What's Ben been up to?

OK, I've been looking back on old blog entries and noticing that I'm really good at keeping track of what we have done as a family, but not really mentioning the little milestones that our Ben has been tackling. I guess this means I better get working on the baby book entries! So here is a short synopsis of what our little ray of sunshine is up to as of late:

This is totally for my own purpose - I won't be offended if you aren't interested in reading this at all (in fact, I won't even know it!)!

1. He is sooo close to crawling - he spins in a cirle (only clockwise) on his belly, and is starting to skooch his hips off the ground. He does made progress, except that the only direction he's going right now is backwards. If he can't reach a toy, he will keep spinning circles until he gets closer.

2. No words yet, but lots of good hearty belly laughs. He is also doing the raspberry sound with pursed lips. He went through a phase of different sounds - 2 days of G-G-G, then 2 days of Wh-Wh-Wh.

3. Sitting - Again, so close to being able to go solo. He can sit up very well in his high chair (and has been for what seems like a very long time), and can sit on his own as long as something is there for when he eventually tips over trying to see something behind him. I had him in a shopping cart seat yesterday - a little tippy, bit did OK.

4. Interests - He is an observer. When we take him new places, his is content just looking around and checking out the scene. He likes to be outside. His favorite toys involve spinning something with his little thumb. He's really liking peek-a-boo and loves to be thrown up in the air, or startled with a "BOO". Today, we played with his new Christmas trucks - zooming them on the floor - he was enthralled! He likes to play with his soccer ball and new TrailBlazers basketball. He loves books - he has been turning pages (even at the right time) for over a month now. He also likes to play with the wooden animal puzzle made by grandpa Ron.

5. Sleeping - Before we left for MN, he had been sleeping thru the night (about 10-11 hours) with very few wake ups at all. In MN, we had some setbacks, but I think he's back on track to make it on his own. He's taking 2 naps during the day - usually one 2 hour and one that's about 45 min to 1.5 hours.

6. Food - He is now down to just a morning and night time nursing, with a bottle at 2PM. He has been eating solids for about 2 months now. So far he's a big fan of squash, pears, apples, bananas, and sweet potatoes. Strangely, he's having a harder time with peaches, and peas and green beans. He is eating a solid breakfast at about 10:00 and dinner at 5:00 - I'm thinking we need to add in a lunch soon. We just started offering "puffs" a few days ago. He had the chewing intinct right away, but will need to work on his pincher grabbing.

7. I almost forgot - He he sprouted a tooth in the past week or so - It is still working its way out, but you can feel it with your finger (bottom right), and we can see more of it everyday.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Here is a shot of Ben, Andy and I after a breeze-y time getting through airport security at PDX on Christmas Eve (finally leaving after a 4 day delay because of the horrible weather in Portland). The "family-friendly" TSA personnel were so nice and laid back and friendly, even offering to take our picture to document Ben's first airport experience (outside of my tummy, that is...). Ben slept about 2 hours of the 3 hour flight like a trooper, then we played a bit and fed him some squash and cereal for entertainment. No angry looks were shot our way, that's for sure. It was nice not being "that baby" on the plane.


Grandpa Ron met us at the airport and chauffeured us for the 3 hour drive to Little Boy Lake in -15F degree weather arriving at 1:30AM. The northern part of MN had about as much snow on the ground as Newberg did when we left. Grandma was sure happy to see us! We awoke Christmas morning got to introduce my brother and sister-in-law to their nephew, Ben. How fun!


Grandma and her "little elves" had borrowed all of the baby items that a little 7 month old baby could dream of, so we were set up pretty nice - a high chair, 2 excersaucers, crib, and boxes of toys, etc.
We hung out at the cabin on Christmas Day - browsing food all day long, and began opening gifts after a great homemade dinner of ham and potatoes. Ben received so many nice things from G and G and B and P, and he got so tired from opening gifts on Christmas Day, that he had to continue the gift opening the next afternoon... thank you again for the wonderful toys, books and clothes! We ate lots of good food, and had a lot of fun watching our family interact with Ben. It was very hard to leave after such a short visit.


Here is Ben spending some quality time with Grandma Jan during meal time (nice view out the deck doors, huh?)

We got to spend 2 days back in Mpls visiting with my old college friends. My 4 girlfriends, their husbands and our collective pile of 9 kids got together for a great time on Sunday. Danielle posted a picture of the whole group (minus poor Henry, who was already in bed) on her blog. It is always so great to catch up with "my girls" and see how fast their kiddos have grown! Thanks to Hope and Chad for the deluxe accomodations!

