A Real Baby?!

Anna ~ 4 Months Old

2012-01-20T21:36:00.000-05:00

Little Miss Anna had a big fourth month! We finally both kicked our never-ending colds/sinus infection/etc and felt MUCH better. At her four month check-up, Anna weighed 11 pounds 15 ounces and measured 25 inches long. Her weight fell from the 50% to under the 20%, but her height jumped up a few curves to the 75%, so the doctor isn't worried about her growth at all.

She has been waking up quite a bit at night (STILL!), so we decided to try feeding her every two hours during the day instead of every three. Whew! That's a lot of eating! In fact, she's never eaten that often, even as a newborn! But what do you know, it worked like a charm the past few nights ~ she's only been waking once around 4 a.m.....Yippee!!

Anna's favorite sleep position.

Speaking of sleep, she is too cute when she's getting sleepy. She doesn't fuss or anything, as long as she's somewhere comfy like the Boppy seat, and has her left arm free to put on her forehead. If I see her striking this pose, I know it's time to put that sweet baby in her crib!! She sleeps like this all the time!

She's really started "talking" more and laughing a lot,which is just the best sound ever! A day after she turned four months, she rolled over, too! Anna doesn't seem to mind tummy time as much as some babies, and she's already pulling her legs up like she's trying to crawl....oh my goodness, time is flying by!!!

We don't really have a set schedule "by the clock", but in the past few weeks, I've noticed a pattern where Anna basically gets sleepy about 2 hours after she last woke up. So, she naps for an hour or two, then is awake for about two hours and we do it all again, all day :) Then it's time for bed around 7 or 8:00 and she wakes up one more time to eat before midnight, and then hopefully just the once in the middle of the night. Then it's up with the rest of the family around 6:30 or 7 a.m. to start our day!

Here's a picture of our sweetie without a bow in her hair...Daddy likes the "no bow" look better, saying she's so pretty already, she doesn't "need" a bow :) Well, I agree that she's the most gorgeous little girl I've ever seen and she certainly doesn't need a bow to be beautiful, but Mama can't help herself sometimes...this girly stuff is so much fun already!!

Anna truly is a precious little girl, and these past four months have been heaven!! I think a lot about how fun it's going to be to have a daughter, and I hope one day she loves her mommy as much as I love mine!! :)

"It's not Santa....

2012-01-13T19:24:00.001-05:00

...it's Santa CLAUS," according to Ben. Ohhhhhh, excuse me! Ha ha!! Ben made sure to keep us on our toes this season, for sure! We had a wonderful Christmas for lots of reasons. It was Anna's very first Christmas! And, this was the first Christmas that Ben understood about "Santa" and looked forward to talking to him and his big visit on Christmas Eve :)

Ben wanted to put out his favorite Bunny Cookies for Santa, along with the milk, so that's what Santa snacked on this year.

On Christmas morning, Ben slept in nice and late (7:30) and had forgotten all about Santa when he woke up, ha ha!! We reminded him, though, and he couldn't wait to go downstairs and see what was going on! We were so excited for him to see his new trampoline and kitchen from Santa, but.....

Ben playing with Anna's toys

...what he was most interested in was Anna's toys!! Probably because they lit up and sang songs :) After he checked them out, though, he saw his Santa gifts and loved them. Here he is on the trampoline.

The only thing we could ever get Ben to tell us he wanted for Christmas was an elephant, tiger and alligator. Sooooooo....Santa did the best he could ;) Apparently there was a run on alligators in miniature form, so we had to call in a sub. I think it was close enough for Ben, though, thank goodness!

We had sausage pinwheels and french toast casserole for breakfast, and around lunch time, Mason and Chandler came over so we had the whole gang. Anna enjoyed checking all the commotion out and watching us open gifts. Oh, and wearing her new hairbow that was in her stocking :)

Anna and Ben on Christmas morning

~ Mommy, Daddy, Chandler, Ben, Mason, and Anna ~

Getting Ready...

2012-01-11T22:58:00.002-05:00

....for Christmas!! No, not 2012 (thank goodness!); I'm going back to 2011. It's not too late to post about Christmas since January's not even over yet, right?! We had a busy, busy December getting ready for the big day. We had gingerbread trains to make...

...Christmas trees to chop down (OK, we really didn't chop it down, but instead had the workers with a chainsaw do it for us :) Ben had a ball picking a tree out and running all over the tree farm. We even saw a bunny rabbit streak out in front of us! I had a good laugh because Ben just casually asked to go "get it"...as if that thing wasn't running at lightening speed and would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, ha!

Baby Anna had fun at the tree farm all snuggled up to Mama to keep warm!!

Ben's favorite part: rocking by the fire. He personally tested out each rocking chair a minimum of three times.

And finally, we had Christmas cards to send! The timing of our attempt at this photo - when the older boys were with us, not raining outside, right time of day for good lighting, Anna awake, clothes matching and ironed, soon enough so that the cards could be printed and mailed before 2012, and on and on....just happened to inconviently fall when Ben was tired and possibly hungry. GREAT.

The first few attempts were wildly unsuccessful. Apparently Ben didn't want to play "paparazzi" at that time.

"OK, I'll let you take my picture, but I am NOT sitting where you want me to. Here's my best fake smile!"

"I'm leaving." I love the look on Mason's face...."Darnit! So close!" Of course, Anna's being an angel :)

Wait! Come back, we have Skittles for you, Ben! Well....you see where that got us (see the yellow candy in Ben's teeth below!). Not the look I was going for, though.

AHHHH....finally! One decent photo in the bunch! And here you have our Christmas card photo for 2011!

Ben's Very FIRST School Play!

2011-12-30T23:45:00.000-05:00

This Christmas, Ben had his first of many school performance :) It was the Christmas program for preschool, and even though they're only two, his age group got to participate!

As with all "firsts", we didn't know what he'd think about being up on stage in front of crowd, but he didn't bat an eye!! Well, OK, actually, when he saw Mark come close to take pictures, Ms. Nita (his teacher) said he got a little whiney for Daddy, but she reminded him of their song they needed to sing in order to go back to the classroom to get some candy. That apparently did the trick ASAP, ha!!!

Singing songs, doing the sign language...

Having fun!! I was SO PROUD (and SO relieved he wasn't scared!)

Lots of kids...the two year olds came on stage with the entire rest of the preschool at the end of the performace for their part. You can see his teacher Ms. Nita keeping everyone going...I don't know how she does it!

Ughhh....getting boring. How much longer do we have to sing before I get that candy??

Boredom = picking at the hairbow in front of you. Apparently the candy trick didn't work for the little girl next to Ben! He didn't even notice her the whole time, LOL!

Here's a little 1-minute video of the performance :) (Remember these videos won't work from the email; you must click through and actually go to the blog webpage!)

Here's another 2-minute clip that's pretty funny...Ben has a hard time keeping his hands to himself, and the nose-picker beside him (from the first video) becomes a screaming banshee!!

Lastly, all the children worked on some very special art for the school fundraiser that Mommy and Daddy could purchase (tee hee!)....here's Ben's ~ worth every penny!!!

Santa Baby!!

2011-12-24T23:38:00.002-05:00

Last week, Anna got to meet Santa! Of course, big brother Ben was there to show her the ropes :) We really weren't sure how Ben would act now that he's old enough to have a real opinion about sitting on a strange-looking stranger's lap! I had a feeling he'd do OK, though, given we had the following exchange earlier this month when we waved at the mall Santa as we passed by:

Me: Ben, that man you waved at is named Santa Claus. He brings you presents!! We're going to come back when Daddy's with us and sit on his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas.

Ben: **blank stare**

Me: You know, presents, like a puzzle, or books, or a school bus toy...

Ben: (leans forward in the stroller) "GET ME TO HIM!!"

Bahahahahaha!!!! How funny!! School buses are his favorite thing to see and talk about right now, so I knew that would be enticing!

So, we sat Anna on Santa's lap first in case Ben freaked out, we'd at least have a good picture of her. Here she is ~ Anna's first Christmas!

Ben did great, though, and seemed to have fun talking to Santa. Of course, he's been asked a million times, "What do you want Santa to bring you?" and he has consistently said the following:

1. a present (always the first response)
2. a pink present
3. elephant
4. tiger
5. a vitamin
6. alligator

We'll see how Santa does with that list ;)

And here they are together...so sweet!

Well, it's Christmas Eve and gifts are assembled and wrapped, and Santa's come to see us! Time for Mama and Daddy to (finally) go to bed and rest up for the big day tomorrow...I can't wait to see Ben's face in the morning since this year, he really "gets" the Santa thing! Merry Christmas and Good night!

Anna ~ 3 Months

2011-12-23T09:53:00.000-05:00

Our sweet little girl is three months old!! She is really becoming so much more "person"-like...smiling at us, even laughing sometimes :) She loves Mommy's ponytail when it bops around as I'm looking down while changing her diaper or clothes and just beams when I talk to her, even waking up from naps with huge grins!!

Anna has moved into size 3 Month clothes and is still in size 1 diapers. At night, she usually goes to bed around 9 or 9:30 and wakes up once during the night around 3-ish. Then it's up around 7 or 7:30 to start the day....but not for long, because she always wants to nap again around 8:30. A handful of times, she has slept all night (well, at least until 5 or 6:00), but as of now, that's the exception and not the rule. Maybe soon, though!!

Everywhere I go, everyone says what a SWEET baby she is...and it's really true. She's very content and hardly ever cries unless she's super hungry or tired. And then, just picking her up and holding her (and a paci, of course!) will comfort her.

Anna's listening to big brother Ben read her a story.

By this time in Ben's life, his eyes had started to show little flecks of brown and green that went on to increase until his eyes were completely hazel. Anna's are still quite blue, though, and are actually a bit lighter blue close to her pupil than they were at birth. Maybe she'll keep those gorgeous blue eyes she got from her daddy!!

November 2011

2011-12-15T12:14:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm a little behind on posting here lately, but we had a fun November and I wanted to post some pictures. Ben is still doing GREAT at school!! He adores his teacher Ms. Nita and runs into her class every time...so excited to be there!! I am so thankful he has a teacher that loves and cares for him so much :) Here's his very first "school picture"....I know he's got many more to go in the coming years, but it's going to be hard to top this one! I think they did a wonderful job, but of course, Mommy might be a little biased ;)

We attended our annual family reunion "Sumner/Caldwell" football weekend...it was Anna's first one! It was so cold, Anna, Ben, and Mommy stayed in the car for the picnic part. Thank goodness both kiddos were asleep. Then we went to the mall and strolled around while the older boys went to the game. It was great seeing family and everyone just loved meeting little Anna.

Go Heels!

Anna and Mommy both had colds this month. Again. Poor little baby has already had two in her life and she had started sleeping through the night a little, but then reverted back to her newborn ways waking up every few hours because she couldn't breathe. I even heard her sneeze herself awake once!

Ohhhhh, the leaves. And more leaves. Ben has had a great time this fall thanks to the leaves. Mark has not, ha ha!! He was so tired of blowing leaves by the time it was all done, I thought we might lose a tree or two!

Ben went to school to eat lunch for Chandler's birthday this year (at Chandler's request, too)! All the kids just go crazy over Ben and think he's so cute and fun. They want him to say their name or sit beside him and things like that, so Ben loves it, too.

Anna....starting to hold her head up a little!!!

Last but not least, we had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving. We ate at Grandmamma and Grandaddy's house this year. Ben wore his turkey headband from school, and we made place cards in the form of pilgrims and Indians (oh, and a turkey!) for everyone. It was hard to decide who was the biggest turkey in the family (ha!) but in the end, the honor went to Uncle Tom. After all, his name is "Tom"!!

Anna's Swanky Photoshoot

2011-12-13T22:17:00.000-05:00

I finally got the images from Anna's newborn session from the photographer, so here, three months later, are some of her at just four days old...it seems like just yesterday! Swanky5Studios took the pictures, and I just love ALL of them :)

~ Halloween 2011 ~

2011-11-12T21:23:00.001-05:00

This year Halloween was super fun because it was Ben's first "real" Halloween that he understood the concept of dressing up and getting candy. His first bag of loot came from school, where they had a candy parade though the church halls. He was to dress up as a Biblical character, so Mama made him a king costume from a bathrobe and (spray painted) Burger King crown ~ he loved it and was so proud!!

