Fun and Merriment

Ben had a lot of fun playing with his grandparents and aunt! He hasn't met them very many times since we live so far away and don't make it to Iowa often, but he always warms up to them quickly! I think he is going to have to adjust to not having so many adults around since everyone went home! He is definitely a well loved baby!

Grandma Julie was entertaining Ben at the restaurant by making him fly, which he loves!

Leo is playing in an empty gift box

Ben loves his Grandpa Cary!

Grandma Brenda and Ben playing with his new toys

Flying high and having a good time!

Snuggling with Aunt Elizabeth

Ben loves putting his feet in his mouth and pulling his socks off! Silly baby!

Ben drinking water from his sippy cup

He always has something in his mouth- hands, feet, toys...

Leo sitting on the table with the gingerbread house that Elizabeth and Brenda made. It took them a long time but it was awesome!

Mommy and Daddy Moments

Kentucky Christmas

This year we stayed in Kentucky for Ben's first Christmas. My mom, Brenda and Cary, and Elizabeth all came to our house for Christmas. Due to Nathan's vacation/schedule, we had planned well in advance to go back to Iowa to see family for Thanksgiving and stay home for Christmas. Both Nathan and Ben were sick at Thanksgiving, so sadly we didn't make it back to Iowa. Nathan is on call for work through New Year's, so we couldn't change our plans last minute. We were very happy to see our family! We had seen Brenda in November, my mom in September, Cary in August, and Elizabeth in June, so we were ready to see them! We were very sad that we didn't get to see the rest of our family though! Nathan's cousin Lacie is getting married on January 9, so we are planning a trip to Iowa then to see Nathan's family. Hopefully the weather cooperates!

Nathan's parents and my mom came on Sunday and left this morning. Elizabeth got here on Monday and left on Saturday. Ben has been sick with a double ear infection and a cold and I have had a cold as well. Nathan, his parents and sister went to Maker's Mark Distillery, to go on a tour. My mom, Ben and I stayed home because a lot of the tour is outside and its cool and damp. We all met up later at a Equus Run Winery for a tasting and then went out to eat dinner in Lexington at Buddy's. The food was really good and we had a lot of fun.

Here are a few pictures from this week:

There were a few pictures of all of us where Ben had a more pleasant look on his face, but he didn't have the Santa hat on, so I had to post this one!

This was at Buddy's! The food was yummy and we had a good time! Also it was one less meal we had to cook! Gotta love that!

Nathan, Cary and Elizabeth on the tour at Maker's MarkNathan, Brenda and Elizabeth at Maker's Mark

I will post more pictures later!

Christmas Fun

Since I got the tree up and the presents wrapped, I thought we would take a few pics of Ben with the presents. If you can't tell by the photos, Ben still can't sit up on his own very well, so I tried to prop him up against the present. He is able to sit up by himself, but he is lazy and allows himself to fall over to the side. Or, he tries to grab whatever he can when he is sitting and falls over. He got ahold of one of his Christmas presents while we were trying to take pictures and started to open it. Ben was getting grumpy so we stopped taking pictures. I think we are going to try to take some more of him tomorrow in a different outfit. We are also going to try to get a family picture in front of the Christmas tree. We need a good picture for our Christmas card!

Cutie Contest Winner!

Ben won the cutie contest!!! I am pretty excited about it even though there was only one other entry! He won a giftcard to Baby Gap! We had our choice between a cloth diaper and the giftcard. Since we have quite a few cloth diapers already and our daycare won't use cloth diapers, we opted for the giftcard. I am hoping we can find a cute outfit for his 6 months pictures that are coming up soon. Time just flies by! I can't believe my baby is a week away from his 6 month birthday! He is getting so big!

Cutie Contest

My friend from high school, Melissa, has started a cloth diaper business (Bum Covered Diapers) and has a blog that goes along with it. She also sells handmade bibs, blankets and quilts. She has a booth at Bradley Hall in Centerville that is very nice. I have a couple of the bibs which are awesome, a changing pad that I love and use all of the time and a cloth diaper. Melissa also makes and sells really adorable tutus.

