Our Family...

Here are some recent pictures taken at the park. We've found some great parks here and Ben is having a lot of fun. We've been taking him swimming now that the pool is heated and he is such a strong swimmer! My goal is to see Ben swimming by the end of the summer. Right now he is just experimenting with putting his head under water, blowing bubbles, and doggie paddling while I support him. Its funny because he gets so excited while swimming that his mouth is wide open and he's just kicking and moving his arms as fast as he can. Its so funny and it reminds me of my childhood dog, Tiger, and his excitement to swim in our pool. LOL! He has so much energy and wants me to help him swim all over the pool and I don't know where he gets all his energy!

Ben has been asking "what's that?" all the time now and he repeats everything you say. We went to Walmart yesterday and the whole time we were going back and forth asking "what's that?" and answering each other. It was a lot of fun to see how happy it made him to play this game.

Ben loves to sing and will say "dance" and then start singing cuz he wants us to dance while he sings. It is so cute and you can't understand most of what he sings but he is super proud of himself. The other day he sang for a couple of us at a family party and after each song we would clap and cheer and he kept singing over and over so that we would cheer for him.

Mary Kay YAY!!

Hi Friends and Family! I am selling MaryKay. I love the MaryKay products and have a ton of inventory to sell. You can visit my website www.marykay.com/jennifer.cole to view the products. There are a lot of affordable gift ideas for the holidays that are coming up. Also, a great time to invest in taking great care of your skin. I have seen such a difference from using them and it feels good to know you're using quality products that REALLY work.

Thank you to all that have supported me thus far in my business adventures!

The Good life.... and then some!

Ben and I are sitting together while I write this. I'm trying to get into a routine here in Vegas, but so far all I've managed is to "sort of" keep the house clean and keep Ben happy. But we've had some fun times too. I will post pics soon. This is the start of my goal to write here regularly like all of you, which I love reading the updates and fun times you are all having.

Highlights of the last little while:

~Today I got "shampoo-ed". After Ben's bath I put lotion on him and he called it shampoo. After we were done he wanted to put "shampoo" on me. He used his pretend shampoo that came out of his dresser drawer and rubbed it on my face and feet. He LOVES his feet rubbed with lotion. It was super sweet cuz his hands are so little and soft. I love him!

~Last night, in the middle of the night, Ben woke up crying. It was the first time this has happened where he told us he was scared. It was so cute and sad at the same time. He was able to tell us that he was scared cuz a dog bit him. Not sure where he got that from though. We had to take his dog stuffed animal and doggie car off his bed and put it in the living room. But the only thing that really made him feel better was a quick family prayer and his favorite primary and non-primary songs. He loves pretty much any primary song, but his favorites for us to sing to him on a regular basis are the "popcorn" song and Barney's "I love you" song. Not sure how those became the 2 songs to always sing and oh when we sing the "I love you" song we have to rub and scratch his head.

~He has started exploring the scared emotion though in the last couple of weeks. Saying while laughing "baby scared" if he gets surprised by something and with being in the dark. Its interesting to see cuz he used to never care about the dark which was always so strange to see a child not afraid of the dark because they don't have a reason to be or something. Not sure what causes the changes.

~He loves to ask mommy and daddy to fix things for him, but he says "fick-ixt". So cute!

~He also likes to pretend to cough and exaggerate his cough into a coughing fit and have us pat his back to help. He will say he is choking, but he says "baby focking". He is so dramatic and loves to act that I hope we can get him into some children's play once he's alittle bigger.

~We went near Mt. Charleston to visit the snow since its been in the 60's here and we miss Utah sometimes! We found a cool place near the ski resort and were just going to walk around. But we ended up finding a broken plastic sled that was enough of a sled to sit on and slide down the mountain. I know... super ghetto, right? :) But it was soooo much fun! Ben was all dressed up in his snow stuff (from last year!) and he and I sledded down a slope we found. Ben loved it cuz it was like a slide and he loves slides. Then he had brought his little toy airplane and decided to put his airplane on the sled and send it down the mountain. So funny! He also has enjoyed making ice cream cones out of play dough and he kept grabbing at the snow to make little balls that he called his ice cream. He loved eating the snow. This trip to the snow was so different and it was fun to see Ben having fun and I love his imagination.

