Brotherly Love

It's always good to have a brother! Let the fun begin.

When Daddy's Away, the Kiddies will Play!

Cameron spent a week at the telescope in Arizona, so Ben and I decided to have a fun-filled week. We ate lots of macaroni and cheese, played with friends, went to parks, played at the library, painted pictures, played with legos, made cookies together, had a lot of picnics. and finally went to the HUGE Children's museum in Indianapolis. It made the time go by a lot faster and having a plan forced us to get out and do things so we didn't drive each other crazy at home.

Painting fun

Ben's painting of  "Man in a truck"

Visit to the Children's Museum

Giant Snowglobe

 

 They had a giant Hot Wheels exhibit that Ben LOVED! He probably could have spent all day there. Good thing there were more than enough cars for everyone.

They had a big winter wonderland with ice fishing, ice skating, a reindeer barn where you could help take care of Santa's reindeer, and of course a visit with Santa Claus. I asked Ben if he wanted to see Santa and he said yes so we went over and I told Ben to go see Santa. He marched right over, shook Santa's hand and moved on. I couldn't convince him to sit on Santa's lap.

 

When we went to the Children's Museum in March, Ben was terrified of this kiddie ride. It started moving and he started screaming.

 But look what a difference 9 months makes!

And through all our adventures, Caleb was his usual calm, patient, and generally very happy self.

Thanksgiving

I have a lot to catch up on since the last couple of weeks have been pretty busy. I'll start with Thanksgiving week. We went down to Louisville on Tuesday and stayed with Cameron's dad's cousin. They were so nice and then showed us some of the sights the next day. We went to the Bass Pro Shops (the eastern version of Cabelas) where Benjamin's favorite thing turned out to be not the huge fish, three story waterfall, or animals everywhere you looked, but the arcade style racing games in a corner of the store. Then we headed down to the riverfront to a really fun park. We played on the playground, fed some ducks and threw rocks in the river.
After a wonderful lunch it was off to the races. Andrew, Lindsay and Riley met us at Churchill Downs and we had a great time watching the races. Ben loved  seeing the horses and would cheer and clap and yell "Fast horses!"

 

And Caleb did what he does best - curled up and went to sleep.

Later in the afternoon we headed home. We enjoyed a delicious meal with Andrew and Lindsay. Ben practiced sharing his toys and room with Riley. We had a great time playing games and just hanging out. It was fun to watch Ben and Riley play together.

My apple pie was the most perfect looking pie I have ever made  - until Benjamin walked over and jabbed his finger right down into the middle of it. Oh well.

Caleb all dressed up in his cute suit

4 Months

So, I'm a week late getting this posted but here are some pictures of Caleb at 4 months. He is the happiest, most content little boy. He's full of smiles and giggles and loves his mom and dad and his toes. Some days he even loves his big brother. We love him to death!

Primarily Primary

These last few weeks have been filled with primary. We had our primary program today and Cameron and I taught sharing time. The program went better than I could have imagined. The sunbeams did NOT swordfight with the armrests on the choir seats (whoever decided the armrests should be removable did not think about anyone under 18 sitting in those seats). There was no meowing or yelling in the microphone. There was no hitting and it even ended right on time.

Back at the Pace home, we've had 2 little boys with colds but they are both on the mend now. How can it be a bad day when there are these cute little faces around.

Trick or Treat

So our Halloween rule was that Ben had to be able to walk to the door on his own and say "Trick-or-treat" before we would let him go. I wasn't about to carry him around and ask for candy for him. It took a lot of practice over the last month but he finally mastered "trick or treat" and so away we went.

He did a great job and even told everyone thank you. But he REALLY didn't like any of the kids with masks. I thought the trick or treat-er with a sheet on and holes cut in it to be a ghost was going to reduce him to tears. He kept clinging to me and saying "ghost mommy ghost!"

Now where to hide all this candy . . .

Halloween Fun

I've been so busy doing fun Halloween activities, making costumes and  working on Primary things that I haven't had time to post any pictures so BEWARE - this blog post might be quite long.

Ben and I painted a pumpkin! Painting has always been considered a messy activity by our little neat freak, so all my former painting attempts have required a LOT of parental prodding. This time though, he did it all on his own. We did have to pull out some paper towels to clean up any paint that dropped onto the cardboard though.

 

For family home evening we carved a pumpkin. Once again, the cleaning out the pumpkin was a little too messy for Ben, but once mom got most of the goop out he was willing to risk a quick reach inside.

Mom looks pretty silly with a pumpkin head.

