Benson Photos

So pictures of children are totally the province of parents: Mom and Dad love them, while the rest of the world is blissfully unconcerned.

That said, I can't help but post these. They were taken this summer in California while I was in Europe. Benson is with his little cousin Calli, who was born six days after he was. Calli's parents, Dan and Ashley (who is Brittany's older sister), live near Sacramento in Roseville, California. The occasion for Britt's visit, along with her parents and two sisters, was that Dan and Ashley had a little BOY! So, congrats to Dan and Ashley on Luke Swenson, and here are the cousin photos for your viewing pleasure.

The Next Old Blue Eyes

My sister Micah is practicing with my dad every night to make her own demo. Well Benson loves to dance to Grandpa playing the guitar and he has started to sing along also. Here is a video of his great performance when he was avoiding getting ready for bed.

Fishers of Men

This Monday night we had friends over for our Family Home Evening and Grandpa told the story of Jesus teaching the apostles to be fishers of men. Benson and his friends acted out the story with costumes. However, as you can tell from both pictures, he did not like his costume at all. The other children looked really cute and they enjoyed it.

Benson sat still while they were throwing out the net to catch fish, but he ran away every time Grandpa started quoting scripture.

More Birthday Fun

We went to play at Benson's Great Grandma's house for his birthday and for Memorial Day. That is also where we had cake and gave Benson his last present, a bubble blowing lawn mower.

The only problem was it took a minute of pushing to get the bubbles going, and once they started Benson stopped pushing so he could catch them and then they stopped. He thought he could "hit" some bubbles out of it for a little while.


I had this great idea of making a guitar cake since that seems to be Benson's favorite thing these days. But icing a cake in a home with no air conditioning while it is 90 degrees made for a few complications. Also the store was out of the pull and peel Twizzlers so the strings are a little larger than they should be, but Benson said guitar as soon as he saw it, so I declare it a success.


We got a slip and slide to play with but the pouring rain seemed to be enough water fun. Benson loved splashing in this bird bath.




There is a cemetary right by Grandma's house and this group of 20 motorcycles came to visit for Memorial day and on their way out, one of them stopped in the yard to wave to Benson and let him see the 'big bike" up close.



We made a cookie cake for Grandma since her birthday was just a few days before Benson's. Here he is decorating it with Ali.

Of course Benson knows the best part is licking your fingers.

Benson's 2nd Birthday

Benson turned 2 on Memorial Day this year. We celebrated with gifts, a guitar cake, and lots of playing at Great Grandma Gibson's house.

Getting Benson to open the first present was fine. He immediately took the golf clubs out of the bag and used them like baseball bats or swords. Then he pushed the empty golf bag around while saying, "vroom vroom vacuum." We finally got him to put down the vacuum to open some other gifts.

The idea behind the bowling set was something he could roll and not throw, but he immediately started using the pins as swords to hit Grandpa.

Grandma and Grandpa Atkinson got him this fun barn with animals.

Many times he will grab his barn as I grab my purse when walking out the door and say, "bag, go."

I am sure the sleeping bag will become a hit once we go camping...even if it is in the back yard.

The aunts got him some movies and books. But his favorite was......

The singing chipmunk card. He dances to it all the time!