Sunday, April 17, 2011

Busyness

We have been busy. Like seriously. Busy playing with our friends almost every night of the week, busy with girls nights, busy with church stuff, busy packing, busy working, busy with parties and baby showers and going to school.

Brit, Kari and I made 100 cupcakes for our ward activity- cute huh? I thoroughly enjoy when other people are perfectionists too. Ha ha!


We had a “Feather Her Nest” baby shower for our cute friend Jessica. There were nest cupcakes and sparkly birds and good food. So fun.


Just a handful of my very favorite people on earth...


Benson got dirty. For like, the first time ever. He all the sudden was okay with crawling in the grass, eating the rocks, and crawled straight into the mud puddle in our yard. He topped off his night with eating an entire cupcake by himself. Oh the progress.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

For the Sake of the Book...

I started our blog right when we moved to Michigan. I love that Brandon appreciates my craftiness and reminded me that when we make our blog into a book of our three years here, it won't have all the headers. He's right- the headers need to be in the book! Here they are in no paticular order, for the books sake...














Sunday, March 27, 2011

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.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

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.

Friday, February 25, 2011

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.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

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!