The Wild World O' Bennett.

As Ben matures and grows, he's developing quite the personality - incredibly creative and expressive. With a vocabulary that continues to expand daily and a very witty charm, he's always doing something to amuse or amaze us.

Ben is pretty independent and likes to find things to occupy himself. One of his favorite activities is playing with his hotwheel cars. Its pretty remarkable, the original things he comes up with to do with them. One day last week, he was quiet for about 5 minutes while I was washing dishes. I went to check on him, and found him like this:

The little white puffs the cars are sitting on is stuffing from our couch cushion. He had taken out tiny little pieces and placed each car on one. I said (with a mixture of aggrevation and laughter), "Benny, what are you doing?!" He said, "Aw, Mommy. All the cars are sitting on the snow. See?" Brilliantly creative (as far as I'm concerned) :)

And tonight, it became very apparent to us, that our son is a gifted 'food artist'. Again, although we certainly do not encourage playing with food, sometimes, you have to let a 3 year old boy, be a 3 year old boy...Here he is, after noticing that he had biten his pizza crust into the shape of an animal. Nick saw him smiling and staring at his crust and said, "Hey buddy, what are you doing?" Ben said, "Look Daddy! I made a baby cow!" And upon inspection, it indeed looks remarkably like a baby cow!

And, of course, there is the ever-popular bologna art. He has advanced from making faces with eyes only, and has added a smile to his repetoire. Here's 2 from last week, after announcing proudly, "Look Mommy! Here's me, and here's Xavier!"


Super Ben! That's what he shouted as he ran around...it eventually turned into "Super me!! Super Daddy!! Super Mommy!! Super Xavier!!" Very cute!


Ronald McDonald getting a check-up from Bennett, D.D.S.



And in a tribute to the Christmas season, multiple times a day, Ben will say, with a shifty little glance, in an almost eerie tone that would scare me if I didn't know what he was talking about..."He watching me..." referring to Santa Claus, of course. What makes this funny is that he says it completely out of the blue, and usually when he's thinking about getting into trouble.