Children's Museum

We have to say thank you to Grammie and Grampie for once again buying Tessa membership to the Children's Museum for her birthday! We went this afternoon and it was Charley's first time. I did fine with both kiddos but wished later that I would have taken the carrier instead of stroller for Charley, so we could have managed things like getting onto the carosel. Oh well, live and learn.

Of all the awesome educational interactive toys, Tessa always goes for this cheapo plastic mower, and doesn't want to let go to share with other kids.

Climbing and tunneling...

One happy girl...

Charley checked out the baby zone but didn't really care about anything yet. He looked in the mirror a little though.

Who says real men don't ride in pink strollers?

Are you making fun of me?

Jeremy has still never been to the Children's Museum, so I say we start a harassment campaign until he agrees to take a Friday afternoon off and join us. Go forth and harass!

Fuzzy Ears

I'm not sure if you can see it well in this pic but Charley has really furry ears. I remember the nurse in the hospital commenting on his furry ears when he was first born.


As of yesterday the big guy is 3 months old, wow! He has slept two nights in the nursery and did just fine, waking up at about 6:30am. We sure do like having him around!

Promotion Day

Both kiddos are advancing today. It was Tessa's first time in the pre-school area at church. She is the newest member to the 2-3 room, leaving the toddler nursery a distant memory. She did really well. Alot of her little friends are in that room and new toys of course.They do more crafts and learning things and she'll have to watch herself cause they also get timeouts for misbehaving!

While it's time for Charley to try the infant nursery at church as well (I didn't have the guts yet today but regretted it when we ended up in the cry room)...he is also moving to the real nursery here at home tonight. He has gotten too long for the bassinett in our room so the time has come.

I'm happy that I was able to talk Jer into spending $30 on a second baby monitor so I can listen to both kiddos. Really I only need to listen to Tessa during naptime so I know if she's gotten out of her bed and what exactly she's doing (like pulling all of her pants out of the dresser and into bed with her).

Ah the kids are growing up! :(

Week in Review

Since I have more limited computer access, I've fallen a bit behind in the posting of random pictures from our mis-adventures. So here's a catch up on what happened this week...

Tessa and I wore matching aprons that Aunt Jessie sent. So funny cause I had just purchased my first apron, finally deciding after too many ruined shirts that I am too messy to cook without one!
Tessa wore Elmo underpants during potty time. She didn't use the potty at all but also didn't pee on Elmo, so I guess that's good. You can see she's also loving the set of four Disney high heels that Mom got her for her birthday.


I tried to get a good pic of Charley smiling and we finally got one after a few tries.






Tessa put a flower headband on Charley, about which he seemed thoroughly unimpressed


And both kiddos wore shorts today for the first time this year. It was 82 degrees! We had stroller aerobics outside and had to actually use sunscreen and hats.

Also noteworthy this week..
--I went to my first weight watchers meeting and am back in the groove. I weigh 50lbs more than the last time I was at a meeting over a year ago. Ah well, much work to do but I am one motivated Mama!

--Charley continues to sleep from 10pm-6:30am almost every night and will soon be moving into the nursery as he is outgrowing the bassinet.

--Jeremy finally got the FREE Wii using his Marriott rewards, and Mom and Dad are buying us the Wii Fit system as my early b-day present. Point is...we're going to play games and exercise after Tessa goes to bed at night. I'll post more about the Wii once I've had a chance to actually play it.

Night Night Buggies

Jeremy just took both kids for a walk and I'm all disoriented trying to figure out what to do with myself...nap, scrub the bathroom, run around in circle screaming? This is the first time I've been in the house alone since Charley was born. So I decided to blog!

That's actually a good decision because my laptop remains broken so I can sneak on Jer's computer. It looks like my computer will be out of commission for some time. It has to be sent away to CA to fix the problem (it's inability to charge) and when given the choice to use the money to save the computer or start weight watchers, I chose WW. I think when there's money burning a hole in our pockets again we will get it fixed. I actually don't mind not having it cause it's breaking my Internet addiction. Not having the laptop in the living room all day seems to be a good feeling.

So we have ants again this spring, just like every spring we've lived here. They come from the outside and crawlspace via various cracks and also the sink. We don't keep out any food that would attract them but it seems when there' s a dirty plate or crumbs on the counter they come in droves. Jeremy found some eco-friendly ant killer and they seem to finally be gone for the moment.

