5am Wake Up Call

Christmas Eve morning, at about 5am, I was in bed listening to our baby monitor. Ben seemed to be SO MUCH LOUDER than normal, so I played with the volume controls and realized that it was on the lowest setting. He was very happy and talking away about something VERY EXCITING in his bedroom. I decided to go take a look.

I slowly opened the door to his bedroom and saw this.

He was standing in his crib! He hasn't done this before, so I went and grabbed my camera and took some pictures to document this marvel. He was so PROUD of himself. The reason he was so much louder is because his head was so much closer to the monitor receiver. Ben has been a relatively bruise-free child thus far, but I'm sure this is going to change things. Anyway, I took a few pictures, then went back into our bedroom to wake up Chris and show him. I decided I wanted a video clip of it, so I went back into his room and took one, but it won't download! Don't you hate the sound of your own voice on video?

So after I shot a video, I went back into the bedroom and woke Chris up again and made him watch. He was a good husband and laughed appropriately instead of getting grumpy with me, which is good because I don't deal well with grumpy.

Here are a few pictures of Ben at school. He fell asleep with a ball in his crib and he got to see Santa at Civitan. He made the same face as he did with the other Santa he saw. Just stared. He looks so portly on Santa's lap. :)

Naked Baby!

Is bathtub one word? It doesn't look right no matter which way I type it, so I'm titling this thing Naked Baby instead of bathtub baby. Even though there's only two pictures, they deserve their own post. Ben LOVES baths. He prefers them to be hot, but obviously Chris and I are careful. We usually throw a few squirt bath toys in there so he has something to occupy himself. Ben does really well when you dump a cup of water over his head to rinse his hair. It'll pour over his face and he'll hold his breath, but he recovers quickly. No crying! We try to put wash clothes under his butt to prevent him from sliding around, but sometimes they escape and he's free to slide. I like Johnson's baby shampoo for his hair, but baby magic for his body wash. Ben couldn't care less. He gets a bath every night before bed. Chris usually gives it to him. It's a daddy-Ben thing. Diane said that Ben pooped a little in her bathtub the other day, but thank goodness we haven't seen that yet! Eww. It was bound to happen. And no, that's just a stained washcloth he's sitting on in the picture. Not poop! :)

Colorful Weekend

This weekend Chris and I decided to paint our bedroom. The previous owners left quite a mess on the bedroom walls. It looks like the walls had wallpaper, then the owners tried peeling it off and got tired halfway through and just painted over everything. You could see exactly where there was wallpaper because it would go from smooth to textured wall, to smooth again. You could even see the outline of the strips of wallpaper that were left on. After over a year of laying in bed and staring at the neutral colored texture mess, I decided we were going to do something about it. I asked Chris if, as a Christmas gift to me, we could paint the bedroom walls and take out the carpeting. The carpeting is a dark brown throwback to the 80's that I don't want to look at any more. There's hardwood underneath it, but I don't know what condition it's in. I guess we'll deal with that in a few weeks. One project at a time.

It took us a few weeks of working on peeling the wallpaper off the walls. We just worked on it whenever we had time. It was hard because the paper would leave behind a layer stuck to the wall and we'd have to use DIF to get it off. DIF is a wallpaper remover in a spray bottle. It took forever to peel all the tiny little slivers of wallpaper off, but we got most of it. Friday we started priming, and Saturday we finished priming the walls. Then Sunday we went to Walmart and got Kilz paint, which guarantees that you only have to paint one coat (they're right!). I picked out Josie blue, which dried a lot darker than I wanted it to, but it still looks much better than the other color, which was just a light tan (same color as our front porch...I think the previous owners actually used the same paint based on the peeling of our front porch). Here are some pictures of the process.

Primer up.

You can see there is a dark patch under the primer..that's tan paint that didn't have wallpaper under it. The places where it was just white with primer is where we had to peel wallpaper off. There were more places that we had to peel wallpaper off than not.

I wanted a steely blue..like a grayish blue I guess, but I like our color. It's very bright and doesn't really match the Christmas comforter on our bed, but I'm buying a bedroom set that will match the walls.

