Ames Christmas

You know, it really is kind of nice to celebrate Christmas three times every year. I think Benji really could get used to all of these festivities. And it's nice not having to travel nearly as far for the holidays as we used to.

Our visit to Ames this year was completely full of family visiting. On Friday evening we had dinner with Matthew's Uncle Mike and Aunt Lana, whom we hadn't seen in a year and a half. On Saturday morning we had our Christmas morning celebrations with all the present opening (lots of pictures below). Benji was a great Santa's helper, until he opened his presents and wanted to play with them. There sure were some great presents that morning! And on Saturday afternoon Matthew's cousin, Brenda, and her family came to visit for dinner. Her clan was quite boisterous and Benji loved watching their antics and joining in the laughter and fun.

Other activities over the weekend included the traditional Jones soda tasting, shopping for Iowa State gear, and a women's basketball game. Of course there was also a stop at Olene's for Sunday dinner and plenty of time just playing with our new presents.


We arrived early enough on Friday afternoon that we were able to have dinner with Mike and Lana while they were visiting.


I love when all the presents are stacked under the tree!


While we were waiting for Ava to wake up and everyone to get ready for present opening, Benji was too excited to wait. He took presents from under the tree and brought them to Grandma to find out who they were for.


Oh, yeah, and he got hugs from Grandma, too.


During a previous visit to Richmond, Grandma shared her Cheerios and milk with Benji. Now every time he sees Grandma he has to share her cereal.


Benji was a great Santa's helper, handing out presents to everyone. That is, until he opened his first present and was totally distracted. But it was very cute while it lasted.


So many things going on. Do I watch Daddy open his present or see what Ava is doing over there?


Benji doesn't get all the cool presents. Daddy got a John Olerud bobblehead, perfect for the computer room or the rec room decor.


Ava looked a little sleepy and uninterested in her present.


But now that there are tags to play with she perked right up!


Giant present for Benji!


It's so big Grandpa needs to help.


What is it?


After opening the easel and finding the letter magnets that came with it, we lost Benji's present delivery service. It kept him happy the entire weekend!


As the morning continued on, Ava got more into Christmas.


Ava seemed more interested in the bow than in the present.


After a while Benji stopped playing with his easel and instead decided to explore the tree. This year Grandma covered the tree in bells, which was perfect for Benji. Ornaments you can play with and not break! And while we were busy opening presents, Benji decided to sing "Jingle Bells" with the bells on the tree.


When I tried to sing along with Benji, he got upset and stopped. But he later moved to the other side of the tree and sang some more.


Throughout the weekend both Benji and Ava enjoyed playing with the easel. Benji even found a new use for the easel — hide and seek!


Grandma and Grandpa saved the best for last. What a snazzy looking tricycle with chrome bumpers and all.


OK, I'm done with Christmas. See you all later!


A rare photo of Grandma with both grandbabies.

Libellés : Benji, Christmas

Christmas Afternoon

After all the Santa excitement at our house, we went over to my parents' house on Christmas afternoon. We had more presents and a delicious crab leg dinner. (As a side story, Benji must have really liked having Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner in the dining room because on a subsequent visit he tried to drag his high chair into the dining room and wanted to eat in there.) As was the case that morning, Benji was very excited about presents, but he quickly got sidetracked by wanting to play with them. So while we were opening our presents (and Benji's clothing presents) he played with his Duplos, Uno cards, and Cabbage Patch Kid (this one "eats" pretend food, which seems to go along very well with Benji's love of the pretend microwave).


Now that Benji knows what a snowman is, he loves the decoration on his stocking. Grandma made a similar one for Benji at our house and then decided he needed one at Grandma and Grandpa's house, too. I agree! They're both adorable.


Hmm... I wonder what's in here. Maybe some "tickets". When Benji opened his card and found some Christmas money, he called it "tickets". They're not quite the same as Enchanted Castle tickets, but he's got the right idea. Smart lad!


Santa has such handsome helpers, doesn't he?


