Benny Schnitzel :-)

So I don’t usually do these “tag” things because I don’t have a lot of time, but I decided to do this one since it looked fun. So here are some fun things about Ben.

What's his name? Ben, Benny, or Benny Schnitzel (my favorite)

How long have you been together? Married three years, but best friends for 5 years

How long did you date? We only dated for 2 weeks before we knew we were getting married (and discussed it even!), but waited until we’d been dating 2 ½ months to get engaged. Then it was less than 2 months later that we were married! Whew, it was quite a rush.

How old is he? I’m not sure Ben wants anyone to remember this or realize it, but he’s almost 30! YIKES!! He’s almost an old man! :-)

Who eats more? Definitely him, by far. There are a few exceptions though: caramel popcorn, cookie dough, and a lot of the times ice cream (although he can out-do me in that sometimes too, depending on the ice cream type).


Who said I love you first? He did, and it wasn’t even in person actually, and it wasn’t even when we were dating. Wow, huh?! He’d always liked me, and he called me one day during the summer after I’d visited him in California (he was still there, I was in Utah), and he started “spilling his guts” to me. He said he was pretty sure he was in love with me. Crazy! Of course now I know that the reason he did this was so he’d know if he should move on, or move to Utah. Thank heavens he decided to move to Utah, eh?


Who is taller? I like to say that he is (by about a half inch), but I’m not quite sure that is actually true. I just like to say he’s taller, but we’re probably the same height for real.



Who can sing better? Well, I’ve gotten a lot more practice at it over the last two years, so I feel I’ve gotten a lot better at it. I sing to Parker every time before he goes to bed, plus he loves to sing so I sing with him throughout the day a lot too. But Ben has a really good voice, when he chooses to use it. And I think we can both sing different parts when we want to.

Who is smarter? We’re both savvy in our own ways. He’s way smarter than me in some ways, and I am in others.
Who does the laundry? You know, these days he has been just as much or maybe even a little more than me. I tend to forget that I put laundry in the washer, and then not put it in the dryer. He’s usually much better about that than I am.

Who pays the bills? Me. Ben hates seeing our money fly out the window faster than it flew in, but I like to pay our bills ahead of time so I can make sure they’re paid. I’m also meticulous and love keeping track of them on the computer.

Who sleeps on the right side? Well, Ben used to sleep in the middle of the bed and I got the left edge. But a little while ago I decided that needed to change. So I started sleeping in the middle, hoping he would move over. Well, things didn’t go as planned and I ended up getting squished. So now we’ve kind of compromised. He starts in the middle so we’re closer together, and then moves over as we go to sleep. So he’s on the right and I’m on the left (closest to the kids of course).

Who mows the lawn? Neither of us. I guess that’s one of the benefits of living with in-laws right now.

Who cooks the dinner? Again, a perk of living with in-laws, Renee usually does. But I try to take my turn when I can, although that’s decrease a LOT since Madisyn’s arrival. I think that if we’d been living on our own when Maddy was born, we would have all starved. Thanks Renee!

Who drives? He usually does, but occasionally I do, since I don’t get to get out much.

Who is more stubborn? Yeah, that’s definitely a toss up. We are both very stubborn in our own ways, and Parker has inherited that--a dose from each of us unfortunately!

Who kissed who first? He kissed me first at my apartment when we were officially dating.

Who asked who out first? That’s a tough one. See, during our college days, I saw Ben and I as “just friends,” and we’d hang out every once in a while. But Ben saw it as asking me out on dates, since it was one-on-one and he’d asked me specifically (oh how I was in denial!!). But when he moved to Utah to date me, we just kind of made plans, and not specifically ask each other on dates. So I don’t know how that all counts.

Who proposed? Ben, and yeah, that would have been weird if I did.

Who has more friends? We’re pretty much even, although I’m a little more social at church, so maybe I do a little more. But he has friends at work so maybe that evens it out. I don’t know.

Who is more sensitive? Does that mean sensitive as in sensitive to other peoples’ feelings or sensitive as in you get your feelings hurt easily? They mean quite different things you know.

Who has more siblings? Ben has twice as many as I do. Wow, huh? I have four siblings, and he has 9!!

Who wears the pants? We’re pretty even, but again, one of us might be a little stronger (or stubborn!) at some things, and the other at others. That’s why we balance each other out so well.

Parker's birthday

Parker is now two!! We had a party for him on Sunday, and most of Ben's family were able to be there, and a couple of friends came too. Ben and I made him a train cake for his birthday since he likes trains so much. It took a lot of time, but it turned out so cute! I'll have to admit we were kind of proud of it. It made me almost not want them to cut into it :-). But we did and it was good, and Parker had lots of fun.

Parker with his train cake

Parker eating part of the cake (eating the candies off it that is!)

Parker's train cake

Few pictures

Just thought I'd put a few new pictures on just for fun. We haven't been doing too much lately, just normal stuff. But mine and Ben's anniversary is coming up, so we'll do something for that. Plus Parker's birthday is in a little over a week, so we'll have lots of fun with that. I can't believe he'll be two already!! Ben and I are going to make a train cake for him, since he loves trains. We had fun making him a fire truck cake last year, so this should be fun too.

Madisyn (2 1/2 mo), cousin Clara (6), cousin Porter (21 mo), & Parker (almost 2)

Madisyn playing (almost 3 mo)

Parker dancing to music (no that's not drool on his shirt-he'd just been playing with a water spray bottle and having fun spraying himself in the face)

Singing and Talking kids

A couple of people have asked for video of Parker singing and Maddy cooing, so here they are. They're actually kind of bad videos since they're both really dark, but they were all I've got at this time. Parker is a kid who loves to sing, all the time, anywhere and everywhere. He has always sung tunes, but now that he's getting better at talking, he can say a lot of the words too. So here's a video of him singing up at the ski lodge. We went there after sledding, and although it's really dark like I said, it was the perfect time to get him singing on video. He also sings "Jingle Bells," "Twinkle Twinkle," "Old MacDonald," "The Wheels on the Bus" (his favorite), "Frere Jacque," and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," but I'm only putting this one on. As you can see, he likes to end all of his songs with a bang. :-)

Here's the video of Madisyn cooing. It's really cute because she's become quite the "talker" lately, and we love hearing her make noise. Again, the video is dark (sorry!), but the best time to get her talking is after her diaper has been changed and she's still laying on the changing table.

Sledding!

Yesterday we went with some of the cousins up to Mt. Hood for the day. Portland doesn't get snow hardly ever, so we went there to go sledding (Maddy stayed at home with Grandma). Parker had a BLAST! He absolutely loved sledding! When we got to where there started to be snow he kept saying "Snow!" He got so excited when we went sledding, and constantly wanted to be going down the hill. If he ever had to wait his turn for the sleds, he would just sit down and start "sledding" down on his bottom. It was funny. He cried when we had to come home :-( and almost refused to get in his car seat. We definitely hope we get snow at least once this winter so that we can play in it again. Here's some pictures and videos we took while we were there.

Here's Parker when we first got ready to go in the snow. He calls the snow "white" at first (because I call it "the white stuff"), but then you hear him exclaim "Snow!" He was so excited and cute about it!

Me, Parker, and Ben sledding

Parker havin' fun on the sled

Sledding down the hill!

Playin in the snow!

Parker (23 mo) and his cousin Porter (21 mo)

Taya (4), Clara (6), Porter (21 mo) and Parker (23 mo) all bundled up and ready to go sledding.

Ben and Parker sledding down the hill

Me and Parker in the snow