King Ben

Here he is at school with his friend Riley. His teacher says they are two peas-in-a-pod because they are the "talkers" in the class...ha ha!!

For the actual trick-or-treating on Halloween, Ben dressed up as a golfer. I really can't believe he wore the whole costume, including the hat, the whole time, but we kept saying how he was "just like Daddy", so I think he felt really cool :)

We had pictures made as part of a charity event, and both of them were super cute! Anna wasn't any particular costume....just a cutie pie!!

On Halloween night, we went to a friend's neighborhood to gather with all of Ben's little buddies.

Ben and Sophia

Anna in her Happy Halloween tutu and Candy Corn socks!

We might be mean parents, but after the night was over, we just hid Ben's candy bag and never mentioned it again....whew! We had our taste of sugar highs and crashes from the school candy and didn't want to repeat it! Ben has quite a big sweet tooth and once he got a taste of it, he constantly pestered us for candy for DAYS!!

Ben, Liam, Sophia, and Clara

Anna must have seen a ghost...ha ha!!

But then it was all smiles!! She did so great riding in the stroller, even though it was FREEZING outside!!

Fun times and great memories for our family!!

Anna ~ 2 Months

2011-11-11T22:25:00.002-05:00

Another month has flown by, and Anna's two months old. At her check-up this month, she weighed 10 pounds, 7 ounces ~ wow!! I'm thrilled because she's gained about an ounce per day since her last check-up and that's GREAT :) She's all grown out of size Newborn clothes and diapers!

Anna - Just over a month old

She still sleeps quite a bit, and we're not really on a schedule yet, but that will come soon, I'm sure. She does eat around 9:30 each night and has recently started sleeping from about 10:30 to at least 5 a.m. or later!! That is, until she got ANOTHER cold this week, and so has been waking up more frequently by sneezing herself awake, or being too stuffed up to breathe. I feel so sorry for her! I'd take the cold for her if I could, but I have it, too, ha ha!!

Anna got to meet her Great-Grandmother Brackett this month!

She also got to meet her cousin Hank - he was practicing for his new brother due in January. I'm not sure WHAT he thought of little Anna!

Besides sleeping and eating, what much else does a baby do? Not much! Anna did start cooing at us about a week or two ago, and it's absolutely adorable. She likes to say Ah-goo and Uga, uga :) I could listen to her perfect little voice all day long!

Fender's Farm

2011-11-08T20:37:00.001-05:00

It seems like just yesterday, we were taking little Ben to Fender's Farm LAST year...here we are again, and he's so big!! Mason and Chandler got to go with us this year, and it was so fun to see them all play together and have such fun.

Growing up...click here for the same pose from last year!! He's all the way up the the "3" now!!

Fun times on the bouncy jumper and go-cart track with Mason...

...and getting lost (literally - we had a moment of terror when Ben got lost once!) with Chandler.

Boy Stuff: finding bugs with Daddy, and feeding pigs...cool!

More fun on the playground!

Mama and Anna....this is usually what everyone sees of her (which I like because strangers aren't poking their fingers in her face since she's hidden!!)

Here she is!!

September

2011-11-07T20:37:00.000-05:00

Yes...September! I'm a bit behind blogging, but oh well. I'm used to it these days with a newborn and two-year old, ha ha!! We had a busy month, of course, with Anna's birth, but did a lot of fun stuff, too!

Ben had a ball at the Junior League's Touch-a-Truck event. His favorite truck was the fire truck...here he is sitting up there like a real fireman :)

He also really liked the "mail truck"...or, the UPS truck that he's seen come to our house a lot here lately.

Awww....taking his girlfriend Sophia for a little cruise ~ how cute!!

Continuing the "transportation" theme that's always popular with little boys, we also went to the airport to watch the airplanes. It turns out that the Tricities airport is NOT the most happening place, averaging ONE takeoff and ONE landing each hour. Ugh....I guess it was a little boring for Ben as we waited and he ended up scattering potting soil from a potted plant all over the floor when we weren't looking. Oops! Finally we saw some action, though, and he thought it was pretty cool.

The annual Dragonboat races were held at Winged Deer park, and Mark was on a team this year!! So, we went to cheer him on and had lots of fun on the inflatables and playground. Chandler and Ben couldn't get enough of this huge slide!

Anna was there to cheer Daddy on, too! I think she ended up sleeping through the whole thing, though, haha!!

Anna's First Month!!

2011-10-08T21:54:00.001-04:00

Anna, 1 1/2 weeks old

Well, we made it a whole month! Time has really, really flown by. Anna is a great baby ~ she has her moments, but ALL babies do! She really likes to sleep (except sometimes when Mommy's exhausted. Then it's time to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ;) and goes for stretches of 3-4 hours here lately. I'm still waking her up during the day to eat after three hours. At night, she usually wakes up on her own after 3 or 3 1/2, but is willing to go right back to sleep after eating, most of the time. I call that a GOOD NIGHT!! In the past week or so, she has been sleeping 4 or 5 hours at a time - whoo hoo!! Just like Ben was, though, she's a little night owl...Daddy has baby duty from 8 or 9:00 at night until 11 or 12 a.m. when she finally goes down for the night. If only she'd shift that schedule back a few hours...!!

~ 2 1/2 weeks old ~

Nursing is still going well. At her one month appointment, she weighed 8 lbs 7.9 ounces (25th percentile) and was 21 1/4" long (75th percentile). Yay, yay, yay ~ that means she's gained over an ounce a day since her last appointment, which is GREAT! She's still wearing newborn size clothes, but has just about outgrown newborn diapers.

* Kisses from Big Brother Ben *

Sweet times with Daddy...

...and Mama...

Anna also got her very first bath and absolutely LOVED it! Mark and I agreed that we're much better bath-givers now than we were with Ben (sorry buddy!). We had the bathroom all warmed up with the space heater, and had a neat washcloth-type thing you put in warm water then cover the baby with until you need to move it to wash them. I think she was nice and cozy...

We also learned a trick from the baby nurses at the hospital. When they gave her her first bath, they just washed her body, dried her off, then swaddled her with a bunch of blankets. Only then did they wash her hair. Why didn't we think of this before!?! That way, baby's all dry and warm and it's like getting your hair shampooed at the spa!! Ha ha!! She seemed to enjoy it :)

And my favorite moment of all...big, strong Daddy bathing his little girl with such tender love....makes my heart happy :)

We Are Fa-mi-ly!!

2011-10-03T21:27:00.000-04:00

With Baby Ben, everyone went back and forth...who does he look like? Mama? Daddy? Some of both?! Well, there's been no question with Baby Anna. Why? Because she looks Just. Like. BEN!!!! Now that she's a month old, she's changed a little and starting to look like her own person, but in the hospital, she could have been mistaken for Ben's twin! Check out the pictures of them ~ in all of these, Ben is on the left, and Anna is on the right...

Priceless?

2011-09-25T14:59:00.002-04:00

Number of times Ben has peed during a diaper change in 2 years: 2, maybe 3

Number of times Anna has peed and/or poo'd during a diaper change in 2 weeks: at LEAST 7 or 8!!

My goodness...I thought that was supposed to be a "boy" thing!! We've had several good laughs lately, and this has been the source of a few. Most times it happens to me, but last night Mark was the victim and WHOA, did it catch him off guard. He acted like he'd been shot, and I couldn't stand up straight I was laughing so hard!! Meanwhile, Ben's so confused (why is Mommy laughing? Will she laugh if I do that??) and perplexed, plus pretty interested in this whole pee/poop thing due to recent attempts to begin potty training ~ that is a whole different source of entertainment. If you could see him checking this whole diaper changing business out, you'd see what I mean! :)

Anna ~ her second week

Speaking of diapers, Mark thought it would be amusing to put one of Anna's diapers on Ben the other day. Newborn sized - they say "up to 10 lbs". Well, Ben weighs 28 pounds and that little bitty diaper looked like a Speedo on him!!

Anna's diaper vs. Ben's diaper

Another funny...probably overly funny in my mind due to sleep deprivation, but hey ~ I enjoyed a good belly laugh all the same. Last night, Mark and Ben were playing in Ben's room and he comes bounding in our room holding his "Ben-sized" stuffed Elmo....and Elmo is actually wearing a pair of Ben's pyjamas! I don't know why that struck me so funny. Unexpected, maybe? Anyway, Elmo is still wearing the PJs today and I've had several more giggles when I've seen him out of the corner of my eye!

What's Ben Been Doing?

2011-09-21T13:03:00.000-04:00

With all the excitement over new baby Anna, you might think Ben could be feeling a bit left out. Well, fear not - this boy has had an action-packed few weeks for sure!!

He's been eating donuts at the farmer's market...

...snoozing with Daddy on Saturday mornings :)

Riding his new tricycle (he's not really into the pedaling thing yet, though...just being pushed!)

Having a ball at big brother's soccer games...even wearing a cool Manchester U. jersey!!

Playing golf with Daddy...

...and his MOST favorite activity of the summer...going to the POOL!

Bringing Baby Home...

2011-09-19T21:27:00.000-04:00

Goodness, time is just FLYING by with little Anna!! So much has happened in her little baby world ~ here's what we've been up to for the past two weeks!

We brought Anna home two days after she was born...here we are ready to leave the hospital!

We had a little bit of trouble with the carseat, even though it's the same one we used for Ben. Anna and Ben were close to the same size, but it seemed like we couldn't get the seat to go small enough for petite little Anna! Mark and the nurse worked on it for a while and we finally felt good about keeping her safe for that 5 minute drive home :)

First ride in the car!!

She had a tiny, tiny bit of jaundice ~ so little that the doctors didn't even require any follow-up. So, we tried to get her a lot of sunshine the first few days. Turns out that's hard when you've got them bundled up keeping warm!! Here she is looking very Elvis-like with her shirt open to let some skin show, sitting by the window...

Out on her first stroller ride! I was itching to get outside and enjoy this "cooler" weather we've been having. She did GREAT riding in the stroller, and even slept better that night. Of course, I took her for a stroller ride the exact same time the next day, hoping for another good night....no such luck, ha ha!!

Anna's big brothers think she's pretty neat. I love this picture - it's the first time Ben got to hold his sister. We'd been keeping them separate as much as possible because Ben had a 102° fever the night before we brought Anna home (YIKES!), but fortunately, that was the worst of it. So, I think he was pretty excited...so sweet!!

Anna's first visit to the doctor ~ Granddaddy Raoul!

Our sleeping beauty :)

Anna's Birthday

2011-09-14T21:02:00.000-04:00

So, Anna's really here...I can't believe how fast it all happened! One day, I'm at my 39 week appointment (38 weeks and 6 days actually), and the next minute, I'm crying all the way home because the doctor has told me they want to induce tomorrow!! Mama's not ready!! Of course, I couldn't wait to meet my sweet baby girl, but I was not prepared at all mentally (nor was my to-do list in good shape yet, ha!!). But, it was in baby's best interest...several weeks ago, my belly started measuring small so they did an ultrasound and estimated she weighed 6 lb 4 oz. So, at that last appointment when another ultrasound indicated she weighed the same as she did 2 weeks ago, the doctor thought since we were so close to the due date, it didn't make sense to wait any longer.

In the end, though, it all ended up working out wonderfully. Just like with Ben's birth, we really couldn't have asked for a more perfect experience, and for that we are so very thankful :) Here's how the day went....

Friday, 9/2/11: We arrived at Franklin Woods Hospital at 6:20 and unpacked our bags in room 1412. I filled out all the paperwork and got "hooked up" to the IV and baby monitor.

7:30 - Nurse Cindy starts the pitocin drip
8:30 - Dr. Bevins says I'm 3 cm and 50% effaced, so it's time to break my water!
10:30 - Mom and Ernest arrive for the big event :)
11:30 - Nurse anethesist comes to do the epidural (I didn't want to get stuck waiting over 2 hours like last time!),

and we wait, wait, wait....

Passing time on the laptop while the meds start to work!

Finally at 2:15 Nurse Cindy says we're at 5 cm, then just 30 minutes later, at 8 cm. Daddy immediately starts running around the room getting everything ready!! I think that's when he put his game face on, ha!

At 3:25 it was time to push, and Baby Anna was born just perfect at 3:39 p.m!