Such a cute giggle and smile!


One present was a giant set of dominoes. Benji thought they were both fun for counting the dots and for making towers.


Which case should I pick? Or should I take the Deal? Benji loved his "Deal or No Deal" electronic game. I bet he could do as well as many of the real contestants.


Of course everyone needs a new set of letters for Christmas!


Now that we have real winter, Benji needs some warm sweaters. Grandma crocheted a beautiful beige sweater for him, and it looks like he'll be able to wear it for at least two seasons.

Libellés : Benji, Christmas

Benji's third Christmas, Act 2

After breakfast we got back to the present opening, which Benji loved. Oh yeah, and Mommy and Daddy loved, too. Especially watching Benji's excitement. Isn't that what the "magic of Christmas" is all about?


Benji enjoys playing with Thomas the Tank Engine train sets at storytime that we thought he'd like a train set of his own. We were right.


As with the Duplos, we had to pause from all present opening to play with his new train set.


The past several times we've gone to Enchanted Castle we've saved up the tickets. Since Benji gets a kick purely out of taking tickets from the games and putting them back in the counting machine, we thought it was better to save up for a bigger prize. And we finally had enough for the giant Care Bear.


Big hug!


Or maybe big tackle!


Giant bear is actually taller than Benji. What's not to love about a teddy bear larger than you are?


Ah, now there's a sweet hug.


A present for Mommy and Benji? What could it be?


Benji must remember our fish back in Richmond. He immediately recognized the fish food canister in the present and got very excited. We still need to find the best place for the fish tank and go pick out fish, but it will be really nice to have fish again.


When Benji saw the nativity scene earlier in Advent, he immediately called it "Church" which I think is a fantastic recognition and association. And since the nativity is actually plastic or vinyl or something unbreakable like that I wanted to let Benji get up close and personal with the nativity.


His favorite part was the stable animals, especially the sheep. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised since he could count the sheep. But he did like the baby and the mommy and the daddy, too.


Daddy got presents, too.


Benji helps Daddy read his "Entertainment Weekly" magazine subscription. Not as much fun as Mommy's fish present, but still good fun.

Libellés : Benji, Christmas

Memory like an elephant

For anyone who thinks two-year-olds have no longer-term memory, I submit several cute kid stories.

1) After church this Sunday on our way out, Benji told me "go eat" and I figured he just wanted to have lunch so I told him we'd go home to get Daddy and then go have lunch. He repeated this again in the parking lot, so I asked him what he wanted to eat. He pronounced that he would like "donut". I thought this a bit odd since we don't have donuts very often. As we got closer to the car I asked him again and he again responded "donut". It finally dawned on me that when we went to church in Ames there were donuts and coffee after Mass. And on one of the Sundays of Advent the church we went to that weekend had donut holes afterwards. Apparently Benji thought this was a new addition to the church routine. Something I had completely forgotten had made quite the impression on him.

2) During "Christmas break" we went to Brookfield Zoo with my family, including my brother. It was a nice trip but because it was chilly we didn't see the whole zoo. We spent a lot of time in Tropic World and of course had to see the elephants and giraffes. When we were visiting in Ames we got to talking about the zoo and I asked Benji what we saw there. He told us he saw "monkeys", which is indeed what most of Tropic World has (monkeys and gorillas, but Benji was calling the gorillas monkeys). I asked him what else he saw and he told me he saw elephants and giraffes. He didn't add in any extra animals and he covered the main ones we saw. To build on this, last week he found his mold-a-rama elephant from the zoo and told me "coins", which indeed is how he got his elephant from the machine. This all makes me very glad we got the zoo membership and can go back a few times this summer.

3) Most days when I get home from work I ask Benji what he did today. And most days I don't get much of a response. I then move on to more specific questions like "did you go to storytime today?" But last week when I asked him he told me he went to the "park". And I asked him what he did at the park and he said "swings". So, the park must have made quite an impression compared to most daily activities.

