Spring Break!

Though we haven't done anything overly exciting for Spring Break, we've still managed to have some fun. I've enjoyed getting to spend more time with my boys, even if Chris still had to work. Boo.

Ben finally is accepting the slide. He actually laughs on his way down, if I go with him. I'm trying to train him to like things like this so that he'll go on roller coasters with me when he gets older since his daddy's such a wuss. :)

These are the first 'flowers' that Ben has ever picked for me. He pulled them out of the ground, started to stick them in his mouth, then changed his mind and handed them to me. When I took them he said "thank you". My sweet baby. I'm hoping there will be many more weeds picked for me as he gets older. I might even put them in a dixie cup with water.

I was hoping to get an action shot of him mowing the lawn, but he refused. Actually, he threw a crying fit and after he calmed down I took this picture. He had snot coming out of his nose, so I chose a picture that didn't display that.

Here's a sweet picture of Ben and Ava. This was taken at Larson's first birthday party. They were fighting over that toy, and then Ava got a little too personal (grabbing Ben's leg and touching his hair), so he distanced himself.

We're still working on getting Ben to walk by himself. He can do it, but he wants his hand held and he absolutely REFUSES to walk without it. The absence of a hand results in immediately dropping to his knees and crying. Stubborn.

Here's how Ben helps me clean the house. I was attempting a major cleaning spree, but he kept demanding my attention and rearranging the living room I had just cleaned. I pulled the cushions off the couch and vacuumed under them. While I was doing this, Ben was rolling around on one of the cushions on the floor and hit his head when he rolled off on the hardwood floor. I couldn't get anything done! He finally got distracted trying to push my yoga ball between the couch and the coffee table (tight squeeze) and I got a few things done. Nap time could not have come sooner.

Ben wouldn't stop trying to grab the toilet brush and stuff out of the bathroom trash can while I was in there blow drying my hair, so I finally grabbed him, walked him to the living room, and stuck him in a basket.

Zombie boy. If he's in a good mood, he WILL walk from mama to daddy. At least we know he's capable!

This is one of my favorite pictures! Tiffany took this in our side yard where we have a tree that was blooming. The flowers are so pretty and I love seeing Ben's little teeth as he gawks up at the tree.

Sliding and Other Non-Traumatic Events

Saturday afternoon, Chris, Tiffany, Ben and I all went to Tyndall Park to play around. Ben got to play on the baby playground and Chris and I got to play some very unprofessional tennis.

I think this picture is hilarious. He didn't want to go down the slide by himself, but we made him anyway. He thoroughly enjoyed it, as you can tell. He went down so slow he stopped completely at the bottom of the slide. We probably caused some sort of slide phobia for him.

This was the before picture. I did go down with him once and he actually enjoyed it.

Ben with his I heart my mom onesie on. I had to get in the picture to emphasize who his mom is, just in case you didn't know.

Ben's going to play tennis when he gets older. I think tennis is a very mom friendly sport to watch a child play because there's not a huge chance he'll get hurt.

The ball is bouncing in front of his face. He's not eating it. He chased the tennis balls around the court for a good while. I started to worry he was going to skin his elbows, so we had to stop. Chris was also getting fussy because he chased the tennis ball around a few times and got all tired from it.

When we were done playing tennis, we decided Ben needed some more walking practice. He does well when walking from one person to another, but still won't walk across a room by himself.

Ben always walks slower to Chris and then runs to me, which isn't good because I have to catch him before he does a face plant. He's not very coordinated and doesn't understand that mama isn't coordinated either, which means he'll probably end up doing a face plant one of these times.

My future tennis player. He won't have pink tape on his future tennis racket.

Ben enjoyed the baby swings. He looks so funny with his legs dangling through the seat. He also looks like he gets tired when we're pushing him in the swing. I think it's because he's used to the baby swing we used to put him in to get him to sleep.

My sweet baby. We also got to witness a homeless man digging through the trash and a guy walking down the street with a business suitcase wearing a suit. It was an interesting day!

Birthday Party Flashback

Okay, so I'm going to keep this post pretty short. These pictures were from Ben's birthday party we had on Saturday the 13th. Everything went really well and Ben got some great gifts. SPOILED.
Here's Ben acting all turdy toward Gannon. Gannon is 9 1/2 months old and traveled from Sherwood to see him.

Here's a Leap Frog musical table thing. The babies all really liked it. The baby in the orange is Larson, who will be one next month.

Ben's birthday cake! It was delicious. Troy did a great job. He made it into a baby dinosaur due to some unexpected cake collapsing, it was hid under an impromptu bib.

Troy bought helium to fill up all of Ben's balloons with. The kids loved playing with them. Such a simple toy. I had brought over some of Ben's toys, but they didn't get played with because of the ample supply of balloons.

Ben started to get into the "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" spirit. He started getting really fussy. I think all of the people and attention was overwhelming, but I'm not going to make excuses for a fussy gus.

He got some cake and everything was good again. He really likes chocolate...and hats.

Kitchen filled with party goers eating cake. Or not eating cake. Apparently the rule is you have to lean and look all cool if you're not eating cake. I was unaware.

Anyway, Ben had a great birthday party. Thank you to everyone who got him a gift! I'll work on thank you cards when I'm procrastinating homework some more, which is exactly what I'm doing now.

12 months

Ben at 12 months

*He's taking steps, but definately not walking around the living room yet. The most steps he's ever taken by himself in a row is six.

*He fake cries ALL THE TIME. For attention, of course. Really annoying to listen to when it continues on for more than a few fake cries.

*He says mama, dada, bye bye with a little wave, baba (pronounces his b's as d's most of the time), and my favorite, Uh-oh.

