Ben Ben

Ben has caught several living creatures since our move! Here is a praying mantis.

He was a BIG bugger (no pun intended) and he was ready for a fight!

Here is an ENORMOUS tiger swallowtail butterfly! Isn't that beautiful?
Ben went fishing right near our home, and caught THREE blue gill. They were T-H-A-T B-I-G!! James and Ben brought them home and James filleted them. Unfortunately, it ended up just looking like fish potato chips.

And, here is a little snake that he caught. Actually, James caught it, but Ben claims the credit. This little snake was Ben's pet for about 24 whole hours. Then, it somehow got stuck to the masking tape that was on the inside? of the homemade "cage". Then mommy had to cut the tape to free the snake (with two pieces of tape permanently attached to the snake). Then, Ben decided to let it "hunt" for food in our lawn. Then Ben was very upset that he couldn't find the snake. Then mommy came in the back yard to help. Then everyone realized that we were all locked out of the house. Then we broke in through the window. -- We never found the snake.

I seem to be having trouble locating our pictures of the pretty good sized toad that Ben caught in our backyard. Apparently, one of a toad's defense mechanisms is to promptly pee all over it's captor. Very effective. The toad was set free.

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It is common to find a "store" set up somewhere in our home, with Ben trying to sell some of his toys. Who might the customers be, you might ask. . . . Us. The parents. The ones who actually purchased the toys (at least most of them.) And he gets soooo frustrated when we don't want to pay him for his toys. In this picture, apparently his Daddy took pity on him, and bought one of the toys.
Ben's confidence and willingness to try new things has grown dramatically since our move. I attribute this to more "Daddy Time". Here Ben is, doing bungee cord jumping on a trampoline at a festival we attended. He loved it and even did flips and everything. We have since put him in gymnastics and he is loving it. Ben loves to make his mom and dad smile (and his sister, too.) He does funny things, like dressing up silly; but also, lately, he has taken to cleaning different rooms in the house without being asked. He actually does a good job. Recently, when he was sick and home from school, he cleaned three rooms, then came to me and said, "Would you like a tour of the cleanness?"

It is not uncommon to find these sorts of pictures on James' phone. Hmmm, I wonder who might have taken that picture??