17 Months Old

Almost a year and a half?! I still call Ben my baby, but he's more like a little boy every day. At 17 months old, here's what he's up to these days...


-Down to one 1.5 hour nap a day, and at night sleeps from 7:30-6:30
-Still getting more teeth - he's only got one more bottom canine to come in, and then his second molars. Whew!
-We still do one bottle before bed. I think he'd be ok if I dropped it from the routine, but since he kind of eats like a bird sometimes, I don't want him to wake up hungry!

He's getting really good at sign language, and we've added a new sign for diaper. Here he is saying "more".

He's also starting to say some more words, like Go!, yellow, I La La (I love you), and Nana. Plus, he's decided he really likes saying Mama, which I LOVE :) He loves to dance, and it's such a cute little jig: he stands completely still and just bobs up and down bending his knees anytime he hears music (even a cell phone ringtone, ha!!)

Ben also just recently starting mimicing us. His favorite thing to copy is vacuuming. He used to just pull it around everywhere, but lately, he actually rubs the hose on the floor like he's cleaning it! He'll also take anything he sees, such as a bottle of hair goop, and act like he's putting some on his toothbrush like toothpaste to brush his teeth.

I love to see his little personality coming out more and more. A lot of mornings when I go in to get him up, he's waiting for me with all his pacis in hand, and THROWS them out of the crib all at once! I guess that's his way of saying Good Morning! He can hear me open the dishwasher from another room, and comes running in to "help" me unload it, and the same for the washing machine. It's his job to throw all the wet stuff into the dryer :)

Last but not least, he's actually starting to mind a tiny bit now...if we say "No", most of the time, he'll comply. And, if he knows something's "no-no", he'll look at you and start shaking his head No - so cute!! But even when he's not minding one bit, I'm amazed at the patience I have (so far, ha!) There's nothing I wouldn't do for his precious little grin!!!

Daddy and Me

A few weeks ago, Mark tackled the task of clearing our yard of all the leaves. Ben's favorite thing is to be outside, so he was all about helping Daddy...

He dragged that rake around and chased Mark all over the yard, having a ball! Then fun times playing in the leaves.

We love, love, love our new house and the great backyard. It even had a swingset with it, and lots of fun trees to climb on :)

Ho, Ho, Ho!

We had a "successful" (i.e. no Stranger-Danger crying :) visit with Santa last weekend! I was especially excited to see that it was the same Santa as last year....look back here and see if you can believe how much Ben's grown in a year!!