My other job...

I spend 30 hours every week at work (well, the work that I actually get a paycheck for!), so I thought it might be nice to post something about my good ol' employer. I've worked for Westfield Group (an insurance company) since I graduated from Taylor University in 2001 (Mike's mom works here too!). I can't believe I'll have been with the company seven years at the end of June! For the past four years I've worked in our Human Resources department in various roles, but currently I'm a Performance and Development Specialist.

Some of the things I get to do ...

- Manage a leadership development program for high potential employees
- Meet with employees to assist them in planning their careers or to help them determine how they can develop themselves
- Deliver 360 feedback and personality assessments
- Facilitate team development (helping teams within the organization improve their performance and work more effectively together)
- Administer and manage our education reimbursement program for employees who are going back to school

It's been a great place to work and has been really accommodating in terms of flexible work arrangements and helping me keep a balance between work and LIFE! When Ben was born I started working four, ten hour days, so I was able to spend one extra day a week with him. I moved to a part-time schedule in March of this year (three, ten hour days) and have really been loving having another day at home with my buddy! It's so nice to be home with him more days than I'm away from him in a given week.

Anyway, the grounds and facilities at Westfield are pretty amazing, so I thought I'd post a few pictures of what I drive up to every week. These are actually older pictures and the landscaping, if you can believe it, has improved since these were taken. We have a great cafeteria on site, workout facility, two golf courses (to entertain our agents), an Inn, a training facility, a technology center, and a bank. Oh, and I can't forget the gift shop/bakery where you can get Starbucks coffee, order dinner to go for your family, get your dry cleaning done, buy a card or gift for a friend, or purchase any kind of yummy baked good you could imagine! It's like a college campus...or some kind of utopia!

But, with all that being said, I gotta be honest, I'm still glad that I'm at home more than I'm at work....being Ben's mommy is so much more rewarding than any career!

Kite flying!

It was a chilly, windy evening last night, but the sun was out, so we thought it would be fun to fly Ben's new shark kite! I've never had an easier kite flying experience. It just went right up...no running or anything!

Ben examining the empty robin egg he found on the ground.

Ben turns three!

On Sunday we celebrated Memorial Day and Ben's birthday at Hubbard Valley Park. The whole Moser clan was there and we invited our good buddies and neighbors, the Hurrle's, to come too. Ben and Nate (their little guy in the red hat below) are five months apart in age and had lots of fun together. I took an insane amount of pictures (imagine that!), but a lot of them are of people other than Ben, so I decided to just focus on him for this post to make my narrowing down easier! :) It was a beautiful day and everyone had fun soaking up the sun, playing cornhole, flying kites, throwing rocks in the water, playing at the playground, squirting each other with water guns, etc...oh and EATING of course! We are looking forward to celebrating Ben's birthday, again, in July when we travel home to Missouri to visit my family!

I just LOVE being a mom and watching Ben grow. He makes me smile and fills my life with so much happiness. I hope and pray that he grows to love Jesus more every day and that His light shows in all he does! Happy Birthday, best buddy! I love you!

Oh...and for those of you in my family who actually want to look at more of the pictures I took, you can click here to view them. Hopefully you'll find a picture of yourself somewhere in there! :)

Getting ready for the big b-day!

Ninety-nine percent of my day on Saturday was spent slaving over the cake below (and the cookies) for Ben's third birthday party today. If you know me, you know that the last time I made or decorated a cake was exactly a year ago for Ben's second birthday! I'm no Betty Crocker....so, I will admit...I was kind of proud of myself for accomplishing Scooby! I wasn't so sure he would turn out because he was MUCH more complicated than my Elmo cake last year, but I think it actually looks like him. :)

Ben helping me cut out the "Scooby snacks" for his party!

More party pictures coming soon!

Tunnel time and fun with Daddy too!

Fun times in the fort we built out of blankets, the Pooh tent, and Ben's long green tunnel!

As you can tell, Ben has really been interested in anything related to Daddy's big race last Sunday. He wore Mike's bib and was running laps through the kitchen and family room last night. He kept saying, "On your mark...get set...go!" Good times! :)

My two favorite boys!

Growing up so fast...

During our family visit to Illinois earlier this month, my cousin Annetta (a very talented photographer) was able to catch some impromptu pictures of Ben outside during my cousin Hayley's wedding reception. We had planned to have an actual photo shoot for his three year pictures the day before, but the weather did not agree with us. She only spent about 10 minutes with him, but I thought the pictures turned out so cute, especially given the fact that he is pretty difficult to actually get to look at the camera and smile at the same time! Below is a storyboard of some of the pictures she took. We framed this for my mom and mother-in-law for Mother's Day.

