How’d I end up lucky enough to have these two around?

And when did Ben get big enough to take up most of the porch swing?!?!?

Ben and his cousin Connor invented a new meme while we were out visiting for Thanksgiving: Fump! It was truly a fump-filled visit, with much singing about fump (”everything is fump! everywhere is fump!”). The performance in this video marked the genesis of fump. Now, we eat green fump at night and ba-fumps in the morning. Currently, fumpfu and fump syrup are on the grocery list.

Sorry about the shaky video…I couldn’t stop laughing.

Anyway, one day back in the beginning of November, Ben decided that Mocha needed a birthday party. This didn’t have anything to do with a dog birthday party requiring dog and people cake.

First, we had to make a dog cake. Lots of honey and carrots.

Of course we all had to sing Happy Birthday (the Sanders girls look bored…I think they are just wondering what they have to do to get the chocolate cake).

The Sanders and Nana were, of course, invited. The chocolate cake was only for the people.

Ben was impressed with how quickly Mocha ate up his cake ("in one gulp!").

In the end, Mocha got a bunch of his toys that Ben had wrapped up. All in all, a successful party!

Ben is super, duper excited about seeing Aunt Ris this week. He’s been playing doctor to the glow worm and me. Glow worm is not doing well, as Ben demonstrates in this video. I’m not so sure about his technique, though. I bet that smashing the patient on the table is discouraged in medical school (Aunt Ris will have to verify).

Ben’s current plan: bring a box of band-aids up to Toronto for grandpa (who had quite an accident).

…because you really can’t grow tomatoes in NY, despite what I thought when I lived there.

These are some of the first in from our garden, and they are fantastic. For some reason, Ben will only eat the cherry and grape ones…which Ariana (the tomato monster in the family) is not complaining about.

So, I figured that Ben was about the right age to shoot off a model rocket. Some amount of coffee and glue later…

We and the rocket were ready to go at the Park! We dragged along Maddie…this was her, Ben’s, and Ariana’s first rocket…

The first one went into a tree. Luckily, I was able to climb up and shake it out. Ben then decided to go waayyy over to the edge of the field. The next one: perfect recovery!

After two more launches we exceeded the attention span of the four-year-old, and headed home.

How you know that you’re at Starbucks too often? When your four-year-old says “the usual,” and gets it.

(sorry for the multiple posts…trying to work out something in Facebook)

This happened about a month ago. Mocha (our aging I-don’t-know-what mutt) swiped a whole bunch of noodles from Ben’s dinner place. We were all shocked, especially Ben, who is a self-professed noodle monster (no kidding…breakfast, lunch, and dinner). On the spot, Ben came up with a plan to prevent such atrocities in the future. Check out the video for more details. Don’t miss the temporary diversion into half-forgotten gingerbread men in the middle…

Today Ben decided that he wanted to be a paperboy (inspired by a Curious George episode). We folded up a bunch of newspapers (admittedly from the recycling bin), stuffed them into a bag, and off we went! We left a few for friends… and then, of course, Ben wanted to leave them everywhere. Attempting to avoid a littering fine, we convinced him to ring a doorbell and ask the occupant if they wanted one. After a confusing conversation, a very nice older gentlemen agreed to take a paper and shook Ben’s hand. Success!

P.S. This is a test…hopefully this post will show up on my Facebook wall.

Here you go…a video of the whole Easter adventure. Ben loved the presents that you all sent to him. And, yes, he also enjoyed the candy. This was the first year the Easter Bunny left baskets for Ben—he had a lot of fun tracking them down.