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...

All smiles - and giggles

Even if you're having a bad day, I bet you'll smile while watching this...

G-pa Stokes is A-OK

Here are the before and after pics of my dad's iliac artery. I had to have nurse Jan interpret them to explain what I was seeing, as she is the resident expert in angioplasty because she worked in a cath lab for many years. The one on the left is the before and the one on the right is a magnification of the branch with the arrows after the procedure. As much as I can understand, the large artery you see at the top of the left pic is the aorta which comes down from the heart and then branches into the main leg arteries. There were 2 blockages of 65% and 95%. They ended up putting in 2 stents and it looks like my dad is feeling a lot better already - He felt a warming sensation in his leg during the procedure as the blood rushed into his leg once they opened up the artery. He is up and moving around fine and on his way to a full recovery. Yeah, dad! I'm so glad the procedure went well and that they caught this before anything crazy happened.

Taking Bets

OK, UMM girls - Here's your chance to guess the birthday of frodermommy's baby #3- due officially on Oct 31st (I stand corrected - it's the 1st of November, sorry, Katie).

My guess:
10/28/08 10:00PM
7 lbs 6 ozs
20 inches
Boy named Chaz Radish ;)

Any other guesses? Leave a comment...

More Videos for Grandma/pa

Ben the Bulldozer

Jump Around

Talking up a Storm

Here's a shout out to my dad, who is having a stent put in the main artery of his right leg tomorrow at 8:30AM. I'll be thinking of you, dad, and I'm sure all will go well and that you will have a smooth recovery. Love you tons! Its times like this I hate being so far away!

Ben says "Hi to grandpa - good luck tomorrow"

4 month well baby check-up

16 lbs, 2 oz (75th%)

25 1/2 inches (75th%)

head 16 1/2 inches (40th%)

WOW! He has grown - Andy had guessed 15 lbs even, me 14 lbs 9 oz, and the nurse 15 lbs 3 oz - Ben surprised us all weighing in over 16 lbs! He took the shots like a trooper - Cried a tiny bit, then proceeded to pass out, asleep in his car seat before we could get him out of the office.

A New Woman

With the hope of not jinxing myself, I've now had 2 nights of 8 hour sleep in a row! It's either the cold or the miracle blanket. We'll see what happens tonight... Since Ben loves being held up in the standing position, and my arms are getting tired, he is now the proud owner of a Jumperoo (from Craig's List - thanks again to grandpa Doug for picking it up!). I will try to take some pics of him in it later (I'm still washing the seat).

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Ben rolled over last night while lying on the kitchen island preparing for bath time. Back to front - at 18 weeks - with no help! He has been working on it for some time now, and getting so close! In the past, I've given him a little shove at the end to help him with the final push during roll over, because it was so great to see how proud he was of himself - (I think he was unaware that I had nudged him). We tried to get him to replicate his feat today, but to no avail... He was too busy crawling on his head. (I'll post some more video later this week).