Girls Trip 2011

I had the opportunity to take a girls trip this year with my mom and sisters. It was quite the relaxing get-away! My mom's cousin owns a cute little cabin in the mountains of Ruidoso, New Mexico. So off the four of us went. We left very early Saturday morning in the denali. I started out driving, Meredith was my co-pilot, and the "kids" (well, actually just Mom and Dede) were in the back enjoying the DVD player. ;-)

We were quick and efficient travelers (traveling without kids tends to do that!). Plus, there are not many places to eat or get gas on the route from San Antonio to Ruidoso. We had to be strategic about where we needed to fill both our gas tank and tummies. We made it to Pecos, Texas where we planned to find lunch. We found an ity bity town with not much more than a Sonic. Imagine our surprise to find the best Sonic burger I have ever tasted in my WHOLE life! If you ever find yourself in Pecos, give it a try. Hopefully you'll have the same cook we did. ;-)

Our first stop in New Mexico was to Carlsbad Caverns. It was impressive, and a nice walk after spending 8 or so hours in the car.

During our time in Ruidoso, we didn't plan too many activities. Just took our days there at a nice, slow pace!

Photographed the beautiful St. Joseph's Mission. (And learned this is the same church in the photograph that has been in my grandmother's house!)

Went back in time and got a bit on the rowdy side!

Fell in love with the Ruidoso Bears! (Even brought a few home with us!)

Did a little Wine Tasting at The Cellar (yes...brought a few of these home with me too!)

Spent a few days shopping the Main street in town. It's full of really cute and fun shops!

Enjoying the scenery and hiking at the Petroglyphs site in Three Rivers, New Mexico.

Finally, at Pine Knots, we did a lot of stressing. Stressing over catching perfect "close-up". Stressing over the perfect mixture of a cold morning and hot coffee. Stressing over who would get the peanuts first...the deer or the blue jays. And when we couldn't stress any more, we stressed ourselves to sleep.

Super Brock and his Super 6th Birthday Party

This year, I got creative. Or crazy?? I wanted this birthday party to be fun for a bunch of 6 year olds, so I knew it had to be organized or there would be kids going every direction.

On Brock's birthday invitation, it stated we needed all super heroes to help save Brock's birthday party by finding the cake. The villains had captured it, of course!

Activity #1: Decorate your goody bag while waiting for all the super heroes to arrive.

Activity #2: Begin "caping" the super heroes!

Activity #3: Pin the Mask on the Super Hero
Activity #4: Super Hero Shoot-Out

Activity #5: Show off your Super Hero Moves!
Activity #6: Find the moons in the sea of asteroids (or ball pit)

Note: After each activity was completed, the Super Heroes received a CLUE! They had to match the shape on the back of the letter to the one on the door. After all the activities were completed, it spelled out the location of the cake!!

Activity #7: Super Obstacle Course! (Since the weather didn't cooperate, I was so thankful for two stair cases. They went up the main staircase, through the tunnel, around the pool table, over a dog, over the slide, under the boogie boards, through a tent, through the bathroom, into the family room, shot a basket in the basketball goal, down the second staircase, through another tent, and back into the main room downstairs!)
Activity #8: Villain Tie Up! (Special Thanks to Carlos and Tom who may not have actually agreed to be our villains. But we did make them promise to be good before we let them out of toilet paper captivity.)
All that, and we spelled the word PANTRY! So off they went to find the cake!
Happy Birthday to our little Broc-quito! I simply cannot believe you are already SIX years old!!

I Love you Super Brock!

.....The Incredibles don't have anything on us!

The Making of a Super Hero Party

How would you go about making a super fantastic super hero party? I'm not too sure. But here's how we did it! ;-)

Step 1: Take one over-achieving mom who has a habit of taking on too much with a background in "try to do it yourself, it's cheaper".

Step 2: Make a trip to your local fabric store, only to check out and realize you just spent the same amount of money in fabric that you could have bought the final product for.

Step 3: Spend two whole weekends, and about 15 evenings sewing capes, cuting out initials, cutting out masks and sewing elastic/velcro. (Don't forget to profusely thank mom & sister for helping the first weekend)

Step 4: Go even further and dream up a series of games with prizes and clues to eventually get to the grand prize: The CAKE!

Step 5: Invite about 25 kids (ages 6mos to 6 years) to your HOUSE for this big festivity. Hey, only a handful ever actually show up, Right??

Step 6: Wait for RSVPs. Iron on initials of kids to their capes after they RSVP.

Step 7: Make more capes after RSVPs out-number the stock pile of capes you had already made!

