Hey everyone, hope you are all doing well this fine February day. I have a whole slew of new pictures of the Ben-ster for you all, plus it's been a long time since I have updated this blog. Not like that's anything new.... Steve and Ben and I have been doing pretty well over all. Ben has continued to explode in the gross motor skill department. He is pulling himself up on everything (I also discovered that he can pull over our heavy dining room chairs onto himself....ouch). He is talking up a storm, although it's still in his own little language. However, he is fascinated with my teeth, and he looks at them every day and I say "teeth" over and over and he says "tith" so I'm pretty sure he's really starting to say a word and associate it with what it is! Pretty nifty. He makes us laugh with stuff he does every single day. Right now he's really into beating our dog with a rubber spatula. I can't feel too sorry for Mo because he could get up and walk away if he wanted. Ben just takes pot shots at his face when he's nearby. ha!! He makes Steve feel very special when he comes home from work. He squeals with delight and can't get to Steve fast enough when he walks through the door. I'm pretty sure he has no concept of time though, because if I go downstairs to get a load of laundry and I come up two minutes later, I get the same reaction from him! :-) He slept through the night last night which I must say I'm pretty stoked about, since the last time he did that was pre-Christmas. Wahoo. Hooray for good sleeping. I am pretty sure that this was an anomaly for now, but I'll just think positively and say that this is the new Ben: an I-sleep-through-the-night-every-night-Ben. He is definitely attached to me now. When I'm in the room and there are others holding him, most of the time he'll whine and lean towards me. However, he does pretty well if I leave and he's with others. Steve took me out to dinner last night for my birthday and we left him with our friends here at our house and he did really well. Of course, our babysitters have raised 4 boys of their own so I think they have just a little experience. They had the magic touch cuz it sounded like Ben was a good little boy and plus he slept through the night!
So now I'll take time to be honest and make known to you how much I'm a cubic zirconia-in-the-rough kind of mom. God is certainly using Ben to magnify my outstanding level of impatience. I have always known that I'm not going to win any patience awards, but now with Ben, I realize just how ridiculous my impatience can be at times. What other parents have to deal with far surpasses Ben's level of difficulty, yet I find myself embarrassingly short-fused. Mostly it is with regards to my sleep. I have always been protective of it since I don't sleep well anyway, and interruptions have always been a little upsetting, to say it conservatively.... Funny thing is, I am feeling ok for the most part during the day, even when Ben wakes up multiple times at night. I think my "sleep protectiveness" is a habit now more than anything. And that habit is not pretty. I had lunch with a friend today, who told me that kids are a blessing in that they help us see the areas in ourselves that need improvement, and that will be something that is lifelong, because kids are lifelong. I am grateful for that positive twist on it, and I see that as being so true already. I look forward to how God will re-shape me and make me into a more Godly woman, using our kids as His tools. Thank goodness God is starting out easy on me!!!


Ben liked our old 80's hatchback..
So much in fact, that he wanted to drive it and had a blast!! This is a shot of him speeding down the freeway. :-)

Havin a good time with Uncle Jimmy!!
Ben loves his Grandma!
The 1-2-3's of crawling down a sidewalk....1
....2.....
....3.... and drool to boot.

Check out his Uncle Eddy hat (courtesy of cousin Garrett)
Both he and Mo are equally in awe of the snowfall
Puttin out the vibe
Captain B. Leasure surfing the jet stream down to Cali
Uncle Jimmy is so way cool!!

The Hannah's Hope gang at an AGCI gathering a few weeks ago. Aleah and Briel are the twins on the right, Steve is holding Grace and Ruby (is it obvious that Steve wants a girl next??), and I have the Man!
One big happy family.
Ben 'twixt Ruby and Grace

I don't know how this synchronized pose happened but it's pretty hilarious.
Watch out ladies....I'm single and lookin for love.

Ben vs. Dad arm wrestling
A rough fight...they need a break.
Wow, Ben has hops. He jumps so high, I have to make sure I'm there to catch him!
He's always happy when I actually do catch him.
Mo's always extremely interested in Ben's bathtime.

...so, why doesn't Mo just join Ben?

Happy dog....confused kid.

Ben, Grace, and the twins, Aleah and Briel. All from Hannah's Hope, and we live 15 min from each other!!
Little Man Ben and his pal Grace! He loves to pull himself up at the sliding glass door...
I decided to go outside of the sliding glass door this time...
I was laughing pretty hard at this, and he was clueless as to why.
Ya, need I say more?

We discovered Ben sleeps like an ostrich...buries his head and sticks his bum in the air...

Handsome man in his flannel shirt!!