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.

Halloween

Here are a couple of pictures of Ben in his Halloween costume.

More Pics from Melissa and Claytons Visit

October 7, 2009

The picture of Melissa and Ben is at our house, but the other pictures are at Maker's Mark, the distillery we toured while they were here.

Grandmas Visit

Brenda and Grandma Pat stopped by to visit on their way to Alabama and Georgia as well as on their way back. They were making Grandma Pat's annual trip to visit family who live there. Elizabeth had a show in Atlanta while they were down there, so they were able to go to her show and see her as well on their trip. They were at our house on Wednesday, October 28, and then again on Thursday, November 5 and Friday, November 6.

We had a great time while they were here! We ate lunch at a local diner on Friday. Then Nathan, Ben and the grandmas went to visit Equus Run Winery, which we have a membership to, on Friday while I filled out paperwork and saw the nurse to start my job on Monday, November 9. We took some pictures of Ben outside in the leaves on Friday and went for a walk around the neighborhood. Unfortunately, Ben must have had a stomach bug and was throwing up all evening on Friday while they were here but was better the next morning. The grandmas had to leave early Saturday morning to go home. We were sad to see them go and wish they could have stayed longer, but they had a long trip and a lot of driving!

New Job

This photo is from when Brenda and Nathan's Grandma Pat were here visiting recently. I just wanted to include a picture. I will post more from their visit later. So, I really, really need to update this thing more often! I thought I would be better about it than I am. My goal is to put a couple posts up with pictures of Ben by the end of the week or over the weekend.

I started my new job this week. I had orientation yesterday and today. I also have a training tomorrow morning. Since this has happened so quickly, we did not have childcare lined up yet, so Nathan took vacation days and has been at home with Ben. Ben has not been adjusting very well so far. He hasn't wanted to eat from the bottle for Nathan, so he waits until I get home to eat. I'm sure he will adjust soon, but it is stressful nonetheless! I have lined up two babysitters to care for Ben until a spot opens up at the daycare center that is a part of the hospital. I have one girl, who is a stay at home mom of a 1-year-old boy, who is going to watch Ben on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I have another girl, who is a college student, and the sister of our weekend babysitter, who is going to care for him on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ben will meet them this week and will stay with them next week. I begin training next week. I am not sure if I will be working the week of Thanksgiving or not. I hope to find that out tomorrow or very soon. I am excited to start a new job, especially since I will be working flex time, so I will only be filling in when the others need time off. I am officially at social worker at Ephraim McDowell Hospital! I am really excited because my job is right here in town and is like a 5-10 minute drive from home!