The Florida 7.3

On Friday we gathered together the old high school crew (8 of us that stay in touch) we refer to as "The Florida 7 + Brace" or the more recent name "The Octopussies." I know, I feel uncomfortable just typing that name. Anyways, only 5 of the crew were in town this year, but they came with the 3 new additions in tow Morgan (11 months), Fred (10.5 months), and Noah (9 months). Fred was up to his usual antics, the surprised look and the I can almost stand move. Noah was taking it all in from his elders and enjoying his new quilt (thanks Aunt Amy!). And Morgan, well Morgan had an old cell phone that her Aunt gave her and was toting it around chatting to whomever babies call. It was pretty amusing! I still can't believe this group of gals still stays in touch after 10+ years post high school! I love you girls!

Christmas Day

So after being at the Rodriguez house on Christmas Eve, we drove to LaGrange, went to sleep, and spent Christmas day with the Hewes clan. Noah thoroughly enjoyed opening presents and staying in his PJs most of the day. The grownup highlight was getting Rock Band for the Wii. I was masterful on the singing, but then Dad took over and it went downhill from there. The day ended with Mike whooping up on Josh and me in the game of Risk. Good times had by all!

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we went to my in-laws house for gift opening and fried chicken eating (yum!). The first picture you see is Ellie demonstrating how much snow we got here in Roselle. You'll have to ask Mike how he feels about shoveling nowadays, I'm sure he'll let the expletives fly. We had a great night at the Rodriguez house. Nick and Francesca are so sweet with Noah. And Gramma let him open other people's gifts, bonus! The last picture is of my brother-in-law, Frank, sporting the "classy" hat that my mother-in-law got him. It was awesome!

Winter Weekend Wildness

This past weekend we went up to the lakehouse for what I hope will be the first of many annual Benhart Family Christmas Weekend at Diamond Lake celebrations. We had about 20 people staying all at the house together, which was fabulously fun. A few stories from the weekend: The red knit hat you see Noah in has a great story. When my maternal grandma (affectionately known as Whitey and/or Mer) passed away my Aunt Jo discovered some unfinished hats with her knitting. Aunt Jo kept the 2 hats and finished them, hoping we would have little boys in the family to wear them. Well 6 years and 4 girls later we finally had 2 such boys to wear the hats! It was so special. The other great story of the weekend was the first annual Diamond Lake polar bear club swim. It was after the lasagna cook off (which somehow grandma b posthumously won) when the crazy cousins went for a dip in the lake. My dad, the safety inspector, wore his waders and made everyone who jumped in tie a rope around the waist. Of course the hole was broken in the ice where the water was about 2 feet deep, so you would jump in to your knees and then had to bend back (think adult style revival baptism) in the freezing water. It was quite the experience, yes I did it! We had a wonderful time and hope to do it again next year!

Merry Christmas, From the Boys!

Yep, the Crazy Moms were at it again. Last week, Philie and I dressed the boys in their matching PJs (we did NOT buy them together, we both happened to purchase them separately mind you), and posed them for a traditional Christmas photo. The usually photogenic boys did not cooperate all that well, Noah kept trying to take a header off the couch and Fred was giving us the funniest old man faces. But the end result was fun and cute nonetheless. Hope everyone is surviving the cold. My dear husband is currently outside (it's about 11pm on Sunday night) ice picking our driveway out with garden tools. We were gone for the weekend and the plows blocked our drive with about 2 feet of snow that has since frozen solid!

Worst Santa Picture... EVER!

So, Mommy is a cheapskate! No shocker there. I did not want to spend 17 bucks at the mall for a silly Santa photo, but I still wanted one. So I followed the recommendation of Philie and Ryane and we did a family trip to PetSmart, where they advertised $10 Santa photos with your pet. We arrived at PetSmart on Saturday to discover it was an adoption day, so the aisled were lined with about 30 dogs (on leashes) up for adoption. Ellie LOVES seeing other dogs and starts dancing and whining and going insane. Then we get back to the picture area only to discover that Santa is a woman! It's a woman about 60 years old that was enamoured with pit bulls and therefore Ellie. It was such a ghetto set up. They had some dude with a cheap Kodak camera snapping photos, then they took the memory card and put it into the Kodak easy share printer. You got to look at the pictures on the 2 inch screen on the printer and then they printed them out. Noah was not impressed. Not even by the 35 pound cat up for adoption nearby. Seriously, it was the strangest experience. But we have a crappy Santa photo and a funny story!

Back in '04

I've been going thru some old photos I have, searching for ones to program on a digital picture frame we got for a relative, and I found some treasures from 2004. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but the pictures reveal otherwise. Here's a little shout-out to my forever friends whom I also know are loyal blog readers. Hope you enjoys these glimpses from the past!

Noah Hearts CJ

Noah is so lucky to have his cousin CJ in his life. Not only does Noah get to play with CJ on Tuesdays now (thanks Jeaneen!), but he also gets some of his cute hand-me-downs. The warm red jammies that Noah wears frequently were once CJ's and today I unwittingly dressed him in an all CJ ensemble. There's the construction turtleneck, the fleece lined jeans, and the bulldozer shoes all from CJ. I think Noah's buddha belly fills it out a bit more than CJ's did! Thanks CJ, you're the best! Noah is waving now for everything, he waves at the camera, the dog, the tv, the garbage truck, everything! And now he enjoys going thru the Sunday ads with me.

Noah's First Snow - sort of...

We took Noah out in the snow for the first time today. Although technically he saw a bit of snow in his first week of life in late March, I see this a the first snow that really counts. My aunt and uncle gave us the sled, he looked more like he "tolerated" it than "enjoyed" it. But Ellie had a grand time chasing him around. We lasted a whole 20 minutes out in the snow, but it was definitely a fun family first!