Because Horses Need Clothes Too

Ben has been in to making his stuffed animals clothing lately. Here, his stuffed horse gets an Avengers shirt!

They may fight like crazy sometimes...

... but these two sure have a lot of fun together too :)

Backyard Fun!

Jake loved his first ride in the jeep! (yes, still catching up - this is from August :) )



It came complete with a protective escort by Duncan...



...because you never know when you'll run into Spider-Ben!

Matt's a Great Big Brother

Fun with Jake on the Swingset!

Kings Island 2012

Our annual P&G Day at Kings Island in September.

You never know...

... what kind of Ben you'll find!

Duck Ride

Back in June we took the boys to ride the Ducks - the big army-type vehicles that can drive on land and in the water.






Um - what kind of crazy ride is this where we're driving in the river?



And best of all, we now have these whistles that sound like really loud ducks when you blow into them! :)

An old one, but a good one...

Jake loves his Duncan!

Pre-K Graduation

Can't believe we missed this one last year! In May, Matt & Ben graduated from their Pre-K class at Bright Horizons. Even though they'll be doing another year of Pre-K next year, we wanted them to go ahead and graduate with all of their friends since they'll be moving to a new school.

The procession in to the auditorium at P&G.


Ben getting his diploma.




Matt with his diploma.


A very proud Mama and Grandma. Afterwards I looked at Grandma and Gammy and asked "how many more of these do we have to go through?" It's so hard to believe you're growing up so fast!



A special performance of Mr. Joe's Pre-K version of Ice Ice Baby :)






Our little graduates!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game...

For Father's Day this year we started our tour of all the baseball parks. Our goal is to go to at least one each year. This year's trip was to Wrigley Field in Chicago with a Reds v. Cubs game in August.



This one is a little better... at least part of the sign made it into the picture!




True to form, we dressed for a hot August day and froze our tails off! I'll never understand Wrigley weather.




And the Reds win!


Our exhausted crew on the way to Grandma and Papa's :) Love how Ben threw Raffey over his face!

The Avengers + Elmo

Halloween was chilly and rainy this year, but the boys still managed to make it out trick-or-treating. Jake went for the first time and quickly got the hang of it :) He was excited about being Elmo this year, and the only one of the three to pick his costume and stick with it. Ben and Matt went back and forth for weeks before we finally nailed them down on Hulk and Iron Man. They had a blast being superheroes!











Big thanks to Grandma, Papa, and Gammy for helping out this year!

Ho Ho Ho!

Ahhh, yes, it's that time of year. Time for the Wetzel family picture with Santa :) Aside from 2007 when they were too little to protest, I think Shawn and I have been in the picture with Santa EVERY YEAR SINCE. This year, though, we are so very proud of Ben for sitting on Santa's lap and telling him what he wanted for Christmas. Shawn and I got to see glimpses of it through the other two children clinging to us and Jake's "No Santa, NO SANTA!".