Ode to Ben

My partner-in-crime.

My guinea pig and lab rat.

The one who makes me laugh with one look.

{which is why he never gets in trouble- we're all too busy laughing at him to be mad}

My shy, dorky, most-definitely-homeschooled buddy.

The one I want to teach everything too.

Unfortunately he doesn't care too much for my algebra and Latin lectures.

I hate to say this (and he hates to hear it equally as much), but I kinda like you, kid.

I think I'll keep you around for a while.

This is what we homeschoolers do all day- we sit around and take crazy pictures.

We like to call it sibling socialization time, since we never come into contact with other human beings.

Afterwards, we went off to sew and make bread and shop for more denim skirts.

{I kid, I kid!}

***

MG got a retainer yesterday, which I think is the funniest thing ever! 

She's had a hard time talking, but it's super cute when she does!

Maybe I'll convince her to let me take a video of her saying something...

Oh yeah...I kinda skipped right over Ben's birthday, which was a few days  before Mei Mei's, but I'm totally done with birthdays for the year.

I've eaten more birthday cake in the last 6 weeks...

Ben doesn't want to be mentioned on the blog anyway:)

So happy birthday secret-person-who-wishes-to-remain-anonymous!

5 States- 1 Day

We've already been through five different states just today: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania!

Now we are here at Nana's until Sunday.

Last Saturday was spent at Grandpa Jim and Nana Leslie's house, and Sunday at our aunt and uncles' house.

Here's pics from our Thanksgiving lunch at Aunt Amy and Uncle Mike's house:

They had gotten a new puppy the day before and he was sooo cute!

The kid table:) I graduated to the adult table this year!

These are kinda out of order,  but this is the hike we took with Grandpa Jim and Nana Leslie- Ben said it was the best hike ever!

The cousins and grandparents!

We took a drive-through tour of New York: 

The George Washington bridge

Skyline from the Jersey side.

This is the only view we got of the Statue of Liberty- see if you can find it:)

It's been a fun first few days of the trip- the next six days are going to be in Pennsylvania with Nana, with a wedding on Saturday! 

More posts soon!

Abilene Trip!!

Our trip to Abilene for Homecoming was a blast! 

There was a fun carnival on the campus.

The Wildcat mascot was there- not all of us were thrilled to take a picture the mascot:)

um...myself included

Ben did the velcro wall- and actually stuck!

There was an awesome parade!

Of course we took a lot of pictures:)

We hung out with the Smiths most of the weekend. 

We visited the new Onstead Patio.

(We're good friends of the Onstead's, so we had to take a picture!)

Future roommates?

I do believe so.

Go Wildcats!

:)

Do you see what I have to live with?

My siblings are totally unsupportive of my photography hobby.

And it isn't uncommon for us to have a fort somewhere around the house. 

And check out Mei Mei's hand:)

Future wildcat? I think so.

Speaking of ACU... pictures are coming soon, I promise!

Oh brother...

Ben: "So where do people get last names?"

Megan: "Well..."

Ben: "I mean, Adam didn't have a last name, and Jesus didn't have a last name. Oh wait- yes he did... Jesus of Bethany."

Megan: "Bethany?"

Ben: "Oh wait. That's not right, is it?"

Megan: "Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Ben."


EDIT: Ben really isn't as dumb as he sounds in the post! He really is a smart boy, just had a forgetful moment:) Love you brother!

4 Years

Today was 'Sibling Day.' A few weeks ago was 'Gotcha Day.'

Both of these celebrate the days we met Mei Lynn. Gotcha Day is the day Mom and Dad picked her up in China:

Sibling Day is the day we- the siblings- met her for the first time. 

Her picture had hung on the refrigerator for months.

We'd known her name for a year.

We'd known about 'China Baby' for almost 3 years.

Then, on September 12th- the China Baby came home! 

She ate a banana, met the siblings- who she now claims "freaked her out"- and became the fourth little Fridge kid.

A little freaked out by these crazy people!

Then...

...and now!

She looks totally different from what she looks like now!!

We three have always been pretty tight.

Here's us doing some deep thinking:)

But we all agree- we can't even IMAGINE life with out our silly little Mei Mei.

'Jia-Jia' and 'Mei-Mei'

(big sister and little sister)

Mei Lynn is Maddie's shadow. She does everything that MG does!

Ben makes Mei Mei laugh so hard! They have so much fun together:)

We love our little China Baby so much, and we have enjoyed every second of our 4 years with her.

Love you sweet girl.

Geocaching!

Yesterday, Mom, Ben and I went Geocaching around our neighborhood! Ben is doing a geocaching merit badge for boy scouts, so we got an app on Mom's phone and attempted 5 different caches. 

The app map gave us a basic idea of where we needed to go, then when we got within a hundred feet we just had to walk around under we saw the number of feet going down...until we got to 0. That was where the cache box was supposedly located. 

In the description of this cache it warned us to watch for gators- I decided not to help much on this one...

Sometimes we would look...

and look...

...and looked- but couldn't find some. We figured they had been accidentally moved by a "muggle", which is the term for a non-geocacher.

Our first cache (that we found) was on the bottom of a park bench. We were quite excited to sign our name on the log book:)

We are "Bboyfridge" apparently...

We spent a long time trying to find this one, but we think it might've been moved from it's tree.

Ben climbed some, but didn't find anything.

It was getting dark as we looked for this one in the woods.

Ben tried to find this one...

...but the app wasn't very helpful.

:)

The last one we tried was our second find! It was titled: Lead it to Beaver, which I figured out meant it was at Buc-ees, under a lamp-post box.

So out of the 5 we tried to find- we could only get 2, but it was still a very fun night!