He has grown up so much. I can hardly believe he'll be three this Sunday!

3 yrs......................................2 yrs

1 yr.........................................4 mths

By the way....if any of you live in the Bloomington/Normal, Illinois area and need a good photographer, I'm sure Annetta would love to talk to you. Her website is www.annettablairphotography.com. You can check out a lot of her work there. She's really great with kids and is very reasonably priced.

Cuteness...

Ben insisted on wearing Daddy's race medals during breakfast this morning.

My sweet little niece, Emma. Isn't she adorable? I just love how the bow is as big as her head.

He did it...13.1 miles!

Mike ran his first ever half-marathon this morning in Cleveland and he was awesome! :)

I was SO disappointed though...I forgot my darn camera. As I'm sure you can tell from this blog, I document everything with pictures and to not have any from this morning is REALLY bugging me.

Anyway, back to Mike....he ran a 7:52 pace the entire race and ended the 13.1 miles at 1:43:31. His goal was to run under 8:00 minute miles and end under 1:45...so he was happy! It was pouring down rain at the beginning of the race, but by the end the sun was out and shining bright. We made different stops along the route to cheer him on. Ben loved watching all of the runners and yelling for Daddy. There were around 3,100 half-marathon runners and 15,000 runners overall (between the 10k and full marathon). He placed 352...I think that is pretty great, especially for his first time doing this. He was very diligent about sticking to his training plan and he accomplished his goal! I am so proud of him. (Oh...and the winner of the marathon finished in 2:33:33....a 5:51 mile pace...for 26.2 miles...INSANE!)

In other news...we spent all day Saturday in Cleveland too (we had to pick up his race packet and bib downtown). We decided to find something fun to do with Ben, so we took him to the Children's Museum. It was not the most amazing museum I've been in, but Ben had fun and that's all that mattered. We went out to eat in "Little Italy" afterwards at a really good Italian restaurant...Mama Santa's (Mike had to carbo load :)). We finished off with some cannolis from Corbo's bakery...yum!

Storytelling, Smarting Off, and Split Personality Disorder

Ben LOVES when we tell him made-up stories and he loves to make them up too. Many times a day he'll come up to me or Mike and say, "Tell me a scary story." I don't know what it is about scary stories that intrigues him?! He likes to be scared! If they aren't scary enough he will let us know. We usually incorporate some scary sound effects and faces to add to the excitement (and so does he!).

Tonight Ben was going off on one of his storytelling rants and, I'm not joking, he was talking non-stop for 10 minutes or more just going on, and on (stopping only to take an occasional breath). His story was about a scary, red monster with no ears (I don't know about you, but earless monsters really FREAK me out!? :) ) Anyway, whenever he tells a story he loves to throw in the phrase..."when all of a sudden...". I think it adds a dramatic element to the story, don't you?! Part of his story tonight involved the monster getting a "sore booty" and saying, in a very stern tone, "Change my diaper!" Ooooohhhhh....nothing scares me more than a bad case of diaper rash! :) Throughout the story the freaky, red, earless monster interacted with just about every cartoon character known to man (boots, dora, diego, diego's jaguar, pooh, kanga, roo, monty and max, thomas and the list goes on!). He ended the story by saying that we got away from the monster by running "as fast as our feet would carry us." What a nut!? I just LOVE it!

On another, not so cute, note...

I raised my voice at Ben yesterday because he wasn't listening to me. This was his response (Warning: It's not pretty!)... "Mommy, don't yell at me. That's not nice. You are disrespectfuling me. You don't tell me what to do. I tell you what to do. I am in charge." My immediate thought was, "OH MY GOSH, what a little booger!" DISRESPECTFULING? I guess he couldn't decide if he wanted to tell me that I was disrespecting him or that I was being disrespectful?! Everything he said was something I've told him before and apparently he felt the time was right to throw it all back at me. It was hard not to just laugh...but, of course, I had to do the motherly thing and tell him that he can't talk to mommy like that and that he needs to obey me when I ask him to do something...etc, etc. Oh...and I apologized for raising my voice at him too...since he was right, that's not very nice! :) I have a feeling this is just the beginning of many "smarty pants" comments to come. Oh boy!

Last, but not least...

During Ben's bath last night I thought maybe he had split personality disorder. Below is the progression of moods I witnessed in about a two minute time span. At least he has rapid rebound time, right?

All smiles in the bathtub.

30 seconds later (his band aid fell off his hand exposing his very serious wound to the warm bath water).At this point he is probably thinking..."Mom, I'm serious. This really hurts. Look at it. Don't you feel my pain?" I guess it wasn't THAT bad. He's back to smiling within a minute.
P.S. As I was writing this post I heard him in the kitchen looking out the deck window talking to the flowers. He said... "I love you so much, flowers. I can hardly stand it." Where does he get this stuff!? :)

Random pics from our weekend...

