Benny Boy

  He's growing too fast!  

We had a great time celebrating Benny for a few days.  We were getting a little "partied out", but we pulled through and hopefully he felt loved.  

On the 16th, we followed tradition and he woke up to a decorated living room.  That night we sang to him and enjoyed some cupcakes.  

Sully was thrilled.

Ben was looking forward to getting some Lego Mash-ups for his big day.  He was not disappointed.  

We took Benny and a handful of his friends to Funny Island in Catania for the afternoon.  I didn't get any pictures, but just imagine a McDonald's Playland and multiply it by five.  They had a great time!  We came home and had brownies and ice cream with the boys and our neighbors.  

I love this picture of the just barely five year old Benny Boy.  We spent an hour one morning playing Guess Who and this boy kept me laughing with his questions.  

This kid is such a funny little man.  He always has a lot to say and is always very anxious to get the words out.  He gets really frustrated when he can't be heard over his siblings and then when he has the floor, he can't remember.  

He's been enjoying preschool this year and seems a little bit nervous about starting kindergarten next year.  He asks a lot of questions about what it will be like and has asked a few times, "How many days until I start kindergarten?"

He looks up to his big brother, Graham, a lot and always wants to be doing what he's doing.  Graham, not so graciously, lets him tag along most of the time.  I love hearing them laugh from their bedroom after we've sent them to bed.  Graham usually reads him a couple books with funny voices or every once in a while he puts on a little puppet show for Ben from the top bunk.  Benny has the best laugh! We can hear it downstairs and it always makes Jason and I smile.  

Church is tough with Benny Boy.  Sacrament meeting is a wrestling match nearly every week.  Sometimes he's harder than Sullivan is.  I know it's because we have church at 1:30 and even though he hasn't been a napper in a very long time, he is always so tired that time of day.  So he goes from one thing to the next very quickly and impatiently.  I can't let him play with any of his "guys" because  his sound effects are way too loud.  Imagine a lot of swooshing and wooshing and not so quiet whispers.  

Benny still acts like a ninja on a regular basis.  He's always flipping and jumping from place to place with crazy arm movements.  And yet, he is still quite shy when he's talking to people he doesn't know very well.  

Some of his favorite things right now are Nilla Wafers, the Wii U, the bread at dinner, green peppers, and baby carrots.  Benny is a snacker and a foodie, like his mama and dad.  He'll eat as many peppers and baby carrots that he needs to so that he can have more Nilla Wafers or a "crunchy nola bar".  He loves taking baths with LOTS of toys and riding his bike up and down our street with his best buddy, Evan.  He does NOT like putting church clothes on.  He doesn't like jackets that don't zip all the way to the bottom and he doesn't like taco night because then there is no bread and "We're not eating ANYTHING that I like!"  

We love our Benny Boy!  I am so proud to be his mother and even though I get sad thinking about him growing too fast, I am excited to see what the future brings for him.  

Happy Birthday, Sullivan

This boy.  Sully Wully.  He gets more and more fun every week.  We invited the neighbors over for brownies and ice cream (again), and sang to our little guy.  

Some of Lucy's friends came.  This is sweet Bailey Wilson.  

Sullivan has LOTS of admirers on our street.  The girls swarm to him when he's outside.  

As you can see, he wasn't real interested in the little cake we had for him.

He tried a little bit of it later, but didn't ever dig in.  

My pictures all turned out weird once the sun went all the way down, but once I put them in black and white, they were okay.  

We had to strip him of his chocolate covered shirt when he was done.  The picture above is of Sully with our neighbor, Victoria Barnes.  Sullivan LOVES her!  She comes over most days and asks if he can play.  She'll put him in the stroller and walk him up and down the street or carry him around outside.  She comes in and plays with his toys with him, too.  

It's tough trying to keep this kid out of the street when he sees all the other kids running up and down it freely.  We still try, though.  

Megan Fahey is another one of his biggest fans.  She is always sooo sweet with him and talks to him so cute.  Sullivan lights up when he sees her.  

We got the rest of these pictures the week of his birthday.  This one is at Elephant Square in Catania.  I love the face he's pulling.  He had just started walking the week before.  

On the steps of Caltigirone.  I LOVE THESE!  So excited we got a few good shots of him there.  

One year old.  It's been a crazy year for all of us here in Italy and he has added a big dose of drama to our lives.  Drama and joy, of course.  This boy makes sure he is heard over his loud family.  We rarely ever have to wonder where he is.  He is very opinionated and specific.  He is also quite the comedian.  It seems like even at 15 months old, he knows when he is being funny and tries to get a laugh.

This kid is obsessed with the movie and soundtrack of Frozen.  He calls it "Na-Na" because of the opening song on the movie.  It started when we were in Germany in December.  We gave him my phone and let him listen to it over and over again to keep him happy.  Now he expects to listen to it all the time and demands it in the car.  He now clicks his tongue just like the character, Anna, does on the "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman" song.  It's pretty darn cute!

He's talking so well and signing, too.  One of his first words were, "Graham" and shortly after, we were able to get him to say, "Bay" for Benny.  He says, "SSSS" when we point to Lucy.  He signs milk, candy, water, cereal, help, bird, dog, shoes.  He LOVES dogs and gets excited when he hears or sees one.  I love hearing him say, "Bus?  Graham?"  When I tell him it's time to go outside and wait for the bus to get here.

We love this little ball of energy and craziness!  We can't imagine our life without our Sullivan Lorenzo!

DUBLIN!!!

It was INCREDIBLE!

Can you see the excitement?  This is us at the Rome airport during a layover.  We may have just talked about how thrilled we were to be going on a trip without our kids.  