A few months ago Chris, Jamey, Troy, Ben, and I all attended Old Fashion Day, which is pretty much just a day that people go and set up booths around the courthouse in Benton, selling things they've made themselves. It's supposed to be handmade items, but I'm thinking the giant coloring book I bought for Ben wasn't handmade. It's great, though. What we're going to do is have our little family color a few pages each year around Christmas (the book is 'Twas the Night before Christmas). That way we can look back through the pages and see how old Ben was when he colored certain pages. I do something similar every time we go on an airplane somewhere. I have a sudoku puzzle book that I take with me and I make sure I complete at least one puzzle every time we go somewhere, then I date it and write our destination on it. I like to look back and see that the first time I wrote in the book was on a trip to Alaska when Chris and I were still in college, then our honeymoon, etc. Anyway, here are some pictures of Ben getting some major help coloring the first page of our Christmas coloring book.

I had paint on my sweatshirt from painting all weekend. We colored this on Sunday night.

Ben just sat on the page and let me move his hand. He only fought a little, when he was trying to eat the crayon and I wouldn't let him. He even drooled on this page so it's a little water damaged and crinkly in one spot. I traced his hand on the first page.

Yeah, it's a pretty big coloring book.

Here's a video of coloring. Chris did the thing where he takes pictures while he's recording, so it's really annoying.

December Catch-Up

I figured I needed to post one more time (at least) before the new year. I apologize about the lack of blogs, but it's too hard to post with as much stuff as I have going on. And next semester is going to be even worse because I have to take an Arkansas history class on top of another assessment class for grad school. It's going to be expensive, too.

Okay, lets play catchup....

Chris has a new job. He's currently in training for Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance. He's going to be a claims specialist. It's less pay than what he was making before, which will put us in a bind, but it also allows him to have a normal schedule in which he can spend the evenings and EVERY weekend with Ben and I. I LOVE having him at home more. Ben loves it, too. He was tired of his Rineco schedule.

Ben has been through a rough few months. Civitan is a great place, but the kids (as with all daycares) are sick this time of year and it's almost impossible to keep them from contaminating each other. About a month ago Ben had Roseola, and a week or so ago, we found out he had RSV. He had to go on antibiotics and an inhaler for the RSV, which I hate. He's going to have a cough that lasts for about 3 weeks as an after-effect (affect?). He's been in the BEST mood since he's feeling better now. He chatters constantly, talking to everyone and every thing that moves. Or doesn't move. He can say "bye bye" (in context!), mama, dada, baba, and hi. Diane says he says thank you, but I haven't heard that one yet. He still only has two bottom teeth, but they're big enough to see when he smiles now. And he smiles all the time. This weekend things just clicked with him. He started crawling on his knees and can go from belly to sitting with no problem at all. He's usually sitting in his crib when he wakes up from a nap, playing with his crib toys. We keep them stock piled since Ben is prone to waking up in the middle of the night. I will sometimes hear him over the baby monitor, playing with his toys and talking to his dinosaurs at 3am. He pulled himself up to standing using our coffee table today. That's the first time he's done that without help. We're in trouble, now. He managed to pull off papers and knock a candle holder down before I could get to him, and he was only about 4 feet away from me at the time, so...yeah. We're going to have a very bare coffee table here soon.

Alright, I just got back from an 'emergency' bottle spillage on Ben. The bottom of his bottle managed to open (Chris filled it up last...that's all I'm saying) and spilled all over Ben. We had to give him a bath. I think the smell of Johnson's baby shampoo is one of the most addictive smells ever. Ben loves his baths. Hates the getting diapered and dressed afterwards. He's only 10 months old, but he can throw a fit equivalent to a 2 year old in the peak of their terrible twos. He SCREAMS, kicks his legs, throws his head back to head butt, and swings his arms when he's in full brat mode. Things that cause this to happen? Walking past him with a bottle in your hands on your way to fill it up, getting him dressed, and changing his diaper when he wants to play instead. He must get that from Chris. I shouldn't make it seem like he's a brat all the time. 90% of the time he's a sweetheart.

My little 'angel' went and saw Santa yesterday. Ben has a thing about hats. He doesn't like them. Anyone who wears a hat around him gets sad faces and long stares in their direction. So Santa wasn't any different. It made for cute pictures, though!

Trouble Maker!

Now that Ben's getting a little more mobile and a lot more active, he's been getting into EVERYTHING. I know I've talked about this, but here are some pictures to back up my claims.

Ben turning his playmat sideways. He liked it better this way.

Ben helped himself to a book off the bookshelf. It's Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes.

He pulled the cushion off his swing and walked around with it.

This morning he pulled his mobile down. Looked pretty happy about it, too.

My sweet baby. He'll probably be crawling around Christmas time. Between Ben and our cats, I don't think our Christmas tree will stand a chance.

