An Early Birthday present

While Chris was gone at EFMB, my folks decided to come help me out for the two weeks (plus they hadn't seen their grandkids since my grandpa's funeral, so it was a nice excuse. They even brought both my grandmas so they could see the boys. My Grandma Race fell in love with Ben, and was always on the floor playing with him. My Grandma Senecal fell in love with Kebap. Well, not so much. In fact she probably pretty much hated, "that dumb dog" and his "tail that gets in the way of everything." She definitely kept me highly entertained with her comments about things!! Both were a great help to me in organizing my house and helping me get to things I hadn't had a chance to get to, but have been wanting to for a while. It was so fun to see how great they both got along (they always have). I told them I could see them being roommates when they get older. I suppose one would have to give up Texas, or the other would have to give up Montana, as they are on opposite ends of the states. It was really neat to hear their stories about life (grandma Senecal shared a lot about what happened to the ranch after grandpa died, and why we aren't allowed on the property anymore), about my grandpas, about how things are now. It was neat to be able to have heart to hearts with my grandma Race about how she is doing. She is the most amazing foot rubber, and she has this special cream that is amazing. My feet have been killing me for a very long time, and she was gracious enough to rub my feet every night she was here. It was quite humbling. I did get a chance to rub her back for her though. My grandma Senecal did give me insight as to why my feet were hurting. She said that she has really high arches. My uncle Tom has really high arches and has to wear special boots, and that walking around barefoot (which I love) is hard on feet with high arches. It was really only then that I noticed that I really do have high arches. I guess I always thought they were normal cuz Chris's are flat footed, so anything arched was higher than his, but after comparing them to my grandma, I realized my problem, and decided I needed to find some good shoes to support my arches (which I did end up finding on vacation, but more about that later).
Alas, I digress. My parents shortly after they unloaded, wanted John to see something they brought for him. They knew they probably weren't going to be here for John's b-day as my sis is due right around that time, and they were most likely going to be with her, so they brought his b-day present early.
Here's John looking at it.


helping PuPAW (said in a deep John voice)


getting out the materials to put it together


showing off a part (probably should have cropped Grandma Senecal's legs out of the pic, whoops!)

enlisting help


remember the wheel fascination...

The finished product

Trying it out for the first time

"What do you think mom? I'm a big boy now." Ben is watching wondering what is this new shiny thing. His feet barely reached the pedals, but boy he was out every day my folks were here on that thing, getting pushed by PuPAW or grandma. He still loves to get on it every day after our walk and after we move the water. Once Ben is down for his morning nap, we go outside and he pedals this up the "hill" to our neighbors two doors over, while I steer (and assist with getting him up the hill) and then I hop on back and he lets go of the pedals and we go fast, fast fast down, down, down the hill. (Can you tell we are learning words? Everything is said in triplicate!) Its a lot of fun, and thankfully it's only a balmy 95 instead of 102 at 9/10 in the morning, so it's not too bad!!! ;)