Growing up so Fast...

We can't believe how much Ben is growing up lately.  He's progressing at an amazing pace lately.  He's crawling all over the house, standing up on his own, eating lots of new foods (chunky pieces now too!) and he's got four new teeth all coming in on the top now, and possibly two more coming on the bottom soon.   He's not all that happy about the teeth at the moment, but he's thrilled about everything else. 

As you can imagine with his new found mobility, we don't have as much free time as we did before when we could just sit him down with a pile of toys and know he pretty much wouldn't move from there...  Here's a few pictures of what we have to watch out for now.

Oh yes... he loves opening drawers now - and he can reach them all.  Did someone say that its time to baby-proof the house?  uh huh...

Here's a picture of Ben on Easter reaching for the top of the table...  all by himself!

Here's a picture of Grandpa and Ben in his new Chinese Dragon outfit.   I think he likes it!

Ben also recently got a new car!  Yes, that's right, an old fashioned foot powered car.    Complete with an antenna (but no radio) and a trunk in the front of the car.  

Ben seems to always start moving in reverse first.  But I'm sure it will be no time at all before he's scooting all around the house.   Here's Ben chasing after Lybbie... one of his favorite past times.

Run Lybbie, Run!! 

For the time being Lybbie is faster than Ben.  But I don't think that's going to last long. 

Taxi!!

After a long day of scooting around the house, beeping horns and putting things in the trunk, and then out again, and then in again, and then out again...  its time for a bath. 

Ben's grown out of that little baby bathtub and graduated to the big tub. 

He's checking out the temperature of the water here...

Those swimming lessons are paying off.   It looks like he's ready to dive right in!!

The Early Adventures of Benjamin X and Agent Eli

When Jill & I first came up with the idea Ben's first and middle name (Benjamin Xavier), I made up a whole story about "Benjamin X" being a great secret agent.  (I actually think that these stories helped sell the name to Jill.)  About that same time, Jill's good friend Danielle had just had her baby, Eli, and they both were imagining that the two kids would not only also be great friends, but they would also be in the spy business together.  So they asked me to include Eli in the story about Secret Agent Benjamin X. 

That's when I came up with the story idea of "The Amazing Adventures of Benjamin X and Agent Eli."  I had a whole story line built up in my head and Jill & Danielle would both laugh and giggle when I told them about some of the adventures that Ben X and Agent Eli would go on.  The stories got so elaborate (in my head) that I considered writing some of the stories as children's books.  Needless to say, we had a baby, and well, we had no time for anything else.  So the children's story books idea went out the window. 

But, the children's story idea did lead me to start this blog as a way of both sharing Ben's pictures with our friends and family and keeping track of Ben's development and his great adventures.

So at this point, neither Ben nor Eli are secret agents, but they are getting to be friends.  So today I present some of the early adventures of Ben X and Agent Eli.

Here they are in their high chairs discussing their next mission - how to escape from these high chairs...

Here's Ben getting caught trying out some of his pick-pocketing skills. 

I think Ben thought Eli had some cheerios in his pocket.  But he got caught.

Instead of some covert method of 'borrowing' a toy, Ben just goes for it and snags the floppy frog right out from Eli's grasp.   Ben's learning some bad habits from those kids at daycare.  All those times he got his pacifier stolen from him, Ben's learned now to strike first.

Ben's practicing his "I'm completely innocent" look....

Damn, he's good - I believe him.  He didn't do anything wrong!

Well, it would seem that all is forgiven with this very un-spy-like kiss of exoneration.

And finally they've both been captured by the big bad momma's...

I think these two boys have a lot to learn if they really want to get into the spy business. 

They absolutely can get a free pass to the "cute" business though.

Random Pictures of Cuteness

I've got a bunch of cute Ben pictures that don't really have much of a story behind them, but they need to be shared. 

Here's Ben on the front porch sitting on the Barny chair that Grandma just gave him.

Ben usually doesn't keep a hat on for long, but he must have known that he looked extra cute with the hat on backwards and he kept it on for quite a while!

Here's a picture of Mommy and Ben at the park. 

How cute they both are!

Here's a picture of Ben right before going to bed.  

He's making that cute face and holding on to my foot so I don't take him upstairs to bed.

Here's a picture of Ben taking a late night conference call with Daddy.

Ben just loves things with buttons.. telephones, cell phones, computers, you name it. 

They are simply facinating to him.

Do you want to keep it quiet?  I'm working here!