Pondering the Deep Questions

If you are ever wondering, "How long does it take to completely fry a TV remote control in the microwave?", the answer is, 15 seconds.

Enough said.

When in Philadelphia...

do as the Philadelphians do, I guess. Since the Patriots didn't make the football playoffs, we'll be the house that will root for the Eagles. That'll make J.R. happy anyway. Can't believe I'm teaching this to Ben, but, it's for the good of Daddy's ego :)

Boy Toys

Ben is very into cars right now. I was shopping for Ben's Christmas stocking, and went to the toy department to look for a couple of Matchbox cars. Well, I almost walked right past them. I'm so used to walking past the boy toys and straight to the girl toys or games. Boy toys were totally uninteresting to me. Now I look down at Ben's playtoys here at the house, and that's all there are...boy toys!

Ben was very fortunate at Christmas and received loads of new toys We put away the baby toys, and J.R. put a bunch of other toys in a tub, and in a few months, we'll take them out so it's like he has new toys all over again. That, and because we don't have much room for them. When I looked at the cleaned toy space in our bedroom (we have a pile of toys in every room of the house) all the cute little animals were gone, all the musical instruments were gone. All that was left was cars, trucks and a construction site! It was so surprising to me. I mean, I have a boy, and I'm going to have another one, so the fact that the floor was filled with trucks didn't completely surprise me. I guess what was so compelling to me, was that all the little boy stuff was gone. My baby isn't a baby anymore. He's a toddler. He's growing up. Sigh.

Christmas Week #2

This was truly a Christmas Week. We arrived in Mass. on Monday night and the Christmas festivities began right away. At least the festivities including opening presents. First off, there were a huge amount of gifts surrounding the tree. The most unbelievable part was there were only gifts there for me, J.R. and Ben. Well, the new baby had a few gifts too and I think Chloe even had one. Ben almost immediately went for a gift. He opened up a cool train from my dad and Kathy, then we opened all the gifts my grandmother had left. We went and visited Nana on Tuesday so we were able to thank her in person. Here's a pic of Ben and I with Nana. Not the best picture of Ben, but he wasn't necessarily cooperating.Tuesday night there was more gift opening, Ben got into one or two.

Wednesday was fun - we had snow! There was a small, in New England standards, snowstorm that dropped 5 inches on us. J.R. was thrilled, I never got to go out in it. J.R. took Chloe for a nice long walk through the sand pits, and in the afternoon he took Ben out for a bit. Here are some pictures.

Wednesday was New Year's Eve, so we ordered Chinese, opened (the rest of) our gifts from my dad and Kathy, and after Ben went to bed, we introduced Mom and Ron to Dominoes - a Wanner family favorite! Of course, I kicked some butt! :)

Thursday we had our planned Christmas. In the morning, we exchanged gifts with Mom and Ron. Lisa, Brooke and Joe came over after and we opened their gifts. My Auntie Linda, Uncle George and cousin Cam (cousin Kelley was sick so just her son Cam came over) came over for dinner and we opened their gifts. Wow! Gifts galore. Saturday, we went to Memere's house and opened all her gifts. We barely had room to take our gifts back to Pennsylvania! In fact - we really didn't. We left a few things behind. Ben received a basket of potty training things, so we won't need that right away. We also left some diapers for the new baby. Here's a few more pictures.

I forgot how little newborn stuff is!!! Isn't this so cute?!?!
Awh, love your cousin...

Awh, love your dog cousin....

And...all the cousins...

vi - e - o

When in the car, Ben often watches Baby Einstein videos, or as he calls them, vi - e -os, or e - os. He LOVES them. I really didn't want him to watch TV until he was two, but at three months...I, and the babysitter, needed relief! To this day, the Baby Einstein videos really calm him down and they keep his attention. We use them in the car when we make our six hour trips. He'll watch for a couple of hours if we let him, and he's just great. It helps huge - I know I don't want to be in the car for six hours. Anyway, just had to explain the title of this post.


The real reason for the post, is because I forgot to upload this really cute video of Ben dancing at the arcade when we were in Ocean City for Christmas. I'll post again about our week in Massachusetts once I upload the pictures we took.