Ben the Bear

Charlotte was so excited that last week Ben the Bear got to come home from preschool to spend the week with her.  Hunter brought Ben home a couple of years ago, so we had already met him;).

Charlotte brought him home with her on Tuesday, and Ben quickly got to see how busy our family is!  (In fact, it's kind of sad when you compare this visit of Ben's with our family to when Hunter brought him home.  You can definitely tell we have 3 kids now...life is crazy, and sometimes remembering Ben isn't the priority:/).  Tuesday afternoon, Ben came with Charlotte to her ballet/tap class...

And Wednesday afternoon, he came up to Dartmouth with us to pick up Hunter.  Ben and Charlotte had fun playing hopscotch while we waited for Hunter...

Then Wednesday night, Ben went to Awana Cubbies with Charlotte.  She let him wear her jacket because he was cold...

It wasn't really the best week for Ben to visit our family, because I went out of town on Thursday afternoon.  Ben drove out to the airport with us...

 

And that was the last picture we got of him, because for the rest of the weekend, James was in survival mode.  Pictures of Ben were low priority.  He got to visit with Cousin Zack and Vanesa and Aunt Katie, as well as Grandee and Poppy.

 

We had a great week with Ben!  Char was sad to bring him back to school, but knew that her other friends were ready to bring Ben home with them!

Cub Scouts

Hunter started Cub Scouts this year and has loved it.  James has done most of the things with him, but Charlotte and I went with his den to the Mavs game a couple of weeks ago.  We were waaaaaay up in the nosebleeds, but had fun!...

The only part I didn't like were the dancers.  Whenever they came out, all of those boys jaws would drop.  In those moments, I was thankful we were so far up:/.

The Cub Scout banquet was this past weekend, and I was so sad I had to miss it because I was out of town.  I definitely had a bunch of mom guilt about it.  James took lots of great pictures and a video for me, and texted them to me right in the moment.  I was so thankful for them.  Here the boys are getting their Tiger Cub badge...

I have no idea why they're painting their faces here, but it's cute!

We love our Tiger Cub!

The Little Mermaid!

A couple of weekends ago Charlotte and I went to see The Little Mermaid on stage with our friends Kim and Amelia.  Charlotte was too excited to pose for pictures, but I pressured her anyway...

She rebelled by making goofy faces...

We met Kim and Amelia at one of our favorites, La Madeleine, so we could grab a quick dinner before the show.  Then it was time to head to Music Hall to see Ariel!

The girls were so excited!!

More silly faces from Char, but once we got to our seats, I finally got a real smile from her and Amelia...

And another silly one with me...

I'm noticing a pattern here.  Maybe Amelia is the key to genuine smiles from my girl...

I just think it's funny how Charlotte photo bombed this picture...

 

I didn't love some of the changes they made, but it was definitely entertaining.  Charlotte keeps seeing the commercial for the show in the mornings and begs to go see it again, so I think it's safe to say she loved it!  Hopefully she can hold out for our annual Disney on Ice show:)

Blue Devil's Basketball

It's no secret that I'm not a sporty girl.  I don't play, and I really don't like to watch that much.  If I had to pick a sport, though, it would be basketball.  This was Hunter's first time ever playing, and it turned out to be his favorite, too.  Considering his team's record was 0-7-1, I think it's pretty encouraging that he says it's his favorite:)

 

The Blue Devil's pretty much got killed at 75% of our games, but the boys always seemed okay after it was over.  I think the snacks distracted them from the devastation of the loss...

James was the coach, and I was really proud of him by the end of the season.  He is pretty much the opposite of me when it comes to sports, so I know it wasn't easy for him to always lose.

 

I love these 4 friends!  They all go to Dartmouth together, and I'm so thankful Hunter has all of them as his buddies...

Although Hunter was fine at the end of the game usually, he definitely has a little bit of his dad in him.  This was the look on his face at the second or third game when the other team kept scoring...

Towards the end of the season (I think it was the 6th - out of 8 - game), Hunter came home right after losing big and made a plan for winning...

He's never seen a playbook before that I know of, so I thought it was interesting that he knew what to draw.

Their last game was this weekend, and I had to miss it because I was out of town.  I was SO sad about that, so James sent me a picture of the boys (all except 3) at the end of year party...

Hunter is always so proud of his trophy.  I think it's his favorite part of playing any sport!  I would joke with some of the other parents that at least the boys were building character while losing game after game.  I was really proud of how Hunter handled it.  I would always ask if he had fun, and he'd always say yes.  It was a good opportunity to talk about how having fun is what's important when playing sports.  I know he had fun, and he was the most aggressive I've ever seen him in sports, so that made me proud, too.  I love watching him learn and grow!

12 months

Grey's first 12 months flew by!  Thankfully, we took lots of pictures to look back and remember how fast he grew...

He got so chubby from 10 to 11 months!  That would be formula.  And he grew even more from 11 to 12...

 

We are so thankful for our little Grey!  His personality is really coming out now, and we love it!  Looking forward to watching him grow into himself even more!