Last weekend I went to visit my dad, Leslie, Danielle and Chris in MA. Andy got to have a “work on the house and assorted garage projects” weekend while Gabby, Ben and I roadtripped. Gabby was great company for the 5 hour drive, Ben wasn’t too bad either (although we were required to sing the ABCs and Itsy Bitsy Spider one too many times).

I will not fall asleep, I will not fall asleep…

One of the adventures we had on Saturday was visiting a little square in the city of Springfield. There was a fun maze of trees and branches kids could play in.

Next to the maze was a Dr. Seuss sculpture play area.

The figures were really cute!

Ben even found Peaches! You may know him as the Lorax, but Ben has this stuffed animal he calls Peaches. To be fair, he is peach colored and has a fuzzy peach like face. (I have no idea why he’s so expensive on amazon though, he was a $5 Kohls Cares book/stuffed animal combo).

The man himself.

We also had a picnic lunch at a local park.

Where Ben did boy activities like throwing rocks into the water.

And my dad picked some flowers for Leslie. Aww :)

It was such a perfect day spent with family!

Back at the house, Ben got to “dwive Gwampa’s Corbette.” He was so excited!

Ben also got to play with Legos for the first time. We have Duplo blocks, but Leslie pulled Christopher’s Legos up from the basement and he had a blast. In fact, he started asking for them when we got home, so it might be time to bring up my old Legos!

Chris was there this weekend too, but I didn’t get any pictures of him. However we did meet his (supposedly the family’s) new dog, Sadie. Yeah, she’s totally his dog.

She was such a sweetheart, but the laziest dog I’ve ever seen. Ben didn’t phase her. Their cat didn’t phase her. She even eats her meals laying down and sometimes doesn’t even finish. Such a lover though!

Saturday night we enjoyed kabobs on the grill and Ben played outside with my dad for a little bit.

Sunday morning we went to church. Ben didn’t really sit still during the service (even with a bag full of activities) so we wandered my dad’s church for a little bit. We ended up making a game out of finding all the drinking fountains. Strangest activity ever, but sometimes you do what you have to.

Lovely ladies ready for church. By the way, for those of you wondering how Danielle is doing after her car accident…she’s doing great! Her blog gives a bit of an update from a month ago, but as of this weekend she’s getting around even better and can now start doing things without crutches. Amazing recovery from her car slipping on ice accident a few months ago.

And that’s all folks! Whirlwind weekend road trip, but it was a ton of fun!

We’re doing a “Rock, Rhythm and Roll” class at our local rec center. It’s for 2-4 year olds and the kids do everything from somersaults on floor mats to playing follow the leader to circle games with each other. It’s great, Ben has a blast…except my normally polite, assertive, calm 2 1/2 year old turns into “that kid” during the class. You know, the one you don’t want to sit next to because he distracts your kid. The one running to the other end of the room, giggling hysterically at his escape when we should be sitting in a circle playing with the rubber ball. The teacher actually asked if he was 1 1/2 and I took no offense because during the class he has the impulse control of a kid half his age. I don’t know if it’s the excitement, awesome new activities or sweet sweet freedom of running around in a gym…but he is just one different little dude in the class. I have noticed he’s starting to follow directions better and listen to when we switch activities, so we’re making a little progress. And he’s having fun, which is good…but there’s only so much chasing runaway Benjamins this pregnant lady can handle.

We’re liking the name Cassidy for baby girl right now. I don’t think we’ve 100% committed, but we’ve sat on that one a while and it’s really come to be how I think of her. We also need a middle name which is proving to be harder to come up with. Even looking at family ones, nothing has really stuck on us as the “one.”

The next few months are going to be cah-ra-zy. Next week we’re headed home to get our taxes done and go to my soon to be sister in law’s first bridal shower. With me being self employed and Andy having a bunch of contract engineering projects alongside his normal work stuff, we just let an accountant family friend handle it. The following weekend is Kate’s second bridal shower that I’m helping plan. Then Easter which we’re hosting. April is full of weekends with friends and hopefully house work weekends to get one of the bedrooms finished (next step is drywall, yay). May brings two weddings (including my brother’s that both Andy and I are in) and the Pittsburgh Marathon weekend. June brings some relief and then July is BABY!

The first weekend in May I’m headed down to PGH with some of the Y ladies. Originally I was going to run the half marathon or be part of the full marathon relay team but once I found out I was pregnant, I decided against it. I would have if I were only like 4 months along, but I’ll be 7 months in May and that just does not sound like fun. So instead I’m going down as a cheerleader and photographer, which should be great. I also designed the logo and tshirts for our little ladies running team. Will share once those get printed!