Ben and Rachel Berndt

05.02.2010: Easter Dresses on a Nearly Perfect Spring Day

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:28:56 +0000

I have been wanting to get some cute photos of my two girls in their Easter dresses from this year, but the weather has been a little hit or miss for me. This past Sunday, Rachel and I were able to squeeze in a quick shoot down at a local park near our house. Trying to take photos of my kids really teaches me to relax and go with the flow. Grace is three and Hannah is one, neither could really care less about what I’m trying to do. This time we wised up and brought some bubbles with as a bribe if things went downhill. Fortunately for us, we didn’t have to break the bubbles out until the very end and the result was some pretty fun photos. I loaded them into a slideshow for those that want to take a look at them.

~Ben

Sledding on the “big kids” sledding hill.

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:16:26 +0000

Rachel was home ill today with Hannah, so Grace and I took a little break from everyone and went sledding on the big sledding hill about 10 minutes away from our house. When we pulled in to the parking lot, she climbed down from the Jeep and looked up at the hill and said….Woah…that’s a big hill…then grabbed her sled from the back and started walking up to it. . . .only to get tired in about 1 minute. That was when my new roll as “the expressway to the top” was put into place by grace and I figured that I could skip my workout at the ymca after hiking up that hill a good 20 times with her. The first time down the hill she asked that I come with, but after that she told me “she was a big girl now and could do it herself”. She did just that and even took a fairly large jump with no fear at all. I do admit I had a little fear for her when I saw her taking a sharp right toward the jumps. I started running after her…but she was too fast for me. Off she went and landed no problem. When I caught up to her, I expect to see a scared little girl that bit off more then she could handle…nope…first thing out of her mouth..”Daddy, I not scared, that was fun, lets go again”. I gotta say, I was pretty tired after about 40 minutes of pulling her up the hill and running down after her so I could pull her back up… so I did what most good fathers do right before nap time, I bribed her with a hot fudge sundae. She decided that she wanted the sundae….good choice. I shot a couple small videos on my little point and shoot camera to document the day. She looks so small as she gets further away.
~Ben

Happy First Birthday Hannah!!!!

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:49:07 +0000

We celebrated Hannah’s first birthday with friends and family on Saturday. It was a day of good food and good conversation. She turned 1 this past Sunday. We are so grateful to have such a beautiful and healthy little girl! Hannah never ceases to amaze us. She is a constant reminder of the amazing gifts that God entrusts to us. We can only imagine the great journey that God has in store for our Hannah. She already has a story full of God’s grace and gentle hand guiding her through trying times and milestones of success. She’s walking, giggling, and loving life. Happy Birthday sweet heart!

Love Mommy, Daddy, and big sister Gracie

-Rachel

Gracie’s First Time at the Movie Theater

admin — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 06:05:49 +0000

Grace went out to her first movie at the theater today on her special day with Rachel and I. She absolutely loves the Disney princesses and wanted to go see the new movie, The Princess and the Frog. We went to an early showing to avoid any crowds and we had an entire row of the theater all to ourselves. She even had her own little popcorn and lemonade for a snack. The movie was pretty good and Grace made it through the entire movie without any problems.

~Ben

The hunt for the perfect christmas tree at the “Cut Your Own” tree farm

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:33:21 +0000

This year we decided to go to the Rum River Tree Farm about 10 miles north of us to cut down our own Christmas tree. Neither Rachel or I had ever done this in the past and we were really looking forward to doing it with Grace and Hannah. The weather was a perfect 25 degrees with a fresh dusting of snow on the ground. Unfortunately, Hannah didn’t carry the same enthusiasm as we did and slept in the wagon most of the time….oh well. The past few years we had short needle trees (balsam and Frasier) and felt like mixing it up for Hannah’s first Christmas. We found an eight foot white pine tree that looked nearly perfect and of course Grace gave us the final approval to claim it as ours. After a couple minutes of handy-work with the saw, Grace and I carried it back to the car. On the way back to the exit, we found that the tree farm had a Santa out meeting with the little kids. Grace wasn’t so sure she was ready to meet Santa, but she eventually warmed up enough to at least say Hi and get a free Candy Cane. The girls are now resting from their fun filled day and when they wake up we are going to spend a few hours decorating the house and the new tree in our living room.

An Impromptu Photoshoot with Grace and Hannah In Their Room

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 07:43:29 +0000

It was kinda nasty outside and we were a little bored the other day and decided to have some fun with an impromptu photoshoot. Grace liked the idea and had a blast jumping around and being silly. Hannah even got into it a bit after watching Grace having a good time. Over the past year, Grace has had access to a old point and shoot camera and I have been letting her play around with my old 40d now too. She actually does a good job walking around taking photos with it as long as I have my small 50mm 1.8 lens on it.

~Ben

Grace the techie 2 year old

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 06:42:05 +0000

Grace really likes using the computer and pretty much has mastered the use of my touch-pad on my laptop. She is potty training now and It is one of the little rewards she gets when she uses the potty correctly. Some of her Favorite sites are Disney Princesses and PBSkids. We do limit her to only 15-20 minutes, but I figure it’s a better reward then candy or fruit snacks.

~Ben

Traditions: The Advent Calender

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 06:14:08 +0000

Rachel and I see the season of Advent as a very important period of time leading up to Christmas. This year we introduced the Advent calender to the girls and we have really enjoyed the time we spend together teaching Grace the story of Christ’s birth as written in the bible (we chose the book of Luke). As you can see in the photos below, Grace also enjoys finding little treats in the calender as she opens the doors each night.

~Ben

Baking Christmas Cookies with Grace. . . 12.03.2009

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 05:39:00 +0000

I have been a stay at home dad now since October 16th and it has been a such a great experience for me. The first couple weeks were a little rough as I was adjusting to being in the home most of the day and the sudden drop in adult interaction. Grace and I love to cook/bake together and we try to make home cooked meals a few days of the week for when Rachel comes home from work. She is quite the helper and is able to grab different things are in our pantry when I ask her to look for them. The other day we both decided to make my favorite Christmas cookie (peanut butter blossoms) and she had the task of rolling the ball of cookie in sugar and also helping me unwrap the chocolate kisses. Grace got a little carried at times and probably ate more chocolate kisses then she set aside for the cookies…. but that is why I bought the extra big bag of kisses. The cookies turned out great and we enjoyed eating most of them already.

~Ben

A Fast Six Years of marriage

admin — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:47:03 +0000

Rachel and I celebrated our 6th year wedding anniversery yesterday. We ended up shooting a wedding for a really fun couple and took advantage of a cool photobooth they had brought in for the day. We had a great day and got a couple fun photos of ourselves out of the day too.