The city of Dublin is amazing!  We loved all the monuments and the cool architecture.  

The Ha' Penny Bridge was so cute!  As you walk across, you can see numerous padlocks that are locked on to the iron bars.  They are called "love locks".  Sweethearts carve their initials on the lock and then throw away the key.  It symbolizes unbreakable love.  We've seen them at different places around Europe.  

This handsome guy is so fun to be with.  I feel so lucky to have him by my side forever.  Dublin wouldn't have been as awesome without him with me.  

The River Liffey runs through the city.  You can see Ha' Penny Bridge behind it.  

We found this cool cemetery during our exploring on Sunday afternoon.  

So....I guess I should document that we did run a marathon while we were there.  We went the night before to pick up our packets.  

Look at those shmucks.  Smiling and happy before the race started.  As you have probably guessed, the race did not go well for either of us.  Jason was hoping to get it done in under 3 hours and I had predicted a 3:45 finish.  

I was doing okay until about mile 17.  The crowds and bustle started getting to me.  It's the biggest event we've done, so there was a lot of weaving in and out of people.  I was running with a girl I knew from Sigonella.  I told her to go on ahead and that I needed to slow down.  I still had 9 miles to go and I was feeling terrible.  I struggled through the rest and didn't finish until 4:25.  Grrrrrrrrr.  

I sat down for a while at the finish area and waited for Jason to find me.  I assumed he had been done for over an hour, so I was getting frustrated that he didn't search me out.  After a while, I got up slowly and made my way down the street.  I found him sitting on the curb as white as a ghost.  He looked horrible and I knew right away that his race hadn't gone as planned, either.  

We both slowly made our way to our hotel.  Jason threw up a few times on the street.  He was soooo dehydrated.  

We spent the rest of that day laying in bed watching TV.  We were both so frustrated and depressed about how the race went.  We had trained for a long time and felt confident going in.  We had trained right, too.  We had put the time in.  Looking back on it, it seems silly that we were so upset, but it was a tough day.  

But now, looking at this picture, I should have smiled!  I finished a marathon!  I had done two before, but that was before kids and before life got more complicated and demanding.  Sure, I was much slower than anticipated, but I did it!!  I am positive that my marathoning days are over.  1/2 marathons....yes.  No more fulls, though.  Too much damage to my legs and back.  Jason, on the other hand, needs to do more.  He's a natural runner and is super fast.  

On Sunday morning, we found the church and decided to attend.  It was so fun to talk to the members there and here there stories.  We met so many fabulous people!  The church is true no matter what country you're in!  I loved hearing the gospel spoken with awesome Irish accents!

Our last day was spent on a tour through the Wicklow Mountains.  It was rainy, but we still enjoyed the views.  

We loved seeing Glendalough "Valley of the Two Lakes".  There's a small monastic settlement there in this beautiful place.  We hiked around and got some great pictures.

Not sure what this robot was all about, but we thought it was cool.  

All of the food we had was great!  Jason enjoyed some Irish stew at one of our stops.  

Pretty sure this one is a view of where one of the scenes from Braveheart was filmed.  Kinda cool.  

We found another cool cemetery in Glendalough.  

I'm so grateful for this little vacation I got to have with my sweetheart.  

It's Great to Be Eight!

Our Graham-bo was baptized back in October.  What a beautiful morning it was!  

As his birthday approached, we kept thinking how cool it would be for him to be baptized in the ocean, the Mediterranean Sea.  He was all for it until the weeks leading up to it.  "Too cold"  is what he'd always say.  Soooo, we starting selling it.  Telling him how cool it would be, years from now,  to tell everyone.  He'd have amazing pictures and a super unique experience.  We sold it.  Sweet! 

Here's some of the amazing pictures we promised.  

He was baptized in Taormina, one of our favorite spots here in Sicily.  Another big selling point was that he'd get to share the day with one of his best buddies, Jettyn Jones. Jett's family is in our branch here.  He's also in Graham's class at school.  

After talking with the Jones family, we decided on a beach a few weeks before.  When we showed up, there were still Lidos all set up.  Lidos are beach chairs and umbrellas that are set up and sold to beach goers here in Italy.  There are rows and rows of them.  You come and pay anywhere from 10-20 euro for a lounge chair or two with an umbrella.  We thought for sure they would be all cleared out by the beginning of October.  Most Italians think of summer as only be the last couple weeks of July and the whole month of August.  We were very surprised to see it still up.  

After some talking with the Lido manager (he wanted us to pay 150 euro to use the whole area), we decided to set up our little event at the far end of the beach in the "free" area.  Boats were already starting to come in and out so we had to get going.  We decided to shorten the program.  No musical numbers, just Lisa Jones and I would give brief talks about baptism and the Holy Ghost.  

It felt a little rushed, but it was still very memorable and very special.  

We were lucky enough to have Grandpa in town for the big day.  It was so nice to share it with him.  

Notice the next few pictures.  Graham....smiling.  

And now Graham.......pretending to be sleeping.    

Many members of our branch came to the baptism, but I was particularly grateful for our neighbors, the Fahey family.  They aren't members of our church, but as soon as I gave them an invite, they put it on their schedules and made it.  We loved having them there.  

After the baptisms, we took the gondola up to Taormina and walked around.  Grandpa got to see it for the first time and the rest of us got to enjoy.  We went to our favorite restaurant, Da Cristina, for some amazing arancini and pizza.  

Here's the view of the beach from up in Taormina.  If you look to the little cove on the far left, you can see the beach where Graham was baptized.  Cool, right?