4) Last weekend we were at Sears looking at washers and dryers and "Finding Nemo" was on the TVs across the room. We told Benji we'd go home and watch the "fish movie" and he seemed pretty excited. So we were taken aback when we got home and he started screaming angrily "fish movie, fish movie!" We think he thought we were going to the movie theater to see the fish movie. We don't go to the movies very often, but he did seem to really like the previous movie we'd seen ("Enchanted"), so I guess he wanted to see Nemo in the theater.

Now of course you can see this is all a selective memory, focusing on things he's particularly enjoyed and things that are out of the ordinary. But it just goes to show that kids are absorbing way more than we think they are.

Benji's third Christmas — pre-breakfast

As I've said before, this Christmas season has been amazing! Two years old is a magical age for Christmas and I've just loved introducing Benji to the season. Christmas morning was no exception to this magic!

Although Benji didn't drag us downstairs Christmas morning (which I'm sure he will in future years), once we got there and he saw the presents under the tree he was so excited. Honestly, I expected him to tear through all the presents at lightning speed since he's been starting to grasp the idea of brightly wrapped presents holding new toys. But instead he was the slowest present-opener I've seen. Unlike so many older kids and adults who want to move on to the next present, Benji showed more excitement and gratitude at each present. He wanted to open all the boxes and play with each toy immediately, which we more or less tried to honor. And although we did move on to more presents, it wasn't because he was losing interest in the current one and discarding it. I think he could have played with his new Duplos so much longer than we let him (we were getting hungry and decided it was time for breakfast) so that just goes to show how selective the proverbial short attention span of a toddler can be.

Since I took so many pictures, I'll split Christmas into a few posts. More to come later...


Since Benji had no real concept that Santa had come and left presents under the tree, he was just as happy to play in Mommy and Daddy's room in the morning. I'm sure it will change soon enough that he will wake up super early on Christmas morning and drag us downstairs.


We finally got so excited to watch Benji open presents that we dragged him downstairs.


Look at everything Santa brought! I wonder who the giant present is for.


Oooh! Presents for Benji! Now he got excited.


Blocks! Benji was so excited about his first present that we had to open it immediately so he could play with it. I guess Santa knew what would be a big hit!


After being so excited about the idea of presents, I'm surprised Benji got totally sidetracked. We built towers and animals with his new Duplos, totally uninterested in the rest of the presents. Of course that's probably a good thing since he's acting less greedy and more appreciative of the presents he received.


Benji has been so interested in taking pictures that we gave him his very own camera for Christmas. Granted, it's our super old 1-megapixel camera, but it seems to work well for him. It's actually quite large which is good for Benji to handle. By today's standards the picture quality isn't fantastic, but it used to be what we were very happy with. And he enjoys taking his own pictures.


I just loved the expression on his face in this one.


Remember when I said earlier that Benji liked to put presents in the tree?


Halftime! By breakfast we hadn't opened very many presents. But look at what fun the Duplos were!

Libellés : Benji, Christmas

Making trees and cookies

I've always loved getting ready for Christmas, but this year was absolutely fantastic. It was so much fun to introduce Benji to the many traditions of Advent and to see his excitement and understanding of these traditions (admittedly only the secular traditions because the real religious importance is far too abstract for a 2-year-old). I'm not quite sure how we're going to wean Benji off of Christmas now that it's over, but for now I'll just reflect on and treasure some of Benji's favorite parts of Christmas.

Christmas carols: Many nights at bedtime I sing various children's songs to Benji as a lullaby. But sometime in November I got tired of singing the same songs and realized I know tons of Christmas songs. By the time Advent rolled around, Benji was familiar with Christmas songs and even had his favorites. The first one we heard him singing on his own was Jingle Bells but he got pretty angry if you asked him to sing it on command. By the end of Christmas I would also hear him singing Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph when he didn't think we were listening. And he certainly had favorites to ask Mommy to sing — "the snowman song" (Frosty), "the reindeer song" (Rudolph), "the drum song" (Little Drummer Boy), "the house song" (a Trans-Siberian Orchestra song that goes with one of the animated light shows on YouTube), and "the tree song" (12 Days of Christmas, think about the partridge in the pear tree).

