Favorite body part

The other morning while getting dressed Addie started naming every single body part she could think of. She covered cheeks, eyebrows, eyelashes, neck, elbows, you name it.
Then she asked me, "do you know what my favorite body part is?"
A little worried about 1.)what her answer could be and 2.) her reasoning, I replied, "no, what?"
She very sweetly said, "my collar bone."
Perplexed, I asked, "why?"
"Because it's full of all of the beautiful colors of the rainbow," was her reply.

Then it hit me, she thinks it's called her "color bone."

I didn't correct her either...probably much to Brian's dismay!

Just thought it was too sweet not to share.

First Blue Rocks game

We went to Addie and Ben's first Wilmington Blue Rocks game last night.  The Blue Rocks are a minor league team.

Here's a good picture of Ben's underbite.
Ben enjoyed climbing across the bleachers.
Here's Ben "clapping for the Phillies." Close enough. We lasted through 2.5 innings.

Delaware State Fair & Brad Paisley concert

This year was the 90th anniversary of the Delaware State Fair.  Never in either of our lives has Brian or I attended before. It's held in Harrington, which is relatively south in Delaware and very much part of the agricultural area of Delaware.  Each year they pull in big name acts for concerts.  When I heard that Brad Paisley was one, I knew I wanted to get tickets.  Brad Paisley is one of my favorite country musicians (and besides Taylor Swift or the Dixie Chicks, the only one I think Brian would consider going to see!).  We bought tickets back in March and his concert has been one of the things of the summer I was most looking forward to doing.

You have to attend the Fair to gain access to the Grand Stand.  Brian's parents watched Addie and Ben from Sunday morning through this morning so we could attend as adults. 

It's really an interesting place to visit.  It's very family friendly, and it's dry, which I had no idea about.  There are plenty of 4H club competitions throughout the day; lots of exhibits of things I never cared about; and tons of carnival rides. 

Here's a snapshot of what we saw:

These cows were ENORMOUS.  They are waaaay bigger than Brian or I imagined.  This one licked Brian's shoulder as we were taking pictures!
Here's a little calf nursing from its mother.  
There were HUGE pigs. And these two made me smile, since they're holding hooves.
We got to observe sheep shearing. They wear these coats once they're freshly sheared. I thought Addie would get a kick out of this.
Now this is my kind of pig!  He was so cute.  
And then there were the baby chicks.  
This was the largest slide we've ever seen.  They had the kiddie one further over, which looked lame compared to this monster.
This is the view from our seats.  It is an outside grandstand.  There was severe thunderstorm about an hour before the concert started and I thought for sure we were going to get soaked.  Maybe three drops of rain fell during the show, which was great. We were 19 rows from the stage.  There were 3 off-shoots of the stage, so each act probably came out to about the 10th row or so, so we were close.  Opening act was Jimmy Wayne (who I couldn't recall any songs he sang, but once he opened I knew some).  Then Dierks Bentley sang (again, who I didn't know from the name, but then I knew all of his songs).
Here's Brad Paisley.  Not only can he s.i.n.g. but he can PLAY a guitar.  He performed for 2 hours, probably playing 25-30 songs, and switching 10 guitars out.  He is really talented.
He was right there.  He sang every song I wanted to hear except for one (He Didn't Have To Be, which was the song I danced to Guppy with at our wedding).  

Uh oh Guppy...

Guppy, I thought you were pretty clear when you told Wendy, "stay away from my Ben!" Apparently she didn't get the message. They do look mighty content napping together! :)

The story here for everyone is that Guppy cherishes the very special relationship he has with Benjamin. Muddy says that many nights once Guppy has fallen asleep that he talks in his sleep to Benjamin. So when Aunt Wendy showed up, and with a lovable dog in tow, Guppy wanted to make sure he wasn't going to be trumped by Wendy-- giving her the warning to "stay away from my Ben" jokingly of course.

See what happens when you're not there, Guppy?!

Oh and please note that they are napping in the "Step 2" car bed, which has a crib mattress inside. Must be comfy!

