What a difference a year makes

Ah, one year ago.  One year ago I woke up 40 weeks and 1 day pregnant, big as a house, in a ton of pain from a delightful case of shingles and fully convinced I was going to be pregnant for at least another week.  And one year ago, I fell asleep in my own bed with a dark haired, squeaky, beautiful baby boy snuggled next to me.  What a difference a day makes.

And what a difference a year makes!  I know everyone says this on their baby's first birthday, but seriously, I can't believe it's been a whole year!  It seems like just a few months ago Bennett was born.  And yet, I feel like he's been a part of our family forever.

Fitting right in!

But I can't imagine our family without him.  God knew we needed him in our family.  When our third boy was born, I really had no idea how he would fit into our family.  What was his role?  His personality?  But he fits perfect.

Over the last 12 months, we've had the most amazing privilege of getting to know Bennett Lee.  He loves to smile and laugh and make people around him smile and laugh.  He's the comic relief in our family and he rarely has a grumpy day.  He has definite opinions about certain things, but is mostly laid back and just rolls with the punches around here.  He's a great sleeper but a horrible snuggler and prefers to have his own space.  And we recently learned that he likes cake, but not frosting :)

And since I'm the one who gets him dressed in the morning, he's a Packer fan too :)

It's been so fun celebrating our smiley boy this weekend with friends and family.  I'm a little sad that he's not my baby anymore, but really excited to watch him grow and learn over the next year.  1 year olds are so much fun!!

Benny's First Christmas

If I had to sum up this year's Christmas in one word it would be this: Simplicity.  We had a beautifully, delightfully simple Christmas.  In the past we've traveled to visit family for Christmas.  And although we love to see family, we decided to stay home this year (as we have the past few years) and start developing our own little family's traditions.  And boy did we have fun.

We played in the snow, baked cookies, saw the Western Mall Christmas light show (several times), drove through Falls Park, made paper chains to decorate the doorway, ate all the cookies, listened to lots and lots of Christmas music, decorated our house and the best part .... we did it all in our own timeline.  Nothing was forced or rushed or mandatory.  If I'm honest, I do sometimes feel the social pressure to "do" Christmas a certain way.  To send out cards, to buy expensive gifts and to move a shelved elf around every day.  But we didn't.  Not that those things are bad (I love Christmas cards!!), we just decided to keep it simple.  And it was a perfect way to celebrate Bennett's first Christmas!!

Every year growing up, we had a real Christmas tree.  Some years we'd hunt it down in the woods.  Other years we'd go across the street and buy it from the tree lot.  But it was real.  Always real.

Every year since we've been married, we've had a fake tree.  I bought it in college and each year either due to lack of funds or lack of space, we kept putting up that same 6' fake tree.  I pleaded my case to buy a real tree this year, but with a crawling baby who loves to put everything in his mouth (ie. pine needles) we decided once again to put up our trusty fake tree.  With lots of help, of course.

Carter helped haul lights!

Opening their new tree ornaments from Grandma Marty and Papa Dave

Benny approves of the tree :)

this picture would be very conflicting if we actually cared about college football

I don't think any one thing could be more work than mixing, rolling, cutting, baking, frosting and then decorating cut-out cookies.  (sigh)  But it just wouldn't be Christmas without them.

"Hey!  Where's the frosting??"

One of my favorite new traditions?  Matching Christmas jammies for the boys.  I know they won't let me dress them all matchy matchy forever, so I am going to take full advantage of it while I can!

And it was our very own Christmas miracle that all three boys looked at the camera ... at the same time ... without any weird faces.  For real, that never happens. 

I love having kids at Christmas time.  Well, I love them all the time, but it's especially fun at Christmas.  As an adult, Christmas is nice.  You decorate, you exchange gifts and it's, well, it's nice.  But with kids, Christmas is magical!  And we celebrate everything!  

I wish I would have videotaped Carter opening presents.  He was literally bouncing all over the living room.  And when he opened the bookmark that Brooks bought for him, he cheered "Oh wow!!  Oh wow!!  I will put it in my very favorite book!!!"

Seriously.  It was a bookmark.  But to Carter it was the best thing ever since it was his.

Bennett's reaction to receiving clothes for Christmas.  Sorry kiddo, we'll do better next year.

paper eater

Benny sitting like such a big boy in his new chair from Grandma Gale

I wish our families lived closer so we could celebrate with them, but we've been so so so blessed to be adopted into the Gale family here.  We spent Christmas Eve with them attending church and then going out to eat.  And we spent Christmas afternoon with them as well, eating lots of food, playing games and just spending time with amazing friends we get to call family!

Our summer .... summed up in one picture

This spot in our yard, this barren, grass-less patch of dirt, is where my boys spent hours and hours of their summer playing.  It was a perfect spot for excavators to dig, dump trucks to haul and tractors to plow.  