*If you say "Can I have a kiss?" prepare for the slobberiest kiss of your life. He gives you one every time you ask and makes a very good attempt at aiming for your lips, though not always hitting his target.

*He's going through the pointing at everything phase, which is really cute.

*A ball is his favorite toy in the world. Any ball that is big enough to bounce and smack your hand on.

*He's not afraid of ANYTHING. He loves loud noises, especially when he's the one who makes them. He chases the vacuum and smiles when Chris honks the horn when we're driving.

*His favorite solid foods are mini-corndogs and oreos. Healthy, I know. He still has issues eating solid food, but he's doing much better.

*He throws almost everything he gets his little hands on. The first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is throw all of his toys out of his crib, saying "uh-oh" after every toy hits the floor. This is what I wake up to most mornings at 5am.

*He laughs A LOT, but mostly at what mama and daddy do. The hardest he ever laughs is when Chris tickles him with his beard. He also laughs at peek-a-boo.

*He loves to sleep, which is the only way I manage to get homework done. He takes a nap from around 11:30-1:00pm, then again from 4:30-7:00pm, then sleeps through the night 9:30-5:30am.

*He wears a size 4 shoe (perfect fit right now), 12-18 month clothes, and size 3 diapers.

*He drinks from sippy cups with soft lids. I gave him whole milk for the first time the other day and he LOVED it. It's great because I'll drink any kind of milk and formula is so expensive.

*We finally got to flip his carseat around. The first time he rode facing forward, I kept turning around and he was just STARING out the windshield, trying to understand what was going on. It was so funny.

*He doesn't try to flip over when I change his diaper or get him dressed anymore. I think he got in enough trouble that he finally learned to hold still.

*He tries really hard to imitate words that you say, and comes really close most of the time.

*He will carry things around in his mouth while crawling through the house.

*The things that he gets in trouble for everyday include playing with mama's laptop, trying to sneak into the kitchen, playing with the tv remotes and throwing them, playing with the toilet paper and the trashcan in the bathroom, pulling the cd out of his cd player in his room, and spitting out his food just because.

I'm waiting for Tiffany to post birthday pictures before I do a birthday party post.

One Year Ago Today

This guy was born one year ago today. Benjamin Cade Allen was born February 11th, 2009 at 5:41pm. He weighed 9lbs 1 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long.

This was probably the only time he ever took a pacifier. Just not a fan.

Look at this swollen little face. I remember he looked so much like Chris when he was born. I was surprised at how big he was (weren't we all?). He has changed so much over the last year.

Here he is now, snotty nose and all. My big boy is all grown up.

Couch potato. I'm not sure what he's eating. These are my favorite pajamas on him, little long johns.

I just had to throw this picture in. He makes the BEST expressions of any baby I've ever encountered.

This little guy has brought so much happiness into our lives. It's strange to think about what our life was like before he came along. It was boring, pretty much.

Ben's 1st Birthday!!

Ben devoured his birthday cupcake. He threw the first one off his tray (such a dear he can be), so I made him take a bite of the second one and he LOVED it, as evidenced in these pictures. It's the first cupcake he's ever had, though he loves a good oreo.

Blue really is his color. Many of the other teachers came into his classroom and saw his decorated face. Mrs. Jordan and Mrs. Denise also brought their PreK class in and they all sang happy birthday to him. It was too sweet! He's so spoiled by them. :)

The bounce house. Kim and I took pictures throughout the mornning. The kids were having SO MUCH FUN! It was so sweet to watch them laugh and smile. Kim came up with the idea of having the bounce house out on Ben's birthday. The kids enjoyed it so much that they're going to do it more often. They slept a lot better at naptime.

I got in with him, despite the 200 pound weight limit. Haha. Anyway, the second I got in there there was a call on line one that I had to take, so it didn't last long. The person hung up before I got to the phone, and then the doorbell rang, so I walked out to answer the door without my shoes on. I explained to the parents why I was socked, and they were okay with it. I'm very professional.

Oh yeah, his favorite toy in the world (right now) is a ball. He gets all excited when you ask him "where's your ball?" He crawls all over the house, playing with his ball. Chris and I got him a BIGGER ball from Walmart for his birthday. He loves it, of course. We also got him a shape sorter box (the kind where you take the circle and push it through the circle shaped hole in the bucket) and a baby swing that Chris will hang on the ugly tree in our front yard. I think it needs more attention drawn toward it, anyway. Maybe it'll pretty the tree up, like an earring on an ugly person. We'll see.

Anyway, these pictures are from his school birthday. There'll be MANY more to come from his weekend birthday party.

Making a Snowman

Monday brought a wonderful amount of snow to Arkansas. By far the largest amount I've seen since I've lived here. So school was cancelled and Chris woke me back up (I tried to go back to sleep once I knew school was cancelled) and we went outside to play before it started raining, which was in the forecast.

I'd say Ben helped, but he really didn't. Mama did all the work. He was faking it in this picture. It took me less than 15 minutes to handcraft the snowman. I'm pretty much an expert. Ha. Anyway, the snowman fell over on Wednesday (broke his poor left arm), but it made it through some very heavy rain and a full day of sun.

Ben was mad at this point because he had spent so much time crawling around and eating the snow that it has seeped through his pants.

He really loves the snow. I'm so glad he can enjoy himself in the cold, wet weather. You can see me in the background, working on the snowman. Ben kept crawling toward the street, but it was okay since there was absolutely no traffic.

He was eating the snow off his mittens. He's going to get ice cream for the first time this weekend at his birthday party. I'm sure he'll love it.