THE peacoat debuts

So I think I've touched on it a few times in the three years of this blog, but I collected lots of kiddo and baby clothes during my 6 + years with Gap Inc.  Good or bad, lots of it was given away as gifts before Ben came along, but there has always been one last item waiting for my own kiddo to wear.  I brought home this navy wool peacoat from work to a house FULL of Christmas guests during my freshman year of college and boy did I get a ration of grief!! It has never been forgotten by many in that group and the ribbing and grief has gone on for nearly 15 years.  
Thankfully I think no one can argue that it was well worth the wait and the moves to MT, CO, NC, CO, KS and finally back to CO.  Yes, that is one well-traveled piece of wool.  
We headed out to the park last night to continue our light testing for the Long family shoot and Ben was not happy.  Even the continuous M & M's did little turn his frown upside down but did well for his forlorn-toddler-model poses. :)

love this one in b&w

 

And....the crankiest of the cranky ;(

eager beaver

This morning as we were getting into the car to head to preschool (which Ben desperately misses over the weekend and asks to go to, ) Ben started telling me "good-bye" and "go away mama," before he was even in the car.  I told him he might just NEED me to make it to school but that I would promptly depart upon entering his classroom.  I tried to sit with him and make some connections in the science area between his favorite bottle of black liquid and other black things and he chanted, "bye-bye mommy," the whole time.  It makes me overwhelmingly happy that he loves school so much and what a perfect giggle-filled way to start the week!

test shoot

I'm hoping mother nature will cooperate and we'll get to snap a few pics of the Long family this weekend at a tiny little nearby park.  I also hope to make it to the park for some actual test shots with Ben this week but we did take some time to test the light on Saturday afternoon/early evening.  It was good light testing for me but even the promise of M&M's didn't work to entice my little man to look at the camera and smile-humpfffff!!

handsome Luke was a more willing subject

love the light and shadow here

"I really want an M, but I WILL NOT look at that camera!"

biggest smile of the attempt

great light near the bottom of the slide but he would only hang and refused to sit-humpffff!

campfire fairytales

Thanks to the kind suggestion from a great mom I've had the pleasure of meeting at Tante's work, The Lineberry's joined us Friday night for some Campfire Tales at the Denver Botanic Gardens.  
The fun began at 5:30 pm when we were ushered through the gates of the Mordecai Children's garden and countless adventures were laid out before us.  There was take-home ivy planting, scientific owl discovery, painting, and two sessions of African story-telling and songs followed by s'mores over the campfire.  We were able to take in a picnic including adult beverages and the early fall weather was perfect.  The standard garden activities were an added bonus and I think Grace, Sara and Ben would have been happy to dig in the dirt pit all night.  For the adults it seemed a perfect way to end the week and begin the weekend.  I know Ben will get more out of these activities as he ages and I can't stop giggling at his loudly proclaiming, "be VERY quiet," over and over during the thankfully raucous story-telling.   Cole and I commented on how hard it is to tell him to be quiet when we've been encouraging his language development for so long.  Sadly, Ryan was at work and missed this fun but I was super thankful to have the Lineberry's to enjoy the adult parts of the evening with.  These Gardens are very close to our house and it was a great reminder to stay on top of their calendar and take more advantage of activities like these and their summer concert series.

typical

 lots of opportunities for energy release!

love these two :)

indeed I am!

Ben was quite distracting for me but the gist of the stories sounded neat.