Does this count??

ben david caught on at an early age to the concept of folding his hands during prayer. more recently, we have added the whole "close your eyes" part. this picture captures the result...as you can see, it is a work in progress.
ben david will maintain this position for about o.5 seconds before re-opening his eyes to see if yours are still closed, and also if the meal in front of him is something worthwhile to pray over. we are trusting these prayers still "count"...i am pretty sure they do!:)

i told ben i thought taking the above picture was child exploitation, not to mention slightly sacrilegious.

here are a few pics of the boys enjoying the warm weather in our backyard! we love the new playset daddy built, especially the sandbox (which still needs a few bags of sand, but the grass inside is fun to play with too!)

"Splish, Splash...They Were Taking a Bath!"

we recently made the move to consolidating bathtime...two for the price of one!! poor james had outgrown his baby tub (about 2 weeks after his birth), so it was high time both boys got to splash around together! here are a few pics of the first time occurence.

as you can see, ben david made certain that james was fully initiated...bubbles on his head, water in his eyes and a big bear hug to top it all off! by the time we were finished...all of us (including me) were drenched!

A WEEKEND AT THE BEACH!

last weekend we took off for a VERY last minute trip to ocean isle beach with my parents, sister and her crew! we had beautiful weather and lots of fun. the highlights of the trip revolved around sand: digging a 3 foot deep hole in the sand that the kids loved, ben david rolling down a sand dune (on purpose) and james eating sand for the first time. there was even some jump rope action which ben david participated in! the grand finale was dinner at roberto's pizza...a favorite local joint at OIB. no seafood (lucky for uncle evan)...but the best pizza around!!

here are a few pics of our time:

"Are You My Mother??"

DADDY!










MOMMY!










nothing like getting called a rhino by your 2yo son. no, seriously! ben david is a man of few words these days...we are still working on building our vocabulary around here. he has, however, been pretty clear on who mommy and daddy are...that is at least up until last week. ben david was quietly watching one of his videos while i was folding some laundry in the same room. all of sudden, i hear him exclaim, "MOMMY!" with as much confidence and zeal as he could muster up. he even pointed (in case i could have written it off as a mistake). i glanced at the screen just in time to see that he was pointing at none other than a very large rhinoceros!
i gently (but firmly...very firmly) corrected him: "no ben david, that is not mommy...that is a rhinoceros!" no response from ben david.
later in the video...up popped another animal...a tiger. at that point, ben david loudly exclaimed (again pointing)..."DADDY!" once again...i provided the necessary correction, to which ben david seemed unphased.
i am not exactly sure what this all means and i am certainly open to suggestions (except from you, dan!). nothing in my child psychology background prepared me for what to do when your child mistakes you for gigantic, unattractive wild animal. all things considered...i do think ben got the better end of this deal. i think i would have prefered to be mistaken for a tiger!!

sweet baby james

showing off those first two teeth!!

Double Trouble!

i have blogged briefly before about my regular jogs with the boys in the double stroller. this is always an adventure of sorts!

the other day i was able to capture the "aftermath" on camera. please note...ben david is holding up the wrapper leftover from his dum dum sucker. that, and only that, is what makes him content to sit still for our 30 min. run. please also note in below picutre...james sucking on the seatbelt strap. that, and only that, is all it takes to make him happy on our runs!:)
as always, we made our occasional stops to rescue james from ben david trying to steal his hat and take his toy. additional stops were made to retrive the ever rolling sippy cup and also prevent james from pulling the plastic frame out of the stroller cover.
all in all...a very pleasant event for all!!;)

very belated shot of the family easter egg hunt with my sister and her crew! ben david finally caught on towards the end that each egg had candy in it. so, being the smart little guy that he is he figured out it was much quicker to steal eggs from the other's baskets than find them on his own. poor ben david...maybe next year the easter bunny will provide him with a designer basket like his cousins!

here he is getting a few tips from dad...

and here he is caught red handed by cousin "kurt-kurt"...stealing candy from his basket.

The Germans have arrived!!

This weekend was filled with fun adventures as we had the privilege of one of my roommates from Ravencrest visiting us from Germany. Every now and then he decides that he is tired of wondering in the desert and decides to take a trip to the promise land. We started the weekend with some good Mexican food at one of our favorite restaurants El Valle ( Hats included with the meal). Even though he looks Mexican here his is actually German.

On a whim we drove past the new Billy Graham library which is by the airport and took a visit. This a great place to go and see all that he has accomplished and even though every thing appears to be about Billy Graham the people will let you know that it has nothing to do with Billy Graham but is only about Jesus. ( the silo is only for appearance- you cant go inside. Andreas didn't quite understand this)

Since Andreas is German and cant vote we decided to take some signs in our efforts to help the struggling candidates. Andreas here is trying out his ability some street marketing.

We found a Hillary sign which he was most proud of. Every time we would pass a Hilary sign he would start chanting 'Hilary, Hilary..' I am guessing this is what he has been hearing on the news. I was also very excited about getting this off the streets and giving it to the Germans. This would be great if she decided to go over there. He is going to put it in front of his house. Maybe he can stir up enough votes over there that don't count.