This week Ben has been working on the letter O. I really like doing projects with him and having a focus each week...I'm not sure why I didn't start this idea earlier. :)  For a fun treat, we made an easy Oreo pudding recipe. It was so yummy that we'll definitely be making it again! Ben loved helping crush the Oreos.  We mixed Oreos, vanilla pudding, and cool whip. Then, we placed it in the refrigerator for a few hours.  Ben loves to glue! Here he is working on getting his letter O ready to place on the paper.  He made the O into an owl. Pretty cute!  Placing stickers on his little ocean.  I used a gel toothpaste for the water part and double bagged it (because I would not be cool with toothpaste seeping all over the house...yuck!). Ben thought it was really fun to squish the bag.  You can't have an O week without Oscar the Grouch.  Ben also did an Oscar craft that I printed from the internet. After I cut out the template pieces, he taped/g...

 Today, Ben and I took our last trip to the zoo this season. We met our friends Erin and Will there and enjoyed seeing the animals one last time. When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw several buses and knew that it would be filled with kids on field trips. There were hundreds of kids from the buses waiting to go into the zoo. They looked like junior high students and I remembered the joys of taking kids that age on a field trip when I taught 5th/6th grade. :) There were a few times that we were trapped behind a big group of kids that didn't really want to move for a stroller, but other than that it was a great morning at the zoo!   Ben loves to climb up on these little rock walls and jump down.   Will and Ben playing with some phones.  Ben got up close and personal with the kimodo dragon!  Ben picked a black leopard to ride on the carousel. Erin and Will enjoying the carousel ride.

This past weekend, we were in Grand Rapids celebrating Ben's 3rd birthday with my family. Ben is thrilled that he gets to have three b-day parties (one with each family and one at home). He really wanted a Cars party, so we had fun picking out supplies at Party City. My sister made him a Lightning McQueen cake and he said it was, "The best cake ever!" We also celebrated my nieces Mya and Emma's birthdays (they turned 9 in Sept). All of my siblings were able to make it to the party, so it was nice to be able to visit with everyone! On Sunday, we were even able to squeeze in a visit with The Bairds which always makes us happy! :) In a few weeks we have the next party in Cadillac with Curt's family.  Ben with his birthday cake.  Ben had fun opening all of his presents. In this picture, he got the Chick Hicks hauler.  Showing off his new Red Wings jersey from Uncle Matt.  Playing with one of his new presents from Grandma and Gramps with his cousin Caleb.  Ben...

I can't believe that tomorrow is already the beginning of October. Ben and I spent the last day of this month enjoying the zoo. It closes already on October 10th, so we are trying to fit in a couple last visits.  When we walked into the zoo, Ben asked if he could give the inflatable Bill a hug.  A friendly peacock.  Ben walking through the African Safari mist. It was working overtime today, so we had a hard time seeing the path!  Pelicans  Ben being silly. He said he put his hat on backwards just like daddy does.  Lions: Ina & Bill  Ben wanted me to take a picture of him pretending to sleep in the tent. What a goof! :)  Leopard  Playing in the eggs.  Ben rode the pony Candy today. He always rides on Sadie, but she had the day off. (Only about 1/2 the ponies were there. I guess they don't bring them all out as it gets closer to zoo closing time.)  Ben found a little caterpillar and we watched him crawl around for a...

Each week, I am going to spend time on a letter from the alphabet with Ben and this week we are working on the letter C. I decided not to do the letters in order because I thought it would be more fun that way. I chose C because Ben is having a Disney Cars themed birthday party on Saturday with my family. We've had fun working on a few projects, going to the library, and looking for C's everywhere we go!  We started out the week by making some cookies in the shape of a C.  Here's the finished product...some look a little more like C's than others. :) While the cookies were baking we read this book that we picked up at the library. We have a few of the other books like this such as, If You Give a Moose a Muffin , but we don't have this one at home. Ben thought it was fun that he got to have chocolate chips cookies just like the mouse.    Time for a treat!  Yesterday, Ben colored a C that I drew for him and after I cut it out he g...

Curt signed up for another Fort4Fitness race this year. This time though, he decided to try the 4 mile run instead of the half marathon he ran last year. Ben and I went along to cheer him on! We had to leave the house at 6:30 am, so it was a very early morning. Ben was surprisingly in a good mood even though I had to wake him up early. We had fun cheering for each runner that came into Parkview Field while we were watching for Curt near the finish line.  Curt before the start of the race.  Curt's cheering section. You can see Curt in the middle of the picture wearing a white t-shirt.   Curt running to the finish line!  He crossed the finish line somewhere in the big bunch of people. His time was 34:55.  This is the area the runners went into right after they were done with the race to get their medal and some snacks. Curt is in the far right in the picture (wearing a white t-shirt).  Great job, Curt! :) After the race was done, we decided to get ...