Ben's 1 Year Check Up

A couple of days ago, Ben turned 13 months! He is such a fun kid. He is almost always in a good mood. He loves to laugh, smile, dance, walk, eat, play with brother and gibber jabber! He just makes me (and Michael and Jonathan) laugh!


I feel like a broken record when I describe Ben = he is easy, funny and fun to be with, but it is the truth! I decided that he is an accidental comedian! He is always doing things and then looking to see if we are laughing. And then he laughs and laughs. It is just a consistent joy to be around him. And when Jonathan and Ben both get going and making us laugh, it is side splitting!


I am really enjoying Ben at this age! He is becoming so independent. He is sleeping through the night (finally and knock on wood!). He is really good at walking. He is great at eating. He will eat anything thing you put in front of him. He hasn't met a stranger he didn't like. I can leave him in the church nursery without worrying he will cry the whole time (he did that a lot over the last few months). It is like we have hit a sweet spot, with not just Ben, but all of us and I am going to make it last as long as I can!!!


He is a bit of a dare "angel" though. He sure does give us a run for our money. He is always falling, tripping, climbing or slamming into something. He has constant bumps and bruises to show for it too. I am a nervous, over-protective mommy anyway, so he makes my heart race a little faster these days.


Ben's 1 Year Check Up went great! There were no major issues to discuss so it was quick, but not painless. He had to get a few shots and he cried. But he slept it off and was as good as new by night time!


His Stats from the Appointment:
Weight: 24.12 lbs - 77% percentile
Height: 30.5" - 63% percentile
Head: 48.5 cm - 96% percentile

Here are some videos of Ben over the past few months:

This is a video of Ben doing flips with Daddy!

Ben loves it when you put something, like a wash cloth on his head! He is so funny!

Ben talking on the phone! He does this all the time now and it cracks me up! But also a big reason why I can't talk on the phone much anymore. I love that he pushes the phone to his mouth instead of his ear, although he does the ear a lot too.

Here are some of my favorites pictures of Ben over the past couple of months:

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this photo. I love when he does this. It is the face he makes when he is calling me. It is so funny. I haven't gotten it on video yet, but I finally captured it in a picture. Now I realize he might look a little crazy, but I think that is why I like it so much!

Uh Oh, he found his nose.

I went to check on him and he was sleeping like this! Precious! (Sorry the picture is weird. I took it without a flash and I didn't think it would take so I moved, but it took, it just has this weird flash streak across it.) That just can't be comfortable.

I just love his eyes.

Again, he is always trying to make us laugh! Mission: Accomplished! 

This was so funny! Ben ran and tackled Jonathan! It took Jonathan and I both by surprise!

Ben's first spin in the car. Do you see the face? He is calling me!

I like to drink water in large cups with straws...and Ben likes to steal them. (it's almost as big as he is!)

Sweet boys.

First Fishing Trip

For Jonathan's birthday, Michael bought him his first fishing pole! Jonathan was so excited he just couldn't wait! He kept talking about it and talking about it, so finally Micheal decided he needed to just take him down to the stocked pond down the street. We will go on a "real" fishing trip very soon, but this at least quenched his appetite for the moment! Ben and I tagged along and I snapped a couple of photos that I will cherish forever.

Thats then end the tree. It's was just a precious sight to see them walking with their equipment.

Finding a good spot in the shade.

Daddy is showing him how to put a worm on the hook.

Getting started.

Happy Camper!

They didn't catch anything, but they had fun!!

Ben thought it was pretty cool too!

This is my favorite shot.

A Day with The Day's

About a month or two ago, Amy and I met up with our kiddos for a day of fun! The pictures got lost in the craziness of the past few months, but I figured, better late than never!
Anytime I speak with family or family friends they always ask, do you and Amy see each other often? And the answer is always yes, but not as much as we would like! We both have annual memberships to the Museum of Science and History in Fort Worth and we try to coordinate our trips, since is almost half way for us both!
So back in March, we met for lunch at a place called the Love Shack, a burger place I have been wanting to try! Then we all went to the museum for a fun new exhibit called "Gross-ology"! (Sorry they aren't the best quality photos, they were all taken with my iPhone)

Scarlet loves Ben! She always wants to know where he is and what he is doing!

