeo.

Vacay- Part 2

Consider this a photo dump. I have a trillion.

 Isn't this video just the cutest?

Untitled from Shannon Linser on Vimeo.


The pizza at Beau Jo's was really good. They have Rocky Mountain Honey on the tables to put on your pizza crusts. Honey is one of Bennett's favorite things, so he spent most of dinner just eating honey off of his pizza. Yum!



Matt's parents lived in Colorado before they had kids and Beau Jo's was one of their favorite places to eat. The first picture is just them (obvs) & the second one is of them and all the people who they've "helped to make" since they left Colorado.



After supper at Beau Jo's we browsed some of the shops in Downtown Steamboat Springs.  Bennett is pointing out Abe's nose and giving him a pound. Matt thought the shirt in the upper right picture was funny. It says, "Confidence: the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation."



One of my favorite things that we did was hike at Fish Creek Falls. It's a 5 mile hike up the mountain if you go all the way to the lake at the top, and then another 5 miles back down. The girls only went about a mile up, I think. The boys went a little further, almost to the second falls, so probably 2.5 miles up.




1.Warning about rock climbing 2. Initials carved into trees along the path 3. Sarah looking at the falls 4. The girls after we came back down. We were waiting for the boys to finish. 5.Bennett fell asleep in the Boba carrier on the way up the mountain and enjoyed the rest of the ride with Matt. 6. Elizabeth, Sarah & Rebekah feeling the cold mountain water



Philip, Jake, Sarah, Matt & I went river rafting one morning. We were hoping for a level 3/4, but ended up with level 2 with one spot of level 3. It was still a lot of fun, but definitely could have been a little more challenging.





 We went on a bike ride on the last full day we were in Steamboat Springs. Bennett hadn't ever ridden in a Burley and he really liked it. We might have to start looking for one on Craig's List. When we started our bike ride, I was having a really hard time. Before this trip, I hadn't been on a bike since before I was pregnant with Bennett, so about 2 years. We went on a bike ride earlier in the week and I had been just fine. I couldn't understand why everyone was able to go so fast and I felt like I was going to die. I mean, even the 6-year-old was doing better than I was. I kept having to stop and walk or get water. It was rediculous. When we stopped for lunch, Philip looked at the bike I was riding and realized that the brakes had been stuck on. Yeah, I'd been riding that bike with the brakes on. It was good to know I'm not that out of shape!



Bennett & Linda checking out the trees and river when we stopped for lunch on our bike ride.




1. Bennett playing with my sunglasses on the long drive home 2. Hello, Wyoming! 3. Crazy Nebraska weather 4. More time playing with sunglasses 4. &5. More crazy Nebraska weather


Okay, I'm done with my vacation pictures...at least until we get back from taking our youth group students to camp next week.

"Who wants to see my HOH rooooom?!?"

Okay, okay...no HOH room. I'm just really in Big Brother mode. Seriously, I've had several dreams involving the game. So, the real title of this post should be something like "Who wants to see pictures of my vacation?", but I kind of feel like I'm asking you all to come and see my HOH room. As in, you don't really want to see all these pictures, but will look at them to be nice. Um, so sorry to all of you who are totally lost by all of these references to Big Brother. I'll stop.

I think I'm going to break these posts up into a couple different ones because I took 182 pictures. I won't bore you with all of them, but you'll probably see a lot of them.
We left for Colorado at about 8 pm and decided to drive as long as we could. We eventually decided to stop for some sleep about 1:30 am. In retrospect, we probably should've stopped sooner...for Bennett's sake. He was asleep in the van, but freaked out when we tried to lay him down for the night. He was so overtired. We eventually got to sleep about 3 am. We were on the road by 9 or so the next day and drove to Colorado Springs.

We stayed at my Great Aunt & Uncle's house on Thursday night. It was so much fun to see my family. {See this post about my excitement for vacation} Bennett & Marley didn't really notice each other too much, that is until we put them in the same chair.

There's a big rock-thingie (I really want to call it a mini-mountain, but I know that's not what it is. It's just bigger than anything I've seen in Iowa...haha) in their back yard, so we walked up to the top to enjoy the view.

On Friday we went to the Olympic Training Center (sorry, no pictures) &then Focus on the Family. I loved listening to Focus' Adventures in Odyssey program when I was younger, so it was fun to see Bennett explore the play area.



Bennett & Matt playing with the puppets, Matt helping Bennett check out the toy train that was running around the ceiling, Bennett & Bekah climbing through the tunnel



There is a 3-story slide at Focus on the Family. I'm not a fan of twisting around in enclosed spaces, so I passed, but Matt's sisters all took their turns and really enjoyed it.

