Boys and Cars

For the past several weeks Ben has been obsessed with cars and trucks! He lines them up in rows. He drives them across the floor. He crashes them together. He drives them on the window sill. He loves his cars! This past weekend Grandma and Grandpa Matson brought over the cars they have been storing from when the boys were growing up and gave them to Ben. I don't mean a few cars. I mean hundreds!! Well, Ben is in car HEAVEN!! Every evening when he gets home he takes his bin of cars and dumps them ALL out on the floor and plays with them until its time for bed! It's down right an obstacle course to get from the living room to the kitchen WITHOUT breaking an ankle but we manage :)

18 month stats:

• length: 35 inches
• weight: 28 lbs 10 oz

3 weeks until Christmas

We have successfully moved into our new house. The POD has left the driveway. Empty boxes have been broken down and set aside. Rooms have been painted. Furniture arranged and then rearranged. Clothes are hung up in the closets. Pantry has been stocked. Kitchen is organized. However, the garage is full of boxes and other "stuff" that needs to find a home - whether that be in our home or someone else's is yet to be determined. Moved in? Yes. Settled? No.

6 days after the move, we hosted Thanksgiving. Crazy?!? Maybe. Forced me to get the kitchen in order. So overall - great decision. Aside from the missing gravy boats everything went spectacularly.

• 24 lb bird - golden and delicious
• 8-ish lbs mashed potatoes - smooth and creamy - I whipped them with a hand mixer this year - not a lump to be had!
• Green bean casserole - devine! Why do not have this more then once a year??
• Stuffing - moist and scrumptious - I cannot take credit - mom is the best!!
• The in-laws are also the best! Homemade cranberry/orange relish, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin and blackberry pie....yummmmmmm

Sorry there are no pictures. My camera battery charger has joined forces with the gravy boats and have gone dark.

Mission: Must locate camera battery charger and have it ready for Christmas morning!!!

Who can believe that Christmas is in 3 weeks?!? Sure not I!!! We have the trees up (YES! I said TREES - plural). Both have lights on but no ornaments. I have at least located that box but am undecided if the ornamets will actually go up on the trees. Currently Benjamin is obsessed with the lights on the tree and is constantly touching and tugging at them. I am confident that this will be same with the ornaments. We'll shall see.

In addition to the missing gravy boats and battery charger....are our Christmas stockings......why ar they not with the other Christmas stuff?? No idea......

Here are a few pictures from our trip to Gertens this fall with Grandma Becker.

Ben, Grandma and the Great Pumpkin

Loving the maze and chasing after the other kids.

Too busy to take a picture.

The petting zoo was the best part though! Ben loved the goat and HATED the camel.

He'd squeal with excitement when the goat would lick his fingers.

6 weeks and 8 days...

6 weeks.....

Our little monkey has been fighting double ear infections for 6 weeks!!! Finally after 2 rounds of 10 day antibiotics, the infection has cleared up and there is no lingering fluid! Whew.... I don't expect this to be the last one he has but was worried when the first antibiotic didn't clear it up and the doctor said we had to go to the "big hitter" antibiotic.

8 days......

And we will be moving into our new house! I can't wait!!!

We drive over to the house at least once a week to check it out and see what's going on in the neighborhood. When we went for our second look at the house there was an adorable blond little boy next door that looked to be just a few months older then Ben...how perfect!! I could see them running through the yards, playing on the jungle gym and riding their big wheels in the cul de sac......it was meant to be :)

Here is a sneak peak of the place.

Lucky

Have I mentioned lately, how absolutely lucky I am? The boys (oh how I love saying that) were away for the weekend which left me plenty of time to get things done around the house. I packed up our closet and dressers in 7 boxes. Going through our "stuff" that we have accumulated for the past 10 years was....well.....a giant pain in the rear. Why did we keep all this crap?? I ended up with 6 bags for the Good Will and 3 bags of junk for the garbage. Wouldn't you think that it would be more organized after 3 days.....nope.....I feel totally unorganized and chaotic. Its all good though. We have the spare bedroom closet boxed up - there are only a few items left in there that will need to find a home. The linen closet has been decluttered - the contents cannot yet be boxed. The plan is to go through the guest/Ben's bath, our bath and the front entry closet this week. I will start Ben's room this weekend. However, I don't plan on much getting done as I will be a single parent with Ben all weekend. Oh well. What gets done..gets done....

