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Benton has started signing "more"!
Sent from my BlackBerry, please excuse any brevity or typos.

Look Who's Standing!

 Ok, so it's only for a few seconds and then he carefully squats down into a crawling position, but go Benton!

And here is his sad face when he really wanted to be left alone so he could get his toy instead of being asked to stand up again.

What?!?

Last night as Mike was getting ready to take Ethan swimming, Ethan came up and said, "can you get me a sandwich, because I LOVE sandwiches!". What?!? Asking for food, and a sandwich no less!
Sent from my BlackBerry, please excuse any brevity or typos.

Winter in Zoo-ly

Every year the Phoenix Zoo hosts "Winter in Zoo-ly".  We used our membership to check it out this year.  They put snow on the grass for the kids to play in.

The boys' reactions were very predictable.  

Benton, he ate the snow.

 Ethan ran right up, but then it got in his shoes so he was done playing in it.

There were two big water slides, which Ethan LOVED.  He went on each of them once and we opted out of standing in line again.

 He splashed right into the water.

 I was waiting to get a picture of him splashing in, but this one wasn't as steep and he stopped at the end.  Benton got to dip his feet a few times, as you can see.

We saw a few animals before visiting the splash pad.

 Benton tried repeatedly to eat the grass, but it is fake.

 Ethan avoided the camera.

 This picture shows why my shirts are always stretched and misshapen.

 This event advertises the animals being given frozen treats.  I was disappointed that we didn't see any walking around.  We came to the elephants as the zookeepers were getting the treats ready and waited quite awhile for them to finish and let the elephant back in.  She went right over to this barrel and would shake it until a snack dropped out.  Then she noticed the pile of snow with something bright orange, and apparently tasty, sprinkled on it.  It was neat to watch her pick it up with her trunk and put it in her mouth.

 Family picture.

 Then she found the big flavored ice block hanging from her gate.  She broke it off the chain and kept pushing it around trying to break it.  She even stood on it repeatedly.

By this point, Mike had lost interest in the zoo, so we left and took Ethan to a friend's birthday party.

10 Months

Benton turned 10 months on the 12th.  Last Monday I took my camera to Ethan's swim lessons and tried to get some pictures of Benton.

 He was pretty fussy, but I like including his sad faces for our memories too.  I realized later that he had a dirty diaper, oops.

Pointing:

 Here is Ethan's class.  He is the one half out with the white shirt on.

 Back in the car, Ethan could help me make Benton smile.

 I forgot the bear I always use in his pictures, so we got to do more pictures at home.

At 10 months he was:
-waving hello, but not goodbye,
-clapping,
-pointing,
-saying "dada" (he says it for a lot of things, but definitely says it when he sees Mike, often it sounds like he
  says "hi Dad"),
-smacking his mouth again like when he got his first teeth (he still only has two),
-chasing Ethan and others,
-crawling around the house for entertainment (to toy kitchen and playroom mostly),
-still pulling on his ears and sticking his fingers in them all the time, and
-closing doors whenever possible, even if in a room by himself.

Playground

Ethan (and Carlee) really wanted to play at the playground. At least I convinced Ethan to wait until after naps today. The slides are still too hot, but in the shade , at 5pm, 105 doesn't feel TOO bad.
Sent from my BlackBerry, please excuse any brevity or typos.

Daily Life

Another trip to Pump It Up!

 Benton wanted to play too.

 Try getting a clear picture of Ethan pushing Benton with a phone camera...

 He got this far by himself and then gave up.

 And then Benton went right to sleep.

 Another picture of our rock climbing date.

 Lots of spilled Cheerios now that Benton knows where to find them.

 Peek-a-boo!  Benton shuts the lid on Ethan and then Ethan pops back out.  This is another game they can play for quite some time.

 Wrestling/tickling.

 Peek-a-boo.

 Benton LOVES the toy kitchen.  I'm thinking he is going to be messier than Ethan was because he always dumps/throws the food all over.  I'm wondering if he likes this so much because he is still optimistic the food will be real one of these times...

 On Saturday we went to the Family Fun Day at ASU Art Museum.  Benton ate.

 Ethan made a few crafts and was ready to go.

 He got to nap in the car so that he got at least a little sleep before the boys went to our friends' house to play and we went on a date.

 I reached my phone back and took a picture of Benton to see what he was doing.

Ethan likes using my step as part of his train track set up.  Benton likes to crawl up on top, but he can't figure out how to get down and gets very distressed.  He cries and sometimes bangs his hand on the step if I don't come help him right away.