The blog address is bumcovereddiapers.blogspot.com
The address for Bum Covered Diapers is www.bumcovereddiapers.com

She recently had a cutie photo contest that I entered Ben into. So, if you have a moment, please go to her blog and look at the post called Cloth Cuties and vote for Ben! You can either write a comment on the post voting for him (baby #1) or you can email her or her husband with your vote.

Here is the picture I submitted of Ben in his bib. He was still not feeling well when I took it on Monday, but I think its still cute! I shouldn't procrastinate! Melissa reminded me about the contest and I took pictures of him last minute!

In the Christmas Spirit

I love Christmas! I love buying gifts for others, spending time with family, baking, decorating, etc. Last Saturday when I got home from shopping for Christmas decorations, Nathan had Ben in the Christmas shirt my mom had gotten him. I had bought a small Santa hat at the store, so I couldn't resist taking a couple of pictures of our little Santa baby. He is just so cute! I am definitely getting into the Christmas spirit early this year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today, I am thankful for my beautiful, wonderful family! I am thankful for a blessed life!

As sad as we were to not be able to travel for Thanksgiving and see our family and friends (who we miss very much), we still enjoyed the holiday! Our friends Chris and Lesley came over for Thanksgiving dinner and we had a feast! Everything was delicious! We had a pretty traditional dinner- Nathan smoked a turkey, I made green bean casserole, stuffing and sweet potato casserole, and Chris and Lesley made garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, and apple crisp. It was a lot of food for four people, but it hit the spot! Yay for leftovers for lunch tomorrow! Thanks for the recipe for the sweet potato casserole, Brenda! Everyone loved it! It was a very nice, laid back day.

Here is our Thanksgiving family. Please ignore the mess in the background!

Ben's 1st Cereal

Ben had rice cereal for the first time last night. I think he has been ready for awhile to try solid food but we were trying to wait as long as possible at the doctor's recommendation. Since Ben has eczema, he has a greater chance of having a food allergy so the pediatrician wanted us to wait for as long as we could to start him on solids. Since he is almost 5 1/2 months old, I figured we had waited as long as we could. The daycare teacher mentioned yesterday that she thought he was very interested in solid foods and was ready and I figured, there is no time like the present, so we gave it a whirl. He has seemed ready for quite awhile. He is interested in our food and tries to grab it. He loves playing with spoons and putting them in his mouth. We gave him a popsicle when he was teething and he absolutely loved it! I should post a picture of that. It was funny! Anyway, here is Ben eating his rice cereal. He really seemed to like it. He had rice cereal again tonight and seemed to like it tonight as well! He wanted to hold the spoon and grab the bowl the whole time. That would have resulted in a huge mess!

Ben Playing

Obviously, the flash should have been on for some of these but I think they are adorable nonetheless. These are pictures throughout the month of October of Ben was playing. He likes to play in the floor a lot. Nathan is great at capturing a lot of expressions and poses and its really cute!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Ben (above)!!!

This is another great one (below)!

Iowa State vs. Nebraska

Saturday, October 24, 2009

We went to Chris and Lesley's house for the Iowa State vs. Nebraska game. Chris and Lesley are from Nebraska and are HUGE Nebraska fans!!! We were decked out in our Iowa State gear for the big game. I can't believe Iowa State won!!! What a huge upset! Needless to say, Chris and Lesley were pretty bummed. Chris had to buy Nathan lunch that week because they bet lunch on the game. All Iowa State had to do was beat a 17 point spread for Nathan to win, so Nathan was really happy when Iowa State won the game! Ben was having a lot of fun playing on the floor. He refused to take a nap while we were there, so he and I went for a drive. It was a beautiful fall day and we drove around for about an hour looking at the changing leaves. Ben napped like a champ in the car.