Here she is, just minutes old!!

7 lb 5 oz...boy were they wrong about that "not growing in the past two weeks" bit!! (Praise God!)

~ Mama, Daddy and Baby Anna ~

Proud Daddy (Anna, when you read this one day, I want you to know your dad couldn't stop saying how beautiful you were!!!)

Proud Big Brothers, too!!!

Beautiful Baby Anna

2011-09-05T17:06:00.000-04:00

Just a quick picture (or four, ha!) from the hospital nursery of our little girl...Mark and I just can't stop looking at her and saying how gorgeous she is! (Proud parents, huh?!)

She's Here!

2011-09-03T10:37:00.000-04:00

~ Susanah Julia Williams ~

September 2, 2011

3:39 p.m.

7 lb 5 oz!

Anna & Co. ~ 32 Weeks

2011-08-15T14:46:00.000-04:00

Last month (in the sweltering heat!) we had maternity pictures made for little Anna. These were done by Swanky 5 Studios and I just love them! They're also going to do Anna's newborn pictures and I can't wait because they always seem to do something unique :)

Ben Goes to School!

2011-08-11T21:46:00.000-04:00

We're so proud of Ben! His first day of preschool went GREAT!! Daddy took him and he was a happy camper thanks to a special treat of Apple Jacks for the morning snack. He told Daddy, "Bye bye" and his teacher Mrs. Juanita said he didn't shed a tear ALL DAY! What a relief that was for Mama :)

We've been "practicing" for preschool (i.e. being away from Mama, Daddy or Grandmama for a little bit) by way of the church nursery, and honestly it wasn't going well at all. So, I was glued to my phone just waiting for "the call" to come get him due to excessive crying. Well, that didn't happen ~ WHEW! I was so anxious for him, I even dreamed about it the night before and had a belly ache when I woke up, ha ha ha!!!

My sweet little baby, all grown up....*sniff sniff*....

Stillllll Partying!

2011-08-06T23:02:00.008-04:00

I was thinking that being two years old calls for two posts with the birthday festivities :) So, here are a few pictures from when we celebrated at home.

First thing on the day of his birthday: "Why are you singing 'Happy Birthday', Mommy?" (I think I'll take one of these every year...Click here to see him back on his first birthday!)

Somebody's excited about Elmo cupcakes!!

This was Ben's reaction when we tried to get him to put down the ball and bat to open the next gift...ha ha ha!!!

Can't wait to blow the candles out (again!!)

Playing with the Pirate Ship water table we got him - splashing Mommy and Daddy seems to be the best part!!

Ben with Great Grandmother Nana...

Giving big brother Mason some spanks with the help of Uncle Tom!

Our Happy Little Fella!!

Anna's 3D Ultrasound

2011-08-05T22:49:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, we excitedly went in for Anna's 3D/4D ultrasound. I was SO hoping she'd be more cooperative than Ben was for his (remember he kept his arm over his face almost the entire time, or turned toward my back!). Wellllllll......believe it or not, she was actually WORSE! Boy, did I think the pictures from Ben's ultasound were "iffy"...wait 'til you see these, ha!! That's OK, though...we did get one or two good looks at her face from the side or top, and I thought she really looked like Ben in the womb!!

The ultrasound tech said we had a few things working against us...one was that she had her face pressed really hard up against me - so that made a lot of her face pics look distorted, especially her nose. Her nose and mouth also looked strange in a lot of the images because the umbilical cord was right over them. Apparently, they can "look through" parts like the cord sometimes, but it might look odd (which it did). Also, since she was so pressed up against me, there wasn't much amniotic fluid,which is a must to get a good ultrasound pictures. Maybe the waves have to have that to go through to make a good image? Oh well...given those things, maybe we didn't do so badly after all!

We did get to see her moving around in general, which was amazing, of course. At one point, we saw her open and close her mouth so clearly, and another time, we could see little fingers in front of her face! Here are some pictures....

This one is of her face slightly from the side (the brown picture) and the 2D black and white picture is her profile.

Here's her face again, looking down with her hand over part of it - you can tell the hand by all the fingers showing. It was so neat to watch her waving those sweet little hands around!

Another face and hand picture, but I especially loved this one because it looks like she's sleepy, rubbing her eyes. Check out those FAT CHEEKS!!

And, finally, we made SURE to verify for the third time that she was "still" a she...IT'S (still) A GIRL!! :)

Shootin' Hoops

2011-07-31T10:36:00.000-04:00

Here's Ben playing with the basketball goal he got for his birthday - I think he likes it!!

Look Who's Two!

2011-07-25T21:35:00.001-04:00

Two and Terrific!! :) Ben's just cute as a button (sorry about his braggy mommy, ha ha!) and his Elmo Party just fit him to a tee! We invited about five friends and went to the pool to have cupcakes and go swimming.

Check him out swinging on a BIG BOY swing! I think that was the first time he'd done that!

The theme of his party was Elmo. Although he's not into TV in general, much less Sesame Street, he does seem to be interested in Elmo and has a few books and stuffed Elmos that he likes to play with.

We had cupcakes (with Elmo's face on them, of course!), fruit, goldfish (Elmo's pet is a goldfish, ha ha!), and "Elmo Oreos" ~ it wouldn't be a celebration without Ben's favorite food, you know ;) The swirly lollipops are favors that said "Thanks for coming!"

Lighting the candle for the birthday boy!! We practiced the night before and he LOVES blowing candles out, asking, "More Candle"!

Ben's friends Sophia, Clara, Liam, Ensley, and Addison were there...

...and also Mimi & Pop, Grandmama & Grandaddy, and Great-grandfather Pawpaw & Ms. Alice (all the way from Gastonia!)

He had a ball opening presents (here he is wearing his new Baby Banz sunglasses he got!), but it was a little hard for him not to play with what he had just opened...I can understand that!! :).

Sliding on the playground with Chandler...

And last, but not least, (thanks to the Oreos ) looking more like Cookie Monster than Elmo ~ Ben and Mama :)

Anna ~ 32 Weeks

2011-07-22T23:42:00.001-04:00

These days, little Anna is stilllll kicking a LOT. I just read that this week is the peak of her movements and from now on she'll move less and less because she'll be getting cramped in there! She is turned head down now, and should weigh about 4 pounds. Mama is feeling a lot better, maybe because I started taking probiotics and iron supplements. I try to remember to take a Tums every night before bed because I've started getting bad leg cramps in the middle of the night like last time. The doctor told me that Tums would help even more than eating bananas! I'm also trying to stay out of the pool (anything to avoid more Cryptosporidium!), but it's hard with Ben...he keeps saying, "Mama in! Mama in!"

Anna's room is finally coming together! I found curtains,

fabrics, paint colors, a cute storage bench...

I only need to get a crib (trying to narrow it down between two choices), dresser and chair. They're not washed yet, but I did put all her clothes on hangers and organized them by size to get a better idea of what else we might need.

At my 32 week doctor visit today, everything looked great as it always has so far - Praise God for that! :) My feet are starting to swell a little some days, but other than that, I'm so blessed to have had a GREAT couple of weeks here lately! Here's the latest belly shot progression...we missed a few weeks in between 20 and 28, but we'll try to make up for it in the next few weeks!

Edisto Part 2

2011-07-22T09:44:00.000-04:00

More beach pictures! Hopefully they're not boring, being so many, but I sure do think they're cute :) Case in point: Ben's "smile" for the camera...

Looking cute at a shrimp boil we went to one night:

Mark and Ben ~ I do think Ben's got his daddy's feet :)

Mama and Ben (and Anna!)

This one's alive!! Ben liked finding these and would say "CRAB!"

More naps - this time with Daddy.

Ben's absolute favorite thing to do is play with water in any way...here he is with Grandaddy.

The whole gang (except Grandmama and Grandaddy, who were taking the pictures and getting Ben to smile!)

Edisto 2011

2011-07-20T21:33:00.000-04:00

This year, we tried out a new beach for our summer vacation. We went to Edisto Beach, SC with the whole family, and Grandmama and Grandaddy! Ben was LOVING all the family time, of course. We had a great time just relaxing on the beach, as that is really just about all there is to do there, ha!!

One thing we thought was really cool was that there were SO many dolphins! You could look out at almost any time and after a minute, see several swimming in front of you. Fun! Ben was a little hesitant about the sand and water at first, saying, "UH OH!" about his feet being sandy. We laughed and laughed and just told him he's going to be sandy for the next week or so!!

He got used to it pretty quickly, thank goodness. I guess he still didn't like it, though, because at least once a day he'd ask me to go "home"...one day he even asked me a few times for "home" and "bath" ~ ha ha!!

There were so many great pictures from our trip, I couldn't decide, so I'm going to make two posts from them all....here are the first few.

Ben eating his favorite food, Oreos.

Finally getting used to being sandy!

Fishing with brother Chandler...

and Mason!

I'm so cute!!!

Fun times splashing Daddy :)

Napping on Mama's lap at the beach (Love Mason's action shot eating lunch in the background!)

"Otter Island" (no, there were no actual otters..ha ha)

Allllllmost Two!

2011-07-06T21:39:00.000-04:00

Only a week and a half until my baby is TWO! Here are a few pictures of him lately that make me smile :)

Ben's favorite pair of shoes are his boots. He has yet to wear them in actual rain, but wants to put them on all the time! The cowboy hat is fun, too, but a bit too small....ha!

Still wearing his rain boots....a favorite outside activity lately is to play with the water hose. At first he wasn't strong enough to pull the handle, but he quickly figured out a way! He's pretty good about not squirting water in the garage when we tell him not to, but it is everywhere else! That little booger has actually squirted both of us with water in the face a time or two as we were coming over....REAL funny as long as you're not the one getting wet!

Ben also had his first visit to the dentist last month. He's got all his baby teeth in except for three molars. Dr. Bowers was really great with him, even though he absolutely did NOT want to open up - not even just for a look! I guess we'll attempt a cleaning next time :)

Ben and Bunny. Bunny's presence is requested/required at every nap and night-night time. He's already getting a little worn and dirty, but thank goodness, they sell more "Bunnies" on Amazon. I've got the page bookmarked in case Bunny #1 goes missing!!

Some highlights for "What's New?" with Ben...

He's very loving lately, giving us lots of kisses and wanting to snuggle. This makes my day!! Sometimes he comes up and says, "I love you, Mama" totally unsolicited! When I'm rocking him for a nap, he'll often reach up and touch my face and say I love you....

Ben asks for "appy jacks" and Oreos all the time...at dinner every night, even though we NEVER have them for a meal, ha! He also asks for eggs a lot, and likes them with ketchup. (He must have gotten this from his Dad!!)

Favorite Books: Yummy, Yucky and I Spy

Funny sayings: “Mama Eat It!” when I'm trying to feed him something he doesn't want, and "Baby Aunt Anne" is what he calls Baby Anna because I taught him Aunt Anne's name right before we told him about Anna, and the two just run together, I guess!

Mr. Smarty Pants knows how to open childproof bottles and unlock deadbolted doors (yikes!) and can count to 20 and knows all his ABC's by name and in song!

Ben and big brother Chandler playing with dandelions and blow pops at Mason's baseball game:

Jonesborough Days

2011-07-02T23:01:00.000-04:00

Today, Ben and I had a great time at "Jonesborough Days". We'd never been this local festival before, so decided to brave the 90° heat to check it out. It was VERY hot and tiring (Mama had to rest for FOUR HOURS when we got home, ha ha!!) but turned out to be all worth it....check out the video of Ben on the train ride!! He loved it!

Here he is watching the parade. He really liked the firetrucks...

Major refreshments were in order to survive this heat!

Ringing the bell on the choo choo :) (AND, riding all by himself, too! I couldn't believe what a big boy he was being. He only tried to stand up once or twice before we got moving...thank goodness for the seatbelt!)

What a smile!!! It makes my heart sing :)

Here's a video of Ben's first train ride!!

28 Weeks and On the Mend

2011-06-18T22:44:00.000-04:00

Well, today Little Anna is 28 weeks along. That means that she weighs over 2 pounds and is almost 15 inches long! She can now blink her eyes and is putting on fat in preparation for life in the outside world.

