Sam decided to take the camera yesterday, and was very interested in taking some pictures of mom. I wish I had a camera to take a picture of Sam with the camera, he was so cute trying to find me in the viewfinder of the camera.

Ben is beginning to get a little bit of personality. Here are a few pictures of his many faces. The shirt he is wearing is one of my favorites, it says, "Hi, I'm new here."

One more picture from the trip.

Kansas City Union Station Science City

We left Sunday to meet our friends Scott and Jennifer, and their son Joey in Kansas City. After learning that eating at Sweet Tomatoes for Sunday lunch at 12:30 is a very bad idea (it is a soup and salad place that apparently is THE place to go after church on Sunday), we went to Science City at Union Station. The boys loved everything, and Ben enjoyed a nice nap while hanging out in the carrier. We then went back to the hotel for a little bit of swimming, then we all collapsed into bed (well everyone except Ben, of course.) Scott and Jennifer said they didn't hear Ben screaming. The staff must have been prepared for us, because we were in the top floor in the last room of the hallway. Sam went swimming again this morning, while Ben, Jennifer and I did a little shopping. Then we packed up and headed for home (after a lunch stop at Fuddruckers for hamburgers). Ben was very generous in sleeping all the way home - well up until the last 5 minutes when he woke up and realized that it had been 5 hours since he last ate. We are all unpacked and the clothes are in the wash. Tomorrow it is back to reality for everyone.

Go Benedictine Ravens!

We just returned from Ben's first vacation. We left Saturday morning for Atchison, KS..home of Benedictine College's most famous Basketball Chaplain, AKA Great Uncle Hugh Keefer, and name sake of Benjamin Lewis Shaffer. (Lewis was Uncle Hugh's given name). We enjoyed a great game of basketball, they led for most of the game, but lost in overtime. This year Sam only needed one bag of popcorn, and one bag of M & M's to sit through the game. He was very proud of his Raven tatoo. Sam was excited to learn that it is acceptable to yell as loud as possible at a basketball game.

Uncle Hugh is the chaplain of the basketball team, and prays with the team in the locker room before the game, and also prays before the start of the game. According to the coach, his responsibilities are for him to set at the end of the bench, and the coach sits at the other end, unless things start to go bad, then they change positions. It almost looks as if Uncle Hugh is offering up a prayer in this picture.

Ben is showing his reaction to his first mass. Much to his mother's paranoia of one of Ben's famous crying/screaming fits, we decided to try mass. With much rocking and constant replacing of the pacifier into the mouth, we made it through without any peeps. We had a great time hanging out with Uncle Hugh, and of course sleeping in Room #2. No pictures of the room this time, but Sam probably slept the best, the rest of us were working on keeping Ben from waking up the rest of the hallway with his strong vocal chords.

Here are some other various photos from the last week. Sorry the top photo is sort of yellow, guess that is a lighting issue. The picture of Sam and Ben shows Sam's "busted" top lip. He tripped a week ago Wednesday and fell on the tile in the dining room. No one told us that lips bleed so much, but apparently Sam's top teeth cut through his top lip. It happened just as Mom was getting ready to go to the "baby's doctor" (aka, the OB/GYN) for her final appointment, and I had to leave my injured, crying "baby" in the hands of his dad. But I guess dad did okay, because when I got home everyone was just fine.

We are excited to go out of town this weekend to "celebrate" President's Day. We are going to visit Uncle Hugh at St. Benedict's Abbey in Atchison, KS. We will take in a Benedictine College basketball game (mostly to supervise the basketball chaplain), stay in room #2 of the Guest House (Sam's all time favorite - see the pictures from Thanksgiving). Then we'll leave Sunday to go to Kansas City to meet up with our friends Scott and Jennifer, and their son Joey (see the picures from December for a picture of Sam and Joey). And even more exciting the temperatures next week are to be in the 40's and even the 50's. Life is good!

Let's go racing! Sam's newest phase is to get every single car/train/plane that he owns and "race" it around the futon. It started out innocently enough and has exploded to the second picture. Sam insists that mom or dad "talk about the cars," which involves one of us giving a descriptive narrative of whoever is racing. If we quit talking before the car has made a lap, we hear over and over again, "MOM, talk about the cars." In an attempt to do something different today, I suggested going to Braum's for ice cream, and Sam declined that offer so that he could just keep racing.

Happy Valentines Day!
Our apologies to our faithful blog readers for the lack of new posts. Little Ben has decided that he needs to be held when awake and when asleep, so it makes it hard to get much else done. He is doing well at night, sleeping 5-6 hours, which is wonderful, but then sometimes has a difficult time getting back to sleep. Here is a picture of both boys sleeping in Sam's bed. Sam is such a great big brother, we couldn't have asked for any better relationship. In the other picture, Sam is displaying his valentines day cupcakes. Grandma Shaffer and Sam made these together, and we enjoyed eating them. Sam especially enjoyed eating the frosting.