Sweet cousins.

Silly cousins.

Sharing cousins.

My lunch. It's called "Dirty Love" (not sure why). It's a Bacon Cheeseburger with a friend Quail Egg!! Yum!

There he is! Sweet Will!

Playing ring around the rosy.

The exihibit is all about gross body things. The kids had a blast! This one would shoot air at you while making a toot noise!

This one you would push a button and it would force air to the top of the tube and make a toot noise.

This is explains what happens inside you when you barf!

This guy was funny! Will was very sad for him though. It was so sweet.

They are shooting green booger balls into the nose!

Jonathan and Scarlet inside a nose!

The babies!

Jonathan at the entrance to the children's area!!! It's funny because I came here as a kid, although it has been completely renovated and not at all like it was, I still love that I can bring him here!

The Grocery Store - he is checking out.

Watch out - our kids are driving!

Super blurry - but so funny! Those are the baby beds and our kids crawled into them!

The boys had so much fun that they crashed out on the way home! True sign of a good time!

Your Personal Penguin

We recently discovered a video on youtube of Davy Jones singing the words of a Sandra Boynton book called Personal Penguin! If you haven't seen the video or read the book, you must do both as soon as possible! It was an instant family favorite. I got the book for the boys birthday. We watch the video and read/sing the book daily! Jonathan is my back up singer with perfect timing. And Michael and I have decided that Ben IS our personal penguin! He wants to do everything that the penguin in the book wants to do...and he kind of walks like a penguin too!! :)

Enjoy the you tube video! (I just love Davy)

My personal penguins!

I highly recommend the author Sandra Boynton. We were given "Fifteen Animals" as a gift when Jonathan was a baby and that is still one of our favorites today. Then we were recently given the - Boynton's Greatest Hits Volume 1 - My favorite from that collection is "Blue Hat, Green Hat"! So...if you don't have them, get them or buy them for someone you love! ;)

The Fort Worth Zoo

We visited the Fort Worth Zoo today with our CCM group from Church! We had a blast! We actually were given a Annual Membership to the Dallas Zoo from Pat and we can't wait to go use it! But since today was the last day of school for most schools around here (which means that there shouldn't have been school bus loads of kids there, but there were anyway) our group of ladies and kids met up! I took my fancy camera and had fun taking pictures of everyone!

Getting started. Looking at the monkey's! The other mom's and I were kind of excite that there were so many boys there today! Our boys are usually in the minority. So the boys were boys and had lots of fun! From the left, is Liz and her son Will, her other son Luke, in the red shirt is Jonathan and in blue is one of his best buds Brady!

That momma was being so silly, with her precious baby!!!

He had fun, although I didn't let him out of his stroller!

Climbing!

I think this area is so pretty!

I don't tire of seeing these curious boys checking out the animals!

Such a sweetheart, Luke!

My friend Jill and her little girl Olivia!

This was our view as we ate lunch! Yikes! I am not a fan of these reptiles.

You can see the tail end of one of the yucky beast to J's left.

Jonathan told me on the way there that he was mostly looking forward to seeing the Hippos! So here he is with them! His friend Joseph next to him.

My sweet boys watching the elephant take a bath!

All the kids watching the elephant take a bath! Left to Right: Jonathan, Olivia, Will, Joseph, Ben, Luke and Katie.

Jonathan and a Rhino!

Birds!

Jonathan said that his favorite part of the day was watching this White Tiger! He was really cool! He was running around and jumping!

Ben says, I can pet the White Tiger??!!

Look at those teeth! I never want to encounter a Bear in the wild!

Of course my favorite part is always the Lion. But he was too tired to look at us today.

Jill took Jonathan into the bird area where you can feed them. I didn't want to take Ben in there. I wasn't sure what he would do if one jumped on him! ;)

We left before the others because we were super hot (high of 95 today) and tired and just ready to go. But someone said. "I'm not hot! I'm not tired!!" - You be the judge. That isn't a sunburn and I didn't squirt him with water! :)

Benny says, "Um, I'm hot and tired!"