Ben 4 Months

13lbs 3.5oz (18%)
24.5 inches long (35%)
17 inch head circumference (75%)

The bigger the head, the bigger the brain, right??

The doctor said he was perfect.




























He's such a sweet and happy guy. He always has a big smile (as long as you don't put him down). He loves to be held and to look in the mirror.

He wears some 0-3, some 3-6 month clothes.  Lots of drool and chewing on his hands but no teeth yet.

He bats at toys and can grab on to some things (my hair, specifically). He loves to coo and talk and squeal.

He sleeps great. Sometimes he wakes up once, sometimes not at all.

So far he has only ever had breast milk but the doctor said we could start solids between now and 6 months. I don't see a rush. We'll probably wait until at least 5 months.

He is such a sweet guy. We adore him and are having so much fun watching him grow.

*I'll update with better pictures from the camera later.

This Week's Stuff

So Monday started off like this:

Yeah. Sucked.





























But of course the kiddos made it all better. Ben has been practicing sitting in his Bumbo. He is really studying his toys and batting at them but he's not grabbing anything just yet.

Avery saw the mums were clearly dying and took it upon herself to water them. Maybe her thumb won't be as black as mine.

Ben went business casual.





























Last night we went to the Halloween open house at my mom's office

Dorothy

Touring the plane

The Cowardly Lion

Ben was super happy and smiling when we got home.  I have been trying to catch his squeals and laughs on video.

Sneaky

Rob thought he could eat candy in front of Avery without her trying to steal some:)

This was last week.

Sniffles & Smiles

Thursday Ben started a little stuffiness and coughing.  We sent him to daycare on Friday (if kids didn't go to school/daycare when they had a runny nose they might as well shut them down) and his teacher called around noon and said that he'd had several nasty diapers that morning.  So I picked him up and took him to the doctor and she said he's fighting his first little cold and that he did have an ear infection in one ear.

Here we go...

Avery has had so many ear infections since she was born.  Her doctor broached the subject of putting tubes in her ears before she turned two, but they seemed to clear up that summer.  She does still get them, but they are actually asymptomatic (she has never once indicated that her ear hurt) and not as frequent.  Looks like Ben is heading down that road since the first sign of stuffiness or a sniffle was Thursday and by Friday he had an ear infection.  They don't seem to be bothering him, as he is pretty happy.  Thursday night he didn't sleep well but I think that was because he couldn't breathe.  Friday he was not as smiley as usual and pretty sleepy.  We snuggled on the couch Friday afternoon and he slept solid that night.  By Saturday he seemed much happier.  The only issue is that he will not take the medicine.  We have tried a few ways to get him to swallow it and he spits it right out.  I called the doctor today and she is calling in another type of antibiotic for him that tastes like strawberries (he has  never had a strawberry so how this will appeal to him is yet to be seen...).

Yesterday, Avery started sniffling too so it looks like they're sharing their first little sickness.  Regardless, both were happy as clams this weekend.

We've been sitting Ben in his Bumbo seat for a little bit here and there.  He's doing pretty good but still bobbles a bit.

Really?

Saturday Rob made his annual brisket feast and we watched the OU game.



















Sunday we went to a birthday party.  Avery had so much fun.  She got to decorate a cupcake and play in a Jupiter Jump so she was pretty happy.

5th Anniversary Weekend

Friday night I went to a craft party at Summer's.  I attempted to make a coffee filter wreath but it was sort of a fail.  I won't go into it, but several hot glue burns later it's in the trash.  BUT, it was super fun and well worth the wasted coffee filters and loss of skin!

Saturday was our 5th anniversary and also the OU/Texas game.  Mimi had asked to keep Avery for the day/night so Ben, Rob, and I went to Lynn and Drew's to watch the game.  Ben's first OU/Texas was a good one with OU winning by about 40 points.

Some friends were there with their twin girls who are about 5 months old.  They were so cute but as you can see Ben wasn't interested-well, he wasn't interested in being on the floor.  What were we thinking?!

