Doesn't every kid have a picture like this???

Ben had a big week last week. Tuesday: dentist (where we learned that he's cutting his last molars in on the top) and doctor (for his flu shot), and Thursday: a haircut, and a trip to the tire store to fix a tire in my CX9 that had *3* nails in it. Each appointment has another waiting room with new toys to play with and things to explore. On the drive home from each appointment, Ben repeated the phrase, "I want go to *fill in the location here* again and again and again." Here is what happens at 6:15PM on Thursday when all of the above combine with a refusal to take his one and only precious nap.

Note 2 things. 1. His normal bedtime is pretty late - like 8:30-9:00. 2. This kid usually is a great eater - no food on this plate was even touched. Not even the broccoli - one of his favs. Seriously. The kid loves broccoli.

Eli also had a big, well, "day" on Thursday - He rolled over - front to back. Mostly really a tip-over, but because he repeated it twice on Thursday and did it again on Friday, I'm calling it official. I couldn't get him to perform for the camera, though.

Starting some traditions?

I love the fall. The weather. The crispness in the air. The falling leaves. The colors. Rusty orange, deep brown, golden yellow. The smells. Cinnamon, pumpkin, apple cider. Long sleeves.

We made a trip to the nearby pumpkin patch on Saturday. The same one we hit last year.

We took the hayride out to the patch to pick out some pumpkins.

The only proof we have that Eli was there. His back of his little head, with a raccoon hat, sticking out of the Ergo. He slept the whole time...

Hazel's Nut House

The hay maze.


The weather was sooooo nice here, that, on Sunday, we decided to go for a hike to Wachlella Falls in the Columbia Gorge. We did this hike last year, too - November 1st.

Ben rode in the backpack. Daddy says 1.8 miles is as far as he's willing to carry our 33 lb son.

Eli slept the whole way in the Ergo carrier.
Ben walked the last 1/4 mile or so.

He checked out his shadow.

and collected leaves.

Yeah for fall!

If you give a mom a minute...

Eli had his 2 month shots yesterday (a little early), so he basically slept the entire day away. This left mommy with a few spare minutes...

I began composing this short story in my head as my day progressed. (For those without kids, this is written in the style of some great kids books by Laura Joffe Numeroff', "If you give a mouse a cookie" or "If you give a moose a muffin" - both bedtime favorites of Ben and his mommy). Some artistic license was taken. :)

If you give a mom a minute, she'll probably want to fold a load of laundry. In order to fold the laundry, she'll have to get a laundry basket from upstairs to get the clothes out of the dryer. The laundry basket will be full of clean clothes, so she'll have to empty it first by putting away a weeks worth of laundry for both boys. While upstairs, she'll remember that she needs to clean up after Ben's mischievous baby powder art, done in his room while he was supposed to be napping. While shaking the rugs full of baby powder, she'll probably see some leaves in the front yard that need raking. While dumping the leaves into the yard debris container, she'll remember that it's garbage day. So, she'll head back inside, gather all of the diapers from the house and garbage from the kitchen. While in the kitchen, she'll probably think about what to make for dinner, and sit down at the computer for a minute to look up a recipe. While she's on the computer, she might just think about looking up the solution for getting blue crayon out of a load of laundry that went through the dryer and has been sitting in a basket waiting for her to deal with. Thinking about the color blue will remind her to make haircut appointment for Ben, whose favorite color is blue. Which reminds her that she needs a haircut, too... when she has a minute.

Frankenstein, Dracula and Katy Perry

After letting Ben try on a Halloween costume to make sure it fit him, we are getting daily questions like: "Trick or treat coming up?" (the "soon" is implied... kinda like the Midwest "Do you want to come with?" with an implied "us"...). This Halloween should be very fun!!


So, I was listening to the radio this AM, while taking Ben to his daycare, and a nice Katy Perry song comes on, so I turn it up a bit... After it was done, on came some Journey. Ben says "Where's the other music go"? Translation: He prefers bubble-gum pop over classic rock. Not sure what daddy would say about this...

Happy kid!

Eli has been impressing us lately with happiness. He has been (mostly) sleeping at night (besides getting up to eat) and has just a few fussy spells during the daytime. He is very happy in the carseat as long as the car is moving and he is not hungry. He has been taking 5 oz of milk in the bottle from daddy most nights (somewhere between 8PM and 10PM). That seems like an awful lot for a little guy, but he usually ends up going 5-6 hours before the next feeding, so we can get in some *sleep*!


On the other hand, Ben has been having sleep issues lately - basically refusing to nap on some days. This creates chaos with his night-time sleep pattern: therefore mommy and daddy's night-time sleep pattern... Not fun. He has been a fairly good sleeper up to recent times, so I'm not sure how to handle this new scenario. We have inherited a number of "help your kids sleep" books, so I'll have to start doing some research...

Here's a video of a happy boy and his happy goose calls...

And a clip of the 2 boys.

and another of the boys...

For the 3 of you that are actually reading this blog - feel free to skip over the videos - They're mostly for grandmas that live too far away to see the everyday goings-on in our house... :)

5 weeks-stats, pics and videos (of Ben, too!)

Eli's stats at 5 weeks:
11lbs (76th %)
22 in length (61st %)
15 inch head (45th %)

Eli spends a lot of time in his bouncey chair :)

Pictures don't do Eli's baby quilt justice... Grandma Jan at it again... Since it hangs right next to the rocker in the nursery, Eli has already been checking it out during his post-feeding happy time.

Ben has pulled off the creation of a new language. He's using it to translate the information off of our newest health insurance card (we just dropped my insurance and picked up Andy's), which is quite funny, because that's what I feel like I'm saying when speaking to any of the representatives from either company: deductible, maximum out of pocket expenditures, billing codes, itemized bills, blah, blah blah...

And a cute one of the 2 boys interacting...

I'll take Potpourri for $300, Alex

A few random thoughts/ pictures...

I just realized that I somehow left this picture off of an older post, and it's kind if an monumental one, I think... This may be the first time that Uncle Adam has ever held a baby...

A cute one of Ben.
A few days ago, I made a great meal for us (fajitas) and here is Ben's version of it. For some reason it beckoned me to take a picture of it. I should have taken an after pic, too, because it would have been a pretty much totally clean plate... Chopped tomatoes, roasted peppers, shredded cheese, sour cream for dipping, tortillas, and chicken.

Here is some older video of Eli's 1st bathtub bath (Mon 9/25):

We started a bottle every night for the 8:00ish feeding a week ago. Eli has been taking it just fine. Yeah!

On top of the hair loss, this poor baby has also developed baby acne and a hint of "cradle cap". Boo!

Eli turned 4 weeks old on Tuesday.

My first solo trip to the grocery store with both boys went well. I learned that the loading and unloading is quite cumbersome, but it went as smoothly as I could hope. I had Eli in the Ergo carrier and Ben in the seat in the cart.

We have a Dr. appt on Monday, so I'll have some stats on Eli then.

I typed this entire post one-handed because I have a sweet 4 week old baby sleeping on my chest.

Also, I found a few other older pics that I ran out of time to post right before Eli was born...