Surprise and roller skating

Much to my surprise and happiness, my older sister Wendy showed up on Saturday! She has decided to move back to Delaware, after being away for 15 years. I had no idea; Muddy and Guppy picked her and her dog Lucy up from the airport on Saturday.  It was a really cool surprise. Addie and Ben were excited to see her, and now they have another dog they get to think belongs to them! 

Since I had the roller skating party to take Addie to, I called over to Muddy and Guppy's house (where Wendy is staying til she gets settled) and asked if Wendy want to go as well. She agreed.
Here's my Addie girl rocking the roller skates. I love her pose, like she knows what the stopper is for!
This picture is just plain eerie! It shows how the roller rink is haunted by the headless man.
Addie spent most of her time skating like this. She actually did really well. She was much more balanced than I expected.  In her usual way, after Aunt Wendy broke away to skate a little on her own, Addie looked up at me and said, "I taught her how to do that." 
Here she is showing how she skates on one foot

Oops, this one again!
There was just a little bit of time spent like this!

And to finish the trip off, she was thrilled to hold her hand out for the other skaters to high-5 her.

The rink was rented for 2 hours for this private party. There were about 15 of us there. Pretty cool!

Endorsement

Don't mind the silliness of this video, or Addie's amazing skills ( ;-) ) Most importantly, listen to how she ends the video. I about bust a gut!

And as a disclaimer, this is the furniture that came with Onkteb and Aunt Gail's house; and they were in the process of moving. 

Cherub

Doesn't this remind you of that famous painting of the cherub? Ben loves to stand against the chair back to watch tv or listen to music. Usually I'm sitting on the chair at the same time. This boy doesn't stray far from his mama; that's for sure!

Lots to catch up on

This video cracks me up. It reminds me of the one of those tidal wave rides at the amusement park, where people stand on the bridge and get soaked from the boats coming down. 

I was having major issues with Blogspot, which now seem to be resolved. So I'll have much more to post about soon. 

A big surprise occurred yesterday, but I can't post about it until it's common knowledge. :-) 

I'm taking Addie to a rollerskating party this morning for one of the social workers from the hospital.  Seriously, the birthday girl is 41 years old! Addie has never roller skated before so this should be lots of fun.

Then this afternoon we're having lots of family over to water slide, etc. 

Trip to Connecticut

Even though it's blurry, it's still cute.

We put the tent up in the their living room, since it was so cold outside. I have more pictures of the tent and our sleeping arrangement. I'll have to post them later, but I couldn't resist this one. Doesn't his expression say so much?!

Blogspot was giving me problems last night, so I couldn't upload.

We're back from our visit to Onkteb and Gail's house. We had lovely weather all weekend long. We sat in the breezeway area of their house basically any time we were inside. We got to play with their pets, which the kids love.

This is our last morning, with Herman. Benjamin called Herman some version of "Kermit" or "Hermit" or "Kermin" all weekend long. No matter how many times we said Herman, it never came out right. :)

We got to swim in their pool. It was 70 degrees. :) Addie was very happy to wear her floaties and her water ring.

We took several walks. Here's one of them stopped on a rock.

Overload

Without further ado, Jeanna, this is for you....

Addie giving some sass

Ben drinking strawberry milk for the first time.
My posing girl


Can you see this on the hood of car someday?!? THINK AGAIN!

Ben, all tuckered out, after a day of playing

A week later

Sheesh I'm a bad, bad, bad blogger.  I can't believe it's been almost a week since I last updated.

The weather has been unseasonably cool. Fourth of July was a lazy day, with the water slide. It barely got to 83 degrees. We did fireworks in Hockessin, as usual. Ben didn't like the sound of the fireworks.  Now conventional wisdom would tell you that he would cover his ears the whole time. Nope, instead he spent the display with his eyes buried in Brian or my shoulder.  He listened to them all; but didn't watch them.

We're watching Wimbledon right now, while drinking coffee and having a breeze blow through the open windows.