Christmas lights: I have been completely into Christmas lights for as long as I can remember. The tackier and more outlandish, the better. So it's no wonder that Benji loved the Christmas lights. When Matthew put up the lights outside our house (which isn't a huge display) Benji was so excited. He loved going up to the fake deer and petting them. Imagine his excitement when we went on our annual car tours of the area for light looking! His favorites by far were any of the animated displays where the lights flash and dance in coordination with music. And when we couldn't get out to see lights, YouTube was good for a quick fix!

Christmas presents: On December 6, St. Nicholas visited our house and put a variety of presents in Benji's shoes. He had started figuring out what presents were about at his birthday, so he was really excited by the pile of presents at the front door. For several days after St. Nicholas Day he would periodically declare "Benji present" and troop off to bring us one to open. It was great practice for the big day! One day after all the presents were already opened he declared "Benji present" so Daddy wrapped a piece of paper around the DVD remote and told Benji to put it under the tree. We later found out Benji was putting these "presents" in the lower branches of the tree, not under the tree. So funny!

Christmas TV specials: This is probably the Christmas tradition Benji was least excited about, but he still enjoyed snuggling on the sofa with Mommy to watch "Frosty the Snowman" or cutting cookies while watching "Rudolph." He was not impressed at all by "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

Christmas tree: It took us three days to put up our Christmas tree, but it was worth it to take our time and involve Benji as much as possible. Our artificial tree requires you to find the letters on the branches to get them in the right order and of course Benji was capable and happy to help with that task. When we were finished he declared "Benji make a tree" which is actually a pretty accurate description of the artificial tree process. The next day we let him follow after Mommy holding the lights and garland when I draped those on the tree. And the third day Benji hung most of the ornaments on the tree (and the remaining ones Daddy hung at Benji's direction when he wanted one higher up). And he certainly had his opinions about where the ornaments would go. For example, all of the teddy bear ornaments are on the same branch. I guess he thought they belonged together. This year most of the ornaments are on the bottom three feet of our tree so it's a bit unbalanced, but I wouldn't have it any other way.










Christmas cookies: This year I was both excited and nervous about making Christmas cookies with Benji. I knew he'd love Christmas cookies, but I was nervous he'd either try to eat the dough or track a mess all over the house. So I was thrilled when my mom agreed to help with this adventure. It was so much more fun to share this holiday tradition and easier to get the task accomplished.

We plopped Benji in his high chair to control the mess and give him a good surface to work on. We started with the family crescent cookie recipe and Benji enjoyed playing with the balls of dough and then giving them to Grandma to put on the cookie sheet. He didn't try to eat it at all. Later that day we brought him back for the rolled sugar cookies and cookie cutters. We let him pick which "shape" each time; I think he was partial to the tree and the snowman. He also liked the sprinkles, which didn't surprise me at all given his fondness for Parmesan cheese. Throughout the rest of the Christmas season Benji loved eating the fruits of his labors, asking Daddy for "snowman cookies" on a regular basis. (I'm happy to report that he hasn't asked for one at all since we got back from Iowa, which is good since we don't have any more Christmas cookies.)



















Nativity scene: This year I set up my grandmother's nativity set under our Christmas tree for the first time in a while. I figured Benji was well beyond trying to eat the nativity and maybe we could learn a bit about Christmas. The first time Benji saw the stable, he immediately declared "church". I hadn't told him at all what it was so I was thrilled and amazed that he immediately made that association. Then we talked a bit about the baby and his mommy and daddy. And of course we counted the sheep and called the donkey a horse. He treated the whole thing very respectfully and seemed to like the baby Jesus.

Libellés : Benji, Christmas

So who was the real winner of the Iowa Caucuses?

