On my mind...

These:

Have you tried them? Something about them being mini makes them amazing.

March Madness:

Soaking up as much time as I can with these people. Love them.

Benson: He now sighs every time I sigh. It's both hilarious and disturbing how much I do it. I sigh when I'm stressed and I'm kind of a stress case these days.

The Bottle: This little (bpa free) plastic thing has been emotional roller coaster in our house. I wanted nothing to do with it at first. I so badly wanted to breastfeed, but it wasn’t meant to be. So at one week old, pumped milk from a bottle it was. And 6-8 times a day at that. I grew to love the bottle. It meant freedom! Well maybe not exactly freedom, but it meant dinner and movie knowing Benson was well fed back at home. I can’t say I ever grew to love the pump, but I’m so grateful for the technology that allowed me to still feed him in an unconventional way. I’m fairly certain his sleeping through the night at 10 weeks was due in part to the bottle. What’s not to love? As 12 months old approached, Dr. Hart reiterated the importance of the sippy cup, in which Benson was completely uninterested. He has had his bottle since birth, and he’s attached. We slowly got rid of the mid day bottles and now it’s only morning and night. Apparently 15 months is the “cut-off” so on this morning of his 14 month “birthday” we went bottleless. It was straight to the high chair for breakfast instead of our normal morning routine of bottle and snuggling and playing in his room. He seemed confused all morning, we are creatures of habit. (I was not a fan either Benson!) True to his stubborn ways, even after 13 hours of sleep he didn’t want the milk badly enough to drink it from a sippy. He was sad, which made me sad, and I just want to give in. I find myself perplexed. What’s more important? That he’s weaned from the bottle or that he gets milk? Being a mom is hard.

Disturbing: No thanks to Gymboree, entire families will be matching this Easter.

Progress

I packed, drum roll please….. ONE box over spring break (which brings my grand total to one)! Maybe progress isn’t exactly the right word?

Benson is fully recovered from surgery (and fully in the midst of a horrific cold).

The snow is so dang near melted, I can’t wait for my last amazing Michigan spring.

More like lack of progress, Benson is still refusing to walk (but he did figure out how to bend over and look though his legs upside down, which he finds hilarious).

Benson’s new word is “yeah”. Whenever he coughs I say, Oh Goodness! Are you okay? He says “yeah” (in his cute little Benson voice). I love it!

Less than 2 months until graduation! The bar app is officially submitted! Whoop whoop!

This is officially my 100th post, I so wish I had something 100th post worthy to share! I so love looking back at the last 99, and I love the progress our little family made in the past 3 years.

Just Life

Feeling like blogging about life, ya know? Nothing major, just what’s up in my busy head. Had a near death experience on an icy Michigan freeway and it’s got me thinking...JK…I’m not getting that deep, but for reals a car went spinning and ended up facing us head on in our lane, when Brandon swerved I was SURE we were going to go rolling down the bank of snow, but alas, we are alive and well. He’s got skills. We were on that icy Michigan freeway to see an ENT for Benson’s situation he has going on. Like 7 ear infections in 6 months and one ornery kid. I’m SO glad my mom was here for the appointment, it was majorly traumatic for Benson and she is a huge help. He loves his Grammie! We got to have her for a whole week and loved every second of it. I’m so irked that I didn’t take one picture to prove it, but it was fun- documented or not! We lunched, and hung out, and watched my shows and played with Benson. Brandon had a conference for JRC in Dallas so it was nice to have someone to help me hold down Benson for his daily dose of antibiotics!

He ended up getting tubes in and adenoids out on Thursday. We were an hour late due to the afore mentioned drivers and seriously went 10 miles an hour the entire way. I was a total disaster! When he woke up from the anesthesia he was a crying mess. I’ve done lots of complaining about the situation but failed to mention how incredibly grateful I am that things went smoothly, that weren’t any complications, and how amazing the staff was at the hospital. Every single person we dealt with was so incredibly kind to Benson and to us. Such a great team of doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists. One of the nurses told us in broken English “you such cute mom and dad, you need more kids!" Ha ha.

What else is on my mind? Packing. Which seems weird because I swear we just moved here. So far I’ve contemplated getting a box from the basement. Progress, right? Less than three months until Brandon graduates and we move away from this most amazing place. Tears just thinking about it. Will it be SO nice to have our families around the corner? Yes! But… I know things will be do different from here on out. A real job, real money, real bills, the NV Bar and the list goes on. Time to grow up if we haven’t already! I will miss the people here so, so, so, much. More tears. I’ll save their tribute for a later post.

Ya know what I totally missed blogging about? Brandon’s 30TH BIRTHDAY! He let me invite like 5 people over and was adamant that it remain small and calm. I had a ginormous party planned in my head but I complied and it was actually nice to keep it low key. I’m super-duper glad he was born. His mom was here to celebrate with us and let us sleep in THREE days in a row! Glorious. Again, no pictures.

In other Benson news, he has started a fun little tantrum stage. Tantrums when we take something away that he can’t play with, when he wants a book read immediately, when his toy doesn’t do what he wants, when he doesn’t like what he’s being fed, doesn’t want to eat and we’re trying to get him eat, or when the food he’s eating is gone and he likes it. Food and eating have been our challenge from day one and I don’t think it’s going to end anytime soon. It’s not even that he won’t eat, just that he’s so extremely particular about what, when, and how he does it. Even when he’s having a tantrum he makes us laugh and I love his squishy cute little self. Oh, no walking yet. I think we still have a good month or two before he’ll do it. Since there isn’t really anywhere to walk in our teeny little house I’m okay with it!

