Ben's friend Nadia joined us on a hot spring day to play in the water. Sadly, our backyard is lacking much grass so the water play turned into mud play. It was great fun!
I didn't get any good mud video, but this little bit is still super cute.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Mother's Day
This was my favorite part of Mother's Day. Ryan and Ben swept, mopped, vacuumed and cleaned the toilets. It was glorious.
Tricycle Fun
Green-ish Thumb
I told you before that our church is starting a community garden. We are participating with our own little plot in the garden, but I have never successfully kept anything alive before. I am, however, getting into the spirit. We went shopping for our plants and bought way more than we needed. So we bought a second plot in the garden. We have 2 plots, each 2x15 foot. That is a lot of fertile ground for me to ruin. ha.
Ben and Nate contributed their hand prints to our sign.
Ryan planting.
Ben went from family to family just checking it all out.
Our gardens.
Sweet Nate always gets stuck in the carrier or stroller. He did nap for a while and he did eventually get out.
My turn planting.
My mom also sent Ben some wild flower seed packets for Easter. Ben and I planted them in the front of our house (see previous blog) and now we are watching some things sprout up. We have some grass and weeds mixed in, but hopefully we will get some flowers at some point so I know what to actually weed out. I am so not a pro at this!
Also in getting into the green spirit, we decided to try to get some more grass in our pathetic backyard.
Bare spots.
Our attempt with some "Easy Seed." Ben knows not to step on the red dirt. So far so good.
Ben plays out in the back yard by himself sometimes. He came in and asked, "What's this mom?"
Uh, that would be a beautiful iris bloom, darling child. Thank you for picking it!
Ben-isms
I have always loved reading the funny little things that toddlers say and now I have my own little comedian in the house. He cracks us up sometimes. He astounds us with what he understands sometimes. And he drives us nuts when he understands enough to try to debate with us sometimes. Here are some cute little nuggets.
Ryan was trying to teach Ben to say "You're the bomb mom." After serving him waffles for breakfast one morning he said, "Bomb mom!" completely unprompted.
Ben was in trouble and Ryan said to him, "I need a yes or a no." Ben responded, "Yes No." ha. It was the first time we had ever heard him verbally say "yes."
Ben comes to get in our bed at 6:30am every single morning. One morning I hadn't heard him stirring and yet he came in right on schedule. I said to Ryan, "I thought we might get to sleep in a little today." Without missing a beat Ben said, "Uh, no!" Did he really understand?
Ben just started saying "I love you." Again, after getting waffles one morning he said with great passion, "I wuv waffles!"
We have a single guy intern at World Impact right now who does some maintenance work as well as other things. He came over to fix the sprayer on my sink one day, but didn't finish the work and had to come back a few hours later. Ben kept asking all day "Josh home?" As in, when is Josh coming home? Uh, that is how nasty rumors get started son!
Ben watching Josh work. He wouldn't cross the threshold of the kitchen, but he had his hammer and screwdriver just in case he was called upon.
Ben often just takes things from random places and piles them up. Sometimes in his shopping cart or sometimes he hides a bunch of things under a blanket. Silly boy.
Waving bye to Daddy when he goes to work every single morning. So sweet. Yes, he has his own personal style. Ya just never know, but be assured "me pick!"
Monday, May 9, 2011
Happy 5 Months
My happy little boy is 5 months old now. He is getting more personality these days and that is a lot of fun to watch. He reaches and holds on to everything. He still doesn't like tummy time. He can roll from his tummy to his back but he rarely does. He prefers to fuss until I rescue him. He is in the stage where he prefers to move from toy or activity every 5 minutes. Bumbo...entertainer...activity mat...back to the bumbo. And it just keeps going. Did you notice the scratches on Nate's forehead? He wont stop scratching himself and I am powerless to stop him. He leaves huge marks. I clip and file his nails as much as I can. I check for sharp spots, but somehow he still takes a chunk out of his forehead while in his crib.
The biggest change this past month is his night time sleeping. He is finally going to bed at 7:30-7:45pm without any effort from me. Last month he was still refusing his crib at bedtime and I would hold him in the recliner until the dreamfeed. Now, he nurses at 7pm while Ryan bathes Ben. I put on his jammies, zip his sleep sack and walk out. Done. He goes right to sleep. It just happened and I'm not sad it did! Thank you Lord from giving us our evenings back. Maybe I can keep this blog up a little better. Maybe.
Nate is a back sleeper. I don't see him moving to his tummy anytime soon.
This month he has found a best friend. His thumb! I was using the pacifier with him for most naps, but he definitely prefers his thumb over his pacifier now. When I lay him in the crib he will roll onto his left side, put his left thumb in and generally go right to sleep.
Nate loves his bath. Ben doesn't like sharing the tub so much. Nate is a huge splasher and Ben is not a fan. In the video Ben is complaining about water in his ears. I know the focus goes at the end, but I love that Nate tries to push off his brother. Oh the fun that will be had when Nate is older!
Routine:
8-8:30am - wake and nurse
9:30-10am - down for nap
11-11:30am - wake and play
11:30-12pm - nurse
1:30-2pm - go down for nap
3pm - wake
3:30-4pm - nurse
4-5pm - play
5pm - go down for nap
6-7pm - play
7pm - nurse
7:30-7:45pm - to bed
9:30pm - dreamfeed
Cuteness
Ben cannot stand for Nate to play alone.
Nate entertains himself just fine without big brother's "help".
Sunday, May 1, 2011
While Daddy was away
In the past 48 hours the boys and I have barely seen Ryan. He is attending a conference that is being held just across the street, but the location is little consolation since he is gone all day. I don't know how moms/dads do it where one spouse travels for work a lot. I don't like it! Ben associates meal times with daddy coming home since Ryan is able to come home for lunch every day and comes home right before dinner most days. It was very sad when he went looking for his daddy every time we got ready to eat. Last night he asked for his daddy when I put him to bed. This morning Ryan was leaving at 7:30am and Ben said, "I need daddy home me more." We did get to see him more than the other 80 or so families that were represented by the people attending the conference and he will be done in just a few hours from now, so I will count my blessings.
The conference was actually live streaming online so we joined in for parts of it. That was pretty cool. We could easily pick out Ryan's gray spot on the back of his head :) Here is a short video of us joining daddy as best we could.
This morning Ben decided to read his books to Nate. Ryan does most of the book-reading, so maybe Ben decided he needed to step up and be the man of the house today. ha.
Holding hands and reading.
Nate moved their hands to his mouth to have a little snack while Ben read.
Ben has a kid's CD in our 5 disc CD player. He knows to push the third green button to get his music to play. This morning he needed Nate to dance along.
Ben decided Nate needed some plastic vegetable medley.
Cute in his new-to-him toy.
I put Nate in his bumbo in front of his toys. Ben moved his chair onto Nate's mat and joined in the play.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)