Teriffic Twos: Part 2

Our friends Pete and Amanda came to visit us a couple of weeks ago. They brought their little girl Izzy (who is super cute and Luke's age). They played really well together and it was fun to catch up and visit with Pete & Amanda.
They were packing up to leave and continue on their trip when Amanda asked me if I had seen a ring anywhere. I wasn't quite sure what she was talking about. She explained that she had taken off her wedding ring to shower and put it on the night stand by their bed. When she went to put it on it was gone. We weren't sure which kid took it or if it just fell off the stand or what. So I casually checked Luke's favorite "safe places". No luck. I went back into their room to help search the carpet etc. sure that it had just been knocked off, that is until Amanda said she had come in and the heater vent was pulled up. That's when I knew that my little rascal had been there. That is one of his telltale signs. Pulled up heater vents. We searched the heater vent... nothing. Now I was starting to panic.
Luke had been all over the house that morning and the ring could literally be anywhere! (He once took our renter's cash rent payment and it was lost for like 6 weeks. I searched the house up and down. Couldn't find it and then one day I got out of the shower and it was in the middle of my bedroom floor. No joke!) I re-checked his dump truck, backpack and rocket seat. Then I remembered him bringing me something out of Ryan's office that morning.
I went into search the office. It has like 15 drawers and 6 possible cupboards where the ring could be. I searched the office - no luck. I was feeling a little frantic not knowing where to search next. All the time praying that we would find the ring. I just kept feeling like I should continue looking in the office. The third time I searched this one drawer I found it. A little gold ring. Relief flooded through me as I took Amanda her ring.
They were really nice about the whole stealing their valuables thing. My little pirate. We have trained him well. He only goes for cash or gold. Leaves all the other possible things to take.


You are all welcome to come and visit us we just can't promise that you will leave with everything you came with!

Teriffic Twos

Luke is turning two years old this week. How does a baby go from this...


to this...


so quickly?

Yesterday Luke was particularly mischievous. While I was putting Noah down for a nap he pulled a whole container of wipes out one by one. I was babysitting Livy and so I had her down for a nap and all was quiet. I should have known. If you have a toddler and it is quiet for too long, then someone is into something they shouldn't be. I started looking for said quiet toddler and this is what I found.


Yes that is a whole container of rice dumped all over the couch not to mention what went into the carpet. I spent 30 minutes vacuuming the same spot and could still hear the vacuum picking up rice. We might have rice in our carpet for a couple years.... food storage right?

Anyhow I was vacuuming I turned around and found this...


If you can't tell he is trying to open a box of fly paper with needle-nose pliers! Who knew we had fly-paper and why is is you can only find pliers when you don't need them? (must be related to scissors)

After uprooting several house plants and "sprinkling" dirt everywhere while I was cooking dinner, it was time for a little TV time out, so mom could catch up to the mess.

I just can't believe my baby could grow up so fast.

Sunday Best

I pulled out one of Luke's old church outfits and put it on Noah last week. He just looked so handsome that we had to put on matching ties and get some pictures. Here is the end result.


Noah has been teething and wouldn't smile ... just suck on his lower lip.


We are not all suits and ties around here... as these photos prove...



Things have been pretty quiet around here. We have been recovering from California and preparing for GERMANY!

That's right, after 10 years I am going back to Deutschland. My sister has been living there for the past 3 almost 4 years. We have been trying to make it back to visit them and Europe but one thing or another has come up. We found out this spring that they are moving to London in September. Ryan and I talked and decided to make it work while we still can. So we are heading out before they leave Germany.

We are leaving the boys with my Mom & Dad for the trip. We are attempting to see a lot in a short amount of time and figured that was best done without kids. So big thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Benson. It is going to be hard to leave them. I might be a wreck by the time we get back. Last year after 5 days away from Luke I couldn't think about him or I would get teary. I am sure we will all survive just fine.

So, Germany here we come!