Ben knows his colors

Ben has impressed us lately on his ability to identify colors.   Ben finds new ways to impress us every day.

Go Ben!

"Ben's Tea"

Ben loves to sneak sips of my tea.. He always sees my cup and is like "mommy tea" and has a fit if I don't give him a little sip. Today I made him some apple cider and he declared it to be "Ben's tea" :) and he finally left my cup alone. Lol. So I guess I have a "tea" drinking partner :) as long as he has his own cup we are all good !

Barbie's house invaded

Tanner supervising Alicia's homework

Kids in their John Deere tractor shirts from Kloss family

Such a big help in the morning

Seriously mornings like today Ben acts like he is way more older than an almost 2 yr old. Getting Alicia ready for school in the morning can be a challenge and Ben is such a good helper at getting her moving along. Lol. First off he tries waking her up way earlier than needed (aka Ben likes getting up at about 5am lately). Usually we try shielding Alicia from Ben and his little brother wake-up abilities of pulling on her hair, body slamming her, etc., until she really needs to be up getting ready for school.
Typical mornings we sometimes have tv/radio on while getting ready and when my timer goes off to get ready for bus, Ben shouts "Ali-bus!" And then runs around finding stuff, first he shuts off tv (and Alicia yells at him as she wants to keep it on) and then he goes downstairs to get his coat, shoes, hat . Seriously this kid keeps me on top of things. Without Ben , Alicia and I might forget something ;-) he starts spouting off , "Ali, coat, hat" and spending on mood, either "shoes - boots" and I get the extra reminder of "mommy, keys" just incase I forgot we needed to drive Alicia out to the bus stop. :-) this morning he actually put his boots on all by himself too instead of just handing them to me for help. Oh, such a big helper boy.

2012 - Christmas on Kloss Side (5/5)

On Chrstmas Eve's Eve, Aunt Mary, Uncle Billy and Grandma Bev came and visited us in Dubuque, and we did a tour of the Hillcrest Family Services Festival of Lights.  There was a substantial wait to get into the park, however it was well worth the wait.   Here's some of the pictures that we took.

On Christmas Eve morning, we headed over to Aunt Vera and Uncle Erics.    (Need to add some detail here).

On Christmas Morning, we headed to Elizabeth for the Kloss Christmas's (grandmas house followed by Stacey and Michael's).  We had the opportunity to meet the newest cousin on the Kloss Side (Body Shelleberger), as well as witnessed some redneck wine. (30 year old Dandelion Wine, which in the absense of the corkscrew, we used a garage/bike hook.)

And then back to reality where we left our tree up for a few more days, until next december.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

2012 - Christmas in Elgin (2/5)

Alicia and Ben have been getting up early for no apparent reason recently  so it was no surprise when they where up at 5am.   And since we were up.  Lets the gift opening commence.  Unfortnately we were unable to snap a picture of the tree after Santa visited.

Alicia was excited that she almost got everything she wanted.  She was disappointed that she didn't get her Lego Friends House, (but we'll talk about that later).    Alicia's xmas gifts mostly consisted of barbies, lego friends, my little pony, and a homemade pinky-pie pillow

Ben was much slower than Alicia, as Ben wanted/insisted on playing with all of the toys before moving on to the next one.  The funniest part with Ben was when he wouldn't open a gift of his, since it didn't have Toy Story wrapping paper, (which many did).  We had to slightly open it to show a partial toy story figure for him to be interested.   Ben's xmas mostly consisted of Toy Story, Farm Equipment, and other truck/tractors.

Jointly, they have a new tool workbench, and more legos.

2012 - Christmas on Kluesner side (4/5)

After our Stockton Trip, we headed back to Dubuque, to see everyone else.   Its great to see all of the cousins, siblings and brother/sister in-laws all under one roof.  The food was great, and kids were great, and many of the pictures where great....  Next year we need to take a sibling picture.   Someone please remind us.   I'm sure as the years to come, these holidays will become more and more interesting as the kids grow older together.

2012 -Dubuque - Pre Parties (3/5)

Since the kids had a early start on the gifts, it gave us an early start on our family festivities back in Iowa/NW-Illinois.  And since Dubuque recently had over a foot of snow, we had an opportunity to go play in the snow.  Chicagoland as of 1/9/2013 has had a combined 1.4" of snow this season, so it was a great opportunity to go play in the snow.

Alicia, Cali and Ben went out to play in the snow with Todd and Heather.  (Drew tried but failed with his knee).    Here are a few videos / pictures

Then with some time to kill, and a need to make cookies.  Heather and the kids made some cookies/brownies in Dubuque to bring to the upcoming parties.  Here's a few pics from these festivities.  I wasn't around when these were made, but it looked like both Ben and Alicia had a great time helping mommy decorating the brownies.

2012 - The Pre-Holidays (1/5)

Well,  The holidays are behind us, actually it seems like eons ago, since i've had knee surgery and some complications since then.  One of the ways i can be productive is by blogging about christmas so thats what i'm going to do.   Heather will be back bringing up this blog to higher standards in blogs to come, but in the mean time, I hope you enjoy our christmas journey and pictures.  December was a busy but fun month for us.

I'll try to give a detailed cliff notes version.

 

Our Elf on the Shelf (Cookie-Dough, aka Cookie-O), was a good communication channel between our house and Santa.  He Sent Alicia's letter to Santa, and also relayed a message regarding our whereabouts on Christmas Day.   Santa actually sent a snail-mail letter to Alicia on her last day of school saying that he was going to our home a few days prior to Christmas.

Here's Cookie-O sending Alicia's letter to Santa via Fax

In Early December, we were able to make a trip to Lincoln Park Zoo.  Lincoln Park Zoo is a "free" zoo near Downtown Chicago, where you just need to pay for Parking.  We took this opportunity to see Santa and other animals, as we had recently let our other zoo memberships expire.  It was a good time, and Heather was able to capture some amazing images of the city.   And of course we couldn't go downtown without getting some Garrett's Popcorn.

Thanks for cleaning out this box, mom

La la la la la laa....

Happy holidays (a little late)

Thought I posted this awhile back, but I guess I never sent it out. It was stuck in my drafts... So better late than never! Hope all of your holidays were family and friend filled and wishing you a great new year.

Below, Alicia was very excited to have her artwork featured on our Christmas card this year :-)