Step 8: Sweetly ask your teacher sister to make a "pin the mask on the superhero" poster. (Then thank her because it was better than you even imagined!)

Step 9: Pray for good weather. You now have made 29 capes total and have no idea how to pull this off inside your house. *Note: two capes were for the brave (or crazy) parents and there were 6 on standby for any surprise guests.

Step 10: When it rains all morning of the party day, you get creative and are thankful your house has 2 staircases which make the obstacle course flow rather nicely.

Step 11: After managing to hold your sanity for two hours with a smile on your face, 18 kids in your house, and pulling off a very successful party...kick back with a couple drinks and vow never to do that again!

Step 12: Refer back to step #1. Will most likely repeat this process (with another theme) in the near future.

I LOVE my kids, and I LOVE being a mom! (I also love breaks from time to time though!) I love party planning, and although I go a little crazy periodically, love the smiles on their faces to have such a happy day!

Now that we know how to make a super hero party, I'll review Brock's party in the next post.

A Legacy

Well, I (and most of my family) made it through a very tough week. Sunday I told my Grandma goodbye. Monday was a very somber Valentine's day. Tuesday Grandma went to Heaven. Wednesday was Brock's 6th Birthday. Thursday was the Rosary. Friday was the Funeral. Saturday was Brock's Birthday Party. Talk about a huge roller coaster of emotions in just a few days! But as my emotions were consistenly inconsistent, there was one thing that was always there. Family. The funeral was very hard for me. I couldn't make it through any of the songs. My cousin Thomas sang them and was amazing. I don't know how he did it. Going to the cemetery was difficult as well. When we returned to Grandma's house, it wasn't like TV where everyone is quiet, stands in small groups, wearing black and having a small bite to eat. Nope. Not our family. We ordered pizza, migrated to the garage and started with a circle of about 8 around the folding table. Pretty soon, we were finding anything and everything to sit on and extending the circle into an oval the size of the whole garage. Nearly everyone had changed into shorts, flip flops and short sleeves. Drinks had been poured and a margarita bucket was found in the deep freezer. --Thanks Grandma!! :-) There was NOTHING quiet about this group. There were lots of smiles, and lots of laughter. There were 9 siblings/spouses, 13 cousins & cousins-in-law, and a few extended family members. This was Grandma's Legacy. WE, are Grandma's Legacy.

I can only hope when my life on earth is over, I can leave a legacy like Grandma. No, I don't intend on having three more kids! ;-) But a family filled with love and faith. (And perhaps one that can fill a garage??)

(This picture was taken on Thanksgiving evening 2010. Sadly, it only pictures the Aggie portion of our family, but I love this picture!)

Missing You Already

I shouldn't be blogging right now, because I'm supposed to be getting ready and packing to head out of town in a few hours. The reality of that journey has just hit. I'm packing for my Grandma's Funeral. I don't seem to have many tears left at this point, but perhaps they're being stored up for tonight and tomorrow.

I've said oh so many times how thankful Tom and I are to have so many grandparents still with us. I often think about this around Christmas when we're making plans to see as many of them as possible. It always presents itself as a chore, and "one more stop", but in the end, I know these visits are precious. I had no idea Christmas 2010 would be as precious as it turned out to be.

Grandma was in some pain at Christmas. I remember my eyes tearing up a bit during mass when I had a feeling that something wasn't quite right and we may not all be here next year. Odd, how accurate intuition can be.

On January 14, we found out Grandma had cancer. We didn't know what we were facing yet, but it was found in part of her bone.

The first week of February she was back in the hospital. We found out it was pancreatic cancer. There was quite a roller coaster of emotions, but in the end, it was decided the best thing to do was to send her home with hospice care. At that time, we believed we had between 3-6 months to make the rest of Grandma's life as special as possible.

On February 10th, we got the call that anyone who wanted to come, should come now. I've never packed so fast in my life. I was afraid and unsure of what to expect when I got there. I am so thankful that although Grandma said some really goofy things (lots of morphine apparently will do that to you!), she knew me. I told her stories about the kids' snow day and she smiled big, with a special Grandma sparkle in her eye. She didn't sleep much that day, and when I saw all my family who came to see her, had to be thankful again. We have such a big family. And an amazing family. A family who truly loves spending time with each other, every chance we get. Who made us that way? Well, God of course, but Grandma did her fair share too. When I think about our family, this quote/song comes to mind: "All because two people fell in love."