Obviously Huckabee and Obama were the actual winners of the Iowa Caucuses in that they received the most delagates to the Iowa convention, but which candidate actually gained the most from their performance (or the performance of others) in the Iowa caucus? To figure this out, let's look at the Iowa Electronic Market, a futures market where people can legally bet on the 2008 elections. Here's the Republican futures for January 2nd, the day before the election (converted into percent change of winning the nomination):

Romney: 32.3%
McCain: 25.6%
Guiliani: 22.2%
Huckabee: 12.8%
Thompson: 6.1%
ROF (including Paul): 3.4%

And here's today's averages, parenthetically followed by the candidate's change since the 2nd:

McCain: 30.6% (+5.0%)
Guiliani: 24.2% (+2.0%)
Huckabee: 19.7% (+6.9%)
Romney: 16.9% (-15.4%)
ROF (including Paul): 5.3% (+1.9%)
Thompson: 3.3% (-2.8%)

As expected, Huckabee was the largest gainer, but McCain (my Republican of choice) was actually not far behind, despite finishing fourth behind big loser Romney and moderate loser Thompson. In fact, McCain's fourth-place finish has somehow propelled him into the favorite to win the Republican nomination, while Romney's second-place finish has dropped him from first to not even one of the top three candidates. Go figure, I guess.

Not that you can't already accurately hypothesize what happened to the Democrats, but we'll do them as well. From January 2nd:

Clinton: 61.3%
Obama: 28.4%
Edwards: 11.3%
ROF (including Richardson): 1.7%

And from today:

Clinton: 50.7% (-10.6%)
Obama: 44.7% (+16.3%)
Edwards: 3.7% (-7.6%)
ROF (including Richardson): 0.7% (-1.0%)

Caucuseering.

Based in my experience visiting my parents in Ames the past few days, I think that if I were an Iowa voter, I would caucus for the candidate who called me the least often -- that is, only five times during the final week. That said, those four days in Iowa have given me the false confidence to make caucus predictions:

Clinton: 33%
Edwards: 31%
Obama: 27%
Richardson: 5%
Biden: 3%
ROF: 1%

Richardson, I'm afraid, is going to have some problems meeting the 15% viability threshold, although if he tracks just a few points higher than the polls suggest, he could get 15% or more of the delegates and be the big surprise out of the caucuses. And as for Obama, I'm just not convinced that the young and the independent are going to come out in numbers high enough to push him over the candidates preferred by older and more Democraty Democrats. (Me being one who's youngish and independentish, it's no wonder he's my favorite Democratic candidate.)

Romney: 29%
Huckabee: 27%
McCain: 17%
Giuliani: 10%
Thompson: 8%
Paul: 7%
ROF: 2%

I think Huckabee's two missteps in the last couple days — the "attack ad" and choosing Leno over Iowa for Caucus Eve — are going to swing the the race to Romney. People are talking about Giuliani potentially finishing last among the six major Republican candidates, but I just can't see one of the national leaders finishing that low. Thompson's done for.

Fall back

Looking outside at the foot of snow on our driveway and the single-digit temperatures, I am longing for a somewhat warmer topic. So we will look back fondly at fall, when I thought it was already too chilly for this Virginia transplant but now realize it was pretty good.


Our new house has far more trees — and leaves — than either of our Richmond homes. So one weekend when my parents were visiting they graciously offered to help us get the leaves raked. The chore went so much faster with more people. And Benji loved trying to help. Here you can see him trying to rake, but he was really much better at putting leaves into the bag. Of course he was best at running through the piles of leaves!


When he got tired of running through leaves, Benji invented a new game — football golf. That's an aerodynamic nerf football with a tail that Benji is using as a golf club or perhaps a baseball bat to hit his basketball.


In our basement rec room Benji has his own table complete with art supplies where he loves to "go downstairs color." Grandma also enjoys thinking of creative projects to do with Benji.


Notice how Benji is trying to fold a piece of paper, just like Grandma.


Does Benji make a good Pilgrim?


He really preferred the Indian feathers.

Libellés : Benji