So, we have two things to celebrate at 28 weeks: we're now in the third trimester, and am officially off bedrest! Whoo hoo! The bedrest was just for a week, but boy did I feel like I wasn't getting a THING accomplished! Here's what happened last week...

A week and half ago, I had terrible flu-like symptoms, so I left work headed for the OB's office. They checked me out and said it was probably just a virus and to come back in two days if I didn't feel better. But, by dinnertime, I was so miserable, I called the on-call doctor and he advised me to come in based on my symptoms.

So, Mark took me to the Franklin Woods Hospital ER where they immediately took me back since I had talked to Dr. Hallman earlier (yay! No waiting ~ whew!). It was evident I was dehydrated, so they hooked me up to an IV and started doing tests...white blood counts, cell type counts, vitamin levels, temperature, lots of baby monitoring, flu swabs, etc. My blood counts came back slightly elevated indicating some infection, but they just weren't sure.

So, I stayed the night. The flu test came back negative. Then finally a culture came back showing an odd protozoa called Cryptosporidium.

"Crypto"sporidium...is that like "Crypto"nite? It sure felt like it could take Superman down!!

Apparently I had picked this up either in the pool at the beach the week before or in Boone Lake that Sunday. It was odd, though, that I really only dipped in waist-deep both places, and no one else that was with me was sick. So, apparently I just became sick because I was pregnant and the immune system is a little down in pregnancy.

Finally after 3 nights in the hospital, hooked to an IV for rehydration the whole time, my symptoms went away and I started to feel better and be able to eat again. Thank goodness they did put me on bedrest (therefore out of work) for a week, though, because I've never been so weak in my life! Thank goodness for Mark, because I have no clue how I would have handled little firecracker Ben in that state. Fortunately, I was able to rest and each day got a lot better. My checkup yesterday with the doctor went well, baby looked great, and so now we're on our way back to normal ~ whew!!

In baby news, Anna is kicking a LOT these days! She really gets active when something tightens on my stomach, like tight pants or the monitor they use to check her heartbeat. Last week, I felt her get the hiccups for the first time! Coming up: in two weeks, it's time already for the 3D/4D ultrasound! We're so excited and totally curious to see if she resembles Ben in utero or not....we should have some neat pictures and maybe even a video from that!!!

I've really been thinking hard about her nursery lately. I have two totally different ideas of "looks" for the room, and am having a hard time either picking one, or trying to incorporate little bits of both into a coordinated third idea room....either way, I better get going SOON ~ only 12 more weeks until we meet our baby girl!! :)

Briarwood Safari 2011

2011-06-17T22:49:00.000-04:00

Our most recent adventure (besides being locked in the car, ha!!) was to the Briarwood Safari. It's about an hour from Johnson City out in the middle of nowhere...but absolutely FULL of really cool animals just roaming around for you to see! You drive through in your car "Jurassic Park" style and can feed them. This, of course, attacts them to your vehicle so you can get a closer look.

So, we bought 7 buckets of feed, and we were off into the safari. The first animals that you come to are the emus...or, as we called them: Veloceraptors. They were JUST LIKE the ones in Jurassic Park that stalked the car the whole way through!! It was a little scary at first - we had our windows TOO far down, because they just about climbed in the car with us ~ yikes! They were really after that food, and we got a huge laugh at how jumpy we were over a bunch of birds pecking at those buckets.

Mason and Chandler had a ball feeding the animals. Ben was interested for a few minutes, but mostly just enjoyed "driving"...as you recall, his MOST favorite thing to do :)

There were some REALLY big animals there like buffalos and zebras, water buffalo, etc..so we mostly just fed them by hanging out the sunroof. That way, they weren't in our face, slobbering in the car. Thank goodness, because some of them were pretty disgusting up close. Mark had a nice concoction of chewed up food pellets and buffalo slobber nicely smeared on his window by the buffalo's crusty beard...Mmmmm!

Mason had fun playing with the "Zorse" (cross between a zebra and a horse), and here's Chandler up close and personal with some kind of llama or something. We all really like the deer...they were gentle and you could feed them out of your window. Ben even kept saying, "Bye bye deer!"

25 Weeks

2011-05-28T22:09:00.000-04:00

Wow! Only 15 more weeks to go...This little baby feels like she's "cooking" a lot faster than Ben did, ha!! Lately, she's been kicking a TON, making my belly bounce and jiggle all around :) I had another doctor's visit this week to take the awful Glucose Tolerance test - thankfully, I passed it just fine so I won't have to drink that terrible stuff anymore. I did test a little low for hemoglobin, so need to start taking an iron supplement.

I was looking to see if I had any ultrasound pictures I hadn't posted yet, because I"m not really in the mood to post another belly shot right now, LOL!!! I didn't have any, but did realize I hadn't posted this of when we announced that we were having a baby (and didn't yet know the gender!!)

I made this little sign to go with the pink and blue cupcakes I took to work that day (and, of course, sent some to work with Mark, too!). It was SO cute, because just about everyone came by my cubicle that day to let me know that they were going to eat a PINK cupcake for me!! Ha, ha!! I think by sheer force, our coworkers and friends willed us a girl!!

Since she did end up being a girl, we already had a name picked out for the most part. We had picked it the first pregnancy before we knew what we were having. Since I was just about worn out the first time around with so, so, so many questions about "What are you going to name him?"....I was ready to get it out there what this little girl's name was going to be!!

On Mother's Day, we had brunch with Mark's mom Susanah and his stepdad Raoul, and announced then that we would be naming her ~ Susanah Julia Williams ~ and calling her "Anna". We just love the name Anna and were honored to name her after Mark's mom, and since I'm the fifth generation of "Julias" in my mom's family, we though it would be great to carry on that tradition and have Anna be the sixth generation to have that name :)

We can't wait to meet you, Miss Anna!!

Ben's First Easter Egg Hunt!

2011-05-23T11:02:00.000-04:00

This year was the first year Ben could understand some of the whole Easter thing, so we were all excited about his very first Easter Egg Hunt! We spent a beautiful Easter afternoon at Grandmama's and Grandaddy's house, eating brunch and dyeing eggs (well, Mason and Chandler made some GREAT eggs; Ben would have made a GREAT BIG mess!!)

Then is was finally time for the hunt!!

Mama and Ben had "practiced" a little bit in our yard that weekend, just to make sure he knew the drill and he had a ball, so we knew this would be fun :)

The whole gang....

Ben with Mama....

...& Dada

...and big brothers "May May" and "Bo Bo" (Mason and Chandler's self-chosen nicknames!!)

My Lil' Monkey Goes to the Zoo

2011-05-20T11:13:00.000-04:00

Last month, we took Ben on his first trip to a zoo! We went on a gorgeous Saturday to the Knoxville Zoo and had a fabulous day :) Lately, he's been a little anti-stroller, so I was worried about that, but really, at his age...it was going to be stroller or nothing at a place like the zoo. Fortunately, he did GREAT.

First stop: the penguins. Some of the animals were a little difficult to see from a stroller, but these little guys were right on Ben's level ~ he loved them!

Here's his cute little safety tattoo...I thought he'd hate it since he's not into Band-Aids these days, but Mark and I talked it up about being cool, and he didn't mind it a bit!

Next stop after the penguins was the camels. These guys were fenced in, but you could pet them as they stuck their heads over the fence, and even pay to ride on them!!

I think the Merry-Go-Round was one of Ben's favorite things...he was such a big boy riding it!!

The Knoxville Zoo has a wonderful, entire area just for little children. We spent a lot of time here on the slides, Merry-Go-Round, and petting zoo...here's Ben brushing a goat!

We also got to see monkeys, elephants, lots of snakes, giraffes, really cute meerkats, and of course, lions and tigers.

Whew! As soon as we headed for the car, Little Man was OUT! What a big, fun day for us all :)

Our Excitement for the Day

2011-05-15T21:03:00.000-04:00

I may have mentioned it in an earlier post, but Ben's MOST favorite thing to do lately is to "drive". He is just crazy about simply sitting in the parked car (ignition off, of course) and pushing all the buttons and opening/closing the garage door a hundred times. (All I can think of is "Wonder how much sooner we're going to have to buy a new garage door motor because of this??"). He will even ask for the keys and say, "Bye bye"...as in..."Close the door and let me drive by myself"..ha!!

So, we typically let him do all this while we're outside doing other stuff, and be SURE to open at least one other door and/or window since he has the keys in there. Welllll.....even the best plans go awry once in a while.

Yes, Ben got locked in the car today :( Poor little thing thought it was funny for about 10 minutes, and then bawled for the next 20 minutes until Pop-A-Lock got there. You see, we only have one set of keys to my car. That little booger somehow managed to hold onto the keys, open the driver door, hit the lock button on it, close it, then climb in the back driver door that I had opened so this exact thing wouldn't happen, and close it - while I was unloading our bags just from the garage to the dining room (not far!) from our trip to Gastonia this weekend.

Well...lesson learned (by me, not him - he wanted to drive again less than an hour later!!!)....1). no more driving with the keys, even with other doors open. And 2). Call Pop-A-Lock if it even happens again. They were there in 20 minutes and it's FREE if a child is locked inside the car, LOL!!!

My poor baby...he was fine until I put him down to capture the moment for all eternity ;)

Two Months Away from TWO!

2011-05-13T22:40:00.000-04:00

Twenty-two months old...Wow! Ben was just turning one yesterday, it seems! Little Man is growing and changing so much lately, and it's SO cute :) He is really into copying us these days. You never know what will come out of his mouth after it comes out of yours, ha ha!! He also likes getting a laugh out of you, and knows that saying, "OH, Baby Bobo!" will do it (don't know where he came up with that?) so he hams it up for us often.

Here we are watching Baby Einstein on the computer ~ love that snuggling!

This is his "smile" when he's getting his picture taken...

A week or so ago, Ben had another little bug, and wasn't quite feeling himself :(

Daddy and Ben on the blowups at Rita's for the First Day of Spring! celebration

Trying on Daddy's shoes for size!!

Fun times at Wallabies at one of his first "real" birthday parties he attended.

21 Weeks and Counting ~ Over Halfway!

2011-05-09T19:30:00.000-04:00

Last week, went to see Dr. Hallman for our next appointment, which came at 21 weeks. He measured my belly and listened to her heartbeat and all was well with the baby :) It was a pretty uneventful visit, thank goodness! At 21 weeks, Baby Girl is now about 11 inches long and weighs just under a pound. From the looks of my belly, she sure does seem bigger than that, ha ha!!! Here's the progression starting at 10 weeks....

I'm pretty puzzled as to why 14 weeks and 20 weeks look almost the same ~ I think I was suffering from some serious bloating! Whew...glad that's gone (for the moment ;) !!

Bathtime for Bonzo!

2011-04-20T21:35:00.004-04:00

I don't know why, but Mark used to say that a lot when Ben was smaller and it was bathtime, and it always made me laugh. Well, Little Man was certainly due for a BIG bath after this episode at dinner Monday night!! And LAUGH, we did :)

You’re Not Going to Believe This, but…

2011-04-10T19:07:00.013-04:00

It’s A Girl!!!

I’m still getting over the shock, as I had honestly just assumed all along that it would be a boy. I was very content knowing Ben would have a brother so close to his own age to grow up with, and then WHOA! A girl?! I don’t think it has really sunk in yet, but I am excited!!!

We really weren’t supposed to go for our Anatomy Scan for another week, but my friend April and I were talking about how we were dying to know the gender so I could shop for the baby at fun consignment sale this week. Well, one thing led to another, and before you know it, April’s friend (an ultrasound technician) at her OB office was “sneaking” us in to “take a peek”!! So here we go at lunch one day (so the doctors would be gone!)…I first stopped at Panera to get her friend some lunch, then waited for April to get there, too.

First text from April: “Try not to look pregnant” Whoops. Of ALL days, that was the day I wore the big ol’ comfy tent-like, empire waisted shirt that just screams~~MaTeRnItY!!~~. Ha! So, despite the fact that it was 75°, I grabbed my coat and held it in front of me the whole time.

Second text from April: “Tell Mark to come sit in the lobby 2 minutes after we go in” More laughs….I think we’re on an episode of Mission: Impossible!

April brings a cute 31 brand bag and I bring Panera, so as to look like we’re bringing her friend lunch and her party order. They buzz us on back and we act like we’re socializing until the coast is clear. Well, we really were socializing – fun girl-talk about Jake Gyllenhaal, TV shows, pets, husbands, where to get the best pictures taken of our children, etc…SO, when the ultrasound room cleared out, in we go.