~Benjamin loves trucks, airplanes and boats. He is such a boy! He is obsessing over some airplane that we were given second-hand from someone that we bought a desk from on craigslist back in the day. He takes it everywhere and sleeps and bathes with it. Too funny!

Well, I think this was a good start. Time for naps. I usually don't feel like napping but I got Ben's cold today and only a couple hours of sleep last night cuz I just couldn't get to sleep. I actually wasn't even tired yet when Ben woke up.

Here's some statistics ... although some of the numbers had to be assumed. Benjamin wears an average of 8 diapers a day (not counting the times he had the runs). Which means we have changed approximately 5840 dirty diapers. and at an average of 30 cents a piece, we have spent over $1,800 just in diapers ... that's not counting the wipes. ...... Baby's are VERY expensive .... but we love him and he's worth every diaper.

Seven Peaks

Well ... It's really sad that summer is coming to an end. Our season passes to Seven Peaks Water Park will soon be worthless. But we did make good use of them though. We went to Seven Peaks many times this summer and we all loved it. Here are a few pictures of us having fun at 7 Peaks. You will have to ignore Benjamins pink swim diapers. We accidentely bought him girly ones .. and we weren't going to return them ... and he doesn't know that he's wearing girly swim diapers.

I really wanted to get a picture of him on the red tyre because I like the colours .... but the water was freezing cold and Benjamin wasn't very happy. Nevertheless, I had to post this picture of the red tyre because its the only picture that I got ... sorry that he doesn't look happy.

Here's Benjamin getting a kiss from his Mommy !

I like this picture .. its one of my favourites.

He likes to count ... 1 2 3 ... and JUMP. He will do this over and over again. He really loves the water.

A quick note. I finally learned how to get Benjamin to play with his toys ... it is so easy now. All you have to do is start putting them away ... and suddenly he starts screaming and decides that he wants to play with them. I calculated that 1 hour of play time for Ben takes us 2 hours to clean it all up.

That is a poor return-on-investment .... so why bother ?? !!

I was in the mood to put some more pictures up. So I found some pictures of Ben doing some gardening. The following 2 pictures is of him wanting to cut the grass. Of course the push-type lawnmower wasn't manly enough for him, so he wanted to use the high powered ride-on tractor.

And now he's watering the tomato plants. He knows he has to fill the watering can first.

And if you're really strong .... you might be able to get the water into the tomato plant .... otherwise you take the short cut and water the concrete walk path.

Gardening is too hard for Benjamin. He'd would rather now use his hammer and try some handyman work ... perhaps the dinning room table needs a beating ?? .... and everything else around it ??

I can't believe its been like 4 months since my last blog entry ... sorry family and friends! Anyway, I've slapped some pictures on here that we have taken over the last 4 months of Benjamin. He is growing so fast that we can't keep up with him. Most of you have probably already heard that we are returning to Vegas to take the next step in our lives. We feel that the opportunities are limited in Utah County, and we don't really desire to move any further North. Vegas is the most sturdiest stone to jump to.

Anyway, here are the pictures. The following one was taken on a hike that we went on, and Benjamin was sitting in the toddler carrier. It's really hard carrying him in the toddler carrier because he jumps around so much that it gets very uncomfortable. All he wants to do is be on the ground, running around, and pick up rocks. But this particular day the ground was very muddy and we didn't want him to get muddy ... he didn't like that he had to stay in his carrier. The smile you see in the picture is probably the only smile he made on the whole trip.

Oh ... here's Jen carrying Benjamin in the carrier. Jen gave me a break by taking him. When we made the deal, she strategically failed to mention that the backpack that I now had to carry was significantely heavier than Benjamin !

Here he is playing at the park. He won't go anywhere without is purple phone. He calls it his "hello". He likes to pretend that he is talking to someone. This has been his favourite toy since Christmas 2008.

We were outside blowing bubbles. Here he is running around trying to catch them. He loves bubbles and he will play with them for hours.

This following picture proves that Benjamin DOES have some Ashford Genes !! Just 10 more minutes and 3 more chapters, Benjamin will have broken Jerom's record.

Here's Benjamin practicing to be a big brother by feeding Jude. He loves taking care of Jude, and making sure that Jude always has a blanket. Whenever Jude spits up, Benjamin will say ... "Ewww Sick"



This following picture was taken at the 4th July party. He loves hats !





Oh .. haha .. this is him being an explorer. His name is Explorer Benjamin. He is scouting the Provo Valley before sending forth his troops.

