Ben had a very interesting story to tell his Auntie . . .

Ben:  Leslie, the FBI stopped by at our house!

Leslie:  Why did the FBI Stop by your house?

Ben:  Because dad wanted to order pizzas!

Okay, probably need to explain this one a little more.  Ben sometimes likes to dramatize his stories but this is a truthful story . . . kind of.

Ben has recently stumbled upon the concept and power of .com.  He has developed an eye for .com addresses and can spot them on billboards, signs, posters, commercials, and on crayons.  (Don’t tell anyone but he stole a broken crayon from school because the crayon had a .com address printed on it – http://roseart.com)

As we are driving,  an excited voice from the back seat . . .

Ben:  “Dad, what does that say?”

Dad:  “Stewartville Auto Sales”

Ben:  “No the other sign.  It says something .com”

Dad:  “Oh, www.findcars.com”

Ben:  “We can probably go to that on the computer.”

He also realizes that if he sticks a .com at the end of something he likes, they might have some cool stuff:

• lego.com
• starwars.com
• pbskids.com

“Dad, can I borrow your computer?”

This has also sparked his imagination of the possibilities.

Ben:  “Dad, I just though of something . . . snowshop.com”

Dad:  “What is that Ben?”

Ben:  “I don’t know, I just made it up.  It sounds cool though.”

snowshop.com is already taken . . . I checked.  If he comes up with something unique and available, maybe Dad will buy the domain for him as a present   Now that’s geeky!

As parents, we are painfully familiar with the locations of bathrooms within the Rochester area.  Besides the normal embarrassment of Benjamin talking too loud in the bathroom stall, dad had another funny experience with Ben and Andrew.

Andrew is a big fan of using the big boy urinals (even if it means tip toeing to reach it as dad nervously watches on).  Even though he thinks of himself as a big boy for standing up, he gives everyone a reminder of how young he is by dropping his pants and drawers all the way down to his ankles, as all kids his age do.

While at the mall, Andrew gave dad that look of panic, so without exchanging words, we were headed toward the bathroom.  Ben didn’t need to go, so as we entered the bathroom, Ben found a place to sit near Andrew as he patiently waited.  At the time we were the only ones in the bathroom and dad was suffering though the normal “yeah you did, no I didn’t, yeah you did,  . . . ” conversations.  Suddenly, someone came walking in and the conversation stopped.  Andrew was still going at the urinal, and as the person walked past, Ben took both of his hands and made a mini wall to cover-up Andrew’s bottom from the person passing by.  Although no words were said, Ben’s eyes gave him the look of “Nothing to see here, keep it moving!”

Ben definitely takes on the responsibility to protect his brother.  Dad shared the story with Mom for a good chuckle.

I am starting a new category for our blog . . . Never A Dull Moment (NADM).  These will be stories about Ben and Andrew providing entertainment and laughs to Mom & Dad (whether or not it was their intention).  We are curious to see how many of these we can collect by the end of the year.   I know all parents have moments like these so feel free to post your own #NADM on facebook/twitter/email.

Here is an example . . .

Mornings are very hectic in the Davis household.  Mom and Dad do our best to get the boys up and going, setting out their clothes, feeding the dogs, getting ready for work, etc . . .

As we are in middle of our routine, Mom walked in on Ben and Andrew . . . picture if you will Ben squatting in the middle of the floor with his pajama shirt over his knees . . . Andrew with bundled socks trying to stuff it under Ben’s pajama shirt . . . Mom walking in the middle of this process:

Mom:   What are you guys doing?

*Ben and Andrew looking up innocently*

Andrew:   Ben’s laying eggs.

Mom:  Okay then [walking away shaking her head]

. . . Never a dull moment.

No Facebook, No Twitter, No Problem . . . email your NADM stories for a future posting (nadm@jeffnjudy.com)

Sitting in the boys bedroom, Andrew was asking dad about his piggy bank.  The bank had his name (Andy) on it so he was just verifying what the bank had written on it.

