Benson's 1 year old birthday continued

 So grateful to have all of these sweet boys to hold and snuggle!

Monkey Masks

 In preschool this last week we learned about the letter M. The keyword to help us remember the sound is mask. I have was excited when I found these monkey masks to go with it. The kids had a lot of fun being monkeys!

 This is a random picture of Benson, he is doing more and more each day and sure is fun to snuggle and see learn and grow. He is babbling quite often. I love the babbling and crawling stage!

lemonade stand

 This year our lemon tree has had a number of lemons. Alden has asked a number of times if he could sale lemonade. Finally the other day we made it happen. I was worried no one would stop and that it would be a let down for him, but we were surprised...he sold every last drop of lemonade.

 The first day got him excited so he did his stand a couple more times, these times Calvin saw it was lucrative and decided to join in the fun.  The first day we couldn't get him to even go out to buy lemonade. (Really I think it more had to do with him understanding what it was...and that if you are out sailing lemonade then sometimes you get to drink lemonade.)

playing with friends

 The other day some friends who we used to play with almost every week but have since moved came to play. It was fun to have them over and to have someone even Benson's size to play with.

Phoenix temple open house

 A couple of weeks ago we went to the Phoenix temple open house. It was beautiful and so nice to be able to go as a family!

Benson Birthday!

This is first thing in the morning.  Everyone wore their birthday shirts. Alden and Calvin were so excited for Benson's birthday!

In the morning we decided to go to baby story time. (We've been to toddler and preschool story time but never to the baby one.) Benson loved it! They do peekaboo, read a couple simple stories and sing songs with actions or activities to do with your baby. Then at the end they put out baby toys and let the babies play together. They also gave us a bag of things since it was our first time going.  In the bag was a little baby board book that Benson loves! It was definitely his favorite birthday present.  He can be in a full blown cry but if someone starts reading that book to him, life is great all over again.  It makes him smile every time I read it to him!!

Benson likes the library because of all of the activities to do that are at his level.

Once Daddy came home from work we opened presents and had cake and ice cream.  Benson ate the cake just about how he eats everything.  He puts it in his mouth and then spits out most of what went in. He ate some of the cake but we couldn't get him to even try the ice cream. I force fed him a little bit just so he would have tried it and to see if he would like it, he was not a fan. But he did seem to enjoy the cake.  It was a strawberry cake and he does seem to like strawberries.

Tucson Zoo

Alden has had this week off for Fall break. We started the break off with a trip to the zoo.  We liked that all of the animals seemed more lively then the last time we were there.
It was also nice because the elephants were out with the new baby elephant.
I didn't think Benson would be very excited about seeing the animals but he loved it! So all in all it was a successful trip to the Tucson Zoo!

Confrence

I always look forward to Conference. It is so nice to hear from the prophet and all the apostles. I also love that I know that sitting and listening to them speak is exactly what I should be doing! I don't need to feel guilty for not getting anything else done.

At the end of the last session of Saturday's conference Alden, Calvin, Benson and I went to the play Stuart Little. The boys loved the play but did not like standing by Stuart to get a picture afterwards. (They were both a little afraid of him.)

Benson

Often at night Benson will stay up for a little while with Michael and I.  He gets in this fun mood, really I think it is a tired mood, but fun none the less.  Anyways he thinks everything is funny and will laugh and smile at almost anything you do.  It brings a smile to my face every night!

I love having this little guy to hold and snuggle. I realized I don't have many pictures with just him and I and decided I better get some.  He now has 4 teeth on the bottom and two on the top.
Benson just started the full big boy crawl.  He has been doing the army crawl for quite some time but on Thursday we had gone up to Mesa to go do our monthly temple trip and for some reason he started doing the big boy crawl in the play place at chick-fila.  I love it!! I really really love the crawling stage, it is definitely one of my favorite stages, it is another thing that brings a smile to my face to see my little one crawl.

Museum of Miniatures

The Museum of Miniatures was free the month of September.  It was a museum that I thought would be interesting but was not on the top of my to visit places but since it was free we definitely took advantage of the opportunity to go.  I am glad we did, it was neat seeing all of the detail that was put into this miniature homes, rooms, towns, scenes, ext.  The boys favorite was the Christmas room.

This one was fun for Benson as well.  He had fun crawling all over the Christmas scene below him.  The one thing that was hard with this museum was most of the exhibits were too high for the kids to see and you really have to be at eye level to enjoy them.  Towards the end Michael and I were discussing things they could do to fix the problem when we saw a number of children come by with stools that collapse.  I guess we missed that at the beginning somewhere, the kids just need to carry a stepping stool with them.  We just had our boys take turns being lifted to where they could see.  This Christmas exhibit was nice because everything was at their level.

Calvin especially loved the little trains in the Christmas town.

Seeing all of the details in all of the homes made me want to add more detail to our own home.  The next day we put up our fall decorations and bought some fun Fall place mats.  It really made me think of how we need to enjoy all of these short moments in life.  Each exhibit captured a small moment and they were all so beautiful.  It made me want to make and cherish all of those small moments here in my home.  All in all it was a worth while activity!