New Jersey Weekend

On Friday, Benjamin and I traveled to New Jersey by ourselves to spend some time with Nana and Pop Caulfield and some other friends and family as well. Andrew had some other plans for the weekend so he and Barney stayed home alone while I took my first trek to NJ alone with the baby. I'm in my cousin Lauren's wedding in three weeks so she was having a bridal luncheon yesterday and I also needed to get my bridesmaid dress fitted so it worked out to do everything all at once over a long weekend.

We started out our NJ weekend by having lunch with Aunt Audrey Brown and Aunt Rose Egan since they had either not seen the baby in quite some time or had never met him. Benjamin had a good time seeing both of them and I had a nice time catching up with them as well. Ben was a big sleepyhead for a good part of our visit (making up for his grumpy two-hour car ride from our house in PA!). Unfortunately, we didn't take any photos of all of us but I was so glad that this visit worked out since it was sort of spontaneously planned.

Here's a photo of Pop with Ben on Friday night. It's nearly bedtime so Ben looks a little zoned out.

As all of you may have noticed, Benjamin has A LOT of hair and has had his big mop since birth. In fact, it had recently gotten so long that he was starting to sport quite a mullet! So, at nearly four months old, I decided that it was inevitably time for that momenous event - the first haircut.

Ben's wild, fuzzy hairdo is his signature characteristic so I knew I didn't want to go too short with it; I just wanted to keep him looking like a little boy! So, since I really just wanted to take some of the long hair off the back of his head and shorten the hair around his ears, my mom and I decided that we'd do his haircut ourselves instead of taking him to the barber. Here are some photos of Nana and me trimming the little guy's 'do:

Before ~

During~

After~

On Saurday, we decided to give Ben his first "big boy" bath in the kitchen sink without using his infant tubs. We filled the sink with a little water and lots of bubbles and the little guy immediately discovered what fun he could have playing and splashing in the water. Thanks to Nana's own shopping excursions and also many of her friends' gifts, Ben's "nursery away from home" is filled with toys and stuffed animals for him to play with. So, we even had a few bath toys to float around in the water as he splashed around. Here are some photos of him in the "tub"; in the last one we had to restrain him from trying to dunk his head under the water!

All finished and being toweled off ~

Here are Nana and Benjamin after his bath playing with the new Baby Einstein pop-up toy that we bought for him. It makes noise and has different critters pop up when certain buttons are pushed. Ben had such a good time smacking the buttons and watching the action. He was squealing with delight and lunging forward to try to grasp all of the brightly colored parts on the toy. And to think that we didn't know if he would even like it yet...

Finally, yesterday Ben came with my mom and me to Lauren's bridal luncheon. Aunt Lynn, Lauren, and the three other bridesmaids - April, Pattie, and Jessica - were also there with us so there were seven ladies to pass Ben around. When his cute disposition gave way to overtiredness after a little while, Lauren rocked him to sleep in her arms and then was inevitably given the usual "how dare you put me down" look when we tried to put him into his infant seat to continue his nap! Luckily he went right back to sleep since he was quite tired and overstimulated from so much interaction. Here are a few precious photos - Lauren with Ben and then Ben snoozing away: