Another New Adventure - At the Beach!

It was such a nice day today, we decided to take Ben to see the beach for the first time.   We took a quick ride down the parkway to Keansburg to check out the little amusement park they have there.  He was definitely a little young for any of the rides, but he is definitely going to be an outside kid - he loves being outside and feeling the sun on his face and the wind in his hair.   Here's a nice family photo...

Then we went and enjoyed some nice greasy boardwalk food.  When was the last time you ate a sandwich as big as your head!!  Of course, Ben turned this amazing cuisine down for a bottle of formula.

Then after a enjoyable afternoon of wheeling and rocking and after sucking down a few bottles on the boardwalk, Ben pretty much was worn out.   We had a good day at the beach!

Ben's First Party

Ben attended a party for the first time yesterday - we all went to his friend Eli's 1st birthday party.  This was one of his first true adventures!   Here's Ben before the party getting into the mood.  He's swinging his arms and singing that "Yo-Ho Ho and a couple of bottles of Rum" song.

When we got to the party, we told him how good all the food was, but he still just wanted his formula.  After eating, he started getting into the festivities.   Here's Ben playing both the Ship's Captain and as a true Pirate looking to steal some booty. 

He was such a good baby all afternoon.  He didn't cry once! 

I have to add one more picture - look how good he's holding up his head!

Pictures from Ben's First Six Weeks

I've got lots of pictures that I still want to share with everyone, so I think the best way to do it is to just post them all from early on to today....   Here we go!

Here's Ben from when we were still at the hospital.  He likes to sleep with his arms up like that.

This was Ben's first trip in his car seat when we took him home from the hospital.  Like most babies.. he like car rides and fell right asleep.  He's so tiny in there!!

Ahhhh.... he's home in his Ben and loving every minute of it.  And no, we didn't pose him this way - he likes sleeping like that!

Then our family all came... (not all at once fortunately)  You've got to hold the baby!!!
Here's Grandma...

And Grandpa...  How happy is he!  I don't think he ever thought he would be holding a GrandSON!  (He's only had Granddaughters so far...   not that there's anything wrong with that...)

And even Grandma Eileen drove up for a visit!!  (The first time ever!)   She LOVES her first Grandson!!

And here's my sister Donna.  She's always smiling when she's with Ben.   Doesn't Ben look like he's waving to all his royal subjects?  "Bow down!"

I have lots of other pictures of friends and family holding Ben - if you would like to see others, just let me know...

Here's Ben's first bath at home!  We didn't know what we were doing.. but we all figured it out.  Ben LOVES to get his hair washed.  Look how tiny he is next to my hands!

He may be tiny - but he's a long little boy! 

Ben loves to cuddle with his Mommy and Daddy, or whoever else is around.

He even smiles in his sleep!

And we like to give him a mohawk sometimes...  He's got great hair!

I'm not sure.. but this might be gas...

He loves his Mommy!

He doesn't get much cuter than this...  He loves that pacifier!

Ben's thinking that this is enough pictures for now...

Growing, Growing, Growing

Its really amazing how fast babies grow.  At his four week check up, Ben already put on about a pound and a half (he was up to 9 pounds 13 ounces) and grew almost another two inches.  At six weeks now, he's definitely feeling even heavier.   I'm sure he's over 10 pounds.  He's outgrown most of his newborn clothes already too and he's into a few 3-6 month sized clothes already.  He's obviously in a bit of a growth spurt too because since about two weeks ago he's tripled his formula intake to about 6 ounces every 2-3 hours.   So far I haven't posted any current pictures of Ben, so here is a more recent one.  He's starting to see a little better now and interact with us too.  He's got a great smile!!

He's a very alert little guy too....  when he's awake.  He's still sleeping quite a bit, but when he's awake he loves to just look all around and stare at us and his little toys...

He doesn't even look like 6 week old infant, does he! 

Ben's First Day at Work and an early recap

Yes, that's right - we've already put Ben to work.  Well, not really, we BROUGHT him to our workplace today.   Ben is six weeks old today and Jill had a meeting with her boss about when she'll be coming back to work.  (She still has at least six more weeks to spend at home with Ben, in case you're wondering).   Everyone loves to see Ben.  The women exclaim about how cute his is and about how much hair he has.  The men just stare at him.  I like to think they're thinking in their heads "Damn, that's a cute baby... much cuter than my kids when they were babies."  Most men wouldn't say something like that outloud.

So, I'm starting this blog about six weeks late.  That means I have a lot of catching up to do to talk about everything that's been going on over these past weeks.  Believe me there's been a lot..  So, with each new blog entry I'm going to talk about his first few weeks, along with what is currently going on.  Eventually I'll catch up and be current.  Eventually.

So, Ben's official stats when he was born - 8 pounds 7 ounces and 21 inches long, plus a full head of hair.  Everyone exclaims about his hair, plus the fact that he still never really looked like an infant.  He's looked older from the start.  Here's a pictures after he was just about 30 minutes old... they were still cleaning him up.   He's doing his first Elvis impersonation.

He was a good baby right from the start, although his non-crying didn't last too long though.

That's my finger he's holding on to there...  He settled down pretty shortly after that once they got him all cleaned up.

That's mommy calling Grandma to let her know that Ben arrived!

We all got back to our room just a little while later and here's our first family picture.

Six weeks later we can still hardly believe it all happened.  I still find myself staring at him at times thinking - I can't believe he's my son!   It is amazing that he's here with us.  Those of you who know my Mom know that she calls just about everything from a cell phone to the shaped jar of Mrs Butterworths pancake syrup a miracle.   Ben's arrival has gotten my first official seal of approval as a true miracle.  So I've been telling my Mom that she can call him a miracle-baby as often as she wants.   Maybe that will quell her self-declared miracle calling a little...

Gotta run!  More later...

Ben Has Arrived

Ben arrived at 8:05 PM on July 16th, 2009.   Jill pushed for two hours and he finally made his appearance.  He let out two cries, then just chilled out and started looking all around at us in the room.  The doctors were so amazed by him that they just left him with us just like that for about 20 minutes.  Look at all that hair!!  We were all just SO excited that he FINALLY arrived!