When we were done at Focus, we headed north to Steamboat Springs. These next pictures will be super boring to you if you live anywhere with a level of elevation higher than 934 feet (yeah, that's the elevation of the town I live in...I looked it up). The sky was just so beautiful and we really enjoyed the view of the mountains!

Part 2 to come...

We're Back!

We're back from our vacation! Just in time for VBS at church and then off to take the Youth Group students to camp for a week.

I'll post about vacation later. Right now I'm still recovering from a million hours in the car, a teething baby & lack of sleep. Isn't vacation supposed to be restful? We had a great time &it was much needed, but I definitely don't feel more rested.

I'l leave you with this video of Bennett dancing to the washing machine in the timeshare. If he hears a beat, he's gotta dance!


Untitled from Shannon Linser on Vimeo.

16 Months?!

Has it seriously been a month since I posted about Bennett being 15 months old? This past month as gone way too fast & this coming month is only going to go faster!

Bennett Likes
Chasing the dog
Being outside
Swimming
Going to see friends
His extended family
Straws
Balls
Reading books, especially "I'm a Little Teapot"
Being alone with Daddy
Bathtime
Jumping in his crib
Having his back rubbed or patted

Bennett Dislikes
Leaving Daddy
Having to go to sleep
When others get hurt
Sometimes having his diaper changed

Triumphs This Month
Knows what a dog, lion, monkey & cow say
Throws away his wet diapers
Being able to be a little more flexible with your sleep schedule
Points to himself when asked where Bennett is
Smiles and says "Cheese" when you take a picture
Will say "Set, Go!" after we say "Ready"

Struggles This Month
Teething? I think we're working on eye teeth.

DIY...fail?

Back in January I saw this tutorial and decided that I needed to try it in Bennett's room. We used a lot of fabric to decorate for his birthday party and at the time I bought extra so that I could make these frames. Recently, I finally got around to making them and putting them up. Unfortunately, it only kind of worked out. I did take some pictures of each step as I was making them, but the tutorial over at How About Orange is so much better than mine would have been, so if you'd like to try it, use hers.

Here's how I think mine would've worked better.

• If I'd had a rotary cutter.
• If I'd done it at my table and not on my ottoman while watching Friends.
• If I'd sprayed the frames a little more with the Stiffen Stuff.
• If the walls in Bennett's room were flat.

After I ironed the frames to the walls (yep, ironed to the wall), some of them didn't want to stick. Also, there are a lot of bumps on his wall, so I don't think this helped much. It kind of scuffed up the wall a little bit where there were bumps, but a little paint will fix that. Any of the frames that are low enough for Bennett to touch are already off the wall.

The plus side? He loves them! He really likes to look at pictures of his family and now he can see them when he wakes up or if he's having a hard time going to sleep. Also? No heavy frames that could fall and hit him.

Bottom line? There's a right way & a wrong way to do this project. Mine being the wrong way, How About Orange's being the right way!

I'm a Little Teapot

Bennett has a lot of books. It's really important to us that he enjoys reading, so we read to him a lot. My grandparents gave me a lot of books growing up and my grandma wrote "From G&G Kenney" and whatever the occasion was in the front cover of every book. My mom has decided to continue this tradition with Bennett, so she's given him tons of books that say "Love Grammy" on the back of them.

One of these books is "I'm a Little Teapot" by Iza Trapani. I tried to read this book to Bennett a few months ago and he wanted nothing to do with it until my mom came one night and read sang it to him. Now? He can't get enough of it. I don't know about you, but the song that I learned growing up had one verse. This book has twelve verses. Twelve. & my mom sing each verse in a different accent. She's kinda awesome like that. Needless to say, this is currently Bennett's favorite book.


In true toddler fashion, he wants us to read it to him over&over&over&over&over. I've resorted to hiding the book after the 5th time in a row of reading it. He always finds it. Recently, Matt and I have started using the book against each other. As in, "Hey Bennett, Daddy will read you the teapot book! Go take it to him!" The last time Matt tried to do that to me, though, it backfired and Bennett insisted that he read it to him.

There have been several instances where I have walked into the living room and seen Matt, with Bennett on his lap, reading "I'm a Little Teapot". It makes me so glad that 1.Bennett loves his Daddy, 2. Bennett loves to read & 3. Matt is such a great dad. Even though Matt & I dislike this book so much, it definitely came on vacation with us. Hey, we aren't going to squelch his love of reading.