Officially a Big Boy

It's official! Ben's a big boy who sleeps in a bed now. Now that all of his toys and things are in his new room, he doesn't want anything to do with the nursery or his crib anymore. So, he is currently fast asleep for the second night in his big boy bed in his new room and also took his nap there today. He opted to play in the bed during my first attempt at naptime yesterday and escaped his room once (I found him at the top of the stairs calling for me!) but his nap today and both last night and tonight have gone very smoothly. He talks to himself for a little while when we first put him to bed but has not left the bed (or his room) again and eventually falls asleep. Hopefully it will keep up; it seems like the process happened too easily to actually be true - ha ha!

Here are a few photos of the big boy fast asleep in his new bed. Of course he wants nothing to do with the quilt so he throws it off the bed and we have to place it back on top of him after he falls asleep. I think he sees his bed as a giant crib since it has guard rails on either side!

What a sweet, peaceful little guy, all tired out from a hard day's play! Here he is curled in a ball with his blankies prior to us covering him up with his quilt:

All warm and toasty under his quilt:

Benjamin's Big Boy Room

Given that our move continues to be on hold, we decided to go ahead and set up a new bedroom for Ben at our current house. At this point we will not be moving until after the new baby arrives anyway and we figured that it would be better for Ben to get used to seeing his big boy room now instead of springing a new house, new sibling and new room on him when we do move. So, we decided to set up what we could of his new room. It's the no-frills version at this point since we are not painting it the color we eventually want to use and will not hang many pictures or curtains. But, for now it looks very cute and he seems excited about it. He even helped us to carry all of his toys to his "new big boy room" this morning. We have not forced the bed yet, as he still sleeps in his crib, but we'll see if he shows interest and then gradually work towards that.

So, ta-da! Here's Benjamin's new room, decorated in a (what else?) cars and trucks theme.

Starting with his his newly decorated door...

We had to bring his frog chair to the new room even though it really matches the nursery. He loves to sit on it and look through his books and was not even interested in it until he was about a year old, so we figure the new baby won't miss it for now. By the time he's ready for it, Ben will have hopefully lost interest. So, I set up a little reading corner for Ben near his windows. He loves to sit in his chair, look through his books and keep an eye on any happenings in the neighborhood out of his windows!

Lots of room for all of his decorative items and books that have to stay up high.


He has a new bookshelf for all of his toys and board books that he cannot rip if left unsupervised with them! Plus his very own road carpet that Nana and Pop got him for Christmas.

Here's Andrew reading Ben some books in his new room before bed tonight. Of course we took him back across the hall to sleep in his crib after this instead of trying out the new bed, but we figure that we'll take it one step at a time and are just glad that the new room went over so well today.

Caroline's Second Birthday Party

This morning we took Ben to a barnyard-themed 2nd birthday party for his friend Caroline who is in his play group. It was held at Chick-fil-a and all of the kids seemed to have a blast playing in the play area and then eating chicken nuggets, waffle fries and cupcakes.

Here's Ben playing on the treehouse inside the indoor play area. He's laughing because Andrew is inside of it trying to make him giggle by peering through the windows!

Here's Ben and Andrew inside the treehouse now, peeking out at me!

Birthday gal Caroline looked so pretty for her big day!

Here, Caroline enjoys her cupcake with the cow mascot that kept walking around to say hello to all of the kids. Of course Caroline seemed to be the only one in the group who was not really afraid of him. Ben did fine with the big cow when he was at a distance but like the Santa Clause scenario last month, he freaked out when the cow tried to take a photo with him!

Yum, Ben chomps down on his cupcake, always his favorite part of any birthday party!

Pregnancy and House Update

I know that I have not updated in a few weeks so I apologize. So, I decided to do one quick picture post (below) and to give an update on the pregnancy and the situation with our pending move.

As far as the pregnancy, we are in the final stretch! I'm now in my 31st week and cannot believe that it is mid-January already. We're hoping that since I had Ben over a week early that the same will be true for this baby but we will have to wait and see. I'm due March 24th. I am feeling well, relatively speaking for someone in her third trimester, and am trying to stay as active as possible without overdoing it. The baby is still moving a lot and I have had horrendous heartburn (again) so we foresee another blue bundle of energy with lots and lots of hair in our future!

Same as last time, I have developed gestational diabetes again so I am being very vigilant about watching my diet and fitting in daily exercise to my routine. My blood sugar level when I went for the 1-hour glucose test was so high that they told me to not even bother coming in for the 3-hour glucose tolerance test and to just start monitoring my blood levels and following the diabetic regime, espeically since I have a history. I am being monitored to see if I will need to go on insulin or not. Last time I was able to avoid it but this time my levels are worse and I have seen a lot of fluctuation in my monitoring, which has me feeling lethargic and run-down at times,as if I have no energy at all. So, please pray that this will stay under control and that I will not need to start insulin injections.