Back to the lucky part.....when Chad and Ben came home yesterday, they came in the door and Ben says "Hi. Hi. Hi. Ma. Hi. Ma." as he climbs the stairs and then runs to give me a hug! Seriously, does it get better then that?!?!?

Big changes going on at the Matson house

Our summer has absolutely flown by! In a matter of what seemed like a blink of an eye but was actually months and months, we decided to sell our house, found a fantastic realtor, put our house on the market, made some updates, sold it and bought a new one. Whew! We close on both mid November!

We (I think especially me) are thrilled that we will have our bedrooms on the same level. Currently, we are not on the same level as Ben and I have wicked nightmares about being one of those stories of the 3 year old who wondered out of the house in the middle of the night in 20 below weather. Or him taking a bad spill down the stairs trying to get to us.

Aside from all of that we had great summer! Here are some of my faves

Now onto what's new with Benjamin.

Benjamin is saying "Hi", "Bye", "yum-yum" (that's for food), "Daaaa" (for Daddy)

He signs more, please, up and all done.

When asked what a dog says, he says "woofwoof" in a super high pitched voice - I bet you can guess that our dog is little.

When asked what a lion says, he says "roar" with a raspy little voice! Love it!!

He loves to push things. He especially likes his lego wagon that holds everything but the legos it came with. It's fun to watch as he "shops" around Grandma's house. He is forever picking up new items, taking out the items he no longer wants. We have learned that if the remote or sippy cup are missing....check there! He is mastering climbing on the couches. Learning to stack blocks and putting together the big legos. He is infatuated with books. Which I love! We have introduced him to match box cars, they are still a little to small for him but he likes to carry them around.

Trains and squeals

We spent this past weekend in Iowa for Chad's Grandma's funeral. It was a time for remembrance and laughter. Grandma Choo-Choo, as we all called her because she lived near the train depot was 99 year old. Just 8 months short of reaching 100! She was a great lady who usually sat back and listened and interjected her uncencored point of view in when she felt necessary. I will miss that about her.

After the service and burial, we had a lovely luncheon at Grandma Choo-Choo's church. There is nothing like good old down home cooking. I haven't had pistachio, pineapple, cottage cheese jello in a billion years! Everything was wonderful! Those church ladies in Osceola, Iowa sure know how to cook!!

The lunch was held in the basement cafeteria of the church (and you know how those echo). Well, after lunch, the kids started playing (I had brought a few cars and trains with us to occupy), well these kids started playing and running around and next thing we heard was this ear peircing squeal of pure excitement! Ben was thrilled to be one of the crew and we were beyond words watching him!

I wonder when it will ever settl ein that he is ours....really ours....

We were in Iowa for 3 days and visited the train tracks at least half a dozen times. Chad is sure to pass on his love of trains to his son.

In awe...

This train was flying by!

Check out Ben's hair flapping in the breeze!

Wanting more!!!

15 months: Where did the summer go??

Can you believe the summer is almost over? There were so many things that I wanted to do this summer that I still haven't done.



The number 1 on my list is to take Ben to the zoo. I think that he would love it! I love when he "roars" like a lion! So cute! Honestly there is not much that don't think is cute.



At 15 months old Benjamin;

• Waves and says "hi" and "buh bye"


• Pats his chest when its "Ben time"


• Has learned to climb on the furniture (oh joy)


• mimics animal sounds - "ROAR" is my favorite


• is 33.5 inches tall (95th percentile for height)


• is 25.8 lbs (75th percentile for weight)


• is obsessed with all things train related


• Favorite Toy: Thomas the Train sound book, Grandma's lego wagon and his red Cozy Coupe car