While I’m getting ready, April goes out to the lobby and waves Mark in very suspiciously – ha ha ha!!! So here we all are, and as soon as the ultrasound shows the baby, Mark says, “I think I see it” – meaning the “turtle” like the one we saw on Ben’s ultrasound. So, she wiggles the baby around a little more, and then says…..”Nope!” “It’s a girl?” we ask….***insert April going nuts with excitement*** YES, it’s a GIRL!!

Wow! I was pretty much speechless. Mark said he knew all along – and in fact, he had worn his pink tie that day for the occasion :)

Here are the pics we got!!! You can see the gender in this one…three little lines = Girl!

Here she is opening her mouth...she did that several times!

Ahhhh....

2011-03-29T12:53:00.006-04:00

....I think the fog is lifting!! I can actually stay up past 8:30 at night now!! The entire past few months have been pretty rough ~ extreme exhaustion, colds, stomach bugs, you name it...I had it. I honestly never thought I'd be up for more than an hour after Ben went to bed ever! But, it seems like things have turned a corner :) I'm finally sickness-free (thank you, God!) and have a little bit of energy in the evenings and it's so nice for a change! Last week, I had a week-long bought with morning sickness (the kind that comes and goes all day) that was a bit unexpected since at 16 weeks, I'm in the second trimester. Today and yesterday have been a little better (I even felt the baby move for the first time today!!), and I'm really hoping that nausea will be a thing of the past VERY soon.

Since I never once felt sick while pregnant with Ben, Mark and I are wondering if this little one might be a girl?? Everytime I ask Mark what he wants it to be, he gives me a different answer (very funny). So I don't know about him, but for me, I can honestly say it really doesn't matter. I can see great sides to both possibilities! Of course, I want more than anything for the baby to be 100% healthy with no complications. We won't have to wait long to find out what we're having, though ~ our next appointment will be the "big" ultrasound in only two weeks!! Yay!

Another Real Baby!!!

2011-03-24T22:11:00.000-04:00

Wow! We just had our NT scan done again, and this is the first time we've seen any evidence of a "real baby" in there...we saw legs, arms, and hands flying everywhere! It was amazing to see our little baby in there, looking like a tiny person :)

And an answered prayer ~ the test came back fine. The baby was MUCH more cooperative than Ben was for his test, and they were able to measure the back of the neck several times really well, and the number was great. They also saw a nasal bone, which is a very good sign of a healthy baby. The heartbeat was 152 bpm and the baby was 5.8 cm long (not including the legs!). Already growing so fast!! Here are some pictures...

10 Weeks Along

2011-03-24T22:10:00.000-04:00

Hi Little Baby! This weekend, we reached 10 weeks ~ you’re now an fetus instead of an embryo! Lately, you’ve been making Mama very tired, hungry, and giving me lots of stomach pains. I haven’t felt you move yet, but probably will in the next few weeks! This weekend, we heard your heartbeat twice with a home fetal Doppler machine. I’m so excited to be able to hear it this early!! The first time, we heard it right away, but after that, it was a little tricky to find again. You should have seen the smile on Daddy’s face when we heard it, though!!

I can’t believe you’re only 1.2 inches at this point. So tiny, but I know you’ll grow fast. We have been giving thanks and praying for you every day, Little One. Can’t wait to meet you…Love, Mama

Big as a Blueberry

2011-03-24T22:09:00.000-04:00

January 3, 2011
Today I went to the OB to have bloodwork done to confirm the pregnancy. It was VERY uneventful....just waiting now until January 26 to go back to see the heartbeat!!

January 26, 2011
Well, today was a big day!! My follow-up appointment to see a doctor about my bloodwork and to get an ultrasound was today. I tried not to think about it too much by keeping busy with other things, but yesterday I got so anxious about whether or not the baby would be OK (i.e. Would we see a heartbeat?), I could hardly stand it. I even called and got my appointment moved from 4:00 to earlier in the day 11:00.

Thank goodness everything was just fine. God sure is good to me. The baby had a heartbeat of 136 and measured 1.1 cm...about the size of a blueberry! They estimated me to be about 7 weeks and 4 days along, making our due date (GET THIS...)

9 - 10 -11 !

How cool is that!??

I'm not sure why (maybe the size of the baby is still so small?) but it was very hard to see him/her. Here are the ultrasound pics we got, though...the baby is laying in the bottom of the black "bubble".

Afterwards, Mark and I stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-A to celebrate ~ what a wonderful day!

Shhhh! happy new year's

2011-03-24T22:08:00.000-04:00

December 31, 2010

Today we found out we're so blessed to be expecting another baby! We had no big plans for New Year's Eve this year except to just eat take-out, drink champagne and enjoy some yummy chocolate-covered strawberries. So when I was out picking up dinner, I made sure to pick up some sparkling cider for me, too!

We decided to ring in the new year at 10:00 rather than midnight because honestly, a good night's sleep was more appealing than watching the ball drop on TV! So, I waited until Mark popped the bubbly and then gave him the good news :) He really couldn't believe it and was so incredibly happy ~ and surprised!!

I think that was my best New Year's Eve EVER!

Unfortunately, we won't be telling anyone for a while....I'm not even 4 weeks along yet!!

My Baby is Growing Up!

2011-03-22T21:15:00.005-04:00

Oh, Ben...you're looking and acting like SUCH a big boy these days!! Mama's no longer rocking you to sleep (just standing by your crib until you lay down :), and Daddy and I are amazed at all the cute new things you're saying every day! Just today, you had your first "real" phone conversation....this morning, I talked to you on the phone and you said Hello, I love you Mama, and Bye Bye!! The wheels are turning in your head, my smart little boy, and it's so fun to watch you grow each day!

Speaking of growing, here's Ben at 19 months ~ wow!

19 Months in the Making!

2011-03-07T22:20:00.001-05:00

Well, Ben's had an eventful past couple of months. He went for his 18 month check-up in January and got that last set of shots until he's almost school age ~ whoo hoo! He was still in the 75% for height at 33 inches and up to the 30% in weight at 24.5 pounds.

He's saying so many new words every day - it's so fun to hear! Some here lately have been apple, ball, bowl, orange, downstairs, upstairs, more, No, Yes, sock, Mimi, Bop ("Pop"), ice (that's a favorite!), berry, baby, Ben (sounds like "men"), mommy (still calls me Mama 99% of the time) , and please. He can also put them together in little short sentences, and has said bye bye dada, bye bye mama, bye bye bubba, hello dada, I la la dada, let's go!, and more please. He even made a sentence in sign language the other day by signing "more" then "bath"...it was the cutest thing EVER (as he's sitting in the empty bathtub that all the water has drained out)!!!

Ben had a fun time at Grandmama's for the Superbowl. We made a game board where you put your initials in a block and you win if that block has the score for the end of any of the quarters in the game. He enjoyed picking his own squares, and ended up beating all of us because he had the winning score for two different quarters - that means he won $10!! Ha!!

Here we are on a warm January day playing on the neighbor's cool tree swing.

So what else is new? Lately Ben likes carrying around a pair of his old cotton pajamas, or one of my soft pajama t-shirts. So, I got out a bunch of little baby blankies we call "lovies" and he takes one to bed every night now and seems to really find a lot of comfort in it.

Ben's also trying LOTS more foods these days....WHEW! He will eat anything with ketchup (green beans dipped in ketchup, anyone?!). One of his newest foods is shreds of carrot. Mark and I are so, so glad that he's eating more with the family now rather than us feeding him the few certain foods he liked.

Lastly, he's starting to mind a tiny bit, but is still generally unfazed by "time out". Sometimes when he does something he knows he's not supposed to do, like drop food on the floor from his highchair, or throw a toy, he looks at me and says, "Noooooooo" with the cutest little point of the finger - it's all I can do not to scoop him up and laugh!!

Ben attended his first "big boy" birthday party last month, too....here he is at Appalachian Gymnastics, having a BALL on the slide (climbing up all by himself!!), and loving the trampoline floor!

My Sweetie Pie

2011-02-25T22:07:00.002-05:00

Valentine's Day was on a Monday this year, and that is also the day we go to Kindermusik class. So, we got to take Valentines to all Ben's little buddies. We thought bubbles would be fun since there's not much candy-eating going on around this house (yet!)...
Then it was time for a little Valentine's Day gift from Mama and Daddy. Oh, the fun of opening a present!!

A new bath toy!! This cool thing has stackable pieces, and even has a battery and squirts out water....F-U-N!! Daddy's idea for a new "do":

One happy fella!! ***love him***

Let it Sunshine!

2011-02-15T21:13:00.006-05:00

I'm a little behind on posting, but had some pictures from a wonderful weekend we had a few weeks ago! FINALLY, the snow was all gone away and the weather was beautiful (and warm for January!!). For starters, Ben slept until 7:30 both days ~ YEAAHHHHH!!!! That was a heavenly treat that rarely happens. Saturday, we ran errands and just hung around the house playing with Ben. I put a roast in the crock pot, so dinner was DONE with minimal effort. On Sunday, we took advantage of the gorgeous sunshine by picking up Pal’s and going to Winged Deer Park. Ben loved running around in the open field, and was so cute testing us to see how far he could go before we called him back to our blanket. He’d run 10 steps and look at us, then run 10 more and look back, until we said, “Ben, come here!” The he’d come all the way back and do it again.

When we first got there, we got all the food out and he was toddling around the blanket, eager to go explore in the grass, so he didn’t respond the first few times I asked him to come eat. Then I said, “I’ve got French fries…” and BAM! He did a 180° and was ALL ears, ready to eat! We laughed and laughed!!

It was a wonderful lunch, despite the fact that Ben managed to step on not one, but two sandwiches…mine AND his. He was even sitting down when he stepped on his – I have no idea how that happened, but there was indeed a cheese-covered piece of bread stuck to his shoe….more belly laughs!!! (yes, I ate my hamburger anyway!)

After we ate and relaxed a little on the blanket while Ben played, we headed over to the slides where Ben had a BALL. It was an hour past his nap time when we finally left, and he was still signing “MORE”!!

The "Bens"

2011-01-27T21:07:00.004-05:00

I recently saw this picture of my brother Ben on Facebook and was really surprised to notice that it looked a lot like my baby Ben!! Little Ben was about 14 months in this picture....check out the shape of their mouths and eyes ~ wow!!

Christmas 2010

2011-01-17T20:43:00.000-05:00

Well, YES, Santa came to see Ben this year ~ ha, ha!! Here he is on Christmas morning in his cute little "Santa's Helper" pyjamas with reindeer feet. Santa brought him a climber with a slide and a tunnel to crawl through! He loves it! So much, in fact, that it has taken the place of our coffee table in the den because he uses it so often.

Ben also got a cool puzzle-type board with all kinds of different latches for him to learn to open and close...right up his alley!

Big smiles at Grandmama and Grandaddy's house....

His own personal rocking chair from Grandpa and Sue ~ as soon as he saw it, he hopped right in like he KNEW it was his!

17 Months Old

2010-12-23T22:37:00.001-05:00

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

2010-12-15T23:08:00.002-05:00

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!

2010-12-09T22:16:00.001-05:00

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!!

Family Reunion Fun

2010-11-28T21:46:00.011-05:00

A few weeks ago, we attended our annual family reunion, “Sumner-Caldwell” weekend in Chapel Hill, NC. Ben had a GREAT time seeing extended family and playing with his cousins and brothers.

Roadtrip!!

We weren't there for 10 minutes and Ben wants a beer already...SHEESH!

Family time with Cousin Hank...

...and Meme...

...and Pop!

The WHOLE Gang! Every year, we gather and hang out at this same spot on campus and have the best potluck picnic with another family named the Caldwells. Then it's off to the football game to cheer on the Tarheels. It's a family tradition over 50 years old!!
Last but not least...my little Tarheel!!

Winter has Arrived!

2010-11-09T22:18:00.002-05:00

Ben's first time ever to play in the snow came last Saturday. We had our first snow of the season...very brief, but beautiful, too. It was a perfect snow for Ben to see, with big fat flakes that made him smile as he tried to eat them!

