"Super Ben"

Ben grabbed a towel from the kitchen and when I looked over to see what he was doing, he was wearing it like a cape. He thought he was funny.

Ben's morning routine...

When Ben gets up in the morning, he is always in a good mood. As soon as I walk into his room, he gives me a big smile and is eager to get out of his crib and make his way into the family room. He sits in his chair and waits for me to bring him milk and cheerios. We then watch his favorite show (which I record every morning so we have a new episode to watch), the Imagination Movers. Although they are quite annoying and a little strange, Ben loves this show. He will sit and watch it as long as you let him. The show is about 4 guys (who wear blue jumpsuits), called the Imagination Movers who solve people's problems by brainstorming ideas and working together to come up with a solution. Throw in a mouse, a neighbor who likes everything boring and beige and lots of weirdness and you have the show.

Maybe this will give you an idea of what we have to listen to every day, over and over again.

As you can tell by these pictures, Ben gets really into it...

This is what Ben is learning in gym class...

The past few days, Ben has been using his chair to do this...

Alfalfa

Ben woke up this morning with some hair on top of his head sticking up and despite some attempts to making it flat, it just won't do it. We had a busy morning. First we went to Ben's gym class where he got to jump on the trampoline and practice walking on the balance beam. I think he remembered going there last week because as soon as we walked in, he got a big smile on his face. He has done great during his first couple of classes and definitely gets a lot of energy out. After a trip to Target (where we got new stuff for Ben's bathroom. He is going to have a monkey theme in there), we came home and played a little, ate lunch and then Ben took a nap.

Here he is at lunch, eating his grilled cheese. Too bad he kept trying to feed it to Lewey while I wasn't looking.

A little fun before nap time...

We have internet!

After two weeks, we finally have working internet. I am so excited! We are still busy unpacking and getting everything back to normal but I promise to update more often now. I did some catch up entries today so make sure to scroll down to see them.

A wedding weekend

Two weeks ago, we spent the weekend up in Oakhurst (near Yosemite) so that we could attend the wedding of Drew's cousin Diane. The wedding in the woods and a lot of fun. Ben spent a lot of the night on the dance floor, dancing with anyone who would go out there with him.

When did he stop being a baby?

This was taken after the holidays, almost 8 months ago...

and this was taken last week. Doesn't he look so much older?

It only took all summer...

for Ben to go past the first step and all the way into the pool. He took his time and now he loves to go all the way in. Him and and his dad go swimming a couple of times a week now. He would stay in for hours if we let him.

Who can resist cupcakes?

Ben does enjoy cake but since he makes a huge mess eating it, I am hesitant to give it to him. He did get to eat one of my birthday cupcakes and he loved it!

At first, he was just stuffing as much as he could in his mouth...

he then took a little break...

and let out a little smirk...

before he realized that he could wipe the icing off of his high chair tray and lick it off his fingers.

It only took about 10 minutes to clean up the mess.

I haven't forgotten

Hi Everyone,

Sorry it has been awhile since I have updated with new pictures. I have not forgotten about it, I just haven't had a chance. We have been so busy with the move and now we don't have internet (we are in Barnes and Noble right now). We are getting our internet installed this Friday so I promise to update once it's working.

Check back in a few days for some new pictures (and maybe even some videos).

Ben's first trip to San Francisco

Last Thursday and Friday, we were in the bay area while Drew had a couple of job interviews. We spent the afternoon in San Francisco on Friday where it was very cold and windy. I didn't take a lot of pictures but I did get these ones of Ben by this big fountain near the port authority.

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.