My Little 7 Month Pumpkin

We've been so busy lately! Between work, grad school, and taking care of Ben, there's been no time to blog. Right now I'm avoiding work by writing this.

Almost a year ago (October 1st) we found out that Ben was a boy in my five month ultra sound. Everytime I think about it I get so happy. I can remember how excited I was and it makes me feel excited all over again. My baby's now almost 8 months old. It's crazy how fast it goes. He's FINALLLY got the little budding of a tooth on his bottom gum. I'm glad. He's been so fussy lately that I was starting to think it was just his personality. Whew! The last few days he has been in a very good mood. It makes it hard for me to be away from him because I know I'm missing him do something cute. He gives kisses to me all the time now. He grabs my face and pulls his toward me and gives me a big drooly open mouth kiss. It's more like he impacts my face with his lips, but still! It's definately done with intent. He's doing that with some of the teachers at school, too, but he needs to stop because I don't want to share!

He wears size 3 diapers now, drinks juice from a sippy cup (not the biggest fan of it, but we're working on it), wears 9 month clothes, size 4 shoe (a little big, but 3s would be too small in a week), feeds himself little gerber puffs, and laughs at a lot of random stuff. He also grabs at anything within reach, which means you'd better really have a good grip on him because he'll give no warning when he tries to grab for pictures on the wall or a person nearby. He just kind of throws his body in that direction while you're trying to hold him. His favorite thing in the world is being held in a standing position and holding his hands while he walks around the world. That's what he goes for. So putting him on his belly and trying to get him to figure out crawling is pretty much the opposite of his favorite thing, which is why he throws such a big fit about it. The physical therapist at work told me my son is stubborn, which is a good thing that we don't want to break, we just want to bend it a little. I told Chris that he must get that from him, along with his temper and constant talking. Anyway, the PT is now working with his teachers on way to get Ben to start crawling. Ben might be one of those kids that goes straight from sitting to walking. A lot of kids do that.

We're going to go to a new pumpkin patch this year. We're going next weekend and I'm really looking forward to it. It'll be Ben's first pumpkin patch. I hope the weather is good!

One funny thing that Chris did the other day...I asked him to buy vacuum seal bags so we can store all of Ben's clothes in them. Chris bought Bissel vacuum bags. First of all, we don't own a Bissel, and secondly, our vacuum is bagless. I love my husband.

6 months old!!!

Ben turned six months old August 11th. I know EVERYONE says they can't believe how fast he's growing up, and for the most part, neither can I. This is definately my favorite age for him so far. He's "talking" like crazy. All those little noises he makes are so cute. Sometimes it sounds like he's singing. He's laughing more and moving more. Yesterday he scooted himself about 3 feet backward while laying on his belly. He's always chewing on his fingers or sucking his thumb. He wants so badly to play with Junie, but she doesn't hold still long enough, or Junie starts licking his face so she gets yelled at to leave him alone. Junie also gets in trouble for chewing on Ben's teethers, which for some reason, she thinks are hers despite the amount of trouble she gets in when she's caught. They're the rubbery things filled with water so that you can put them in the fridge (label says no freezer, but whatever) and let the baby chew on them when they're cold to ease tooth pain.

Chris took Ben to his six month doctors appointment. Ben did very well. For his age, he's in the 30% for weight (so I guess he should be fatter) weighing 16lbs. 11oz. He's in the 90% for height measuring 28 inches tall. And he's in the 91% for head size. Imagine that, he's got a big head. :) The doctor said that babies go through growth spurts with their head and Ben seems to be going through one with his gigantic candy apple head. Hopefully his body will catch up. The doctor also told us that Ben can only "use his car seat for the next inch of his life" (Chris said it like that). So we're getting ready to upgrade to one Gina from work gave me. It's VERY nice. I've had it in the garage since I was like, 8 months pregnant, so when I went and got it it was dirty. It took me literally 20 minutes to get the cover off of it. A wrench had to be involved (as per explanations of people on the internet who also tried to wash their same car seat cover). Very frustrating. But it's clean and looks great! The only thing that sucks is that it's not the kind of car seat that comes out of the car, so now I'm going to have to carry Ben in without a carrier. I'm just paranoid of dropping him while I carry all my work crap.

I've been cleaning our house this weekend since this is the last weekend that I won't have homework. I start Grad. classes tomorrow. Not really looking forward to it. It's only on Mondays from 4:30-8:40pm. I'm riding with a friend from work who also has to take classes at the same time so at least we don't have to walk to the parking lot at night by ourselves. Alright, Ben's getting mad about the lack of a bottle in his face.

