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Need a Laugh?

This video and the next are all about a kleenex box cover that our good friend Melanie brought us back as a gift from her 2 years in Thailand as a missionary. :) As you can see, Ben found a new use for it!

This is how he usually says little and big... it just kills me!

He did this without us teaching him (the different mommy, daddy & baby sounds).

Bumpersticker of the Day

IF I LIVED IN MY CAR
I WOULD BE HOME BY NOW

Choo Choo!

We were given free tickets to the Great Smokey Mountain Railroad. The day was a bit rainy, but we had a great time anyway. Ben loved the 4 hour choo-choo ride!

Bumpersticker of the Day

TALK NERDY TO ME

I guess it has been a while...

Yes, I realize it has been a LONG time since the last real post. Well, despite the fact that our blog has been empty, our life has not. Sorry to do it bullet point fashion but here are a few of the major events, in no particular order.

• VISITORS - My parents and brother Buzz came to visit!!! - They were planning to drive but hit a deer not far from home. Thankfully everyone was fine, and thanks to some good friends they ended up being able to fly. We loved having them here! My dad stayed for a week, my mom stayed for two, and Buzz stayed for a month!
  
• FAIRS, FAIRS & MORE FAIRS! - I had a booth for my Usborne Books at the NC Mountain State Fair... a grueling 10 days, but well worth it! I also had a booth at the Haywood County Fair, a Book Fair at the local hospital (during the State Fair - yes, we are crazy) and between Oct & Dec I have/had 9 preschool book fairs, another hospital one and about 8 home shows... crazy to say the least.
• BABY!!!! - this is the MAIN reason I have not posted so long. Life for the past few months has been reduced to doing ONLY THAT WHICH IS TOTALLY NECESSARY FOR SURVIVAL. Shortly before my parents arrived we found out that Baby Z #2 is on his/her way! We are very excited... but I have been quite sick... which makes for a really fun time at all the events listed in point #2. :) I am finally feeling better... although still not close to normal... whatever that is. Baby 2 is set to arrive some time in late April... and we get to find out if "it" is a He or She on December 10th!
• CANCER - my brother Micah was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma a little over a month ago. Praise the Lord that it is only stage 1, and he has responded well to the first two Chemo treatments. He has 6 more over the next 3 months followed by radiation. For more info you can follow check his blog HERE.
• GRAD SCHOOL - We are in the final weeks for Andrew's grad program!!! December 5th will be his last day - he will then be a graduate of Wake Forest's MBA program!!! We have 76 Saturdays down and only THREE MORE to go! WAHOO!!! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to have my husband back. He has been working from 7-5 every day and then studies from 5:30 or so until Starbucks closes... and then he drives to Charlotte for class on Saturdays. Needless to say our Sundays have been precious the past two years. You may ask... "so what is next for you guys?" And your guess is as good as mine! Maybe Asheville, maybe somewhere far away, maybe law school... only the Lord knows!
  
• BENJAMIN - and I can't forget the little person that has turned our life upside down. He is such a joy, we can't imagine life without him. He is almost 22 months old (where does the time go?) He loves Bob & Larry and Nemo, he requests oatmeal for breakfast, lunch and dinner and for oranges, kiwis, pears and bananas in between. He is running, jumping and loves to shut doors. At last count he has 60-70 works in his vocab and loves to finish all my sentences when reading (Go Dog Go, Snowmen at Night, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, A Mouse told his Mother, The Very Hungry Caterpillar & Dr. Suess's ABC's are among the favorites). He is active, but snugly and LOVES giving me kisses... so funny. I will upload some pictures and videos soon!

So there is our little life. I am going to try and be better about blogging, but with three home shows and six book fairs and a graduation party to plan before we go to Utah for TWO WHOLE WEEKS over Christmas... I make no guarantees. :)

Bumpersticker of the Day

JESUS SAVES
BUDDHA RECYCLES

Teachin' 'em Young

Chalk Boy

It is so worth the mess to have him happy and playing! :)

We Love Nemo :)

Hair, Hair!

Ben is obsessed with hair. Mainly mine. From the time he was tiny, he would have to hold my hair to fall asleep... it was his security blanket.

Well, it still is. This morning, just after Ben got up, I threw my hair up in a knot so that it was out of my way... immediately Ben started crying. When I finally got him to calm down and "use his words" he looks and me with these big puppy dog eyes and said "hair down? hair down?" As soon as I took the band out he was as happy as a clam.

Silly Boy. :)

Videos

I have created a monster. We watched a video or two on the camera and now he just wants to watch them, he won't let me take them! AHH! Here are the few that I did manage to get.


Yummy!!!

