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!