He loved throwing snowballs that Daddy made for him......and we even had enough to make a Ben-sized snowman!

Hallo"scream"

2010-11-07T22:11:00.004-05:00

Well, this Halloween was a bit "un-traditional" in that we were out of town for the big day. Our annual family reunion in Chapel Hill, NC fell on this weekend, so we weren't at home to do the Trick-or-Treat thing. That turned out to be OK, though, considering 1). Ben's never eaten candy in his life and at age 15 months could not care less to miss out on all that, and 2). he hated his blue dinosaur costume worse than going to the doctor for shots ~ oh,no!!

"Help me, Mason!"
We had successfully done a "test run" a few weeks before, but the combination of it being past bedtime (for the second night in a row) and all the excitement of everyone returning from the fun football game was just too much for our little dinosaur. The longer the costume stayed on, the harder Ben cried :( So, we just threw on the "Mommy's Little Pumpkin" shirt and went to visit everyone. Let's hope next year isn't such a "scream"!!

Fender's Farm Fun

2010-11-04T22:50:00.001-04:00

Ben recently took his first trip to a real pumpkin patch! We went to Fender's Farm in Jonesborough for some corn maze, hay ride, and pumpkin pickin' fun. It was a gorgeous day, and we were so excited about a little family trip....and then poor little Ben bonked his lip on the open dishwasher about 10 minutes before we left the house. It bled a lot and really hurt, I'm sure, so our little sweetie-pie was not in the best mood after that. He was a trooper, though, and the sight of mini pumpkins and the playground perked him up some when we got there :)
I think his favorite thing was this huge tractor. He made lots of Brrrrrmmmmmm noises ~ so cute!

Ben was really interested in the animals, but only touched them once, while sitting on my lap. Maybe he could tell I was nervous about them biting him! Hey, they say goats will eat anything!!Ben was so funny at the pumpkin patch. The ground was pretty bumpy from the rows of vines and pumpkins, so he was a little annoyed that he couldn't just run everywhere like he wanted. At first, he was excited about the pumpkins!"Oh, yay! A big orange ball for me to play with!""Waaaait a minute...why can't I pick it up?!""Stupid orange ball! I don't wanna play anymore!"

Whew! After that was over...fun times with Daddy in the corn maze!

Mommy's Little Pumpkin

2010-11-02T22:13:00.001-04:00

I believe my heart could just burst! I love you, little Ben!

Fifteen Months Already?!

2010-10-25T15:26:00.001-04:00

Wow! Fifteen months old...Ben's looking more like a little boy than a baby every day. I think he looks about TWO in this picture:

At his 15-month check-up, he weighed 23 pounds (25th %-ile) and was 31inches tall (75%-ile). He also had to get MORE shots, including his flu shot....let's hope this winter is as healthy as last year! Ben's tried a few new foods and was actually a great eater....for about 2 weeks. Now he's back to semi-picky: ham, cheese, yogurt, pasta and fruit are still the mainstays of his diet. Oh, and how could I forget Cheerios?!

Sleeping is going still going pretty well. He started waking at 5:30, 5:15 a.m. for a few days and had me worried (soooooo early!), but I think it was just due to some (MORE) teeth coming in. He has 12 now with more on the way. Check 'em out!My "baby" got his first big boo-boo this month when he lost his balance and hit his lip on the open dishwasher :( There was blood everywhere, and we weren't sure at first if his teeth hadn't come through the bottom lip, but fortunately, that wasn't the case. A cold popsicle and crushed ice dried those tears up pretty fast, but it took about 2 weeks for the four gashes on his lip to heal.

Lately, Ben loves trying on our shoes. He will play forever just putting his feet in them or carrying them around. He's also saying a few more words. Uh-oh is a favorite lately (everything's an Uh-Oh!!), and yellow and flower ("Fla-la"). His most-used word is "Up", which means Up, Out, Down, and In right now, ha ha ha! He's also getting good at pointing at body parts. He can point to four or five, with Bellybutton being a favorite that he's trying to say the word for ("Bay bay")....he's got a cute one, for sure!

It's a SIGN!

2010-10-23T20:19:00.008-04:00

For months on end now, we have been teaching Ben sign language. It's supposed to help babies communicate sooner and therefore eliminate frustration on everyone's part. Just here in the past month, he has started to use the signs when prompted. He can "say" More, All Done, Milk, Bath, and Eat. Typically, he will use the signs when he grunts or whines and we remind him to sign.

A few days ago, we had a breakthrough, though!!! We were all eating dinner, except Ben because he had eaten earlier since it was going to be a late one. He was running around playing and going in and out of our room (connected to the master bath where he takes a bath every night). He kept peeping out, so we assumed he was playing Peek-A-Boo, and started playing along with him. He then walked right over to Mark (the main bath-giver) and rubbed his tummy (very close to the sign for BATH), right out of the blue! We were so excited and could NOT believe he was using his signs, unprompted, to ask for a bath!! This was also proof to me that he knows "the routine" at night, and likes sticking to it.

Here he is, all cozy in his Halloween jammies after a bath :)

Special Saturday

2010-10-03T21:32:00.000-04:00

A week or so ago, Mark went to a UT game with some friends, so Ben and I spent the whole Saturday just hanging out together ~ Mommy and Me Time! It was a rainy day (sorry Mark - not so good for football!), so we stayed in our pajamas 'til after lunch and cuddled a lot....Mama was in heaven!!

What else did we do? Hmmmmm....Ben managed to pour himself some Cheerios while I was looking away for two seconds!

Lately, Ben's been pretty attached to Mama. Here's what I see all the time, as Ben wants me to pick him up constantly!!!

Favorite toy of the day: a leftover cat toy from when I had my cat China. Ben found it in a basket and carried it around all day!! Hey, who needs "real" toys when you've got cat toys and diapers?!

14 Month Roundup!

2010-09-26T08:02:00.002-04:00

You may have noticed I'm not posting as frequently as I used to. Being back at work, school starting, and buying a new house have been totally zapping my time and energy!! So, I thought I'd wrap the past two months into one big round-up!

In Ben's 12th month, he got his first two molars and said his first word other than Mama and Dada..."Light!" He says it all the time, and would be content for hours for you to hold him near a light switch and let him just flip away!

Ben got his second haircut, which cut a whole lot more off than the first. He did pretty well once we gave him his all-time favorite toy: Mama's keys. You can see him here "starting up" one of his toys. I love how he'll go around and say, "Brrrrmmmmmmm!!!" to anything and everything - a box, random toys, the fridge - while turning the keys on it!

He also learned how (or got tall enough) to climb up on the couch, coffee table, chairs...you name it, he's a little monkey! This is a bit worrisome for safety reasons, but he is very good at "going backwards", meaning obviously that he will turn around and inch off backwards so he's not plunging off head first. We taught him this at the beach this summer, and made a big deal about how great he was doing, so he does it VERY frequently. It's hilarious to see him turn around, drop to the floor and scoot backwards over a drop of a few inches....so cute!!!

We've been super busy at the new house getting it ready to move in. Ben loves running around all the open space, but hasn't proven to be a very good helper when it comes to painting (HA!) In fact, we were over once when Mark was painting, and even with four of us in the room, he managed to bolt over to the paint tray and dunk both hands before someone got to him!!

At 13 months, Ben got two more 1st molars, and says Up, Out, and All Done. We went on an all day road trip to the "Carpet Capitol of the World!!!!!", Dalton, GA - 9 hours in the car that day, and he did GREAT! He's starting to not want his second nap of the day somtimes, and weighed 21 lb 3.8 oz at our follow-up from his 1 year visit (25%-ile). Daddy taught him to blow bubbles in the bathtub :)

We're down to two bottles a day (morning and night) and drinking from sippy and straw cups. Ben's a pretty picky eater - fruit, pasta, cubed ham, cheese and yogurt are our staples. Sometimes it can get messy around here!!!

Ben is now 14 months old and says "Off" when he turns off the light and says "Bye Bye" and waves really well now. He got his first sickness, a very short (thank GOODNESS!) tummy bug at 1 a.m. one night. He's outgrown most 12 month-sized clothes, wearing 18 months and size 5.5 shoe. He's also started really testing us on whether or not we mean "No." .....

This look can only say one thing: "Am I in trouble??"

Picsee Pics of Ben & Co. ~ 1 Yr Old

2010-09-13T10:16:00.003-04:00

Last month, we went in for our last session of our "Sweet Pea" package from Picsee Studio. They've done a great job documenting Ben's first year!! For this last one, we all got in on the fun and got some wonderful family photos...check them out!! If you have time, drop a comment on their blog and we might get a free print!! :)

http://www.thepicseeblog.com/?p=5400

Be sure to check Ben out in picture #2 - what a hoot!

Like Father, Like Son

2010-08-24T21:50:00.004-04:00

...and I'm so glad!! (Seriously :)

Monkeying Around

2010-08-15T22:27:00.001-04:00

For Ben's first birthday, we had a monkey-themed party. Very fitting since he loves bananas and climbing :)

Here's the birthday boy ~ looking sharp for his party!! The Invitation:

The Party Scene:

I had to show those because seriously, between the banner and the invitations, Mama had a CALLOUS on her finger from the scissors! Ahhhh....the things we do for our babies :)

Other party goods included a monkey cake, TONS of bananas, and 2 TONS of pictures of Ben throughout his first year...some would call it a shrine (ha ha!!). Mark made everyone take a banana home as a party favor because we'd never get around to eating them all.

Also out among the photos was Ben's "Official Baby Book"...the one where you record all the firsts, doctor visits, each month's happenings, etc. I worked on it NONSTOP every night for a week and I think one person actually looked at it ~ Tee Hee!! Oh so worth it, though....having a deadline to finish something is a really good motivator and it may still be hanging over my head otherwise!!

So, we visited with family, ate BBQ, and opened presents. Ben had never opened a present before and he got the hang of it very quickly! This is the first or second one we opened, so he's looking a little perplexed...Then it was onto the good stuff....Let's Eat Cake!!! Right around this time, Ben was getting his 8th and 9th teeth - one of which was a first molar. So, "picky eater" was indeed the case for a few weeks. I made him a banana-flavored cake 1. because it fit the monkey theme, of course! and 2. in hopes he'd enjoy the cake since he'd eaten regular white cake a few times before and not been too interested.

In the end, I do think he enjoyed the cake despite the fact that he didn't actually eat that much of it. After all, what boy doesn't enjoy making a mess??!!

Here's the Before, During and After....Squish! A new "trick" he's been doing lately...Whew! I don't know HOW we got that little booger cleaned up for the rest of the party! Fun times with Daddy...

"I'm ONE!!"

Ben's First Birthday

2010-08-09T21:56:00.001-04:00

It's hard to believe a whole year has gone by since my perfect little baby boy entered this world! What a wonderful year it has been (the best year of Mama's whole life!!)...every single day has been so, so special :)

On the morning of his birthday, Mama, Daddy, Mason and Chandler all woke up at the crack of dawn when Ben did and went into his room singing "Happy Birthday To You". He was a little confused at first, but......

"Hey, what's going on here??"

Mason was excited!!Happy Mama!!Ummmm....sleepy Daddy, LOL! Mark stumbled right back to bed as soon as the serinade was over! Oh, and where was Chandler? Behind the camera, of course! He's the MASTER of getting smiles out of Ben!

Happy Birthday Ben!

Mama took off work for the occasion, and we played-played-played all day! Here's Ben modeling his "jeans" diapers and playing Peek-a-Boo with the blinds.
Later that day we went out to Jason's Deli for dinner and to Rita's Italian Ice for dessert. We've all been looking forward to giving Ben a "Rita's" for his birthday. He tried everyone's flavors and his favorite was Wild Black Cherry ~ YUM!

So, we had a really fun day with our sweet baby Ben. Mama got a lump in her throat a few times during the day (and maybe shed a tear or two as I rocked him to sleep that night)....but that's just what mamas do, I guess. And to think: it's only just begun!!

Well, speaking of beginnings, the next day when we woke up, it was time to get the party started!! Stay tuned for pictures of Ben's Monkey Birthday!!!

Ben's a Beach Bum!

2010-07-28T22:48:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, Ben took his first trip to the beach. We had a really good time at the Isle of Palms with his BFF Sophia (and family) and "Aunt" Michelle...

