Ben's 2nd Christmas

Let's see...where do I start? We took so many pictures over Christmas I can't decide which ones to post. We spent the week of Christmas in Ft. Thomas and Ben had a great time. He really got into opening presents so I'm sure he'll be a pro by the time his birthday rolls around. He also thoroughly enjoyed driving around looking at Christmas lights. Whenever he saw lights that were particularly pleasing he would say "oh, whoaaaaa." In addition to learning that expression, he picked up some new animal sounds, his grandfather taught him how to do a "fist bump." He enjoyed entertaining everyone with multiple sessions of twirling and somersaults.

He spent time with all of his Fritsche and Griffin relatives, including some real quality time with his favorite member of the family - Wickett. b.b. also made the trip with us, but I'm not sure if she made it into any of the pictures.

One of Ben's favorite activities was creating displays for Wickett to enjoy. This particular display included an assortment of wooden farm animals. As you can imagine, Wickett really liked this.

More Ben & Wickett quality time.

Maybe Wickett would like to smell my feet?

Trying to stay in shape over the holidays by doing some stretching.

Aunt Anne got me an awesome Thomas tent for Christmas.

Is that really Elmo?

It is Elmo!!

Ben with his great-grandfather George.

Ben & Griffin enjoying a play date. Griffin had really fun toys!

At the Cincinnati Zoo's Festival of Lights

Getting into the Christmas Spirit

Since the weather in Charlotte isn't very Christmas-like we decided to be proactive and create our own Christmas spirit. We visited the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden for their holiday light display. We had never been there and it was beautiful. They also had some neat train displays. The Wilsons joined us there and Ben and Elise had a great time running around.

Ben and his main gal Elise checking out one of the train displays.

Waiting to see Santa.

Santa's not so bad I guess.

This is Mommy's favorite Christmas tree ever - it's covered with orchids.

Enjoying the Christmas lights - and each other.

Holiday Season

The holidays are officially here and that means lots of traveling for the Fritsche family. We went to Murray for Thanksgiving. Ben did great in the car and had a great time visiting family. He's getting his 2-year molars so that made sleep pretty non-existent while we were there. It was early-to-bed, early-to-rise for Mommy, Daddy and Grammy. We're talking 7 p.m. bedtimes for us all and 4:30 wake-ups! The time change didn't help much!

Grammy and Ben

Drinking orange juice sure is fun! On this particular morning Ben had just eaten some pancakes and Mommy had eaten about 25 country ham biscuits!

Daddy & Ben in Paducah next to a choo-choo train.

While in downtown Paducah we ran into Santa Claus. He gave Ben a candy cane. Ben wasn't quite ready to give him his list so we'll be visiting Santa again soon.

Back in Charlotte...checking out the singing Christmas bears exhibit in the Bank of America building.

Elise came to check out the bears too!

For some reason the mechanical bears needed to take a 15-minute break so Ben & Elise sat and chatted about the first part of the performance.

Dancing to some of the tunes.

What an adorable family! I mean, what an adorable set of neighbors!