Handcrafted Farm

A few days ago I finally finished a handcrafted farm for Benjamin, which I started making 2 weeks ago inspired by a set of farm animal miniatures sent by my mother-in-law (Benjamin's "Nanny").

These fences and animals were the original set
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To my pleasant surprise, Benjamin fell in love... with this farm instantly and he could spend hours (!) playing with it by hims...elf, putting/arranging animals, farm house, barn, tractors, fences, little people, and even sport cars and trains ;-)

I guess it is partly because this is, for him, a "small world of his own" - in which he can exercise his autonomy.

　As you can see, he is putting a family sedan right in front of the red barn ;-)

Anyways, I'm glad I made it, and thank you, Christine, for sending these farm animals to begin with, and thank you, Amar, for making a second red barn after Benjamin broke the first one that I made, by using it for his hat!

After the roof coming off from the barn, Benjamin found another way to enjoy it --- to wear it as a hat!

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Benjamin suddenly started showing an interest in wearing sunglasses yesterday (he used to hate wearing anything around his head - hats, sunglasses and all until yesterday).

Since he was trying so hard to wear my glasses on and wouldn't let them go, fearing that he might break my glasses at any moment, I decided to buy... a pair of sunglasses for himself - and voila! Ever since, he is wearing his eyeglasses whenever he sees them! (including dinner time and right after waking up in the morning ;-)

Amar Received a Prestigious Award!

On April 27th, 2010, Amar was selected as a 2010 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar.

This is quite a prestigious award --- the number of recipients of this award is limited to 14 per year, and according to the explanation of the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation's website, the Foundation seeks young chemists "who demonstrate leadership in research and education. Nominations must provide compelling evidence of the advance of important knowledge in the chemical sciences by the nominee".

Amar is very much excited about receiving this award and looks forward to using the award's funds for stimulating more creative research from his students.

Please also check out the website of Amar's research group as well :-)

Benjamin's 2nd Birthday

Benjamin turned two on the 17th of April.
We had a little birthday party with Benjamin's friends and their families in one of his favorite parks in the neighborhood.

He loved having all of his favorite friends at one time and playing/running around the big park with them. And he loved the birthday song and birthday cake too, of course, even though he looked a little bit perplexed at first to see everyone singing the song for him, looking at him!

When he was asked, "How old are you, Benjamin?", he answered, "Two!" with just ONE finger up (;-) and made people laugh and smile.

Here are some photographs taken on the day, but you can check out all the photos here and here.
You can also see a video clip of birthday song and Benjamin's candle blowing here.

Benjamin's First Egg Hunting (Easter 2010)

Last Sunday (April 4th) was Easter Sunday, and we did our first family Easter egg hunting for Benjamin.

At first Benjamin didn't really understand what he was supposed to do: for instance, at the very beginning, he rushed straight to see ants, passing by an egg just in front of him ;-)

But then, after finding a few eggs and seeing that there are always some goodies inside them, he got all motivated and started running around the garden looking for them.

It was only a few days before Easter that I decided to do egg hunting this year for Benjamin, so I got the eggs and treats at the last minute (the day before Easter Sunday) and therefore I didn't find much options left at the store for nice-looking eggs without any pre-stuffed candies in them. (I wanted to choose and put goodies in the eggs on my own.) But I finally found some good ones (=empty eggs), and then I moved to the toy section where I bought two match-box cars and one tiny monkey soft toy.

I prepared about a dozen eggs in total, and in each of them I put some goodies such as the match-box cars and the little monkey I bought, dried prunes (cut into small pieces), some disney stickers, and kid's organic honey graham crackers. (These crackers were a hit because they are one of Benjamin's favorites, and also they happen to be bunny-shaped - thus perfect for an "Easter Bunny" treat!)

While I was preparing the eggs after Benjamin went to bed on Saturday night, I was talking to Amar describing every kind of goodies that I was putting in each egg, and saying things like "Amar, so maybe we should get up early tomorrow morning and hide the eggs in the garden before Benjamin gets up, right?!" And then Amar teased me saying, "You are like my Mom! :-)"

Benjamin enjoyed the whole thing and he looked so happy running around the garden with his daddy and mommy cheering for him. Our first family egg hunting proved to be such a success, and I am so glad that I decided to do it even in the last minute!

Please watch a short movie (5-minute long) if you have time to. (Please click here)

He thought that this little monkey looked like George (from his favorite picture book "Curious George") , and cuddled it against his cheek calling it "George!"

Benjamin's new friend Moya

Moya is a great 6-year-old girl, who is the second daughter of Anne-Sophie's 5 children.
She always willingly play with Benjamin whenever we meet at the park, and Benjamin LOVES her (understandably!).

You can see how happy Benjamin is when he is playing with Moya, in the following short movies. Enjoy!

Picnic at Bryan Park

Our 5th Anniversary

Last Saturday was our 5th Anniversary.
We had a very nice day, spending some quality time together as a family throughout the day - exchanging anniversary cards in the morning over our *classic* sourdough pancake Saturday breakfast (with a special touch of a strawberry and blueberry maple syrup sauce), a picnic lunch in the backyard, gardening together in the afternoon with Benjamin happily walking and playing around us in the garden, and a sushi dinner in the evening.





And here are some videos of Benjamin playing around in the backyard... Enjoy!

About video clips

I just found out that there seems to be some technical problems with uploaded video clips on this website.

You can watch the video clips one day, and then you cannot next day (or vice versa)... This issue seems to be known since late January (a lot of people have complained/reported the same problem), and the staff of Blogger.com are trying to solve the problem now.

It seems it doesn't matter which computer or browser system you are using to watch these videos. For example, I could watch these videos on my Mac computer about 3 times out of 6 times, trying at different time and day, and I used two different browsers (Firefox and Safari), but it didn't make any difference.

So, the chances are, even if you couldn't watch the video yesterday, you may be able to today. So if you don't mind trying again, please do so.

I am sorry for the inconvenience and frustration this problem may cause... I hope that the Blogger staff will solve the problem as soon as possible!

Playgroup at BABS

I took this video a week ago (Feb. 7th).
This playgroup at BABS (Bloomington Area Birth Services) is a great mix of about 10-15 children of the same age range (18 month - 24 month), and like-minded moms and dads.

Benjamin particularly likes playing with Lara (our Turkish friends Yesim and Muzo's daughter), perhaps partly because he knows her since he was 3 months old.

So Benjamin always calls out for "Lara" whenever I told him that we are going to BABS playgroup on Fridays, as well as he repeats her name just like some magic word (;-) here and there throughout the day, every day.

But Benjamin also started remembering other friends' names recently, and now Ivan's name is on the list of his mantra (:-), among other kids we regularly meet at the BABS playgroup.

In this video, you can see both Lara (in yellow cardigan) and Ivan (a blond-haired and blue-eyed boy). Another girl with a camel coat is Hannah, a German-American girl.

I titled this video as "Building a Tower Together", but actually, maybe I should have titled it "Building and Destroying" ;-) You can see that when you see the video. Enjoy!




p.s. Please take a note that Benjamin is saying to Lara, "Up here. Up here," to tell her where to put the blocks. This phrase "up here" is one of his favorite words ever since he learned it from his Nanny during her last visit in December :)