For the late night (9:45PM) return trip, Ben slept on the plane (the whole 3.5 hour trip and all of the way to baggage claim). After catching a shuttle to our park-n-fly hotel parking spot, we had to remove the chains from my Jeep at 1:00 in the morning, and made it home, sweet home at about 2:30AM.

We will soon be getting together with Andy's side of the family for the holidays. Can't wait to see everyone!

Wishing a happy, healthy new year to all of my readers! Andy, Ben and I are so thankful to have such wonderful friends and family surrounding us. For us, 2008 was a great year filled with all of the joys that a new baby can bring, along with some scary moments from grandpa, but all in all, it was a very good year. Can't wait to see what 2009 has in store for us!

I guess we can call THIS a true snowstorm.

We were supposed to fly out at 8:45AM on Sunday, but after watching the weather reports all day on Saturday, we decided that we would stay at a hotel near the airport on Saturday night to avoid the bad road conditions on Sunday early in the morning. That way we could do the park-n-fly option, where you can leave your car at the hotel parking lot and they shuttle you to the airport, avoiding the parking fees there.

It took us forever to finalize our packing here at home - Weighing the $15 charge for the first checked bag and $25 for the second bag, and figuring how we could pack most of the liquids in the checked bags only, reserving only the necessary liquids for the plane, of course packed in the clear, quart-size Ziploc baggie... On top of that - planning Ben's meals - bottles, baby food, spoons, bowls - in another Ziploc baggie, and of course another place to store the breast milk and baby food to present to security...

We got out of Newberg at 5:30PM and with the Jeep in 4WD started on the white-knuckle, harrowing drive to the airport hotel. The roads were full of about 6 inches of snow and we never went over 30MPH. I definitely breathed a major sigh of relief as we pulled into the hotel lot 2 hours later (normally a 45 minute drive). I continued to check on the flight status though the night and up until 3AM, the automated phone message from NW airlines still indicated that the flight was on time.

But, at 5AM our flight status message now said "Unfortunately, your flight has been cancelled." Bummer. So I stayed on the line for an hour, talking to a ticket agent to re-book our flight for Wednesday at 2:30 (the earliest available). Now, we had to decide whether to drive home, or to spend another night at the hotel, waiting for the roads to improve. They were requiring chains on all highways in the Portland metro area. We made the call to drive back home on Sunday. After a stop at an auto parts store about a 1/2 mile from our hotel, to pick up some chains for the Jeep, we headed back to Newberg - a much better drive this time with the chains. The roads were still very tricky, but we felt a lot better with the chains on the truck. We drove over 2-3 inches of packed snow (ice) nearly the whole way, with snow continuing to fall. Again, a 2 hour drive and we pulled into our house to find about 8 inches of snow, with a 1/2 inch of ice, then another 2 inches of snow on top of that.

On Monday, we awoke to MORE SNOW! and it has continued falling all day on Monday. I measured with a ruler at about 11AM: 12 inches. I have a feeling that another 4 have fallen since then. Look at the Jeep (on the left) in the picture below - It was completely cleared off at 3:30 the day before - this was taken about noon on Monday.


The Portland area has not seen anything like this in many, many years. My neighbor (who has lived here 28 years) says - nothing in the past even comes close to this. We had to knock the snow and ice off of our bushes with a broom, because many of them just collapsed. Last week may have made us look like wussies, but this is the real deal - I think we may have more snow here than Minnesota. Hopefully our flight will leave on Wednesday and we will be able to decide for ourselves who has more snow. It's actually still coming down as I am writing this at 3PM on Monday...

Monday at about noon (Andy's CRV).

OK - It turned into a snow WEEK!

So, no school all week. Man, we are going to pay for this in June... But for now, having a week off of school was a nice relaxing way to start my 2 week vacation. Ha-ha. Ben and I mostly just kicked it around the house, (Ben in his Bouncey chair, me - wherever)

with a few short excursions here and there. I did make it to do some solo shopping on Tuesday by dropping Ben at daycare for a few hours, and Ben went with (me) on a short trip to Target on Thursday, where I finally found Ben a medium weight jacket - so cute - at Target. So I bundled him up for a nice stroller jaunt to the Post Office on Friday for Christmas stamps. I did also put mittens on him (and they stayed on for the whole trip!).