Other than that, I am feeling well and the baby is measuring accurately. I'll be seeing the doctor every 2-3 weeks from now on due to the diabetes so hopefully he will be able to keep an eye on the baby to make sure he does not get too big (due to the diabetes).

As far as our pending move, we are still having some holdups on the seller's end that have not allowed the title to be cleared so we cannot proceed until these get taken care of. However, we are progressing, albeit very slowly. At this point, we will not be moving before the baby is born so we are trying to ready our current house for his arrival and plan to temporarily set up Ben's "big boy" room over the next few weeks. It's a frustrating situation to be in but it's reassuring to at least know where we will be for the next few months. We are hoping that the new house will close over the next few weeks and we can start the necessary work there, even though we will not be moving right away. We should have some answers this coming week and I will try to keep you updated when it does finally go through.

Glasses

Benjamin discovered these play sunglasses at the bottom of his toy chest and was having fun with them all afternoon!

Lo Mein

We were surprised last night when we got Chinese food for dinner with some friends and Ben actually liked Lo Mein. My former "eat everything in sight" son has become quite picky in his toddler years and has basically written off many of the normal kid foods such as pasta, cheese (with a few exceptions), and of course anything with a mysterious sauce. Who would have thunk that he'd choose to like Lo Mein with it's spaghetti-like quality and brown sauce? :)

Here's a video of me seeing if he still liked it today as leftovers for lunch....and after some contemplation, it seems to be a keeper!

Bedtime

I wanted to take a few photos of Ben in his new Thomas and Friends PJ's that he got for Christmas from Nana and Pop. They're two piece flannels and are SO cute!

Below he is brushing his teeth and then reading his I'm a Big Brother book with his "dadda" before bed tonight. Ben loves this book and every night he asks for the "baby" book and then for his "Bible" after that. Needless to say, these two books have to stay on his nightstand at all times. He's so interested in the new baby brother and how the big brother helps out in the "baby" book and is also concerned for the various babies in his toddler Bible - Jesus, Moses - that we are hoping this compassion will carry to real life in March when his own brother comes home from the hospital. We'll see... :)

Benjamin's 2nd Christmas

We can hardly believe that Benjamin has celebrated his frst two Christmases already! At 21 months old, he was more aware of everything this year than last but still did not truly grasp the concept. He certainly was excited about all of the festivities and cookies all month long and especially for the influx of gifts this past weekend.

We decided to go to my parents' house in NJ on Sunday and stayed until last night. Since Benjamin's main Christmas present from us was too large to transport and he is not old enough to know the actual date, we opted to do our own "Christmas" on Saturday 12/22 so Andrew, Ben and I had our own celebration early. This way, Christmas actually lasted several days for Ben, which he seemed to not mind!

Here are some photos and video of us on Saturday morning. Ben usually likes his breakfast right away when he gets up, but when he saw all of the excitement under the tree, he didn't even seem remotely interested in eating until 9:30AM, after everything was opened!


Raiding his stocking first.

Andrew's mom always had a tradition with the kids when they were young that they would get a new ornament every year. This is something that we have adopted so here is Ben hanging his very own ornament on the tree - a Christmas ball from the Disney Cars movie. We told him it was a ball for the tree so he started saying "ball...tree!" and ran over to the tree to hang it up at his own level. I think it spent more time off the tree than on, though; he was so excited about it and just kept wanting to look at it!

Here Daddy helps him open some gifts that Grandpa G and CC sent up from Florida for Ben. He is patiently waiting while Andrew helps him loosen the ribbons before he can dig in.

He couldn't resist opening the add-on set for his Thomas and Friends Lego set right away! Daddy had a good time with this gift as well...

Like father, like son. Andrew oogles his new jumbo wrench set while Ben goes over to check out Daddy's tools and compare them to his own Ace Hardware toolbox (on table), a gift from Aunt Cinty earlier in the week. He's been talking about his "tools" ever since receiving his own set and found it amusing that his dad got a similar one from Santa! :)

The little puzzle sleuth busy at work with one of the latest additions to his collection - an A, B, C puzzle. Ben loves puzzles and spends quite a bit of time mastering all of the ones he owns. So, we decided to challenge him with this 26-piecer and also a firetruck jigsaw. He is still trying to really figure the jigsaw out but has made great progress and I'm sure he'll master it soon. I'm sure he'll be outshining me soon since jigsaw puzzles were never my forte :).