Well, he knows hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, teeth, lips, chin, cheeks, neck, elbow, armpit, belly button, knees, toes, feet, leg & arm... but this is as many as I could get on video. :-P



Well, here are some of his skills with a ball... but he wouldn't talk... AHH! If only he would perform on command!!!
COMING SOON (If I can get it on video): Jumping, and the sound a snake and a rabbit make. :)

Joining the Dark Side

I have now completely switched to Gmail & Firefox... and I am LOVING IT!

Can I just say that Firefox and Gmail are both amazing. Andrew has done great things with Firefox... there are so many add-ons and cool little things. So many bells and whistles. Part of it is probably that I didn't take the time to customize my yahoo or internet explorer... but I don't think it could do everything FF & Gmail do.

A few of my favorite things:

Facebook tool bar
Email signature with links
Window recovery from previous session
Email filters with colors and everything
Archive options
Google Calendar

and so much more!

So, if you haven't made the switch... you should!

Time Just Keeps on Passing

Our best friends in Asheville, Josh & Missy just moved away. :( We will miss them greatly, but know they are exactly where God has them! Josh was accepted into a Ph.D. program at East Carolina University and God brought a buyer for their house this week! Here are a few shots of Ben and their daughter Alina. They are 11 months apart to the day. They are sitting on Josh & Missy's U-haul :)

Not sure what I think of her.

This could be fun... but my ear itches.
So sweet!
This past week we house/dog/pap paw sat while our friends the Goodrums were gone for a week! We had great fun living in someone else's house, eating their food and just hanging out. Readi-Whip is one of Ben's new favorite foods. :) Video coming soon. :)
Yummy!
Ben and Pap Paw have always enjoyed each other's company, but spending a whole week together just sealed the deal. They would play in the mornings while I took a shower (pap paw would feed him raisins) and Ben would cry when we left him at his day program. The last day we were there the two of them sat and talked on the front porch for AN HOUR while Andrew and I cleaned and just enjoyed an hour by ourselves. Here is the picture...I had to sneak the picture so Ben didn't see me... but here is Pap paw, Ben & Dixie... Ben is now a HUGE lover of dogs. It is so very sweet.

Death

Our washing machine has officially died. :( We had a great family-friend-handy-man come and look at it but after trying a few different things he officially pronounced him dead last Friday at 3:40pm.

So, having no money to spend on a new washer, we have officially become Craig's List hawks. Until then we will be inviting ourselves over to our friends and families houses' to do our laundry. If you live close... beware!!

Birthday Party!

Ben and I went to Caleb Freeman's 2nd birthday party on Saturday! We had a great time feeding the ducks and playing on the playground. :) Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of Caleb... it was all I could do to keep Ben busy and out of the water. :)

He loves steering wheels. :)

Big-Brave-Slide-Man! :)

Fun in Tulsa

Ok, fine! I can't get the pictures to move, so you are going to have to see them in this random and haphazard way. :) Ben and I went to Tulsa, OK for the Usborne National Convention a couple weeks ago. I used a frequent flyer ticket, so an added perk was that we were able to spend a few days with two of my college suite-mates and their kiddos. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of Kerri and her three kiddos (I will get a few next weekend when they come to visit!) but I did snap a few of Emi, Brian & Jane's sweet little girl. Ben and I stayed with Jane & Brian and they were wonderful hosts! Anyway... here are some pictures from the trip...
This is the front room of the Home Office. I don't think it was what I was expecting, the building was not flashy or anything... basically just a big warehouse... but they are debt free... so I will take that any day or over big and flashy!
This is the "pick line" where they put our books in the boxes to be shipped. Pretty sweet.
And the warehouse. :)
Here is Ben sitting in the President of Usborne's chair. :) As you can see... many people left Randall notes on his desk. :)
This is my director, Deb Casey. I won a contest and got a book signed by Stephen Cartwright... the man who illustrated many of Usborne's books (Find the duck :).
We had a Hawaiian themed lunch. :) Usborne always has a trip incentive going... and the current one is... can you guess.... a 7 day Hawaiian cruise. :)
Uncle Nate... I could not have made it through without him. Nate was Great and Amazing and is now in the running for favorite Uncle. :) As a very small Thank You Nate & I went to see the new Harry Potter movie! Fun fun! Too bad Nate hasn't read the 7th book. :-P
Jane, Kerri & I (and our 5 children) went to the Oklahoma Aquarium... Benjamin LOVED IT! He couldn't get enough of the "phish, phish!"
Can you spot Nemo?? Ben sure could!And finally a picture of Ben & Emi. They were so sweet together. Are they not the cutest?

Growing Up

Benjamin is growing up so fast, and he seems to be learning and doing something new every day! I can't believe he is almost 18 months old... less than 2 weeks!

You can hear Pap paw who Ben and I sometimes hang out with in the back ground. :)

He started this a few weeks ago. Yikes!

