After-school fun

Today Xavier and Ben had their friends Gabe and Clara over after school. Ben always gets really wound up when they're around because he loves them so much. And Xavier loves the attention from mother hen Clara :)

Ben and Gabe on the glider.


Clara was providing tremendous entertainment to Xavier - with silly faces and "feet puppets" and "hand puppets", as she called them, over the top of his highchair.

Xavier was laughing hysterically at Clara's wiggly feet when I took this picture!


A group shot -


Playing in one of the new cabinets - notice all the kitchen construction in the other pictures?


Whoa Gabe - look at you! This kick has a name, but I can't remember what he called it :) Ben was simply in awe of Gabe after this.



The big hit of the afternoon was everyone taking turns giving Xavier high chair rides. Xavier was loving this new game. He thought the bumps they hit when moving between rooms were hilarious. (sorry its blurry - they were going FAST!)


Apparently all that fun was exhausting, here is Xavier after Gabe and Clara went home :)

Just when you think its safe to leave the house...

this happens:


Yep folks, that's a mosquito bite right after it happened. Poor Xavier is so sensitive to mosquitos. And unfortunately, after the massive amount of rain and standing water we had a couple of weeks ago, it was mosquito breeding heaven. We literally could not go outside to play for over a week; just opening the back door was cause for alarm! I've never seen so many mosquitos in my life. The last couple of days have been better, but one still managed to find him this morning, on his back (through his shirt!) of all places. This is only his 2nd bite of the summer.The first one, about a week ago, was on his foot and caused it to swell up twice its normal size! So far, the one on his back has grown to a solid lump over a half-dollar size, with a large red ring around it. Bring on the Benadryl and hydrocortizone cream! Yikes!

Benny had withdrawl after not being able to play outside for that long, so he's really enjoying being out again. Here's our little man - "I'm hanging upside down, Mommy!" he shouts.


Ben has become fascinated with acorns. We have several mature oak trees in our yard, so this time of year, there are thousands of acorns tumbling from the sky. Ben likes to compare how big they are, "here's a tiny one, Mommy!" "Whoa, this one's giant, Mommy" (remember he ends almost every sentence with "mommy"? :) He's particularly interested in the ones that fall in a cluster, so he can count them. As he was seaching the ground and collecting them yesterday, I said, "Ben, show the camera your acorns so I can take a picture." He had just found a cluster of them and shouted, "hey camera, look at my acorns!!" (he was on the word "acorns" when I snapped the photo).


Xavier - so happy to be swinging once again!

Slowly but surely...

Our kitchen is slowly but surely coming together! Nick is almost done making the cabinets. They still need to be painted and installed of course, but we're getting there. Last week, we finally got all the masonry work outside completed, its nice to have our house without a chunk out of it (see previous backyard pictures). We still have a lot of work to do, but we're heading in the right direction. Hopefully I'll have a lot more pictures to post in the near future as things really start moving towards the finished product :)

Here's our new brickwork - the mason said that it could take about 2 weeks for the true color of the brick and mortar to be apparent (its still wet from installation), so hopefully the match to the old brick will be seamless.


Here are a few pictures of the boys playing by (or in) one of the new cabinets.

First day of school!

Yippee! Both boys have been so excited for today to come, we've been talking about it a lot. Xavier always claps his hands and "dances" with his legs when we talk about all the kids he'll see again and his teachers. And Benny loves to hear and talk about all the fun things he'll get to do in school. Last night we prepared by packing their backpacks Benny carefully chose between Thomas the Train and Superman, "choo-choo backpack" as he calls it, won. And the boys took turns sitting in Xavier's wheelchair before we loaded it in the van to take to school. Xavier loves to sit in his chair because it allows him to use his hands for playing instead of to support himself.
Xavier's turn in his chair-

Now its Benny's turn!


This is the best shot I could get of the boys together before school.


Both of them were so excited from all the school talk yesterday, they did not fall asleep until about 10:15 which is very unusual(they were in bed by 8:15!) Then it was an early morning because school starts at 8:15. Benny woke up on his own, but Xavier had to be woken up. For those of you who know Xavier well, you know that this spells trouble most of the time - he was very tired this morning. When Benny woke up, I heard his little feet hit the ground running, he burst out of his room and shouted, "I go to school today, hooray!!"

I asked Benny to stand by this tree so I could get a "first day of school picture". Why the pout Benny?! Are you tired too? Don't you love his outfit - his pick, he's so particular about what he wears!


Benny hanging up his backpack under his cubby.


This picture of Xavier really cracks me up. Look at that face. He looks so unamused, but really he's just very tired.


Both boys reportedly had a very good first day. When I came in to pick them up, Xavier was laying on the floor playing with one of his friends from last year. He loves to interact with other kids his age. Benny is going to enjoy that too. I took him to play at the park after lunch today while Xavier hung out with Grandma and Grandpa P and while he was playing he looked around and said, "where are all the other kids?!" The playground was deserted, he needed a buddy!

The boys don't return back to school until next Tuesday because of the "staggered start" for standardized testing, but I'm sure we'll have more interesting school adventures to share soon! We are looking forward to lots of fun and learning over the school year!

Old MacBenny had a farm...

Ben loves getting out all his various animal figures and fencing them in his little wooden fence given to him by Aunt Kelly and Uncle Brian. The fence can be arranged in an endless amount of shapes, however his favorite shape is a triangle. What makes me laugh is his "farm" is very ecclectic. Pigs, cows, and horses mingle with a penguin, a dinosaur, and a robot. In Benny's world, everyone is friendly I guess :)

The Cleveland Zoo

Saturday we took a trip to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo with friends. Despite some rain in the afternoon, we had a really great time. Xavier and Ben had so much fun with the other kids and seeing all the animals, including elephants (they were getting their baths when we were there!), giraffes, zebras, stingrays (in a "touch" tank!), a hippo, monkeys, gorillas, chimpanzees, etc. I thought it was interesting that the chimpanzees were watching us just as much as we were watching them!

Here's my favorite picture of the day - I said "Xavier, mommy is going to take your picture." He looked at the monkey, and then turned towards me, smiling big.


How do you compare to the height of a newborn giraffe?? They're 6 ft tall at birth - Xavier, Ben, and Abby are about half as tall!




The kids had fun standing under a fan blowing cool mist - a welcome reprieve from the humidity!



Here are the lions, which, miraculously, were awake when we went by. Apparently, they sleep 22 hours a day!


Ben and Abby watching the lions.



And here's Ben making me nervous teetering on the brink of falling off of a wall by the lions.


Ben and Abby playing on a climbing structure. Ben said, "I'm going way up there, Mommy!" (Ben ends almost all his sentences with "mommy". Its very funny.)
He also told me, when we were looking at the hippo, "I want to go swimming with the hippo, Mommy." Um, no Ben, very bad idea.


This poor gorilla looked so forlorn and lonely. Or maybe he was just sensing the rain coming? Here are Nick and Ben watching him fiddle with a rope. He alternated between that and...


scratching his belly. :)


Xavier and Abby enjoying a relaxing moment at the end of the day.


Xavier was very happy when surprised by a zebra from our friends! Benny got a kangaroo, which he quickly named "Abby". Thanks again Lisa! Looking forward to seeing you all again soon!

Getting stronger!

Xavier is doing so well with his sitting! Here he is supporting himself on the edge of our couch, can you tell how much he's concentrating? (no smiles!) This is actually pretty difficult for him to do, but he can use his arms for support and balance in this position for about 30 sec to 1 min. After that he falls forward,(we catch him), and he smiles very big because he knows he's accomplished something!