And then there was the wonderful trunk-or-treat ward Halloween party. 

Scarecrow Ben spent a good portion of the time climbing under tables with two or three other little boys his age (and of course his shoes and socks came off 3 minutes after we got in the church).

When he wasn't under tables, he was playing with the toys at the young men's rubber-band "shooting range."

 Caleb, the cowardly lion, spent most of his time being passed around to different ward members and winning them over with his little smiles and coos.

Fall-tastic

I really love fall. The weather cools down. The leaves change colors. Pumpkins and pumpkin treats abound.
We took our third annual "fall outing." In the middle of October. The first one was rather chaotic. We ended up getting stuck, being led to broken down bridges, and not having enough bottles for Benjamin. The second time around, went much smoother. We had just moved into our new apartment and Cameron's mom was here. We went to "famous" (at least to the locals) Brown county and ate fudge and drove through the forest, admiring all the fall colors and only taking one or two wrong turns.
This last trip was our best one yet. The colors were beautiful. We stopped at a candy store and got all kinds of different flavored salt water taffy - pumpkin pie, strawberry cheesecake, molasses cookies, cookies and cream, root beer float, etc. The boys did great and we enjoyed getting out of town for a day.

The view from our backyard is my favorite. I love that this is what I see from our bedroom window.

But most of all, I love these two smiley silly boys. Who couldn't be happy with them around?!

Time Out Puppy

This afternoon as we were watching general conference, Ben decided that his puppy (appropriately named Puppy) should watch as well. Ben sat puppy on the edge of the laptop to watch. Cameron warned "puppy" not to touch the keyboard buttons, but I guess puppy just couldn't resist. He tapped a few buttons so Ben promptly took him into the hall and sat him down in our time out spot while saying "Time out puppy. No touch puppy. No! No! Sit puppy!"

Cameron and I were trying our best to stifle our laughter as Ben rejoined us. After a moment he went back to puppy and picked him up and said, "Kisses puppy. Okay."
By that point Cameron had to grab a pillow and stick it on his face and I had to hide my face in a book.
Puppy didn't learn his lesson and "touched" the keyboard again and once again got put in time out. We could tell that this new found power might be practiced on poor puppy for a long time so we revealed another secret parenting technique to our little disciplinarian - redirection. The next time puppy headed for the keyboard we told Ben to show his toys to puppy. Amazingly, puppy lost interest in the keyboard and thus avoided a long night of sitting in the hall.

Warning! Too Cute

These two sure send me through a roller coaster of emotions every day. They frustrate me and occasionally make me want to cry. But mostly they make me laugh, make me smile, and make me just happy that I get to be a part of the craziness.

Ben found Cameron's work clothes in the back of the closet and loves getting dressed up.

Crash and Confessions

Our computer met a very sudden death last week. Luckily it was still under warranty and Cameron and Andrew were able to collaborate and get all of our pictures and videos and documents off the hard drive so that we didn't loose anything.

Now we just have to get around to putting everything back on the computer. I have some very cute pictures of the boys that I need to post once we get files all set up again.

Meanwhile, I have a second "confessions" post (First confessions post). Just some things that I realized about myself.

1. There are times I want to join my 2 year old in his tantrums. Especially if it means I can throw myself on the ground and scream.

2. I still jump EVERY time I open those refrigerated biscuit roll things.

3. I may be crazy but I really don't mind watching the same Thomas the train episode 3 times a day.

4. I would rather own a lizard than a dog or a cat.

5. Something about a freshly vacuumed floor makes me very happy.

6. When I tell Cameron sorry for being grouchy and annoyed with him and he replies that he didn't think I was being grouchy, it makes me even more grouchy that he didn't notice how grouchy I was in the first place. Then I realize I'm being ridiculous.

7. I HATE cleaning the bathtub.

8. I'm a pushover when little boy arguments for treats, toys, etc. include hugs and kisses.

9. I try not to be toooo prideful about the cuteness of my children but it is really hard some time.

10. I often replay conversations I had during the day as I'm going to sleep. My pillow has heard some great comebacks and arguments that are 5 hours too late.

My Cute Boys

The other day Caleb was just being awake and happy I decided it was time to grab the camera. Our little photo session was somewhat more difficult with big brother wanting to help and see every single picture taken. However, I think we got a few semi-decent pictures. Caleb is a very serious baby so the camera wasn't quite fast enough to catch his little smiles.

This is Ben's new favorite play place.

A Quick Comparison

Two years ago this picture was taken by Faun Jackson 

This month we took this picture in the same spot. It's amazing how things change so quickly.