Catch Up Time !

Hi Everyone! It's been a very long time since I have updated the blog. We have all been very busy, especially with school ending in about 2 weeks. I have a few projects that are due and I've been working very hard. Firstly, I must mention that Jen is the one who decorates the blog to make it pretty ... I got nothing to do with the girly ribbons and stuff !!

Our family is doing very well, and we are all very happy. Benjamin is growing so fast and he's learning knew things everyday. We love him so much. Here is a picture of him eating his breakfast.

Jen is doing very well at work, and she loves what she does. She has also been going to the gym a lot to work out. Her personal trainer has been working close with her to help her build muscle. She can now bench-press 90 lbs. When I saw her do that, I decided it was time that I started to work out too because she's going to over take me ! I been lifting iron since !

I finally graduate with a degree in Technology Management and Facilities Management. I am very excited to start working again, and begin providing for my family. I have applied for multiple jobs and haven't had much feedback ... I hope I can find a good job in these bad economic times.

Benjamin has a thing about shoes ... he has always loved shoes. We bought him a pair of green Crocs the other day and he loves them so much that he wants to sleep with them on. He also likes my snowboarding boots. Here is a picture of him getting ready for bed.

He likes to open the coat closet and pull all the shoes out. He then tries them on and walks around the house with them.

We went to the park last week to get some pictures of Ben. Here are a few of them.

He's good at walking .... but he's still learning how to walk up and down stairs. Here are a few slip-ups !

Sorry, I know its mean .... but I laughed when I saw these pictures. It never hurts him. He only gets upset when his hands get dirty, and he comes running to us so we can brush his hands off. However, when he fell this time, he got wood chips in his mouth ... and I don't think he liked the taste!

He loves to pretend he's talking on the phone. He would pick up random objects and put them to his ear and say .. "Hello?" and he will say "hello" over and over again. I don't know what object he is talking to in this picture. But obviously the other hand is an oven glove that he pulled out the drawer and put it on his hand.

You can't tell in this picture, but we have a baby gate that seperates the living room from the kitchen. He got smart enough to learn how to open the baby gate by jumping on it. It got very annoying, so we put the rocking chair in front of the gate to make it more difficult for him to open it. We later discovered that the rocking chair was a safety hazard because he climbed up on the chair and tried to go head first over the baby gate.

We wanted to drive up the canyon to play in the park. We have a special park we like to go. Its up in The Provo Canyon near the South Fork park. When we got there, there was still snow on the ground, and we weren't equipped with winter clothing. So we had to find another park. We randomly found this park that has nice walking trails along the Provo River and it was very pleasant. We went there to have a turkey wrap picnic, but we ended up eating in the car because it was windy and cold. Benjamin had fun playing with his soccer ball, and he has learned to throw it, and to kick it. The other day when we were in the cultural hall at Church, some other kids his age were trying to throw the basketball into the hoop and bouncing the ball like they should. Benjamin comes along and starts kicking it. Here are some pictures of our trip to the park.

This bridge is very old, and the planks of wood are poorly maintained. Benjamin kicked a plank and it knocked him off balance and he fell. He got splinters in his hand that we could never get out. It hurt him for a couple of days; I felt bad.

I think that catches you up on the last 2 months! The next 2 months will be adventurous too. We are going to New Jersey to attend my Sister-in-law's wedding, and a week after that we are going to Colorado for a family vacation. We are looking forward to it. When we get back, thats when I am hoping to have a job lined up, or continue to actively seek. Wish me Luck !! I promise I will update on here more often.

Benjamin doesn't like snow.

Today I took Benjamin to the park to play in the snow. I'm sure you can tell by the pictures ... but he hates the snow! He can't walk on it, and he just stands in 1 spot crying because he can't move. I know the family wants to see happy pictures of Ben, but thought I'd put these ones up so you can see his funny sad face.

Cowboy Ben!

Ben loves his cowboy hat he got from Grammy for his birthday. He'll only wear it for a long time if we put it on while he's looking in the mirror. My little cowboy!

Howdy!

Ben in his thinking pose...

This was at the park again! Now that the leaves are on the ground he stays very occupied collecting as many as he can.

This was another time at the park and all of a sudden he loved the slides. That made it extra fun to be at the park!

And he still loves eating the wood chips and digging his hands into the dirt. He's definitely all boy.