Instead of trying to go out for dinner we decided to stay in and try to replicate our favorite meal from Fleming's.  Rob did all the work and it turned out amazing.

He made Fleming's potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and filets.  The pictures don't really do it justice-it was so, so good.  We didn't exchange gifts because we're going on vacation next month, but Rob delivered some beautiful flowers to my office on Friday.  

Sunday we decided to carve pumpkins.  We have a book of Sesame Street character designs, and Avery chose The Count (the most difficult one).  Rob takes his pumpkin carving verrrrry seriously.  There were some tense moments.  He also did an (easier) devil.  Or, as Avery was calling it, a buffalo (??).   They turned out great.

We carved them pretty early, so they probably won't last until Halloween-especially with the warm weather we've had.  We  might do another one in a week or two.  And by "we" I of course mean Rob. Hahahaha.

This Week

This week started off a little rough.   Since last Saturday Ben has been waking up once in the middle of the night, but throughout this week his wakeup time has slowly moved from 4 to 5 to 6 or 6:30.  Five a.m. is pretty much the worst possible time he could wake up because it's basically impossible for me to go back to sleep (he will eventually go back to sleep, it's just hard for me).  Even at 3:30 or 4, it's really hard for me to fall back asleep.  The past couple of days he's woken up at 6:15-6:30, which is fine.  I can handle that much better than 4 or 5.  

Add to that, Avery decided to have a party in her room on Monday night.  She turned the light on and was chewing gum and doing a little reading in bed.   The light woke Ben, whose door was open (it can get cold in his room for some reason so we've been opening the door when we go to bed).  Needless to say it was a rough morning complete with tears and meltdown from a very tired 3 year old.


Fortunately we haven't had another night like that.  We were all pretty tired that day.

Reading bedtime stories

Morning tickles

Evening time outside

She's almost too big for this

Speaking of getting too big...those are supposed to be pants.

Peeping on sister's cartoons

Hi, little brother!

There's so many more pictures of Ben because he'll sit still.

Weekend Recap: Intro to Fall

We had an awesome weekend, most of it spent hanging around the house. Saturday morning I finally used a massage gift certificate from Mother's Day. It was incredibly relaxing-if only I could do that every week (or month)!

It was pretty chilly and rainy (even a bit of sleet) so we kept the kids inside and Rob made chili.

Getting smiles from big Ben:

Sunday was still pretty cool but not raining or anything so we went to the pumpkin patch. Avery got to pick out a little pumpkin for each person in the family. We'll get bigger ones to carve in a week or so.

We've gone to this little pumpkin patch by our old house for the last few years. It's nice because its not too busy and I love the backdrop it provides. I know there are bigger ones in the area that have tractor rides and animals and stuff and Avery would probably like that too-we might have to seek one of those out sometime this month.

We got some pretty good pics of the kids.

Perfect fall weekend!

The Fair

We hit up the fair on its first weekend.


My mom offered to watch Ben while we went which was super nice. It goes without saying that the amount of enjoyment a 3 month old could get out of the fair is slim to none, not to mention the traffic involved. Ben no likey traffic.

I love the fair. I know- it's full of crowds and carnies and mullets and greasy food. The crowds I could do without (well, and the inflated prices) but everything else is golden.

Don't know what you think you're going to get with $1, sister.
Nothing within these gates.

They had some crazy foods this year, like fried watermelon.

And a booth devoted to bacon.

I enjoyed a carrot cake funnel cake.  It was delicious!

And don't forget to wash it all down with some diabetic lemonade.

Avery enjoyed a corn dog right off the bat.

How many corn dogs does it take to equal one Avery?
I say three.

We hit up the carousel and the petting zoo and the livestock barn. She even rode a pony.

We then took a lap around the expo building before calling it a day. That's where Avery ate an entire thing of popcorn by herself. I'm honestly not sure if she ate a fruit or vegetable all day. But hey, these things come around only once in a while.

Also, now she wants a pony.