Benny McBenster

Two months and three requests later...I'm finally forcing myself to sit down, get some pictures off my phone and onto the computer, and post some pictures of Benjamin. Keep scrolling down for a couple other new posts too.

 Benny is the happiest little guy, always smiling. Luckily for everyone involved, he's pretty content and usually happy to hang out in the bouncer or his crib while I help the older two with something, cook a meal, etc.

Caitlyn and Nathan LOVE Benjamin and are almost always super careful and gentle with him.

Here's a video of Benny havin' some tummy time. Warning: this will probably be pretty boring to anyone who is not either a parent or a grandparent of Benjamin...just a heads up. This video is from about a month ago, so he's moved on to bigger and better things now, like rocking back on his knees and army crawling. I'll try to post a more current video soon.

Cait is 4!

My baby turned 4! How can that BE?? We had a blast though. 

We started the day with the traditional wake-up gift and then had a yummy breakfast of Almond Banana pancakes. (Excuse the shirtlessness. Undies and jammies are one and the same in the summer.)

Among other gifts, Cait got a job chart for her birthday and was really excited to be old enough to have her very own jobs. It's been about a month now and she has been an AWESOME job-doer. A lot of the time I don't even need to remind her anymore.

Grandma Disparte send Caitlyn some birthday money so I took her to the store to pick out what she wanted to buy with it. She chose a Princess "T-roar-a" dress. (She calls Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty "T-roar-a".)

She also got a birthday package from Grandma and Grandpa Sitthichai, and she's insisted on taking her preschool book to school in her backpack every day.

A couple weeks before her party Caitlyn helped me back the cakes for her birthday cake and freeze them so we wouldn't have to worry about baking and cleaning up the day before or the day of the party. You can see that Caitlyn REALLY loves helping me cook. Licking the bowl is a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it right?

Cait chose to have an "Ocean" themed party. Probably because we were at SeaWorld when I was asking her what kind of cake she wanted. So we had a treasure hunt as one of the activities, and this is the treasure chest the kids found at the end of the clues. We also played "fish" where the kids threw their fishing pole over a blanket and I hooked on a sand toy and threw it back over. Kind of like at the 4th and 24th of July celebrations at the park.

What would an ocean-themed party be without sea creatures dangling for the ceiling?

Caitlyn also helped me make this banner in the days before the party. Seriously, shopping and getting ready for the party was at least 70% of the fun!

We had a goldfish cracker bar (in the sand pails), tuna salad sandwich bites, ocean blue punch, and of course, the ocean themed cake. Those little white seashells Caitlyn and I made using a molds we found at Michaels and melting chocolate. Yum....

Cait had a blast with a bunch of her little friends, all of whose parents are also good friends of ours, which made it a blast for us too. 

At the end of the party we changed the kids into their swimsuits and all went out to the pool. The dads all got in the pool and hot tub with the kids, and we moms all sat on the side and chatted. THAT, my friends, is my idea of a great time. :-) 

Happy Birthday to our big girl! We love you Cait!

First Day of School! First Day of School!

As much as we totally loved the preschool we did during the summer where all three kids and I stayed the whole time, it was pretty challenging for me to monitor Nathan, hold/nurse Benjamin, and also run a station or do the snack. I was tense and exhausted by the end of every preschool day. So...

Last week Caitlyn had her first day of preschool at Jones Elementary!

In San Diego the coat and backpack hooks are outside. And why not, when the weather is great pretty much every day of the entire year?

This is Miss Barbie. Another family in our ward who's had two of her boys in Miss Barbie's class recommended this preschool to us and said Miss Barbie is fantastic. So far we haven't been disappointed.

Yes, Caitlyn is eating breakfast. Nice that they serve the kids breakfast! Quinn drops her off at 7:15 on his way to work, and he loves the daddy-daughter time. He says Caitlyn is a little chatterbox and talks his ear off the whole way to school.

When we left on the first day of school, Caitlyn had already pulled out a puzzle and barely looked up to say goodbye. No time to waste, people!