Yum! Dinner tonight was a pea and carrot medley with a side of plain whole milk organic yogurt. Ben loved it so much that he covered himself, his highchair, and my hands in it and then couldn't help smiling at the big mess he made!
Wow, do I feel like a bad blogger! The blog has been giving me problems for close to two weeks so I have not been able to upload photos until today. I apologize to all of my devoted blog-watchers for the delay. Although Andrew's birthday has now passed, these photos were taken two weekends ago when his dad and Cheri came to visit us to celebrate Andrew's 29th.
Here's Ben with his newest congressional campaign advertising that his Grandpa G and CC brought for him. We'll have to look into this "Ben" who is running for office in New York someplace :). I guess Ben takes after his dad who is the "mayor" of our development's Association board!
Here are a few photos of us as Andrew opens his handyman birthday gift, which Cheri decorated a la Bob the Builder!! Ben seemed to enjoy the Bob paraphernalia, especially the plastic hammers that decorated the outside of the package.
Of course Ben got a few "birthday" presents for Andrew's birthday and one of them was a tee-shirt that says "Grandpas are like dads without rules." Hmmm...I wonder who picked that one out!?!? Here's a family photo of Andrew, Ben and me, and also some photos of Ben sporting his new tee-shirt with his G and CC (please mind anything that resembles drool on the baby's shirt...it's an illusion. Seriously.)
Everyone had a fun time feeding Ben some of the newest solid foods that he has been trying. Yum, he loves those things that we'd think babies would never like such as avocado and split peas! Here he is "wearing" his sweet potatoes and bananas as his Grandpa feeds him:
Ben likes to "help" us feed him most of the time, which never makes for a neat dining experience!
Finally, Cheri and I took Ben to his favorite playground on Sunday for a walk and some time on the swings so here's a photo of him all smiles. I forgot to take off his dressy church clothes beforehand so he looks a little dapper for a day in the park :)
Last month when Michelle visited us we were going through some old family photos when we came across this one that really resembled Ben as a newborn. The funny part? It's a photo of Michelle and not Andrew! We really had a laugh seeing how much Benjamin resembles his aunt as a baby; even their poses in these photos are similar. We concluded that the biggest similarity, though, is probably that head of thick dark hair (that both were born with and neither of them still have!) and the gigantic eyes. The top photo is Benjamin at 5-1/2 weeks and the bottom one is Michelle at a few weeks old.
Yesterday I took Benjamin to The Picture People for his six-month-old portraits. They did a really cute job and were able to capture some great poses. Because we got Ben's photo taken this month, he automatically gets entered into the Picture People Show Baby contest and could become the new face for all Picture People advertisements. I'll let you know when he wins since I really think he should :) :) :)...
Here are the six photos that they took. 
If anyone would like to purchase any of the photos online, let me know and I will send you the link to the smilestore at Picture People.com where you can purchase reprints of any of the above photos and many other items.
This week started out with great weather so on Tuesday we went to Peddler's Village for the afternoon with some of the girls in my Gymboree playgroup. Ben really likes to ride around in his stroller even though it tends to tire him out (and relax him to the point that I am able to look in some stores in peace!). Here are a few cute sleepy photos of him in what I like to call "the zone," right before he starts to nod off to sleep.
This morning my friend Julie Delp and I tried out our church's MOPS program (Mothers of Preschoolers). It's a national organization and a semi-monthly event at our church for young moms where they provide childcare for the kids for two hours while the moms do different activites togther such as crafts, cooking, listening to speakers, etc. We put Benjamin and Julie's daughter Talya in the nursery together and here are a few pictures of them afterwards:
Ben works up some nerve and decides to go after his little girlfriend...
...Now he's playing hard-to-get while Talya reaches for him...
...finally, gazing into each other's eyes. It must be love! :)
Today was a big milestone in Ben's life -- he started solid foods! Well, I suppose that's if you can call the watered down rice cereal we fed to him a solid, but it's a start and is a big step for someone who's been on a liquid diet for 6 months. He is actually about a week and a half shy of six months old but he really seemed ready for some variety in his meals so we decided to go for it. That coupled with the fact that he has been up in the middle of the night again lately with an insatiable appetite, which has definitely make me ready to start him on solids!
Andrew has been waiting for this moment for a long time since he is eager to help feed the baby (and probably sneak him ice cream and things when I'm not looking!). Unfortunately, it was a bit anti-climatic since Ben only wanted about 1/4 of his bowl of cereal, but I assured Andrew that he'd be feeding him "fun" stuff soon and to just be patient.
Here's Dad feeding Ben breakfast:
Not too sure about this stuff....
"If I could just....
...have that...
...SPOON!!!!!"
About 2T. of cereal later (most of that on his bib!), Ben has already lost interest in it...we'll see how he does tomorrow and Monday when we make his cereal a little bit thicker.
Next up: Oatmeal and then barley!
After spending quite some time yesterday morning racking our brains for a fun way to spend Andrew's day off from work, I logged on to our friends Todd and Aliza's blog and saw that they had just taken their son to the zoo. Outlet shopping or going into Philly for the day just didn't sound like much fun for Benjamin so the zoo seemed like an ideal way for us to spend the Labor Day holiday as a family.
We went to a small local zoo called The Elmwood Park Zoo and Benjamin saw his first "wild" animals from flamingoes and prairie dogs to bison and jaguars. He gave all of them his "Barney stare" where he looks at them in utter fascination and occasionally smiles and gets excited when the animals approach or let out a strange noise. Andrew wore the Baby Bjorn so Ben could have a better look at the critters and I was photographer for the day and got some cute photos of the two boys.
Helping Dad read the map to figure out where to go next:
Looking at the foxes:
Checking out the bison and elk; these really caught his attention since they are so large and therefore difficult to overlook (okay, maybe I should have taken a photo of the animals here and not just Andrew and Ben!):
Posing in the Butterfly Gardens...what a handsome butterfly!
Finally, here I am acting silly and posing as a butterfly myself!
This morning Andrew introduced Benjamin to the world of electronics when he had his first real look at our home theater. Andrew had taken Ben into the theater when he first came home from the hospital to "show him the ropes" around our house, but today was his first real interaction with it.
We LOVE Roger Hargreaves' Mr. Men and Little Miss series of books and often refer to Ben as Mr. Grumpy or Mr. Fussy whenever he is having a bad day. When we discovered that there is a web site dedicated to this series of adorable cartoons, we showed it to Benjamin on the regular computer and he was instantly attracted to the bright, flashing colors and cheery music. So, today we put his favorite web site on the 100" screen in the theater and he was mesmerized! Hopefully many of you remember the Mr. Men and Little Miss books from childhood, but for those of you who do not, here's the web site and a photo:
http://www.mrmen.com/site/flash/?detectflash=false&
Like father, like son, here is Benjamin hogging the TIVO remote as he watches the Mr. Men gang onscreen.
Here he is playing XBox 360 (or pondering an attempt at eating the remote for that matter!)
"Oh, I hate losing!" says Ben as he throws a temper tantrum (really, there were just too many photos taken for his liking!)...
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