Wonderful 3 Months

Lots of wonderful things in this post.  First of all, a wonderfully cute baby!  And a wonderful fast camera to get lots of personality shots.  And, wonderful technology that allows me to save lots of pictures, because all though MANY were eliminated, I want to save the many faces of Benton, so here are a bunch.  

Click on a picture and it will enlarge in a slideshow format so you can see his cute little face even better; believe me, he's worth it!

He loves chewing on his fists.

He likes standing up, so I was trying to take pictures of him while he was standing.  By myself, this meant a wobbly, fuzzy, Benton.  Eventually I called Mike in to help.

Staring right at the camera...

 

Here you can see hs most prominent facial scars.

It's crazy to think I was worried I wouldn't enjoy the baby stage as much the second time around.  I love taking care of this baby!  I'm a little sad, because 3 months seems like a milestone, leaving the newborn age, but we have lots of fun times ahead still, hopefully ones that include sleeping more than 3.5 hours in a row!

I was feeding Benton today while putting Ethan down for his nap, and he kept stopping to crane his neck and look at the book I was reading.  Eventually, I sat him up so he could see it better, and he watched it intently.  So starting tonight, we will be having much more reading to Benton time (poor second child has not gotten as much book time as Ethan did/does).

Snow Retreat

Friday afternoon:  I picked Mike up at work and we drove to Show Low.  Mike took Ethan out to play in the snow outside our hotel and then went and picked up a pizza while Benton and I napped in the hotel.

Friday night: Mike's client volunteered to meet him so that he could have all Saturday to play.  Mike worked from 8:30-12:00pm and I put the boys to bed (it went amazingly well for sharing a room!).

Saturday morning: Mike and Ethan played in the snow; we all went swimming for quite awhile, we got packed up, and then Ethan and I played in the snow before leaving.  It was great snow weather!  Cold enough to not melt the snow, but warm enough that we didn't need to be bundled.  My friend loaned me some clothes on my way out and had the great idea of sending these toys up with me.  Ethan loved it!  I made a small snow man and made towers out of bucket fulls of snow, and of course Ethan loved knocking them down.

 From the hotel, we drove by the building Mike was inspecting to take a few exterior shots it was too dark to photograph the night before, grabbed lunch at Walmart, and then stopped at a good sledding hill behind the Pizza Hut.  By this point Ethan was asleep in the car, but we decided it was worth it to wake him up.  Here are Daddy and Ethan sledding.

 Family shot about a minute before Benton crashed.

 

Benton and I went back to the car where he napped and I ate. 

Look in his sleeve and notice how far away his fingers are.  He was swimming, but warm in this suit.

We stopped to use the bathroom before heading home in time for bedtime. I was playing my flute in church the next day, so we figured there wasn't much of a point in staying another night just to hurry and leave in the morning.

It was so nice to get out, enjoy winter, and then go back to warm(er) Phoenix!

Impatient!

Ethan wants Benton to play trains NOW! Which means I walked into the kitchen to get water and Ethan dragged Benton onto the track so that he could drive trains into him.

Playing in the Rain

This is Ethan's idea of playing in the rain.

Breakfast Conversation

It has been cool and rainy here in Phoenix. This morning Ethan looked out the window ans said, "uh oh! Where'd the sun go?". Then as I was trying to get him to take a bite he covered his mouth and said, "my mouth is closed today.". He is quite the chatterbox these days!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

With all of our reading about Christmas, Ethan started saying that it wasn't Christmas time because there wasn't any snow. True, Phoenix never feels very Christmas-y. So, when Mike's work needed someone to do an inspection up North on a Saturday, he volunteered and we joined him. It's about 4 hours away so we left this afternoon. After checking into our hotel, Mike and Ethan took off to go sledding. We'll all go again in the morning before Mike goes to work. Then we'll probably stay another night and head home in time for church on Sunday. Ethan is SO excited about the snow! Here is the wintery view from our room and Ethan getting ready to go sledding in his borrowed snow gear!

Quotable

I was explaining to Ethan what the oil was that I was putting in our oil burner and I said, "it will make the house smell yummy!" He replied "don't eat the house!"

One of Ethan's catch phrases lately is, "sorry, no time to talk."
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Header

Lisa's new header reminded me to update mine.  I hope you like it because something very similar will be in the mail this year!

Thanksgiving

 Most of these pictures are ripped off of my siblings' blogs because I didn't want to carry our big camera on the plane, but here are a few phone shots to start us out.

Thank you Sky Harbor for providing this entertainment in the terminal!  We left the house at 4am to go to Detroit and spend the holiday with my dad, stepmom, and siblings. 

 Getting off the plane they let Ethan play in the cockpit.  He even got to push the buttons!

 My sister-in-law Lauren made Benton this cute giraffe!  He's starting to be able to grab at toys as shown in the two pictures below.

 Thanksgiving morning we got up to run the Turkey Trot, as is tradition.  This year I started off by "running" the mashed potato mile with Ethan.  Unfortunately I did not plan well and couldn't find my brother in law Dan who was supposed to watch Ethan while I ran the 10k.  I hadn't even brought my phone with me and didn't know his number.  I walked around Detroit for about 40 minutes trying to find him.  By the time I did it was too late to start the race (the rest of the family was close to done).  I started at the 6 mile marker and ran backwards hoping to run into siblings.  I went a little past the 4 mile marker without seeing them, then turned around and ran back to the finish line.  So I ran 1 mile with Ethan, 4.2 of the 6.2 I was supposed to, and walked who knows how far while trying to find Dan.  Still a good turkey day workout!  Here are Ethan and Joseph VII ("Seven") on the way home from the race.  I think it was about 10am.

The big meal!  Always delicious!

 I told myself I wouldn't eat an excess of junk food despite the holiday.  But, we greeted by these cupcakes when we got to Dad's and they were the best cupcakes I've ever had.  I didn't count how many I ate, but it was more than my share I'm sure.  Thanks Stephanie and Dianne!

 On Saturday we went to a Natural Science Museum with the kids.  It reminded me of all the time spent with my dad in Chicago at the Science and Industry Museum growing up.  Fun memories!  Here is cousin James holding Benton for me.

 This was the attraction that brought us to the museum.  They have a "Bat Zone" where you can see a variety of bats close up.  I never knew I knew so little about bats!  They are actually pretty cute up close and are amazing creatures.  I won't be scared of them anymore, and if I ever live in bat country, I'll probably even put a bat house in my yard.

 Friday bowling tradition.  I bowled over 100 with a sleeping baby!  I also taught Lisa how to wrap Claire.

 

The kids loved playing the video games between turns, not that they were actually playing.

 Twin cousins meeting.  They smiled and cooed at each other.

 The three of us kids with our babies (there are three other grandkids not in this picture).

 It's amazing with all the intentions of having my sister do family and individual pictures for us while we were there that I didn't give her a good opportunity to do so.  Amazingly, she got a few cute shots anyway.  Those to come, but here is a preview of us trying to get six kids 5 and under to take a decent picture...

Ethan's favorite room in the museum mentioned earlier.  It had a ball going down this track and back up on a conveyor over and over.  He would run alongside the ball back and forth over and over.  Guess who is getting a marble track for Christmas?

Joe 5, 6, and 7.

Another great year with the family!  Thanks Dad!  Man, I wish I lived closer to all of you!!!