The Last Few Weeks

Ben taking a nap on Troy and Jamey's spare bedroom bed.

I'm kind of sad I only wrote one blog for the month of July. I've been very busy with work I've had to take home. Only a few mildly interesting things happened. It's been very stormy here over the last few weeks. Saturday morning our yard flooded with all the water that had poured from down the streets. Apparently our house sits at a lower part of the neighborhood. I went outside and played in it.

After it stopped raining and the water stopped flowing through our yard, we went up to Cakery Affairs in Bryant to plan Ben's 6 month birthday cake. I know there's no REAL point in it, but mostly I've just been craving cake and need an excuse to have a cute one. I brought in a picture of a cartoon giraffe I want on it, and then I drew a little tree with the words "Happy 6 month Ben" written in different parts of it. I asked if the giraffe could have some leaves in it's mouth to make it look like it's eating the tree. It's a chocolate cake with white icing. We'll see how they do with this cake. If it's cute (and delicious) we'll probably go back in 6 months to order his 1 year birthday cake. I can't believe my baby is already almost 6 months old!! Ben is babbling like crazy now! Right now I'm listening to him in his jumperoo and he sounds like he's saying "dadadadada" and "ayeyayaya" When he's mad is when he really sounds like he's saying something. He uses his angry tones and looks you in the eye and yells at you. He also sounds like a mad Louie Armstrong with his deep gurgly growly voice. He rolls over all the time now. Belly to back and back to belly. Here is a picture taken of him immediately after he rolled from belly to back. It was the first time I'd actually watched him do it. I was trying to get video of it, but the batteries were almost dead.

Sunday Tiffany came over and took a whole bunch of pictures that I LOVE! She has them on her flickr account, but here are a few of my favorites. Oh, and Ben doesn't smile outside. Nature is too distracting.

Look at the little belly on my baby! This is one of my favorite pictures of just Ben. He's using the grass to hold himself up. I was right behind him, waiting for him to tip over. Which he did.

That Needs A Little Drool...

So Ben's newest phase is the putting everything, EVERYTHING in his mouth phase. He's been doing this for about 2 months, but now it's to the point where I have to fight to keep things OUT of his mouth. I even saw him grab one of Junie's wrinkles (on her little puggy back) and try to pull it to his mouth. Luckily Junie doesn't hold still for more than a second. It's really cute, but it also means that he's getting sick more often as he's in the baby room and they also put everything in their mouth. Germ sharing fun. Ben also gives his version of kisses. He comes at your face with his mouth open and connects with your chin. I'm pretty sure he's just trying to suck on my nose or chin, but it counts as a kiss to me! :)

Ben can also imitate certain things you do. He can imitate a popping noise you make with your mouth, and yesterday I was shaking my head at him and he shook his head back. He only did that once, though. He holds his bottle by himself for an entire feeding, rolls from back to stomach, and sits up from a leaned back position. He can also stand with very little support from us. He laughs and smiles and also sleeps entirely through the night. He drinks formula still, but we add cereal to his nightly bottle. He also eats fruits and vegetables from the 'baby's first foods' containers at lunch and dinner. I try to give him one of each at each feeding, though I'm not entirely sure what they do at preschool with him for lunch. Ben recognizes different people, especially mama and daddy. But he also recognizes teachers at his preschool, too. He gets mad at me when he can see I'm in the room and am not holding him. I think major separation anxiety is going to start soon with him. I dread that.

(Eating can get tiring)

Chris and I had our 2 year anniversary yesterday. We went and saw The Proposal. It was so good. Then we ate at Applebees since it was pretty much in the same parking lot. Ben got to spend time with Mimi, which he loves. And Junie got to spend time with Tiffany, which she loves.

(He just couldn't stay awake for Aunt Tiffany)

Since the last time I posted, Chris and I have gone to Memphis to see Wicked. We got to see fireworks from the roof of the Peabody hotel. It was awesome. The next weekend we got to see Jerry Seinfeld perform, which was hilarious. We're really lucky we have family to watch Ben!
My friend from college, Christine, also came by on her way up to Utah from Georgia. It was great to get to see her again! I'll have to post that picture later, since I can't find it! :)

Heat and Humidity...The Up Side.