We are off to MN on Sunday AM (weather permitting). Wish us luck! Hope that everyone has a happy joyous holiday!!

We've Been Elfed!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Snow Day #3?!?

OK - this is getting ridiculous. This is our 3rd snow day in a row. 2 inches of the white stuff (on Monday) and the whole Portland metro shuts down. Granted, they don't have the hordes of snowplows to go out and plow all of the roads like they do in the Midwest, so they get the freeways clear, but people still have to get TO the freeways. There also was a layer of ice added in to the mix, but now it sounds like I'm making excuses... The forecast for today is for snow and freezing rain - I think we could have gotten to school OK today, but the getting home part would have been a bit more difficult. You're probably wondering why I would have a problem with 3 free days off to catch up on everything around the house. Well, our school district has already posted on its homepage that we WILL be making up these snow days in June by extending the school year into our precious summer. Bummer. Major bummer.

If you want to know what a true "arctic blast" looks like, check out my dad blowing snow (the 1st of 2 sessions of moving snow in the same day)

Ummm, my parent's little town of Longville, population 209 (or something), made the paper today...

Now really, Portlanders, take note. This is what you call a TRUE arctic blast.

Winter Wonderland

We had crazy Saturday of:

1. Making chocolate eclairs for Andy's family Christmas party (not too much effort for a pretty sweet reward)

2. Preparing for day on the go with Ben (gathering food, diapers, extra set of clothing, sleeper for the drive home, etc.) by making 10 trips out to the car.

3. Shopping for Christmas gifts for about 2 hours (Ben did an awesome job of traveling, as always!)

4. Attending said family party - which was a fun time - it was great seeing everyone! Poor Ben had only had 2 very short interrupted naps during the day and, needless to say, was long overdue for some sleep. Here is Ben crashed out on grandma Jeanne:

I'm so glad that we got so much done on Saturday, because a winter storm hit the Portland area on Sunday AM, immobilizing us here in Newberg. Here is Ben seeing snow for the first time! Now it really feels like Christmas is coming.

Our house all dusted in snow.

Sunday was a terrific "lounge in PJ's 'til 2" kinda day. We got a bunch of old loose ends tied up (Flexible saving account paperwork, bills, taking apart the computer to clean out the dust bunnies that had taken up residence all of the hidden compartments, ordering our holiday cards, etc.) School has already been cancelled for Monday as of 7PM Sunday night, because of the snow/ice. Below freezing temps are forecast for the week, with more snow on Wednesday. We'll see what the rest of the week brings! We leave in for MN in less than a week! Yikes!

Air Piano/ Opera Singer

Here is a short one of Ben playing his air piano and singing a nice soprano opera. Andy would prefer that he played a little bass guiter, I think.

Visit with Santa

Phew! Friday night we went on a wild goose chase for a Christmas tree bouncing around a few of the local lots in town, but we didn't find that "perfect one". We tried again on Saturday AM, and found a great tree! We loaded it up, got it home, had to hose some of the mud off of it, so we let it dry overnight and are planning on decorating it later today. Last night we hosted our own "Holiday Ale Fest" at our house. The one we usually go to in downtown Portland doesn't allow children (shame on them), so our friends Jim and Deb and their son, Levi, along with Andy's brothers came over to our house for a taste test of some of the season's best beer offerings. It was great to hang out with everyone, especially Levi, and see how much he has grown! He is quite the charmer and wanted to "hold Baby Ben". For being 17 months apart, they aren't that far apart in size!

Here is Ben's first visit with Santa. We will pick up a CD of our picture next weekend. This was at a local toy store here in Newberg, "Hey, Diddle Diddle". We had no idea that this store even existed - Thanks for the tip, Katy T.! It was like stepping back in time about 50 years (in a good way). The store is set up nicely, with a great selection of toys (especially wooden toys - my fav!). They have only been around for about 4 months, but as Andy said "It's dangerously close to our house" - just a few blocks.

The Latest Stats

At his 6 month well-baby check up,

Ben weighed in at 18 lbs, 3 ozs (90th%),

length of 26 3/4 inches (60th%) and

head in the 50th%.

Other than this nagging cough of his, all is well with Ben!

Big Post

I have noticed that I am not the only one slacking in the blog updates... Maybe I'll post, and that will inspire others (H,D,K,B,C) to update also!

