Ben's first time in the ocean

Last Thursday, for the first time in over a year and a half, my two sisters and I were all together at the same time. We took my dad out to lunch by the beach for a late father's day/birthday celebration. After lunch, we walked over to the beach. Ben put his feet in the water for the first time and was a little skeptical. We did manage to get a few smiles but most of the time, he had a serious, I'm not interested look on his face.

Here he is with his aunt Stephanie. He hadn't seen her since we left Colorado and as soon as he saw her, he remembered her.

Feeling the water with my dad...

The next three pictures are what pretty much all of the pictures look like. He seriously would not smile.

Hopefully he will start to enjoy the beach as he gets older. I think his dad would be sad if he didn't.

He's definitely all boy...

For those of you who have spent time around Ben, you know that he is all over the place. The boy does not like to sit still. He also isn't afraid of much and will attempt to climb anything and everything. Yesterday, he got his first scooter (he likes to be pushed around on it) and 10 minutes after opening it up, we had our first incident. He tried to climb on it by himself and took a tumble. His head hit the kitchen floor pretty hard and cut it open. It wasn't a big cut but it was pretty deep. We wanted to make sure that he didn't do any damage to his head so we were off to the children's hospital emergency room. He checked out fine there but since the cut was a little deep, they glued it shut to prevent infection and bad scarring.

He had to wear a little gown while he was getting cleaned up. It was so cute on him that I had Drew take pictures with his phone..

Ben was a real trooper through it all and by the time we got home, he was happy and running all over again. He now has a big band-aid over the cut so he doesn't rub it, which he is not happy about. The originally put gauze over it but that didn't last a minute before he pulled it off.

I have a feeling this is the first of many trips to the ER that we will be taking over the years.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope all of you had a wonderful 4th of July. We all had a very nice day that included a bbq and swimming. Here are some pictures that I got of Ben this afternoon.

Ben has the power

I have just uploaded all of the videos off of our flip recorder today and there are a lot of them. I will start putting them all on here, one at a time. This one is from May. We found a card that Drew had gotten last year that allowed you to record a message so that when you open the card, it plays your message and then the song, I've Got the Power comes on after.

Going Private

I have decided that The Little Man will soon be a private blog. All this means for you is that you will have to type in a password before you can access the blog. It also means that random people out there will not be able to see it.

These changes will be taking effect in the next week or so. If you would like the password, please leave your email in the comments section or send me an email to staceymhanson@gmail.com. I will then send you an email with the new password.

Sorry for the inconvenience of this all but after some thinking, we decided that this was a good idea to keep unwanted people from getting this glimpse into our lives.

I know you've been waiting...

I know a lot of you have been waiting for new pictures of Ben. I am sorry that it has taken awhile but here they are. These are all from the past week (except the cupcake picture which is from Drew's birthday on the 14th). 

Last week, we got Ben a little slide that has been moved into the house since it is so hot outside. This is Ben standing on the top, shaking it back and forth. He hasn't quite gotten the idea that he is supposed to sit on his bottom to go down the slide. We've had a couple of falling off incidents already.

Right before Bed

He likes to stick his tongue out and move it around. It must be a 

hereditary thing since I stick the tip of my tongue out when 

I am concentrating.

He really does enjoy his pool.

Playing on his horse. He knows how to climb on and off of it all 

by himself and how to make it bounce and spin.

He always manages to find the things he shouldn't be playing with (phones, remotes, cords).

Right after an afternoon snack of strawberries.

I don't know what he is doing here.

Enjoying a cupcake on his dad's birthday. He went straight 

from the highchair to the tub. His high chair had to be hosed off 

in the backyard.

Fun in the Sun

These pictures are from this past weekend after we set up Ben's new pool. He loved his pool and the water!

Mountain Ben

We have spent the last couple of days in the mountains and Ben is really liking the fresh, mountain air. It has been very cold up here (and foggy) but that hasn't stopped him from wanting to play outside. I took these pictures earlier today while we were out on the front deck (well, the first couple were taken right before we went outside).

We've made it!

After a very long trip, we have made it to California. It has been a whirlwind the past couple of weeks. Once everything in the house was packed up and on it's way out here, it was time for us to start heading out here. With two cars, a baby and a dog, the three days it took to get here were pretty rough. We had 4 days to rest and now we are getting ready for our trip down south tomorrow.

Ben has been enjoying his time here so far and his curiosity is at an all time high. He is getting into everything that he shouldn't be.