We've had them for a couple weeks at least so Tessa has gotten used to them. At first she was scared of them, especially when her bowl of dry cheerios was left sitting out too long and got invaded. There were big time dramatics. I've also seen her point to a speck of food on herself and think it was an ant and scream 'bug!! bug!!'

Most recently, however, she seems to have accepted them as part of our family. On our way to bed every night we say 'night night' to Charley, Hayden and Rosie, toys, and Daddy (sometimes followed by the phrase 'wherever you are'). The past two nights she's added "night night buggies". How sweet. Now that she's accepted their existence with open arms, I will be sad to inform her of their untimely death due to poisoning. Well, not too sad.

Tessa's Party Pics

What a fun time we had on Saturday. Our goal was to keep it small but we still managed to somehow have a houseful of people. Luckily the weather was nice so the kiddos could run around outside.

The Muppets was our theme because Tessa loves the Muppet Movie so much. You may remember me posting before that I had a hard time finding Kermit or Muppet stuff because it's so 'retro'....so we got creative and made our own party stuff thanks to Google Images and sticker paper.

Here's a photo recap.

We got all dressed up.....


We had an awesome cake made by the talented 'aunt' Erin. It was beautiful and yummy, and Tessa knew exactly what to do when it was time for the candle.


Us old folks and babies sat around and visited. Note Jeremy and Charley's Muppet shirts in support of the theme....






While the toddlers and big kids ran around and played....



Tessa opened presents. She has a bunch of new toys and books, and a cozy coupe car from us.....



And we got dirty! Tessa has a bucket full of dirt outside that's hers to play with so I told the other kids they could too. No one told me that mixing bubbles and dirt in the same yard was a bad idea, note to self. Yard before party...

And yard after party. Oh well nothing a hose couldn't take care of....

All I Have to Say Today

We had a great day yesterday and I have many many pics to sort through before I post them, so stay tuned. They will probably be up tomorrow.

But when looking through the pics I found this, and it makes me sad and mad. I am FAT, like seriously huge. I guess a picture always enforces what you don't want to see...

I've been trying to do WW myself but just signed up for meetings after seeing this picture. Charley and I are going to go at 9am Saturday mornings while Jer has alone time with Tessa.

According to ww I have 100 lbs to lose, and yes I've already lost about 30 after having Charley (so that's in addition). ARRRRRGhhh!! I really want to try to do it, really all of it, but it doesn't seem surmountable.

Please my friends, I'm asking for your help. Badger me. Call me out when you see me eating something bad. Ask me if I've exercised lately. Call me a fat ass, I won't be offended.

Tessa's 2nd Year Slideshow

Wow it's hard to believe that tomorrow Tessa will be two years old. And to look back on the pictures I think it's fair to say the rate of growth and change the second year is almost more astonishing than the first.

What a cool kid she has turned into...funny, smart and independent. She loves to play with older kids and will eat almost anything. She loves to hug and kiss everyone, including her little brother. Her vocabulary is growing every day and she's starting to put together small sentences, even if I'm the only one who can understand them.

The next couple of days will be busy getting ready for her party, but I have to remind myself to soak it in and enjoy, cause second birthdays don't happen every day.

Here's a recap of the past year starting with her 1st birthday. Make sure your sound is on cause there's music of course! Click the little star-thingy if you want to see full screen.


Tessa 2nd Birthday from Laura Sargent Bennington on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday Tessa Betty!

Conner Prairie

A little late getting these up but better than never! Last Thurs we met my friend Traci and her kids at Conner Prairie, a historical outdoor 'living' museum on the north side.

I've been there many times with Mom's class on field trips and Tessa even came along this time last year...but this was the first time she was really into it. I actually had to sort of drag her to the parking lot (quite literally)after 3 hours cause she didn't want to leave.

She really enjoyed watching the blacksmith and potter and petting the animals in the petting barn. We even got to pet some really big horses that were standing by the fence. She and Mattie were both a little scared of them I think.

But probably her favorite activity of the day was just holding Mattie's hand and walking around outside. It was a beautiful day! She kept grabbing Mattie's hand and saying "c'mon!"




Proof that Charley really was there even though he slept most of the time. This is how he travels in style.

I attempted to get her picture petting animals but both she and the animals moved too fast. This is the best I got...