Beep Beep

Ben loves cars, trucks, boats... Pretty much anything with an engine.

I've had my eye on one of these cars for Ben since his first birthday, but I just couldn't see paying $50 for one when they are constantly for sale at garage sales...only I never seem to make it to any garage sales.

Thank goodness for a very generous co-worker who knew I wanted one and convinced his two boys they were too old for theirs. (They are 5 and 8; I think mostly my co-worker just wanted the storage space back, and who can blame him.) Anyway, the boys agreed they were ready to part with it and were glad to see it go to another kid. And Ben was a very grateful recipient! It is amazingly in almost-new condition.

My little short stack can't quite scoot it along this year, but I'm sure he'll get there soon. Meanwhile, he stands at the back door looking at it and saying "beep beep, beep beep" until we take him outside to play with it.

Playing with it includes opening the door, getting in, turning the wheel, honking the horn, turning the key, then opening the door and getting out. And then repeating the cycle 100 more times. And occassionally checking the gas tank, which I pretended to fill up once, making the gulp, gulp noise, and now he loves to try to make the noise himself.

At the Car Wash...

The car was pretty dirty after our camping trip, so I decided to take her through the car wash. Ben was in the car, and he'd never gone through an automatic car wash before. I think his face in these pictures says it all.

But he wasn't scared. Just very apprehensive/curious. I think he liked it actually, but he just had no idea what to make of it.

Labor Day BBQ

Just 3 weeks after having her new baby, Cheryl invited the family over for a BBQ. I was excited to get my hands on the little guy, Parker. So cute! So little!

Carson has quite the backyard play area, so Ben kept busy. A favorite game was riding in the swing and pretending to kick Dada in the face and knock him down. Hmm, I wonder where Ben gets the idea that it is okay to hit and throw things...

Next Ben, Riley, and Carson moved on to the sand box.

But most of Ben's time was spent on the slides. Ben LOVES to climb and is quite skilled for someone so little.

I tried to get one decent picture of us together, but he spotted a plate of cookies and was too distracted to smile for the camera. In the first picture, he has an entire cookie shoved in his mouth.

Let's end this post with a picture of Brenda holding little baby Parker, because who can resist that baby's face!

Lake Shelbyville 2011

Our annual camping trip to Lake Shelbyville was a fun but exhausting weekend! In fact, so exhausting that I didn't get a chance to snap many pictures. But here is what I did get...

We arrived Friday afternoon, and Ben was immediately taken with Kenny Jr's truck. Ben is really into trucks lately, so it is no surprise this was a big hit. It is so tall Ben could walk under it without ducking.

Saturday after breakfast we loaded up onto the pontoon boat and other boats that people brought along, and headed out. Ben loved the boat ride, and we can add "boat" to the list of words he can say. He pointed out every other boat on the water. And, as always, the water really mellows him. Which was nice. A big difference from the rest of the trip...

After a bit of riding on the boat, we found a nice beach spot. Ben really liked playing with his sand toys and wandering the beach area.

Here he is dumping sand from his shovel onto Mike. I liked this game.

He also really liked floating around with everyone and splashing in the water.

And I thought he'd be afraid to go out with Dada on the jet ski, but he loved it...or at least sat happily/mellowly the entire ride, which is about his only reaction to things when he's in the water.

By Sunday morning, Ben was wiped out. I put him in his car seat with a DVD and let him relax while we packed up the car. He was happy to take it easy (finally). He also likes to keep him self busy by taking off his shoes, as you can see here.

Life Jacket Trial Run

Before our annual camping trip to Shelbyville, we wanted to make sure Ben's life jacket fit properly.

Mike had him try it on for size.

It seemed like a good fit, and we were ready to take it off of him. But he thought it was fun and kept it on for a bit.

Until he learned the hard way that it is a little harder to walk with a life jacket on. Uh oh. He rolled around and finally figured out how to get up...while Mike and I laughed our heads off. Because we're awesome parents like that.

Nothing says classy like a picture with Mike's feet in it. I could have edited them out, but I'm lazy.

Tent

Ben's daycare had a play tent one day, and Ben was smitten. So we got him one of his own.

It was love at first sight.