Currently my 30 year old husband is having “Bond Night” with his friends, Benson is sleeping, I am Blogging, I love it.

I Could Just Eat This Cute Baby...

Benson Is One!

I wanted to do the cutest, most creative 1 year old post ever (maybe an interview like my cute Cousin Bekah does), but blogging/writing/creativity are not exactly my talents so I’m left with this…

Benson is one!

This has been the fastest year of my life- hands down.

I love him more than I ever thought it was possible to love anything.

Benson is quirky and crazy and fun. Some of my favorite things about him…

Every time we’re in public we get endless comments on his cuteness, I feel a little bit proud that he’s mine.

He loves food, but won’t pick up anything wet, sticky or slimy (exhibit A below). He would be content with us feeding him all his meals and snacks while he sits there with clean hands. Brandon calls him King Bugsimo and calls us his faithful subjects.

Benson would give his right arm to be able to play with the universal remote.

He started holding his bottle two weeks ago, I’m a new women! What should I do with all my free time?

He won’t wave, but gives awesome high-fives and “bonks”

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is his jam (the Jewel version please).

Yo Gabba Gabba “Party in my Tummy” is the weirdest thing ever and his favorite thing ever!

His favorite book is “What Does Baby Say”- he would let us read it to him over, and over, and over… and we do until we want to throw it in the fire, so we eventually hide it and he screams until we read him “Where is Baby’s Belly Button” or “Where is Baby’s Mommy” (dang you Karen Katz!)

His fastest crawling is reserved for when the bathroom door opens, if he could just get in there to play with the trash can.

75% of his day is spent throwing and chasing. Sometimes I wish he would understand that we can’t throw EVERYTHING, like his 5 pound piano for example. Benson, you have challenged me, pushed me to my limits, made me laugh every single day and helped me to look at life in a whole new way. I love you cute boy!

Here's a little photo year in review:

And just to make sure this is the longest post of all time, Benson had a cute owl themed birthday party (in Las Vegas and again in Lansing)!

I was feeling a little crafty and whipped up this banner with my Cricut.

I thought these little Whoopie Pies turned out so cute!

Benson checking out his awesome new toys!

Thank "Whoo" for Coming!


And for the grand 1st birthday finale, a big boy carseat!

One for the Books...

I'm feeling a tad behind. We had such a fabulous 2010 I feel like it deserves some sort of tribute. So many great things happened so I can't just bypass the "New Years" post.

Obviously first and foremost, the love of our lives, our crazy, precious, little angel baby was born! Benson rocked our world last year. 2010 had a little less sleep, a little more stress, a lot more love thanks to this little guy.



Brandon started his THIRD and FINAL year of law school. Today he informed me he has 115 days left. That is crazy.

We traveled, and played, and cheered, saw and did. It was a good year.

And the year came to end with Benson's very first Christmas. He was mostly oblivious, slightly amused and loved his new toys once someone opened them for him.

Bring on 2011!

Merry Christmas! Love, Us

Fa, la, la, la, la!

CHRISTMAS! I’m so pumped; it’s so much fun with a little person around. Benson saw Santa for the first time a couple weekends ago and was such a fan. I LOVE how much he loves attention.

Our attempt at a group shot, lol!

I realize he won’t exactly get it yet, but Brandon and I thoroughly enjoyed figuring out what to get him and ordering everything online to get sent to Grammies house where we’ll be for Christmas. Last night we went to Target and picked out Barbies to help provide Christmas for some less fortunate little girls. Brandon helped me find some that were semi modest (for reals, Barbie is a little scandalous) and we hooked them up with outfit options. I wrapped them super cute and it felt like Christmas, even in my treeless house. We didn’t end up doing a tree because we are leaving Thursday to go HOME (and let’s face it, Benson would demolish it, see exhibit A below) but we are rocking our mantel!

I've been contemplating, is there a point to sending Christmas cards anymore? On one hand, I can’t see the point because Face Book and blogs keep us up to date on every little detail…like seriously, we know what you ate for dinner, how much you love your husband and where you celebrated your mom’s birthday, but…I love getting them and making them so I may do one even though ya’ll already know what’s up with us. Oh, it’s the 12th? Maybe I should get working on that!

Tasks for the coming week, get Benson well so our flight isn’t as nightmarish as the Thanksgiving one was, presents for the rest of the fam (it isn’t all about Benson?), pack, pack and more packing, clean, work, stress. Yay!

I'm Ten Months!

Benson is 10 months old! As of late, he is obsessed with standing. For reals, he cannot be trusted. He attempts to stand in his stroller (while it's moving), in his highchair (while he's eating), holding onto my legs while I'm cooking, doing dishes, etc. He loves playing with his soccer ball, jabbering the day away, and his all time favorite activity is reading books. He will find a book and crawl around with it whining until someone reads it to him.

We just got back to MI after a little trip home for Thanksgiving. Benson loved all the attention and I'm pretty sure my entire house is the size of my parents entryway so he had space to crawl to his hearts content. I've contemplated skipping over the Thanksgiving post all together because it was a disaster of epic proportions. We had Thanksgiving in Mesquite with Brandon's family, left the diaper bag in Las Vegas that had ya know, food, diapers, wipes, (basically everything we needed to function for the day). It was no bueno. Aside from that little mishap, it was so great to see everyone, and we are so thankful for our little wild bundle of joy, our family, our faith, and each other.

Happy 10 Months, Happy Thanksgiving!