Here's Ben the day we got there, the very first time he saw the ocean...No Fear!!

Little Man's cheeks kept getting pink as soon as we got to the beach, and I'd put more and more sunscreen on until I realized it was just because he was hot!!

Everyday, Daddy dug him a little pool, and he played for hours in it with his favorite beach toy, an orange-handled net (not pictured - I really can't believe he forgot about it for a minute!). Mason and Chandler were such good playmates!!

On our one and only family bike ride (after dragging 4 bikes, a baby seat and 5 helmets across 3 states!), Chandler's bike broke. I mean BROKE. As in: we left it on the side of the road for the IOP garbage men to pick up because it was "unridable". Poor Mason had to pedal Chandler all the way home!

As you can imagine, this did not go over well or smoothly. But, the worst that happened was that Chandler blew out a flip flop when the bike spokes "ate" it. I'm just glad there wasn't any blood or broken bones.

To confirm our bike ride was indeed a flop, Ben fell asleep on his first bike outing ever. Now don't get too excited, Ben!! Ha ha!! That's saying a lot, too, because he doesn't typically fall asleep in places like strollers, couches, in your arms, etc. Needless to say, that plus the fact that we were drenched in sweat at 8:00 in the morning convinced us not to take anymore bike rides!

Here are two of my favorite pictures of Ben's first beach experience...

Ben was just starting to toddle and it was so fun and special to see him excited about walking out into the ocean!

Friday Funny :)

2010-07-22T21:53:00.001-04:00

Ben's favorite thing to do with things he's "done" with....mainly we end up with a lot of food in his collar at mealtimes (he must think it's the equivalent of feeding it to the dog!)...

Two older brothers and a silly daddy's favorite thing to do with two tennis balls and my sweet baby!!!

"Ummmm....I'm not so sure about this, guys!"

Fun Times in the Sunshine

2010-07-21T21:24:00.008-04:00

In the past few weeks, Ben has had both his first dip in the kiddie pool and some fun playtime on the Slip-n-Slide....ahhhhh, doesn't that bring back memories?! (Even if they are of bumpy rocks and big tree roots - OUCH! - under that cheap plastic it was made of ~ ha ha!!)

Slip-Slidin' Away!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Father's Day Fun

2010-07-18T20:58:00.007-04:00

I know this is a bit late, but I finally have some time to do a few catch-up posts! I definitely wanted to post a picture of Father's Day ~ Ben has such a wonderful, caring daddy and I am thankful every day for his love, leadership and fine example to Ben, Chandler and Mason. Here's they are on Father's Day!

Fun time at the park with Dad...
My guys ~ what a handsome pair!

Yesterday's Videos!

2010-06-25T14:16:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone,

If you subscribe to new posts by email, you may have had trouble viewing the video of Ben walking. Be sure to click on the name of the post in the email to go to the actual blog website (http://arealbaby.blogspot.com) - you can't watch the videos from email. I should have mentioned that!!

Enjoy!
Julia

We've got a WALKER!!!

2010-06-24T22:46:00.005-04:00

It's official ~ Ben can walk!!! It's as if a switch was flipped overnight, and he's suddenly doing much more than just a few tiny, unsteady steps here and there. Tons of times today, he walked REAL distances just as strong and proud as he could be! You could tell he was really excited about his new skill and loved our claps and praises everytime he walked. This is so fun and exciting for us, and at the same time yet another reminder that our baby is growing up too fast...

Check out Mr. Mobile!!

Baby's First Haircut

2010-06-20T22:47:00.002-04:00

Sadly, last week it was finally time for Ben to get his first haircut. "Cut" really isn't the best word, since the Ziplock of "locks" the girl gave me when she was finished appeared EMPTY until I squinted a saw a few fine baby hairs! Trim better describes it, and he needed it because he kept pawing at his ears (making us think over and over he was getting an ear infection), and just looking scraggily in general. Especially in the wind. Case in point:So, in we went with a happy baby....

Sitting on Mama's lap, wondering Who Is This Chick?! (She does Mark's hair and is super sweet!)

Not bad...still distractable by Daddy with a bag full of toys! He's sitting on my lap, so I have a bird's eye view and unfortunately I can see that he's being SUCH a wiggleworn, VERY little hair is being trimmed at this point (in the interest of keeping his ears intact ~ ha!)Now this is starting to get a bit worrisome, apparently. The wad of lunchtime banana dried in his hair behind the ears isn't helping matters, either. I could sense a meltdown coming soon......so, out comes the paci. You know it's getting bad when the paci makes an appearance midday!Whew! All done! Whether you can really tell or not, his hair did look much more polished, especially in the back and neck area. Good job, Ben! (I hope it's a looooooong time before we need to do that again ;)

Back to the Grind....

2010-06-03T21:02:00.000-04:00

Well, my 9.5 months of stay-at-home-mommy-bliss was up a few weeks ago. Since going back to work full time, things tend to be a little more crazy around here lately! We're starting to get in a groove, though, and Ben's doing great at Grandmama's during the day. Here's how his day goes:

up at 6:30 (or earlier some days...Ben, why such an early bird?!)

bottle 7:00 (6 oz)

breakfast 8:15

nap 9:30 for 1.5 hrs

bottle 11:00

lunch 12:00

nap 1:30 or 2:00 for 1 hr

bottle 3:00

dinner 5:00

bath

bottle 7:00

bed

So what else have we been up to? We celebrated Mama's birthday - not surprisingly, Ben managed to thwart and impress us with his lightning-speed hands and grabbed a handful of icing when no one was looking!

We've been to baseball games,

"Lake Day"...

Lots of playing with with big brother Mason...

and big brother Chandler!

Ben's learning a TON here lately, too....just in the past few weeks, he's started babbling "la la", "ga ga", and "da da"!! He's got the sweetest little voice that I love hearing, and although he doesn't talk ALL the time, when he does, you can tell he's enjoying himself!

He's also learned the meaning of lots of words: in, out, on - with these he can put things IN, like in a trash can, or help me put little pieces of laundry in the dryer (so cute!). At this point, he knows that "No" isn't something he wants to hear, but hasn't quite grasped yet that we mean business when we say it. He's pushing his little push toys everywhere, clapping occasionally, and can stand on his own for a second or two when he wants to (or in most cases, when it happens by accident). My baby will be walking in no time ~ I can't believe it!!

Ben's favorite thing to do at Lake Day: play in the dog bowls. Add leftover slobbery dog water = BONUS!

Our First Mother's Day

2010-05-11T21:20:00.005-04:00

I had such a great first Mother's Day with my special boy :) We went to church, had brunch with Grandmama, and then got a surprise visit by my grandfather (and Ben's GREAT grandfather!). Lots of snuggling and laughs made for a wonderful day with my baby! I'm so thankful to be a mommy...

9 Months In, 9 Months Out!

2010-05-04T11:49:00.006-04:00

My little man has been in this world just as long as it took to "cook" him! At Ben's 9 month checkup, he weighed 19 lbs, 2.9 oz ~ whoa! No wonder my arms are aching lately! That seems big, but was 30% for weight, and his height remained in the 90% at 29.5 inches.

Ben's into all kinds of new things. He's learned how to climb the stairs, so we put up the baby gates, in addition to all the other childproofing items in the house. He's pulling up and cruising everywhere and can stand alone for a second or two when he wants to. Little Man is so, so curious about everything ~ trashcans, toilet paper rolls, electrical cords....nothing is safe from his quick little hands. He loves "rearranging" our breakfast and dining room chairs around, and unfortunately, playing with electrical cords. I've done my best to get rid of or hide all of them, but he still manages to make a bee-line for the few that I can't eliminate.

Let's see...he's got six teeth now, LOTS of hair (we had to cut a little over his ears because he kept pawing at them like they were itchy!). He's outgrowing Size 3 diapers, and is now taking a bath in the "BIG" bathtub.

Ben's still not crazy about being spoon fed, and most meal times are a struggle, even with foods he likes. He can feed himself small pieces of whole wheat bread, baby puffs, diced banana, and a few other things. My goal for the next month or two is to really explore foods that are appropriate for him to eat that he can feed himself. He seems to be much more content with those. Oh, and speaking of feeding...we finally dropped his last feeding of the day at 10 p.m. We were waking him up (barely) to eat in hopes that 1). he'd sleep through the night, and 2). get enough calories in the day. We hadn't planned to stop it since he had dropped from 50% to 30% in weight, but after a few days of only drinking 2 oz. and then a few more of refusing it completely, we just quit. He did fine. Maybe now he'll start eating more throughout the day.

Lastly, my favorite new thing is that Ben initiates Peek-A-Boo now! Just this week, I was checking him out in the rearview mirror, talking to him and he pulled the blanket up over his face....he was wanting me to say, "Where's Ben?!". So, I said it (as we always do when we're holding the blanket over his eyes) and he pulled the blanket down ~ so pleased with himself. (Then repeat 80 times, ha ha) How cute!!!

Bring Back the Sunshine!

2010-04-27T21:09:00.007-04:00

Right when I was getting used to that bea-U-tiful weather we were having....Bam! A week of rain and thunderstorms :( And COLD, too! I'm so glad Ben and I took advantage of the sunshine while we had it ~ a few weeks ago, we went to Warrior's Path park and spent such special time together picnicking and laughing. I'll never forget what a sweet day that was!

This was one of those distorted mirrors that makes you look funny-shaped!This was Ben's first time on a swing! He giggled and laughed the whole time. He didn't want to stop swinging to get our picture taken ~ look at that face! Ha ha!Cutie-pie on the playground!!

Ben Takes a Swim

2010-04-17T20:44:00.010-04:00

A few weeks ago, we took a trip to Knoxville to meet up with my friend Tomika and her baby Tamyra. They live in Houston so it was great to get to see them!!! We had a nice lunch at Calhoun's and enjoyed getting to know each other's little ones :) Ben got to sit in a "big boy" high chair for the first time....you think he liked it?!

After lunch we stopped in Pigeon Forge to spend the rest of the weekend eating and shopping. Back at the hotel, Ben had a ball in the Pack-n-Play, which was really nice considering I didn't want him crawling around on the yucky hotel room carpet.

This enjoyment of his own personal play land, full of fantastic toys, only lasted about a week, though. Unfortunately, he eventually came to see the PNP as a jail-like apparatus used to keep him from having fun with the rest of us - ha!!

Mark and I were particularly excited about the hotel pool; in fact, I specifically searched for a place to stay with a "good" indoor pool so Ben could go swimming. We figured since he was crazy about taking baths, a pool would just be GREAT. Well.....somebody wasn't quite so sure!!!

You want me to do what??Pep talk from Daddy..."Mama, are you sure?!"Awwwww! There's a smile!!! :)

How About This Weather?!

2010-04-12T21:27:00.002-04:00

Haven't these sunny days been just wonderful?! Ben and I have been thoroughly enjoying them...getting out every day to take a ride in his "new car", blow bubbles, or just hang out on a blanket in the yard. I mentioned in my last post that Ben doesn't like the grass too much, so for ONCE, he will actually stay put if I put him on a blanket, in order not to touch the icky grass (that is, unless he decides to eat the clover like he did a few days ago)! He will not, though, keep his sunglasses on...they stayed on for about 5 minutes the first time and haven't ever since ~ ha!

His absolute favorite thing to do lately is to take a "car ride". My friend Lisa gave him this push car and he's crazy about it! I can't get over how cute he is holding onto the steering wheel like he's really driving :) Here's his first ride:

Soooooommmmmeeebody knows they're CUTE!Well, I think he's right!! (And I promise, I didn't pose him like this, either! He's such a ham!!)

"Hoppy" Easter!

2010-04-05T20:30:00.009-04:00

Ahhh....warm weather is here! I just HOPE to stay :) We had a great Easter weekend ~ of course, the Easter Bunny came to see Ben! We didn't actually visit a furry, costumed bunny-person, but did spend a lot of time at church and just enjoying the beautiful sunshine. I just loved Ben's cute little bunny outfit...I don't get the chance to "dress him up" this much very often ~ it was so fun!!

He's always so good for the camera. He seems to just know when he's supposed to smile :) But he's still not crazy about being in the grass, and THIS is what he thinks of (even worse) being in a basket. GEEZ, Mom....gimme a break!

