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.

Happy New Year

Have a blessed 2009! Be safe this week, and I'll update you when we return from Massachusetts.

Christmas week #1

We spent most of the last week in Ocean City for Christmas #1. We had a great time; Ben, of course, was spoiled by his Grandma and Grandpa. We were able to spend great time with family, give and receive great Christmas presents, see the Winterfest lights (an annual tradition it looks like we are starting), play at an arcade, have a great lunch on mom, and celebrate the birth of our savior.


Here are a few pictures from the week...

My favorite present.


At Grandma and Grandpa's we open the stockings first. Each person opens one gift at a time. Ben opened one present first, then Kim and Uncle Steve, Grandma & Grandpa, J.R. then me. Then Ben got to go again. With seven people and about 15 gifts in each stocking, I really didn't know how long Ben would last. He did great! He opened up his gifts and played with them or visited with everyone else until it was his turn again. He was extremely patient. In fact, by the end of the stocking, he didn't really care to open any more gifts, and he really didn't care too much about opening the gifts under the tree. He just wanted to visit, and when a cool new toy or book was opened, he'd play with that. Here's a picture of him opening a gift from his stocking.


Ben's cool new coat.


Ben with some of his arcade tickets. Ben (we helped a little - I personally kicked butt at skee ball) won 395 tickets, and with that, he was able to get a 500 ticket car. The woman behind the counter was very kind to give him that even though he didn't have enough tickets. Ben is very into cars right now so he loved it! After we played there for a while, we walked on the board walk for a little bit. The beach was deserted, even though it was a nice day.

Ben (Grandpa in the background) on the train to see the Winterfest lights. We went to see the lights last year too...we are starting a tradition. As you can see, Ben is starting to become a little ham when the camera comes out.

Now it's on to Christmas week #2 - after a visit from our friend Rachel, we are heading to Massachusetts for the rest of the week. Happy New Year!

Phanta Claus

OK, I did it again. What a new mom I am.

Anyway, we took Ben to the Phillies ball park so we could have his picture taken with the Philly Phanatic dressed as Santa Claus. We thought if the picture came out good, we could use it as our Christmas card picture. Last year, Ben did great with Santa. In fact we think this is the most precious picture of the two of them.

So, I naively thought this year he wouldn't be afraid of Santa. What was I thinking? He's 18 months old! Isn't every 18 month old afraid of Santa? Especially if he's big and green? This is the result.

I'm not as hormonal as I was last week, so I'm actually laughing pretty hard at this. And here's the kicker - notice no J.R. in the picture? We got in line at 10:45 AM and pictures didn't start until 11:00 AM. We had to wait outside so we were freezing. Ben was getting antsy so J.R. walked him around for a while. Then Ben started getting cranky, so I thought I'd take him into the store and walk around in there. Upstairs there is a life size Phanatic statue, so we thought that if Ben couldn't take much more, we'd just take a picture there. Well, not long after I got out of the line, it started moving. J.R. stayed, but when I didn't come back right away, he started letting people ahead of him, then finally got out of line. Ben and I were upstairs looking at the statue and he was calming down pretty good. "Phanta Claus" was there too; we could see people getting their picture taken so we were watching them. That really calmed Ben down. Finally I decided to get back in line. I didn't realize J.R. had stepped out, so I went through the entire line, excusing myself as I went, expecting people to get mad and think I was cutting (actually, everyone was really nice). I got all the way to the front of the line, and the woman who was originally standing behind me told me J.R. got out of line. She and her husband let me get in front of them, and I tore off our coats to get ready - there were only like 1 or 2 people in front of us. I didn't even have time to call J.R. to tell him to join us. I put Ben down and he immediately made friends with a Mrs. Claus (a ballgirl I guess). He seemed really happy so I was happy. In fact, when it was our turn, he was ready to go. The security lady said the same thing. Well, there was another Mrs. Claus near "Phanta" and she picked him up. That was the beginning of the end. Cry, cry...sigh. The picture is obviously the result. The Mrs. Claus that took our picture was cute - she said "I got him looking at me". Thanks. I just said "Awesome, thank you very much" and we got out of line. There was a fanfoto guy there too so crankybaby's picture is on the website too.

Guess we need to come up with something else for our Christmas card.

Christmas Tree

We put up our Christmas tree tonight. I don't know what I was thinking. I wanted Christmas music, a cozy atmosphere...I wanted to reminisce with each ornament I took out, wanted to show things to Ben and have him be into it. Yeah, right. He was carrying around a heavy candle holder and broke it, he smashed a small glass candle holder into the computer screen, I think there was an ornament he broke too. He was stepping in everything, he was cranky, and it just wasn't the evening I hoped for. Sigh. Again, I really don't know what I was thinking...I mean, he's 18 months old and has no clue whats going on. Oh well. Here are couple of pictures we managed to take.