**OK - I'm really showing how long it's been since I posted here** Not this week, but last week I attended the National Science Teachers Association Conference here in Portland on Thursday and Friday. It was nice to hear some new teaching ideas and to listen to the keynote speakers - Jamie and Adam from the MythBusters. I chose not to wait in line for an hour to get an autograph. I really want my students to get some "outdoor education" in this year. I need to get started writing some curriculum and grants for $$ for equipment, so this can happen this spring. I got some good leads on grants at the conference, but I have to come up with ideas that match their goals... In my spare time, I guess. (BTW - Did I tell you that I wrote and got a grant to have a SMART Board permanently installed in my classroom?? It's one of those interactive whiteboards like they had on some of the election coverage...)

We had parent/teacher conferences during Thanksgiving Week on Mon/ Tues/ Wed. but I came down with a nasty bug on Monday night (headache and 45 minutes of uncontrollable shivering) and Tuesday AM (fever, body aches, dizziness). Luckily it was just a 24 hour deal, so I missed just Tuesday and was back at it on Wednesday.
My parents arrived from MN a week ago Friday. It has been so great to watch them play with Ben - I think my mom had fed Ben his solids every day since her arrival, and changed many a diaper! It's going to be a hard transition back to reality when they leave. It makes everything seem so much easier when someone else is able to watch Ben. We cleaned out the gutters, tidied up the yard and got ready for Christmas lights on Saturday. My folks just left this morning, trying to beat a winter storm heading towards Montana.
We hosted Andy's family for Thanksgiving. There were 9 of us plus Ben and with my mom's assistance (OK, she pretty much did it all) we pulled off a nice spread of turkey, dressing, and homemade apple and pecan pies, and Andy's family brought in the squash, green been casserole, potatoes and appetizers. It was nice to have it here, so we had all of Ben's "stuff" handy, and we could just put him to bed in his own crib.

Andy and I got out of the house for a short afternoon jaunt to a local brewpub (without Ben! - thanks g-ma and g-pa!) to meet up with an old work friend, John, and his new girlfriend, Amy. So nice to be able to get away even for a short bit, even if I only had a glass of beer, not a pint.

As for Ben's sleeping issues - We have had some really good nights of sleep (8PM-5AM) and some others that did not go as smoothly. Ben, of course, has come down with another cold and had a few rough nights trying to breath through his nose. It has moved to his chest, so he has been doing quite a bit of coughing lately. All in all, he is doing so much better with sleeping through the night - On average, just one wake up with 10 minutes of crying.

I'm getting a bit anxious as December is already upon us tomorrow. Our preparations for the holidays are going to be a bit more squeezed in it seems this year - Is it just me or did the Holidays totally sneek up on us?? With Andy's family gatherings, work party, and possible visits from friends, there's not a whole lot of time left for the shopping, etc... I know, I know, the holidays are really about enjoying time with family, but there still is the "other" factor of all of the prep work - decorating, gift buying, etc. that we still allow to stress us out a little bit... :) I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Ferber-ization

So, a while back, I had stated that we were excited that Ben had slept thru the night with the aid of "Marliene's Miracle Blanket" and a nice cold. Since those heavenly 3 nights, it's been a mixture of semi-long stretches of sleep, with a typical feeding the middle of the night around 1 or 2AM. He is really good at falling asleep, just not so good at staying asleep. Lately, Ben has also been waking up at night and fussing until we go into the nursery and stick the pacifier back in his mouth. We put him to sleep with the binkie in his mouth, but he can't keep it in for very long. It has turned into about an hourly waking pattern with us up to put the pacifier in and walk away. Almost always, he would fall right back asleep, but we were ending up exhausted because we were only getting very short periods of sleep. It is such an easy "fix" to help him go back to sleep, that it sure seemed like the right thing to do at the time...

Now, are to the point of frustration, and have started Ben on the Ferber method of putting kids down to sleep. The idea is that the baby will eventually learn to self sooth, and put themselves to sleep (or back to sleep in Ben's case). This usually entails several nights of "tough love" from the parents. We have been letting him cry himself back to sleep - It is agonizing! My entire body tenses up during his crying fits, and it's all we can do to not rush into the nursery and calm him down. In the long run, this will be better for all of us, but it is SO hard! We started on Friday night - with 3 15-20 minute bouts of crying spread out thru the night. Saturday night he had just 3 10 minute bouts, so here's hoping that on the right path... We'll see what tonight brings.