And here is a video with some of his animal noises, although in the last week since the video was taken he has added a few more. And I also had a video with him identifying body parts but the computer ate it... so I will have to load that one another day. :)

Brought To You By The Letter "L"

"L" is such a useful letter! In the past week Ben has added

Little, Lid, Ladybug, Later and a few others to his ever-expanding vocabulary.

Life is Fun

Yesterday after church we stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things for a picnic. Just after I walked out and got in the car we saw this old man just start driving into the store. It felt like we were in slow motion, as you are watching it you are thinking... "is this really happening?" But... here is PROOF!

So funny, we were in need of a good laugh. :) The man was very cautious about pulling in, and managed to get through the first doors but couldn't make it through the second set. (I don't think it scraped at all. :) He doors could completely shut after he pulled in.

Survey

Andrew is doing a project for his Entrepreneurship class this semester. Would you take a minute and fill out a survey for him?

Just Click Here!

Thank you for your help!!

Trashcan Adventures

While completely rearranging our living room/study to fit my newly refinished table/desk I heard a little whimpering sound and turned around to find this. His feet were off the ground so he couldn't get out. And being the wonderful mother that I am, I took a picture before rescuing my poor helpless child.

Little Book Worm

I am SOO glad that Ben takes after his daddy in this way. He will sit on my lap and we will read for OVER AN HOUR at a time. Sandra Boynton books are a favorite. They were on sale last week at BN so I splurged and bought 3 more. :)

As a side note, while at BN I have been filling in the gaps in my childhood (Thank you Meredith!) ... I have now read Blueberries for Sal, The Story of Ping, Caps for Sale, Make Way for Duckings and The Little Engine that Could.

The Things Left Undone...

The past two months have been crazy. We have managed to make it through Andrew going to China, Ben & I going to VA, the LSAT, new semester starting (only 1 more after this one!!!), adjusting to Andrew's 50 hour work week (not counting homework or school), refinishing a table and overhauling a room of the house to make it fit, qualifying to become a Supervisor with Usborne Books (lots of phone calling, meetings, late nights), Choir concert downtown, putting our house back on the market, teething, and a little boy growing up way to fast... but it all comes at a price:

• Andrew needed a hair cut about 3 weeks ago
• There is a table in the middle of the hall way, which has no home
• All toilets are dirty and in great need of cleaning
• I have been a horrible friend to many
• I haven't read blogs, or posted
• My child wakes up saying "ma, ma, ma! (movie, movie, movie)" and running to the TV
• Ben has eaten blueberries 5 days running
• My bed is unmade (and has been for a week)
• The ONE plant I have in the house is just about to die
• Picture frames on the mantle still have a B/W photo of someone walking on the beach in it
• The clock in our bedroom is still flashing from when the power went out 8 DAYS ago

Pearly Whites & More

Brushing Ben's teeth has been a struggle for a long time, but about a week ago he has started LOVING it, and constantly asking to brush his teeth (as you can see in the video). He has TWO toothbrushes and mainly loves just sucking the water off of them. And he keeps asking for "Mo Wa?" (more water).

Ben & Auntie Kristin reliving a flip-flop-bug-squishing incident.

And this is Ben's new play pen. :) He can easily climb out, but he loves running around and smashing into the cushions. The scream is new too. Hilarious.

Bumpersticker of the Day

IF YOU GET BETTER WITH AGE

I'M APPROACHING MAGNIFICENT

Snip Snip Buuuzzzzzz

BEFORE

AFTER

Bumpersticker of the Day

DON'T CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK

BECAUSE OFTEN THEY DON'T

Good ol' Friends

Ben and I had a wonderful time visiting friends in NoVA while Andrew was in China. We were there for 10 days and then we drive from Leesburg, VA to Charlotte, NC to pick up Andrew and then home to A'ville. It took us about 11 hours... it was quite exhausting and we didn't get home until 1 in the morning, so needless to say we are still recovering. But we had a great time while we were there, we went on several walks, visits lots of old friends and even went to the zoo. Andrew had my little camera, so I didn't take many pictures... but here are a few..

Ben discovering Sarah's back massager... he wasn't quite sure what to think at first... but then...He found it was pretty cool after all. :)

Most of the animals seemed to scare him, especially if they were up close, but he liked the tiger, hippo and LLOOOVVVEDD the birds.
Ben with Miss Sarah, our lovely hostess and amazing friend. :)

Birds!!

2 our of 4 isn't bad. :-P Mike and Sarah were so wonderful to put us up for so long. And it took a few days, but Ben and Maggie got along great. By the time we left they were sharing food, swapping spit and Ben woke up asking for "da, da, ma, ma!!" (Dog, Dog, Maggie, Maggie!!)