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!

The Halloween Special!

Its Benjamin's first Halloween!  And I'm going to do a big holiday picture posting today!
Ben can't really go trick or treating yet, but Jill got him TWO costumes to wear around the house today.   Our little pumpkin started out the day looking really cute...

We wanted to walk Ben around the neighborhood today, but between the on and off rain and his sleeping and eating schedule we never made it out of the house.  So a little later, he did his second costume change of the day, and he got even cuter...

His pumpkin isn't full of candy... its full of baby food that our neighbor Mrs. Colucci brought over for him.  She is Ben's honorary Grammie.   She takes care of Jill & I pretty good too - she brings us dinners!!

We took a few fall family pictures earlier in the week that also came out nice.

Here's our nice family picture on our new swing that I built...

And on the front porch...

So cute!!  Both of them!

This is Ben's rocking chair...  he'll grow into it eventually.

Here we are hiding in the weeds.

And finally, Ben will leave you with this message...

Remember, only YOU can prevent forest fires!!

Yup, Its confirmed...Ben really is the cutest kid ever!

We all went to Babies R'Us the other night to get some clothes and general baby supplies for Ben.  I like going to the store with Ben because I find it fun to walk around with him and show him off.   He always gets a lot of attention.  Its especially fun at Babies R'Us because there's lots of other babies there to compare him to.   While Jill shops, Ben & I look around at all the colorful toys and we talk to the other babies.  We met a little 5 month old girl who already had earings and a curly up-do.  Ben didn't especially take to her - I think she was trying to hard.  There were a few other babies that we tried talking to, but they were all just stuck in the car seats and staring at the ceiling and not quite as outgoing as Ben. 

So then we moved on to a woman who was nine months pregnant and about to give birth.  She was there with her husband and mother to pick out a rocking chair.  At the time Ben & I were testing one of the chairs out ourselves and we couldn't help but give some advice.  Jill came over to us and we all wound up talking for a while - and then Ben started flirting with the pregnant lady's mother.  He was smiling at her and laughing - he was being very cute.   Then the lady started following us around a little.  She couldn't get enough of Ben!   Then she starts saying - "Oh, I want to see Benjamin again!  Can we meet here another day?"  Oh boy...  it was time to go.  But it was definitely confirmed once again that Ben is the cutest baby ever!  And its also confirmed that Ben is just like his Daddy - Back in my "prowling days," the Mom's always loved me, and it was the daughters who would give me the time of day.  Ben & I are going to have to keep working on this.

You'll be amazed to know that we didn't bring our camera to Babies R'Us to take pictures of him there.  I know, I know, what what was I thinking!   And I can't create a post stating how cute Ben is without a cute picture!  So here's a few pictures from when our little family went to a local Fall Festival a few weekends ago. 

That was a nice day out!  We love fall festivals...

Will the REAL Baby Einstein Please Stand Up!

I just can't help myself...  Ben might not like the Baby Einstein videos, but I certainly like to comb his hair to look like Einstein.  

Jill & I also like to make all the other Baby's Mommies jealous of Ben and all his hair...  After all, his hair makes him quite the super star where ever we go...

Bumbos and Bopies and Binkies, Oh MY!

Now that Ben has gotten past the three month mark, he's really starting to become more aware of things and develop a little personality. He also discovered that he has a voice last week that can make noises other than just cry. Its absolutely adorable to hear him trying out making different sounds. Although, its not so adorable when he really wants to be fed now - instead of a little cry, he will now add a scream or two in there...  Yowch.... So we do out best not to let him get to that point.    I keep trying to get a video of him 'talking,' but soon as I pull out the video camera, he shuts up and looks at me wondering what they heck I'm doing.   I'll get him one of these times and post a video of him.

Ben is also doing very well with holding his neck up now. We even tried putting him in the "Bumbo" the other day and I think he liked it!

He looks awefully cute sitting in the Bumbo. The names of these baby things crack me up.  Ben has a Bumbo, a Boppie, and lots of Binkies.   I think Jill even has a 'Breast Friend,' although she never used it.  Someone has a job out there where they just get to make up names for baby items to get mommies to buy them.  I want that job.

SO Big....

Oh my, Ben is growing so fast.  And let me tell you - he is quite a big boy for his age.  He's 14 weeks old today, and he's already outgrown all of his 3-6 month old clothes and he's well in to 6-9 month old sized clothes.  Its a shame too because he has so many outfits that he only got to wear and spit up on once or twice, and now they don't fit!  You can get a pretty good idea of how big he is in this picture below with his Grandma. 

I weighed him the other day and he was over 16 pounds already, which is almost double his birth weight. 

Let me give you some perspective - at his daycare, there are a set of twins who are about 7 months old.  Ben weighs more than them, eats more than them and wears about the same size clothes.  I wonder how long this double-sized kid is going to last.  I can see it coming...  by the time he's a teenager, he might be 10 feet tall and weigh 250 pounds!  Well, I hope not.  But I'm sure he's going to be a big kid.  And I'm sure he's going to continue to want to eat all the time too...  I might have to get a second job.

Ben's not so big yet that we can't still bathe him in the kitchen sink though.  Although, I don't think that's going to last much longer - he's going to graduate to the tub real soon.

Just look at that muscle definition on his arms!!  I think he works out with his stuffed animals in the middle of the night.   Ben likes his baths, although when he's done he usually can't wait to spit up on his nice clean clothes.