Here is Ben playing with his main Christmas present from us this year - a train table. He loves this and has not stopped "choo-chooing" since he got it! It's sort of a fun set since it not only has a train on it, but also has a farm with a tractor, a construction zone, a hospital, a port and an airport. So it is sort of like a mini city with a train and all different vehicles.

We arrived at my parents' house on Sunday afternoon. Here is some footage of Ben and Pop reading the paper together on Monday morning.

Here's a family photo of us on Christmas Eve. Ben is dressed up in a little mini sport coat - so cute!

Here's my brother Mike and future sister-in-law Chang.

Santa left this adorable kiddie sled filled with gifts for Ben under the tree at Nana and Pop's house. Too bad it was 55 degrees and raining all weekend instead of snow or else Ben would have been able to try it out right away.

Carefully selecting a gift from under the tree and then opening presents.

Taking a break to go and sit on top of Barney, just in case Barney was bored laying around sleeping.


Taking another break to dance to some tunes.

Here, Ben waits while Pop removes the myriad wire twisties on every single toy. In less than two years, Pop has become Ben's personal slave when they are together. The minute Ben would open something he'd yell "Pop" and go hand his toy to him so that Pop could remove it from the box.

Playing with his new (and loud!) Hess monster truck, which he loves. He's been zooming all over the house with it all day...


Here are some cute photos and footage of Ben's new block set. Andrew and I both remember these sturdy (and fun!) cardboard blocks from our childhoods so we were excited that Nana decided to get them for us, er, Ben...


Knocking them down (while being the center of attention) at Nana and Pop's house yesterday.



...and again this morning at home after discovering the ceiling-height tower that Andrew built last night and left for Ben to find in the basement. Ha, who says 30 year olds can't have fun with cardboard blocks too!



Ben's gift to all of the grandparents and aunts and uncles this year was a sculpted ornament of his professional Christmas photo to hang on their trees. It's basically a cutout of his head from the photo and mounted to resin to make it sturdy. He's obsessed with the one on our tree and keeps talking about the "baby" in the photo. Here he is hanging Nana and Pop's on their tree. I think he may hve snatched it away from them so he could hang it up even before they got to look at it!



Even more surprises were in store for Ben last night when we got home from NJ, as there were more packages waiting at our doorstep for him! Here he is exploring his new Lego table from Grandpa G and CC. He must have stood there for 20 minutes, taking Legos out of the mesh storage bag and moving them around the table, without acknowleging anything around him as he first explored his new toy.

So silly...

Playing with Barney and Daddy after dinner tonight. Oh, and that high-pitched squeal is Barney's toy, not Ben! This video shows some usual behavior at our house. Ben and Barney are obsessed with each other and chase after each other all day long. Of course Andrew always promotes even sillier behavior from the two of them by egging them both on...

Bathtime

This is my first attempt at embedding YouTube videos onto my blog from my YouTube account and it seems to be working okay so far. Yay! Just click on the box below to activate the control if it appears empty at first. Now I can post videos here as well for your viewing entertainment :)

This one was taken this morning during Saturday bathtime. Ben loves his bath any day but really loves weekend baths the most when his dad is home and can give it to him. Barney's always a source of entertainment as Ben bathes as well.

First Christmas Presents

Ben was in for a treat this morning when he woke up to find his first Christmas presents of the season waiting on his highchair for him. We had our babysitter Alyssa over last night while Andrew and I went to his company Christmas party and unfortunately she remembered on her way to our house that she had forgotten Ben's present at her house! Andrew picked it up when he drove her home later that night. So, we promised we'd take some photos of him opening the gifts so that she and her sister Brielle, who also babysits for us, could see how excited he was to get their gift :).

For me? You shouldn't have... Ok, I'll pose for one quick photo, Mom, but then I'm tearing these gifts open!

After getting over the excitement of the penguins on the wrapping paper, Ben wasted no time opening his gifts.


Wow, it's a book shaped like a doctor's bag with pictures and punch outs of all the things he sees at the doctor's office when we go. He loves this - it's a book and a puzzle in one when he tries to reposition the punch outs into their appropriate spots- his two favorite things!

OK, onto number two....a Winnie the Pooh talking alphabet book. Wow! As you can see, Ben LOVES this one too. He's obsessed with bees and "B's" lately so this book is perfect since it has both (there isn't a page in a Pooh book without a bee flying around). He tries to do his alphabets but gets fixated on the letter B at this point...A, B, C, B, B, B... So he has been having fun hitting the B button all day long.