The next Bieber?

Ben's reaction to the snow last Thursday was so cute. I missed the first part: "Mommy, mommy - It's snowing, it's snowing, it's snowing!!!", but here's a bit more.

Here's Ben's version of Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

And Down By the Station

Down by the station early in the morning

See the little pufferbellies all in a row

See the station master pull the little handle

Chug, Chug, Toot, Toot off we go!

Snow Day!

Snow day here in Oregon... (nothing compared to the 19 inches in Mpls on Monday, but we'll take it!)

It was the perfect snow for snowballs and snowmen...

Some of us just watched others make snowballs and snowmen...

My little baby is sitting up on his own now...

My big boy is getting very good at using the potty (for potty, anyway - poop is still hit or miss)

We nearly had a Barf-o-rama

Warning - Folks with a queasy stomach should skip the next paragraph and move on to the nice pictures of the kids... :)

So this morning, we were having some quality family bonding time. Mommy, daddy and the 2 boys all relaxing and snuggling in our bed. Sounds just lovely, huh? Well, then Eli starts coughing - just a little bit at first, then he really had a few deep coughs. Then he proceeds to throw up. I caught most of it in my hand. No big deal, except that I couldn't believe the nearly instantaneous reaction that Ben had. One look at Eli and Ben threw up, too. At this point, I'm looking at daddy, just waiting for him to be next. But luckily he held it together... Otherwise, we could have had a complete and total Barf-o-rama.

Eli seems to be doing a bit better. Still has a pesky low-grade fever. We may try to make an appointment tomorrow... We'll see how the night goes.

Red Rover, Red Rover

send Eli right over... This is an old one that I forgot to include a while back - from Feb. 10th.

Ben appeared to get over his ear infection quickly, but then ended up with a nasty cold/ cough that kept him from daycare 2 days because of the kid's hideous gag reflex that causes him to throw up all his food when he coughs too hard. Poor buddy didn't keep much down for 3 1/2 days.

Ben ended up sharing this cold with his "little buddy", so Eli has been pretty miserable all last week - low grade fever, lots of snot and coughing. Not sure if this means that he has an ear infection or something else, too. We'll see how he is tomorrow - he may be heading for urgent care again...

50 Nifty

United States!

If you look really close, you can see the first two bottom teeth coming in!

Car Rainbow

Eli is still cutting in those pesky first teeth. Not quite his happy self... But we still get some big smiles here and there. He is rolling over willy-nilly now. Back to front whenever he wants, and has even done front to back a few times.

Ben and I did some fun crafts today. Thumbprint cards with tempera paint.

Am I the only one who is compelled to make a rainbow of all of my son's MatchBox cars???

We had a rough start to the weekend. On the drive home from daycare Friday, Ben was complaining that his ear hurt. He's never really had an ear infection (maybe one as a baby...), so this was a bit surprising. I ended up taking him to Urgent Care - they were quite busy and we had a very slow doctor. Three hours later, we made it home with a diagnosis of an ear infection and a Rx for an antibiotic. The doctor suggested that we wait a few days before filling the script to see if it might clear up on its own. Bah humbug. I filled it after we were done with a late dinner/ getting the kids down, so Ben didn't get a dose before bed. Arggg - he woke up during the night in pretty severe pain with a fever, so he got his dose then. He was still hurting quite a bit today and you could certainly tell when the 4-hour Tylenol window wore off. "Mommy, my ear hurts". "Mommy, I not feel well". "Mommy, I need some medicine". Poor buddy. We tried Motrin tonight - hopefully, that will help him sleep. He hasn't eaten much all day and threw up the little bit of toast that he did manage to eat... Here's hoping that he is on the mend tomorrow.

Cutting teeth!

Just as Eli was fully recovering from his bout of croup, his bottom two teeth started poking through. Again, many rough nights for mommy and daddy. He is putting anything and everything into his mouth to have a go at them... He is also very into faces lately - He loves to pull you close and basically maul your entire face - almost like he's trying to put your face in his mouth. We've added in some veggies: squash, peas, sweet potatoes (his fave so far), carrots and prunes (to offset the ugly side effects of iron-fortified rice cereal...not his fave. at all.).

Ben is still doing a great job on the potty. We attended a fun Super Bowl party at Debbie and Charlie's house and he went on the potty about 4-5 times with no problem. Nice to know that we can travel with him a bit easier now... At home he is doing a great job, too. Very few accidents anymore at all! Funny incident from the party. An older "cousin" invited Ben to join him at the air hockey table. The cousin says to Andy and I, "Don't worry, I'll take it easy on him." The cousin tenderly slides the puck Ben's way. Ben responds by hitting the puck with the little mallet-thingy and slamming it full force right into the goal... Twice in a row. So much for the going easy on the little kid, huh?