With all the miserable heat and humidity, something positive has to come of it, right? Besides mosquitoes. Our plants are doing VERY well. It's exciting to live in a place that allows tropical looking plants to grow. Chris and I picked out some plants that remind us of Hawaii, where we had our honeymoon. There were beautiful plants everywhere. It was one of the best parts of Hawaii. It kind of set the atmosphere to let you know you were obviously in a completely different environment.I'm not good with the names of plants like Chris is. But Chris told me that it's our Taro plant that has leaves bigger than Ben. I love it! I had Chris hold Ben up next to it so I could get a picture comparing their sizes. Of course being outside for 30 seconds means a mosquito bit my face right where the smile crease forms, so I get a fun little reminder when I smile, which is nothing to smile about. Ben got all squinty because apparently it's blindingly bright outside. I love the Star Gazer Lillies, they were in my wedding boquet. Definately my favorite flower. Anyway, here are some plant pictures! (all taken with my iphone, sorry!) It's weird to only have one picture of Ben in a blog post...

Spending Too Much Money

Today I had to take off work early to take Ben to a doctor's appointment. He woke up VERY congested and had a deep sounding cough, so I thought it would be best if I took him to the doctor so this wouldn't get worse over the weekend. The doctor (actually, nurse practitioner) looked in his ears and saw that he had fluid in his right ear. She recommended Ben take amoxicillin twice a day. I gave it to him this afternoon, and he loves the taste of it. It smells like bubblegum. So hopefully he'll be feeling better soon, though he hasn't acted sick at all. He's actually been in a very good mood these last few days. He's laughing more often and his favorite game isn't really a game, it's just holding Ben up over your head and making him act like he's flying. He LOVES being above me for some reason. I think it might have to do with Ben's teacher at Preschool. Mrs. Teresa's husband comes to eat lunch with her all the time, and he's like 6"7. Ben loves her husband and I always see him holding Ben when he's in the baby room eating lunch. So when her husband holds Ben, he's pretty much getting a high up view of the world that not a lot of people see. Maybe Ben will be tall, but I can guarantee he's not going to be 6ft 7in.

Chris and I have spent a lot of money these last few days. We spoiled ourselves and Ben. Chris got a late Father's Day gift of a Wii. Then I added onto it for myself by getting the Wii Fit and a personal trainer 'game' for the Wii. It's too hot to go for walks/jogs, no matter what time of day, so I figure that an inside way of working out will be better. Plus it'll be more fun and less embarrassing by myself.

The next day we bought Ben a jumperoo ( I had to look on the box to know what to call it). He LOVES it. Bouncing, spinning, allowing him to stand, and making noises...it encompasses his favorite things! We have to cut back on spending money for at least a week so that Chris and I can afford to go to Memphis to see Wicked on the fourth of July. Yay!

Oh yeah, and Ben is doing very well with his baby food. His likes include: cereal, bananas, green beans, and sweet potatoes. His dislikes: prunes (and maybe applesauce. It's hard to tell because he's been in a bad mood the last few times I tried to feed it to him, so I don't know if he was throwing a fit because it's gross or because he's a brat) :)

Hmmm...Cereal.

Yesterday Chris took Ben to the pediatrician for his well child checkup. Ben got his four month immunizations. Chris was so good, he took the list of questions I made to ask the pediatrician and ACTUALLY asked them! I'm so proud!

The pediatrician said that Ben now weighs 13lbs 4oz and is 26 inches tall. When he was born he weighed 9lbs 1oz and was 20 1/2 inches tall. Chris was told that we should start Ben on cereal so he can gain a little more weight. He's not under weight, but most babies gain more weight than he has in the first four months. We bought some rice cereal and mixed it in a bowl with Ben's formula (like the package said). The doctor said to spoon feed him cereal and not put it in his bottle. Apparently cereal in bottles leads to obesity and gas. There have been studies, I guess. But Ben's never eaten from a spoon, so I kind of figured it wasn't going to go well. But I really hoped that it would!

Hoping doesn't really make things happen like it should. We bought Ben some spoons and bowls and mixed the cereal and put it in his mouth, and he kind of just left his mouth hanging open and cried. Then when a little bit managed to slide it's way down his throat, he gagged and then cried some more. It was actually really funny as mean as that sounds. He's my little over-reactor (he gets that from Chris). I got him to smile a few times while we spoon fed him, which was really cute because he had cereal all over his face.


We finally thought that maybe he just needed to just get used to the taste, so we put it in a bottle and he sucked it down incredibly fast. So he likes cereal, just not spoons. We're going to work on that the next few weeks.