We had a nice weekend at home catching up on errands and raking leaves. Today at 3 different stores, Ben started in with his "talking" (aka loud baby babble). It was so cute to see peoples' reactions - all of them just started talking back to Ben - trying to hold a conversation - "Oh, really, tell me more little cutie pie" etc. He was called the Gerber baby and someone else told us to send in a picture of him to Regis and Kelly - I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds like a compliment. Of course we think he's the greatest baby ever, but it's so fun to see other people's reaction to him, too!

I built a small paper mache volcano tonight as a model that I may have my kids make at school - kinda fun, seeing as I never actually made one in school before. I felt like a little kid myself. I also made some great pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Pumpkin Gems:
1 pkg yellow cake mix
1/2 c vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin
2 tsp cinnamon (I used pumpkin pie spice)
Mix and bake at 350 degrees for 12-16 minutes in 2/3 full muffin tins lined with cupcake papers.

frost the cooled cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting from Betty Crocker
1 pkg of cream cheese, softened
1/4 c butter, softened
2 tsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar

Makes a ton - use the rest to frost graham crackers, etc.

Grandpa and Grandma Stokes are heading out this week to come visit Ben (and us). We can't wait to see them! I'm sure I'll have some good pics during their stay.

Again, G-pa Stokes is A-OK...

After another scare from grandpa Ron, all is well... Turned out that in addition to the blocked leg artery, he also had a blocked artery leading to his heart. So, back in the cath lab for another procedure on Monday. Luckily, a stent did the trick to open the 95% blocked artery! Grandpa is on his way to a full recovery. Can't wait to see him soon!


Saturday, we raked leaves all day, then we spent the evening at a family gathering - it's always so nice to get together with Andy's family - it makes it even more meaningful to watch Ben interact with everyone! He's such a good baby!


I spent Sunday in bed with a fevery stomach bug that had been creeping up on me for days... Andy took over Ben duty like a trooper. I'm still not back to 100%, but I have Tuesday off for Veteran's Day, so hopefully, I'll have time to recovery before heading back to school this week.


Here are some photos and some short videos that I promised grandpa...

Ben is getting to be such a BIG BOY!

More giggles...

Playing with grandpa's puzzle...

Eating rice cereal...

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone had a nice Halloween! Thanks to Danielle for the cute costume (he just barely fit into it!)
"Why can't I have any?"

Ben was very into the leaves falling by the bucketload in our front yard.

Hobbies include: talking...

When Ben was born, both Andy and I started looking back in our old baby books, diligently kept by our mothers - we were both first-born, so there is actually a fair amount of info in both of the books ;) In my book there is a section "Special interests and activities", where moms fill in the favorite activities at each year. Under years 1, 2, and 3 my #1 hobby was simply listed as: talking. Maybe Ben has inherited this gene from his mommy... (along with 99% of my other genes - we're still waiting to see the "Andy side" of Ben - I'm sure it's coming soon...)

Last weekend we got a lovely visit from my old childhood neighbors Chuck (who I used to refer to as "Chuch" in my toddler years) and Colleen, their daughter Kelley and her daughter, Dylan. It was great to see them again!

Here's some backyard pics of our smiley guy from yesterday - I can't believe the beautiful fall weather we're having here in Portland.

And another post-bath, Michelin baby pic...

2 pictures

Mmmm, pumpkin.

One from a few weeks ago that I forgot to post... Can you say Michelin baby?

Movin' Right Along... With no crying!!

Andy, Ben and I spent the weekend travelling to Redding, CA to see our friends Joe and Jill exchange vows. This entailed 7 hours of drive time each way from Newberg. I was cautiously optimistic that Ben would be a good traveller, and I was spot on! He did an absolutely amazing job all weekend. He hung out in the car seat for the drive down on Friday with little fussing - he took naps, played with toys and my hands and just checked out the passing lights when it got dark. On Saturday, he took a nap until we left for the ceremony at 12:30, then remained awake until 10:00PM with just one little 20 minute catnap between wedding and reception! What a trooper - he was content just being held by anyone and watching the events unfold... He even got to watch his daddy perform his infamous dance push-ups. For the drive back on Sunday, he was stupendous for us, with just one little crying bout which was fully justified as he was hungry and had a poopy diaper.

The wedding and reception were very nice and it was great to see Andy's old college pals. This makes me hopeful that Ben will be a good traveller come Christmas time when we will heading back to MN on an airplane.

Here are some pics from the reception at a Country Club on the Sacramento River.

Also, here are some pumpkin pics from last weekend at Sauvie Island near Andy's mom's house.

And a short clip of Ben and daddy enjoying the Sunday paper...