Another long sappy post about how much I love my kids :)

This morning I woke up to Zack screaming down the hall as loud as he can, "Mom!! Am I awake now?" As I do every morning I just yell back, yes it's morning, you can come out now. Then he comes into my room and either climbs in bed with me or plays very quietly in my bedroom. He whispers the whole time so that he doesn't wake me or Ben up. Now is that an angel child or what!? When Ben finally did wake up Zack told me "STAY HERE, I want to get him!" He ran in his room like he does most mornings, grabbed a stool, climbed in the crib and started jumping. As I listened to that 2 of the giggling hysterically I decided I really need to make sure I write all this stuff down so I don't forget how precious they are right now!


So here we go again, Take 40 of fun Zackie quotes:
Pretty much every day while we are eating breakfast he asks "mom, is it today?" -- somehow he seems to think he'll get a different answer one day. :)"Mom, I need to wear these shoes (referring to his tennis shoes) because they are more powerful than my flipflops!" -- gotta have power in your shoes right?The other day I was out jogging with the kids, it had been a half hour already and Zack was starting to get bored and wanted to get out. He kept pestering me to let him jog with me and eventually I got impatient and said "Zack! Just give me a minute ok?" He got a huge smile on his face and held out his hand and said "ok mom, here's a minute for you!" --I know, not the funniest thing ever but I thought it was cute that he was so excited about making up his own joke. :)Zack loves using big words, he does pretty well at using them correctly as well...well, correct but not necessarily the way an adult would say it. I guess he sounds more like a nerdy teenager trying to impress a business man or something. On Tuesday as he was getting ready for school he told me he wanted to wear his "dignified backpack!" HAHA (Thank you for teaching him that word Curious George!)
All day long he tells me he "discovered" this or that, he knows what it means and uses it correctly but when a kid says "well, I discovered I'm not in the mood for a banana right now" you can't help but laugh!
I wish I were better at keeping track of the silly big words he uses but those are the only 2 I can think of right now!Anyone ever seen the movie "An extremely Goofy movie"? It is about Goofy's son going away to college and at the beginning Goofy is really sad his son is leaving. Zack watched the part where his dad was all sad and mopey and it took all Zack's effort to not cry for Goofy...he had the pouty lip and everything! That kid has such a tender little heart!

He LOVES to be told what a hard worker he is and brags about being so relentlessly...and that he is...The other night I was gone for some reason and Zack was just begging Trent to do Family Home Evening. All we ever really do is sit down on the couch and look at the pictures that relate to scripture stories and tell him that story. Well, Trent told him a story about some wicked people and Zack listened carefully...after Trent was all done Zack grabbed the picture and bringing it right up to his face he squinted and it and said "Wow, those people really ARE wicked!" --I guess he can just see it in people. :)

He is turning into a little photographer...I of course love that! He loves using my point and shoot camera when I have my nicer camera out. Even more than that he loves using my camera, I love to let him, just an effort to keep him happy about the thousands of pictures I'm always taking of him! :)On night he's having a hard time falling asleep he always says "I'm having a hard sleep!"

Or if he's having a bad day he'll say "I'm having a hard experience" -- that cutie!

Whenever he meets new friends he doesn't bother to ask them their name, from then on their name is the color of their shirt and their gender....so he'll call them "hey, red guy!" "hey, yellow girl" etc. Very personable huh?Driving in the car the other day this is what he told me "Mom, remember when you were a baby and daddy grew up to be a mommy and I was the daddy and we took care of you?" -- Hum...I don't know how that slipped my mind?If you ever give Zack a hug and you think he smells like Old Spice...you are right. He is sure to put deodorant on every night (and a lot of mornings) so he "smells good while he sleeps."

Benny boy:While I can't exactly do a "funny quotes" post for Ben I still have to take moment and post some of the things I love and adore about him lately.

By far my favorite is his complete and OBVIOUS love for everyone in our family. Trent will come home from work and Ben will just watch his every move, once Trent does look at him he just smiles and giggles excitedly. He LOVES playing with/watching Zack and anytime Zack isn't around he seems to get bored rather quickly.
Whenever he gets excited his hands wave up and down like crazy, I love that he is excited with his WHOLE body, not just his big smile.

Oh, and I can't forget to mention his bedtime buddy. This is "brownie bear" as Zack and I have decided to call him. Ben LOVES having a little animal to snuggle with at bedtime. I'll lay him down in his crib and he automatically holds out his arms for his bear before he'll roll over to go to sleep.
He's getting really close to crawling...he does army crawl a little but usually ends up on his head. He get's up on all 4's and rocks back and forth all the time but then when he starts to move he gets scared and lays down on his belly to wiggle there instead. I'm sure he'll figure it out very soon.--This was written last Friday (didn't have time to finish the post) and as of Sunday he is officially crawling! It is an army crawl but he has definitely figured out how to get where he needs to be!--Some of his latest "tricks" are giving kisses (big slobbery open mouth ones of course!), giving a five (his favorite), "honking" my nose (this one developed on accident because for some reason whenever he's eating he loves to grab my nose, I just started saying "honk" when he'd do it and now he loves it!)This kid is SO incredibly mellow. He'll put up with pretty much anything Zack can dish up. Zack will try and pick him up, pour water on his head in the bath, trip over him, etc. and Ben will act flustered for a second and then go back to whatever he was doing.He's doing great with solids and has finally started eating a lot of normal table food broken up into small pieces. He loves the independence of feeding himself but is also quite picky about textures and temperature. It's great to have him eating on his own because for quite awhile anytime anything with the slightest texture would make him gag, then he'd look at me like was this evil person for giving it to him!He is still my little angel baby, loves his naps and is on a very regular schedule now. Pretty much the only time he wakes up at night is if we are camping or something but he'll still go right back to sleep. He's SO mellow and honestly a little selective about who he'll play with. His personality reminds me of Trent SOOOOO much, it makes me happy. :)Last of all I have to comment on how much I love having the 2 of them together. I was worried while I was pregnant with Ben about how I'd balance giving enough attention to both of them. However, what I have learned is that they can give each other something I could never give them.Zack makes Ben happier than pretty much anyone in the whole world and Zack loves have Ben around to play with and keep him company. It is so cute and so fun to watch them play together. It isn't uncommon for me to be holding Ben walking somewhere with Zack chasing behind me grabbing Ben's toes, throwing a stuffed animal or something at him, and both of them laughing hysterically! I know I'm WAY cheesy but I just can't get enough of the kiddos, they are so fun and so awesome. I feel so lucky to have such an awesome little family!