Caught

Uh-oh, now how am I ever going to get myself out of this one?

On the Move

Excuse me, Barney, I'm coming through!

Weekend in New York

A few of my girlfriends and I spent the weekend in New York City the beginning of this month without husbands and without children. It was such a nice break from reality! We spent our time shopping, walking and eating and had a blast. Unfortunately, I didn't take many photos but here are a few of the best ones.

A good photo of the four of us after dinner at one of my family's favorite restaurants in the city, Becco. Top to bottom - Julia, Heather, me and Julie.

Julie and Julia both have daughters with birthdays approaching so when we passed the Friends 2B Made store they couldn't resist "building" a doll for their little girls. This is the same idea as the Build-a-Bears but instead you choose a doll and then dress her, do her hair, etc. Here they are styling the hair on the dollies they bought for their girls (and having fun, too!).

11 Months Old

Wow, can you believe that Ben is almost 11-1/2 months old already? I can hardly imagine that our baby will be turning one in a few short weeks!

Benjamin has been as active as ever this month, trying all sorts of new things out. He is crawling and cruising around our entire house (sometimes faster than we can run!) and is exploring just about everything. He's such a curious little guy and is literally getting into everything that we don't steer him away from. Just this past weekend I reorganized our kitchen so that he has his own cabinet of Tupperware and unbreakables to get into. The best part about all of his accomplishments lately, though, is that he looks so pleased with himself when he figures something out or when we clap for him after doing something new (he always joins in!).

Playing Peek-a-boo with Mommy in his room.

Hanging out with Barney in his undies. Good thing Barney's such an easygoing fellow since Ben hangs all over him and steals his toys (right out of his mouth sometimes!) all day long.

Giving Barney his doggie toys. Ben hands them to Barney when we ask him to now, but always tries to take them right back! Barney loves this little game of Tug-o-war, though, and hides his toys all over the house so Ben can go and find them.

Ben has been copying just about every sound we make lately and I think they are starting to really resonate with him. He now says "Mmmm" with a big smile whenever he is eating something he likes, "Ewww" when he is trying to eat one of Barney's toys or go near his bowls(and knows what I am thinking!) and even "Moooo" when he sees a cow and "Whooo Whoo" when he sees an owl. So funny! Here, he is saying "Ewww" as he tries to eat Barney's latex sneaker and I reprimand him.

...and here he is laughing at me (don't you see the smirk?) as he is just about to continue eating it anyways!
Another thing that Ben has been having fun with lately is anything involving a ball. He loves to play catch, to throw Barney's toys for him and have the dog fetch them, and also to play with the "baby basketball" set that he got for Christmas from Aunt Michelle and Uncle Kurt. Below he is watching me as I sqeak one of the "basketballs" and then in the next photo he is offering me a ball to put in the basket after he already put two in.

Finally, just two funny photos that I had to include on this post. I have wrapped Ben's birthday presents and have them waiting for him in a pile in the guest room. I mean, how often is he really in the guest room anyways, right?

Well....this morning he was crawling around the house in a frenzy when he bolted into the guest room and all of a sudden spotted this pile of gifts!! Some of the more awkwardly shaped ones we are not going to wrap so those were just sitting on top of the heap. And what does Ben do when he sees this unexpected surprise? Why he goes over to them and starts pulling the unwrapped trucks off of the pile and playing with them, of course! Guess I'll have to find a better hiding place next year :).

On a closing note, just some exciting news lately - Ben will have his first cousin in early July. Our sister and brother-in-law Michelle and Kurt will be having a baby girl and we are all so excited for them!

Another different and exciting thing is that I have started a part-time job working for my friend's Internet marketing company in a product fulfillment role. It's a perfect opportunity for me since it is about 20 hours per week and the work can be done entirely out of my house, whenever I can get to it throughout the day. I had been feeling a bit wistful about not working since I was getting sort of bored during the day at times, but I knew I did not want to go back to work anyplace since I love being a stay-at-home mom. So, when this position fell into my lap I jumped on it right away and now I feel like I have the best of both worlds - being at home with my son and having an intellectual outlet to keep me occupied and my brain in-tune with the working world.

Playgroup Photos

We have been in a playgroup with some of the moms we met through Gymboree for close to ten months. Now that all of the kids have turned or will soon turn one, we decided it would be fun to bring them all for a professional playgroup photo. So, on Tuesday we took the Picture People by storm, bombarding them with six babies, six moms and lots of Goldfish and renditions of "Old McDonald Had a Farm" in an attempt to amuse the kids. The result? Well, the photos with the moms came out fairly well...as good as you can get while trying to pose six babies at once!

However, we weren't so lucky when the moms tried to walk away and leave the kids for a photo alone. Poor Ben was getting over Roseola and although his rash is faint (and unnoticeable here), he wasn't in the best of moods to say the least. Even the others seemed to be traumatized by this experience, the poor little things! So, we decided to call it a day with our "Mommy and Me" photo and plan to take the babies back in a few months when hopefully we will have more luck!

(l-r) Shayna, Ben, Olivia, Caroline, Teddy and Julia, the "Gymboree Gang."