This spot was a favorite as well.  It's funny how what I see as an ugly, broken section of sidewalk, Carter saw as his personal quarry pit and a perfect place to dig and haul rocks.

This is what our summer was made of.  Playing.  Playing in the dirt, playing at the park, playing in the water, playing at our friend's houses ... we just played.  And it was perfect.  My boys weren't in baseball or swimming lessons or karate or soccer or any other organized activity.  And not that those things are bad, but I figure we have the rest of our lives to race around to practices and games and live according to everyone else's schedule.

But not this summer.  This summer we played.  We set our own schedule and we came and went as we pleased.  If we wanted to have a picnic at the spray park, we did that.  If we wanted to stay in our pajamas all day and watch movies, we did that.  If we wanted to play tennis, we found cheap rackets at a garage sale and learned how to play tennis.  When Brooks wanted to learn how to play marbles, we pretended we were in the 1950's, bought marbles and learned how to play "Ringer" in our living room.

We took impromptu trips to see hot air balloons launch, took hikes in the woods and ate popsicles in quite possibly the messiest way possible.

We celebrated birthdays, played with grandparents, and had a whole lotta picnics in the park. (because food just tastes better when you eat it outside!)

Brooks' birthday dinner

Most days Chris would come home from work, put something on the grill for dinner and play with the boys in the yard.  They'd hunt for grasshoppers, ride bikes around the block, or inspect our sunflower seeds we planted in the spring to see how much they'd grown since the day before.

And this little dude just came along for the ride :)

It was an amazing summer.  And I'm already excited for next summer when Bennett will be 18 months old and running around with the the rest of us.

 (ok, that was more than one picture.  sorry.)

They just keep getting bigger

All three of my boys have weighed about the same at birth.  8lb 4oz.  8lb 9oz.  8lb 5oz.  But what I find super interesting is how differently they've grown since then.

For instance, at 1 year old, Brooks weighed a whopping 17lbs.  He was a very petite baby.  And he's still a tall string bean of a kid.  Carter weighed 17lbs around 8 months.  Pretty average.  And Bennett hit the 17lb mark at FOUR months!

Here's a picture of the three boys when they were all about 6 months old.

Brooks

Carter

Bennett

It's amazing how three kids from the same parents, all fed the same, can be so totally different!!  Our theory is that it's a survival factor.  They have to keep getting bigger to avoid being crushed by their big brother :)

boys on an adventure

One thing I've learned about raising boys is how much they love adventure.  To conquer.  To rescue.  To win!  And these adventures seem to creep into our daily lives.  Chris takes them on "special missions" to buy eggs.  We go "treasure hunting" at rummage sales.

So in the spirit of adventure, I decided to take them on an exploration hike this week!  (Ok, that sounded way cooler than it actually was.  Really they I was just desperate to get out of the house in hopes that they'd stop fighting with each other for more than 26 seconds.)

And since this Wisconsin girl has just been aching lately for a forest (or the woods.  Heck, I'd even take a thick shelter belt), I decided to take them to the closest thing to a forest this part of South Dakota has to offer ..... the Outdoor Campus.

So we packed up the van and headed out.  And where to my city boys want to play as soon as we get there??  Inside!  GAH!!  And I could hear my mother's voice coming out of my mouth as I said "It's too nice out to play inside!!"  We're going on an adventure ... remember?  So I shooed them outside.  The Outdoor Campus actually has a lot of nice walking paths throughout their property.  Some are through the prairie grasses, but we followed the wooded paths.  Because I really miss trees.

This handsome-pants came along too :)  

city boys

And I would like to take a moment to pat myself on the back and tell you that I actually remembered to bring the bug spray!!  I think the skeeters love the woods just as much as I do and my poor Carter always seems to get bit the worst.  In fact, I was actually excited to try a new bug spray my friend Esther sent me.  She just started selling Radiantly You products and asked if I would try out the bug spray and give her some feedback.  So I sprayed the boys down and I am happy to say that we left the woods bug bite free!  And I love the fact that it wasn't stinky or sticky like regular bug spray.  It actually smelled like a sweet citronella.  Bonus yet that it's made with essential oils and not with "who knows what" chemicals.

Anyway, as we were "exploring" the boys found a toad!  Not gonna lie, I really didn't expect to find anything noteworthy.  (these boys seem to have an attention span of a mosquito)  But I was really glad we did and was I proud of the boys for actually holding it.  

(Note: the bug spray does NOT repel toad pee.  Just sayin'.)

Poor toad.  Holding on for dear life.

We walked as far as a two year old has stamina for (which is not that far) and we headed back to the main building.  The boys played on the different activities set up outside for quite a while and then we headed home.

All in all, I'd say it was a good adventure!