Finally, fun times blowing bubbles at the church Easter Egg hunt on Saturday!!

Tales from the Cell Phone Cam

2010-03-24T21:31:00.006-04:00

Every now and then, there's just not time to grab the big camera to catch those sweet little things you don't want to forget :) Here are a few shots from my cell phone camera...

Here's my little monkey in his Johnny Jump-Up. Apparently it's not fun enough just to jump; it's better to swing back and forth until you reach another toy and then climb up on it to eat the plastic parrot-on-a-spring on top :)

Sometimes in the car, the mirror back there gets knocked sideways and I can't see Ben. So, if I'm wondering if he's asleep or not, or just OK because he's been quiet for a while, I stick my phone over the seat and click a picture. Precious!!Ben's found a great new toy. His brother's baseball cup. HA! He's discovered that it spins nicely on the hardwood floor, so he probably spent a good ten minutes throwing it around. Oh well. I guess there are worse things to play with!Hangin' at the mall, smiling for his big brothers :)

These are pictures of the video monitor on three random days. For some reason, after a nap if I don't get up there right away, he looks into the camera like, "Hey MOM! I'm awake, you know!! Where are you?" Of course, he can't comprehend that I see what the camera sees, but it's WEIRD how he always looks right into it, as if he KNOWS!!Finally, my favorite lately....his first ride in the shopping cart like a big boy!! I wiped that thing down better than I scrub our toilets ~ ha!! He did pretty well, and it was much easier than hoisting the car seat into the buggy (leaving no room for groceries!).

Eight Month Little Man

2010-03-22T19:49:00.001-04:00

I feel like I haven't blogged much lately, but we've been so busy ~ Ben's 7th month has flown by :( He's rapidly gone from mastering sitting up and crawling to now pulling up on everything in sight and trying to cruise around a little bit. In just a week's time, he's gotten very good at standing assisted, and I don't have to chase around behind him to keep him from bonking his face on things now that he's figured out how to "land" when he wants down. He's also mastered handling the paci - yay!! Now he can just find one and pop it in his mouth whenever he wants....ahhhhh, so nice!

I'm so glad I take TONS of pictures, because looking back, so many little things come and go so quickly. Ben used to do the cutest thing before he could crawl ~ I called it his yoga "Downward Dog" pose :) Already, though, he's left that move behind for something new!

It's so fun to see him being such a big boy...even though this means I have less and less time to do things around the house, such as take a shower, chores, etc. The ONLY thing that can safely "contain" him now is the pack-n-play or crib. Unfortunately, he figured out how to escape the Exersaucer a few weeks ago!!

Who me? I wouldn't do that!!

Last month, Ben also got more teeth! One of his top ones broke though, and the other top one is on its way. The top ones are much worse than the bottom ones for him. So, we've had several nights with lots of waking and crying, but it really hasn't been too bad.

Ben also got dedicated at church a few weeks ago. He looked so handsome in his little khakis and sweater!

Ben's main objective each day is to pull up and explore everything in sight. This is the first time he pulled up in the Pack n Play....doesn't he look so happy with himself?!

More Picsee Pics

2010-03-18T21:28:00.004-04:00

Whew! We have been a super-busy family this past few weeks, and I feel like I've got so much to catch up on for Ben's blog ~ he's changing so much and into so many new things, it's amazing and SO much fun! Hopefully this weekend I can go through our latest pictures and write a new post. In the meantime, if you're interested, here's the complete "collection" from Ben's last visit to Picsee Studios. We went yesterday to see them all, and I CANNOT make up my mind which ones to get...they're all keepers!! :)

http://www.picseestudio.com/index2.php

Click "Clients" on the top right, then

Password: benjamin1

PS...THANKS for everyone that left us a comment on the Picsee blog - we got a free 8x10!!!

Man Around Town ~ Ben's Downtown Photo Shoot

2010-03-04T22:15:00.003-05:00

I was SO excited when it was time for Ben's next photo shoot with Picsee Studios. We got their "Sweet Pea" package that documents him as a newborn, six months, and one year. So I'd been waiting six months - ha!! It was well worth the wait, though. So check Mr. Ben out, and (as usual :) if you leave a comment, we might get a free print!!

http://www.thepicseeblog.com/?p=3831

Seven Months Old and ON THE MOVE!

2010-02-22T21:32:00.005-05:00

Another month has flown by for us! "Little" Ben is growing like a weed and having so much fun doing it! The best way to describe him lately would be BUSY. Busy, busy, busy...he's starting to crawl and just cannot wait to explore every single little thing he can possibly find. No sitting still for this boy...EVER! For the past few weeks, his crawling style has been more like "the worm" - bring the knees up, then belly flop forward and do it all again (grunting allllllll the way because he wants so badly go faster, faster, faster!!) But just today, I was on the phone with Mark at lunch and right before my eyes, he crawled perfectly with his hands and knees about the length of the coffee table ~ how exciting!!!

So what else is new? TEETH! Two of them, actually, and sweet little Ben hardly uttered a peep when he got them. They came through at the end of his sixth month, and I did notice in his fifth month, he was quite fussy for a few weeks. I've read that teething pain can bother babies even six weeks before the teeth cut, so maybe that was why he was fussy. But when they came through, I didn't even know until they'd already popped out! Here's a pic where you can see them...
As I mentioned in my last post, Ben's doing great sitting up. He's gotten good enough to where I don't need to stay by him every second to make sure he doesn't fall over. This new development meant that it was time to lower his crib mattress to the lowest position. He really looked like he could just pop over the edge anytime if he happened to pull up, so Mark took care of that right away :) Over the weekend, he also figured out how to get himself into the sitting position from crawling, so he's much more content now that he's not stuck on his belly all the time. Here he is ~ sitting handsome!

At his 6 month check up, he weighed 17 lbs 2.8 oz , which is in the 50% where he was last visit. I was excited to hear that he was also still in the 90% for height, at 27.5" long. He also got another round of vaccinations as well as seasonal and H1N1 flu shots. Thank goodness, he did very well and didn't even run a fever!

We've moved to eating on a 4 hr schedule finally, and Ben still takes 3 naps a day, going to bed at 7:30. He does sleep though the night, but for some reason wakes up around 5 a.m. every morning. So, I go up and give him the paci and he'll usually sleep until 6:30 or 7:00. My only guess is that even though he INSISTS on sleeping on his belly (no matter how many times we roll him over!), when he wakes up in the morning, he doesn't like it. Unfortunately, he hasn't figured out how to roll from belly to back yet, so he calls for Mama!! That's OK, though....how could I resist a face like this??

* Love is in the Air!! *

2010-02-14T21:00:00.001-05:00

Last week, April and I had a BALL taking our babes to have their Valentines Day portraits made. Afterall, they ARE Sweethearts!! It was a task requiring monumental effort to get these two rested, fed, dressed and clean and to the mall at the same time of day. Whew! But it was so worth it...the pictures are adorable!

Ben and Sophia's First Valentine's Day

Ben only napped for one hour that morning (of course, on photo shoot day!), so he wasn't big into smiling. And, poor Sophia was sleepy and kept yawning...hee, hee!! They were troopers, though, and we got a few good shots, and had LOTS of good laughs :) Immediately after the shot above, Ben started bucking around on his hands and knees (since he's trying so hard to crawl lately), and there went little Sophia and her cute hat, flopping onto the floor while Ben tried to take off!

So, those are the "keepers". Here are the outtakes:

"Hey, Little Mama...come here, I gotta tell you something!"

"I love you, Sophia!" says Ben. "Hmph. I don't kiss on the first Valentine's Day!!" says Sophia.

And last, but not least....my cutie-pie giving us that precious grin!!!

Time Flies!

2010-01-28T17:24:00.002-05:00

Wow! Time has really flown....my baby's half of one year old! He has had an action-filled fifth month with lots of new experiences. He had his first "babysitter"....Grandmama and Grandaddy came over while we went to a Christmas party. He had a bottle and went to bed for someone else for the first time, and Mama was so relieved that it went very well!!!

Ben also stopped nursing in his fifth month and went to formula full-time. He's a very flexible baby in this area, so it went just fine. I had a "ticker" on the blog to keep track of how long I'd been nursing, encouraging me to keep going, so on the last day, I took a snip of it "for the record". I'm sad not to be providing Ben with the perfect food anymore, but it was time for us to move on and I am very proud for making it 5 months!!!

Ben also experienced his first snow...several of them, in fact. It snowed so much, our power even went out! Daddy was stuck on the highway in traffic for seven hours while Ben and I got colder and colder in the house with no heat. Mama was getting pretty nervous! Luckily, the power came on about 30 minutes after Mark finally made it home, as we were getting ready to brave the snowy roads and take Ben to a hotel to get warm.

As for his other "stats", Ben's growing like a weed - his 6 month appointment isn't until next week, but I bet he's at least 15 or 16 pounds. He's out of a lot of his 6 months clothes and moving on to 9 months, and just last week I bought his first box of Size 3 diapers.

Ben can also sit up now! It's SUPER cute ~ I'll be sure to post a picture of his newest skill soon. I'm so glad he finally got the hang of it because he was really fussy for about 2 or 3 weeks and I truly believe it was frustration from not being able to sit yet. As soon as he was able to with consistency, he was a much happier baby!

Blessings Abound

2010-01-21T12:23:00.002-05:00

My baby is six months old ~ wow! This has absolutely been the best six months of my whole life :) I am so blessed to be able to stay at home with him for the time being, and not a day has passed that I haven't thanked God for overflowing my life and heart with such JOY! Most days, my eyes are filled with tears of happiness at some point in the day because I just can't believe how lucky I am to be Ben's mama.

Before he arrived, I imagined the thing I would tire of doing (and even dread sometimes) was putting him down for naps and bedtimes...I pictured lots of resistance and struggle, "crying it out", etc. Fortunately, it hasn't involved much of that at all. So in his lifetime, I've probably put him down to sleep at least 800 times (!!) including naps and bedtimes, and I find myself loving every single minute of it!! Last night as I rocked him "sleepy" and held that sweet baby in my arms, I actually teared up because I didn't want to put him in his crib yet....just wanted to keep on rocking my little boy all night. I love, love, love being a mommy!!

Here's our little miracle six months ago on his birth day...he's about 5 minutes old in this video. God is so GOOD!

Let's Eat!!

2010-01-18T17:48:00.004-05:00

Ben has now eaten "real" food for the first time! A few weeks ago, we tried rice cereal, and he ate it like a pro....for a few days. Then, I think, the novelty of eating with a spoon like the rest of his family wore off and he realized the cereal didn't taste too great. Then we tried oatmeal and he liked it a little better, but not much. So, we moved on to green beans just yesterday and they were not a hit, either!! Oh no! Hopefully we'll find something he likes soon (and not just applesauce and pears, ha!). Mama's just learning how to do this feed-a-squirming-uninterested-baby thing, so here's what Ben looks like after breakfast most days :)

Ben's First Christmas

2009-12-30T20:45:00.006-05:00

Ben had a great first Christmas....he got to see lots of family and got tons of new toys! First we had Christmas with Grandmama and Grandaddy. I think he was having a "mall Santa" flashback here, ha!

He got a Leap Frog Learn-n-Groove music table and a Laugh and Learn Puppy from Santa. Probaby his favorite, though, was the Johnny Jump-up from the grandparents. He's still figuring it out, but every day does a little more hopping around.

Then we went to Gastonia and had lots of fun with Mimi and Pop and all the siblings.

Back home in Tennessee!

Ben Meets Santa!

2009-12-18T16:25:00.005-05:00

Yesterday we took Ben to the mall for his first Santa visit!! I thought it went pretty well considering he's not really exposed to strangers on a regular basis. We took our own camera, too, and got some shots of him kind of smiling, but this was our favorite of the ones you could purchase. (Correction: HAD to purchase if you wanted to use your own camera, too....ha!)

Isn't that the funniest look?! I can just hear him thinking..."Who ARE you, and why are you dressed like me?!" After he got his initial surprise out of the way, he warmed up to the camera as usual, despite multiple flashes in his face and being held by the furry fat man. I'm so thankful Ben's such an easygoing baby :)

Merry Christmas!!

* Sweet Cheeks *

2009-12-14T17:53:00.003-05:00

Bathtime with Daddy ~ Ben's favorite time of day....