Ben Rolls Over!

Ben is getting stronger and stronger every day.  We give him 'tummy time' just about every day and only a few weeks ago, just would just lay there and pick up his head to look around for us.  Now he's pushing up with his arms really good and looking all around him.  Then the other night when we were having dinner at our friend's house (Doug, Danielle & Eli) he pushed himself up real high and then rolled right over on his back.  We all were so excited...  its pretty funny how such a simple action can get such a reaction from us adults.

Here's an action shot of Ben in the middle of rolling over.

Here's Ben enjoying his tummy time play station.

Right in the middle of that yellow 'wall' is a mirror.  Ben LOVES mirrors.  I don't know exactly what that means, but when he sees himself in a mirror he just laughes and laughes and has the biggest smile!  Here he is peaking in his mirror.

You can just barely make out his big smile in there.

If you can't exactly see the the smile in that picture, then how about here...

I love this picture.  He's such a great smiler. 

Everyone that meets Ben comments about what a happy baby he is.   Just an added little story - Ben & I had to wait for Jill in the doctor's office earlier last week.  We were out there for a couple of hours and the nurses kept coming out from the back room to see Ben.  A few nurses told me that he was the 'talk of the office' and everyone kept saying - 'Did you go out to the waiting room and see that baby??!!" 

Ben Has a New Friend!

I know what you're saying...  who's that kid in that picture??!!  That's doesn't look like Ben!!  Well, our friends Kim & Jamie in Delaware had a baby boy a couple weeks ago - William James Tobin!  This is great news for them as well as for Ben since this means that Ben has a new friend right around his age!  The two boys are only four months apart in age, which will be great as they get older.  They will always have someone to play with while the four of us adults do our thing.  Its just too bad that they live all the way in Delaware!

Here he is!  William James Tobin

Will's Dad, Jamie, has been enjoying Ben's Blog so much, that he's started his own blog for Will.

For those of you who don't know the story about how Jill & I met our friends Jamie & Kim, here's the quick version.   Jill & I met Jamie & Kim on our honeymoon cruise.  We all booked the same tour at one of the cruise stops in St. Martin for a day trip to a local beach.  We met them on the bus on the way to the beach and as soon as we found out they had just gotten married on the same day as us, we were instant friends.   We preceded out of the bus on to this beautiful beach when it started raining... pouring.  It didn't stop us from having fun, or from Jamie & I getting drunk.  Toasted even...  We eventually made it back to the ship later that day and we met up again later that same night.  That was the second day of our cruise.  I think we pretty much met up every day after that as well!  We've been friends ever since.  We each take turns visiting each other periodically for weekend trips.   Now, we can't wait to take the boys on their first cruise!

Here we all are on our honeymoon..

Here's Kim all nice and pregnant at her Baby Shower

And here's Jamie holding Ben a month or so ago when we last visited them for Kim's shower. 

 Afterall, I can't post a blog entry without at least ONE picture of Ben.   OK, well, here's another one.

Here's Ben waving hello to his new friend Will! 

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and are enjoying this nice long weekend.  We all enjoyed our Thankgiving at my sister Donna's house.   It was a nice quiet and relaxing day...  Which is good since Ben has had a rough week couple of weeks battling bronchiolitis off and on thoughout the month.  He got hit especially hard with it earlier this week.  He had been coughing and weasing quite a bit and runing a low grade fever.  But the amazing kid that he is, he doesn't let it bother him all that much.  You know he's not feeling all that great, and he'll cough and cough, but then he hits us with a big beautiful smile and a cute laugh!  Amazing... 

On Thanksgiving Day, he thankfully started getting a little better and over the past couple of days he's still been improving.  Hopefully he'll kick this cold and be done with being sick for the rest of the winter.   Since he was feeling a little better, we decided to dress him up nice for Thanksgiving dinner.  

Here he is with his Daddy...

With his Mommie...

And his Auntie Donna...

He obviosly got passed around alot.  Who doesn't want to hold such a cute little guy!!

Ben's first School Pictures

Ben got his first school pictures taken!  OK, so daycare isn't quite school yet, but its pretty close.  He did great posing for his pictures and he even smiled and spit up for them!  They are pre-haircut shots, but they're still adorable as ever.   Its amazing how you can see how his face changes even just in the past few weeks.

He looks so serious in this last shot... 

Kind of like - "Aye!  You lookin' at me?!"

Ben Gets his First Haircut!

After going about three and a half months without a haircut, Ben's hair was really been getting long.   He definitely looked very cute with his 'shaggy' look, but I was starting to think that with those long curls in front of his ears, people were going to think we were Jewish!  

You can't see the side curls too much in this picture, but they're there...    So I decided that I could give him a quick trim myself.  I never cut anyone's hair before, but I've watched my barber many many times, so how hard could it be.  Well, the difference is that I keep my head still... Ben, not so much.   Everytime I came close to him with the scissors to cut some hair, he would turn his head to try and see what I was doing.  Jill did her best to keep him focus on something else... and after a bit of time, and quite a few laughs, we finally got his hair cut.

Look how cute!  He looks like a real little boy now! 

He's not eating solid foods just yet, but he's been sitting up pretty well lately, so we tried putting him in his high chair right after his haircut too.  He liked it in there...  he's just waiting for some food now.

He watches everything that we eat - from the plate, up to our mouths...  its just a matter of time before we fill up that entire tray and he eats it all! 

Ben has his four month check up on Monday this week - he's just about 18 pounds now and 27 3/4 inches.  He's growing so fast!