Andrew:  Dad what does that say?

Dad:  It says Andy.  That’s your name.  What do you want us to call you?  Andy?  Andrew?

Andrew:  *small pause* . . . Call me Nathan . . . *mischievous smile*

Andrew further explained that he had a kid in his class named Nathan and he liked his name.  The funny part is that when Andrew was born, Nathan was one of the names that made the top 3 choices.  I’m sure if we would have named him Nathan he would have asked us to call him Andy

The family was going to purchase a family ski lesson from Welch Village, a ski area near Rochester.  We were unsure if Andrew or Ben would last through an hour long lesson so we decided to try snow tubing instead.  Judy found a good snow tubing option at Afton Alps and so off we went.

Judy and I would have been happy to get one or two runs from Andrew.  To our surprise and enjoyment, both boys lasted the full 3 hours.  We took one of the cameras to take pictures and we were able to take a little bit of video too.

The boys really enjoy “Fireflies” by Owl City (BTW, a Minnesota group out of Owatonna) so I put together a video of snow tubing to that song:

Andrew’s preschool class performed in a Christmas program with the rest of his school (preschool -- 8th Grade).  We were fortunate enough to have Auntie Chris and Cousin Jacob around to help cheer on Andrew for his first public performance.  Mom & Dad were probably more nervous than Andrew was.

Andrew has been our shy kid and we were unsure how he would do in front of a crowd.  We worked with him to get him excited about the program and did a countdown to the Christmas program with him at home.  He woke up very excited about going to his Christmas program.   He had to sing 3 songs and since we didn’t know how the songs went, we weren’t sure if Andrew knew them (he wouldn’t give us a private performance or sneak peek to his songs).

When the preschoolers were called to the stage, Andrew made his way to the steps and was actually the first one on stage for his class.  Holding his teacher’s hand, he marched to the middle of the stage.  The moment of truth arrived and Andrew did very well.  He knew the words to the song and preformed very well on stage.  He was strictly business on stage which we got a chuckle out of.  After his performance, he was very proud of his moments on stage and seemed to have enjoyed it.

We bought a new video camera for the event so that we could start posting videos on YouTube in HD.  Enjoy the highlights of his performance.

Okay, I got a friendly reminder today that some people are still reviewing the jeffnjudy.com site for updates.  I apologize for not keeping up to date on my posts.  I will go through some old pictures and post some recent adventures with the boys. 

Upcoming . . . we are looking at taking skiing lessons with the boys in the near future.  We will document this adventure, if I can keep from falling on the camera. 

FYI, just invested in a new video camera that shoots in HD . . . will try to post some videos soon.  Here is some test footage:

As typical kids do, the boys always want to ask ‘why?’ no matter what the question is.

Don’t forget to wash your hands.   Why?

Eat all of your veggies.  Why?

Stop hitting your brother.  Why?

You get the picture . . . after 1,000 why’s, our typical answer has become . . . ‘because I said so. ‘  You can probably tell where this is heading.

The other day we were watching a Tivo’d show when Andrew needed to use the bathroom.  Mom missed his official bathroom announcement so Andrew followed his initial request with more of a demand . . . ‘Mom, pause the TV’.  Not knowing the reason to pause, Mommy kindly asked . . . why?

Andrew stopped in his tracks looked at Mom and said . . . ‘because I said so!’ . . . and continued onto the bathroom.

After he was done, we explained that ‘because I said so’ doesn’t quite carry the same weight when they say it.  We are always amazed on how much kids notice and soak in.  We always enjoy seeing how their logic works.

Watch what you are saying . . . they are listening . . .

Saturdays have turned into movie night at the Davis household.  Here are some of the previous movies that were featured on Movie Nights:

• Bolt
• Wall-E
• Fantastic Four
• Transformers
• Chronicles of Narnia
• Jurassic Park

Along with the movies we have special treats, usually made up of Smooties and Popcorn.  The boys help out in making smooties.

The boys have really enjoyed movie nights and this is a perfect excuse to bond as a family.