We had a nice time eating lunch and celebrating Mother's Day at The Barn today with Nana and Papa. It's been windy, rainy and cold here...so we all got a little wet...but the food was good! We spent a little time at Papa and Nana's house afterwards and Ben and Papa had fun playing in the Thomas ball pit (see pics below). Ben has had an awful sounding cough all weekend long, so we didn't feel right about taking him to Sunday school this morning (even though he is acting fine). I know how I feel when other kids are coughing germs all over Ben...and I didn't want to be THAT mom! I was really bummed to miss church on Mother's Day!

Anyway, just thought I'd share a few random pictures from our weekend.

Food on his face, no pants, big mouth, skinny legs....this combo makes for a lovely picture, doesn't it? :)

I guess this is a comfy place to hang out?!

Ben in his jammies posing with the cute Mother's Day gift he made for me (Nana helped him make it).

The two moms at The Barn.

Yes, Papa is actually IN the Thomas ball pit with Ben. They had a good time, but he had to refill it with air once he got out. :)

To our moms...

We wanted to pay a little tribute to our moms in honor of Mother's Day tomorrow. I think it's safe to say that we really lucked out! Not only are they great moms to us, but Grammy and Nana are also two of the best grandmas we know. We are so blessed to have them in our lives.

So, to our moms... thank you for all the hours you've spent in prayer for us over the years and for how much you love Ben. Thank you for your encouragement and advice. Thank you for your friendship. Life wouldn't be this good if you weren't in it. We love you and appreciate you so much this Mother's Day!

We love you, Nana!

We love you, Grammy!

Friendly Monsters

I know, I know...I'm a blogging machine.....but I can't help it! :) I took this video tonight as I was getting Ben ready for bed. We were sitting in the chair in his bedroom having a funny conversation about monsters and ghosts. I know most kids his age are afraid of monsters, but my child thinks they are all friendly, so what's the harm, right?! Just thought you might enjoy a peek into his goofy imagination! (Warning: This video is 3:20 long...sorry!!)

Fun at the park!

Today Ben and I spent the afternoon at Hubbard Valley Park. It's a gorgeous day, 68 degrees and sunny, so I wanted to take advantage of it! We walked around the lake, played on the playground, and ate lunch. Anyone who knows Ben knows that he LOVES throwing rocks into any body of water...so, for a good 45 minutes or so, we did nothing but throw rocks, twigs, and snails into the lake. Woohoo! I just love how sweet and simple life is for my almost three year old!

Dandelions and Dora...

I just wanted to send a shout out to my Aunt Beth to thank her for the balloons she so kindly bought for Ben after seeing the whole balloon debacle on our blog the other night. When we arrived in Illinois, two balloons (a Dora and a Thomas) were waiting for Ben. He was very excited and has already been lugging them around the house. I don't think he'll be taking them outside anytime soon! :)

We spent an hour or so outside today eating a picnic lunch and playing in the lovely (??) field of dandelions growing in the common space just past our backyard. I realize these are nothing more than weeds, but they do make for a colorful picture.

My Illinois family!

We traveled to Illinois this weekend to visit my mom's side of the family and to attend my cousin Hayley's wedding. My mom has seven sisters and one brother so, as you can imagine, I have LOTS of aunts, uncles, and cousins to love! We had fun just hanging out for most of the weekend. The drive was a little over seven hours, but Ben was a real trooper. At any given point during the trip, he was either...(a) talking to himself in the backseat, (b) watching his Tom and Jerry DVD and eating Burger King french fries, (c) singing along to the Cat Stevens CD we had playing (I'm serious...his favorite song is "Moonshadow"...he knows a lot of the words and asked for us to put it on repeatedly) or (d) sleeping. Below are LOTS of pictures from our trip...enjoy!

Congratulations, Hayley and Sean! They were actually married a year ago, just before Sean left for Iraq. They finally had their traditional wedding ceremony for friends and family to attend this weekend. Hayley was a beautiful bride and the food at the reception was AWESOME. Do you like the cake topper? :) The pretty bridesmaids, Hayley's sisters, Molly and Leslie. Yes, for those of you who pay attention to detail, we are all three wearing the same exact outfits we wore to the last wedding we attended. Oh well, it was a different crowd and nobody knew that we only own one outfit each that is actually acceptable to wear to a wedding...until now. I never realized that having a blog would force me to reconsider my clothing choices?! :) (Ben was cold and tired in this picture...hence the blanket and the tired eyes!)