We spent the weekend with Grandma and by the time I left Sunday, I had told her goodbye. That was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I didn't actually say the word goodbye, but I told her I loved her so very much, kissed her forehead and told her I had to go home to the kids. Tears were obviously flowing as I walked outside, knowing I wouldn't see my very beloved Grandma again.

Brock was riding with me, so possibly the second hardest thing I've done lately was hold it together and then explain to him that when people's bodies get old they aren't strong enough anymore and they go to heaven where they are all better, happy, meet God, play with the Angels, and watch over us.

I spent Monday and Tuesday with a huge cloud over my head. Wondering when I was going to get that call. Reading into every hour that went between mine and my mom's text messages. I found myself praying that her suffering would end and she could rejoice in Heaven.

On Tuesday afternoon, Grandma passed away. My heart ached and tears flowed. However, I think I felt more peace that night and all day Wednesday than I had in the past week. I know she's in a better place. In fact, I know she's walking hand in hand with Grandpa and they both have huge smiles on their faces! My Grandpa died in 1970. My mom was very young and I obviously was far from even being a twinkle in someone's eye. He also died in February. I smile when I think that on February 15th, 2011 they had a very LONG, OVER-DUE, somewhat late Valentine's date!

Grandma, I miss you already. I find myself not believing you're really gone. I know the next few days will be very hard and I will be very sad, but for myself...not you. I'm sad I won't have you to hold here on Earth. I'm happy you are rejoicing in Heaven with your Lord, your Husband, and all who have gone before you. Please look after us, "and between now and then, until I see you again, I'll be loving you. Love, me." (--Collin Raye)

"Is it a stay at home day?"

Brock has been asking for snow for at least a couple years now. Aubree and I were in the living room early this morning, and I could hardly wait for Brock to wake up so I could see his face when he found out it had SNOWED!

When he walked down the stairs he looked at us (watching tv) and immediately asked "is today a stay at home day?"

I told him "It's Friday. Do we stay at home on Fridays?"

He looked a little bummed when he said "no..."

Then I said..."except when it SNOWS!!"

His eyes perked up and he got so excited! We looked outside, then we opened the door, and when he felt how cold it was, it took a bit more persuasion to get enough layers on to go outside! :-) Such a lucky boy...he got a visit from the tooth fairy and and snow, all in one night!

The kids had a great time. I'm not sure Brock has EVER had as much fun as he did sledding! (or whatever you call this!) Aubree loved running around anywhere her Bubba did. And took every opportunity she could to eat the snow. eww!

Where did January go?

My last blog post was updating you on our Christmas around Texas. And now I find myself on January 30th wondering...where did the month go???



In typical Benich Family Tradition, we have kept ourselves very busy just being a family of four with two working parents. Sadly, I'm not sure I've taken my camera out this month at all...I will pause for those of you who are in shock. But never fear, when my camera is not on me, my phone definitely is. So you will get a picture filled post. (My favorites anyways!)


We had the pleasure of spending New Years Eve with Craig, Cathy and her family. Brock thought the noise makers were pretty cool. Funny though, no idea where that noise maker might be now! ;-)

Aubree has started potty training. Well, let me re-phrase that. Aubree has started potty training AT SCHOOL. For a couple weeks now, she'll go at school all day long. Rarely wetting her clothes, and in big girl panties the whole day. She goes by herself some times too. As soon as Mommy is around, all progress takes a sudden hault! She does NOT want to go potty at home. I don't get it. I've tried nearly everything I can think of, but we're not making much progress at home. Here are a couple of my tricks.

...just sit on the potty and eat your cereal!

...sit on the potty with baby?

Did you notice the look of pure joy in both pictures? Yeah, there is attitude there. Regardless, she was so very excited to get her panties. In fact, the day we brought them home from the store, she took off her pajamas, and put all 7 pairs on. (We had to work on that concept.)

Another classic Aubree moment. She spills the cereal on the floor one Saturday morning. Sarge starts eating the cereal. Aubree breaks down and starts crying because Sarge is eating the cereal. When she found out she couldn't beat him, she decided to join him. She ate EVERY marshmallow off the floor as quickly as she could before Sarge got them! What a mess. Then, I made her vacuum. :-)

I wondered why she didn't follow me inside that day. I had to walk back outside and found this. Pull toys? No, we have coolers.

Another trip to the dentist for Brock! He is soooo good for the dentist! Now we're working on being that good when Mommy and Daddy help to brush, floss and use mouthwash.

And the week is never complete without a pillow fight in the living room. Dad enjoys his fair share of fun with those as well. :-)

So nothing terribly interesting in January...but we had a lot of family time, and family time is a good thing!