Saturday

 


Saturday was a good day. Little Benjamin turned four months old...not so little anymore. I have taken his picture regularly with this stuffed frog as a constant to show his growth. I think he's now doubled his birth weight or come close to it, which means he's just under 14 lbs.

Benjamin has gotten good at using his hands, grabbing everything he can already (including my hair, time for a cut I guess).

In the afternoon we went to a birthday party for Scott's work friend's daughter. Here is what Scott did with the girls for most of the party...looks comfortable!



The highlight of the day for us though was that we sold our backhoe! It's gone!!! We've had it in our yard for almost 3 years and we no longer needed it now that the yard is finished. We were surprised at the huge demand there was for our backhoe. We had several calls about it everyday and it sold in just 5 days for the price we wanted.
We have many pictures of the girls riding with daddy in the backhoe and some of you may even remember our Christmas card of our family standing in front of it. Benjamin was able to get in one ride before we sold it.



After saying goodbye to the backhoe (a little sad for Scott), I took Grace out for some girl fun (that's shopping for all you men who might not have known). On a whim, we decided to get her haircut. The woman who cut it was so sweet and showed Grace all these pictures of haircuts in her magazines and let her pick which one she wanted. After she cut it, she curled it (Grace LOVES having her hair curled), braided it, and then let Grace pick out a new hair scrunchie to wear. Grace, you are such a cutie!


This didn't happen on Saturday, but I had to add it...It is so amazingly satisfying to have grass! I think it's been about 3 years since we really had anything besides mud and weeds and so the day the landscapers laid the sod was a landmark day for our family. Tonight we ate out back on the patio and enjoyed the scenery.
These pictures are for our parents who can't imagine our house with a yard. The neighbors are shocked as well. Everyday we have cars stopping as they pass to stare in disbelief that we actually have replaced the weeds and mud with green growing things.

Catching Up

About 3 weeks ago, Scott sat down at the computer to use it and it was frozen...happens a lot and we'd just had it repaired so we didn't think much of it. We restarted it...still frozen. We tried several more times and it gave us scary messages like "unable to locate hard drive" or something with the words "system failure" in it. A couple days later, the computer repair guys came and picked it up and assured us that we would probably get our data off the hard drive. Only in rare circumstances is the hard drive that corrupted. A week and a 1/2 later we found out we were one of those rare circumstances. Sadly, I hadn't backed up my photos since last August and my itunes songs for over a year. I did save pictures on my camera's memory stick starting from Annica's birthday in February, so that helped. We have our old hard drive in a sealed bag and hopefully one day we'll be able to get the data off it.
Anyway, there's my excuse for not blogging in so long. Here's what's been happening...


We had a small family of deer visit us...they came through the small forest next to us and were a little confused at this point when I took the picture. Scott tried to come up behind them so they'd come into our yard further, but instead they ran across the main street behind us...the smallest barely missed being hit by a car.



Benjamin had his first (of many I'm sure) tea parties.




Annica was excited when she saw the first flower appear in our yard and took this picture of the crocus (upside down)...cute. Then she had Grace and Clara pose on the driveway (suitably dressed of course).



With an occassional exception, Bejamin still sleeps very well at night thanks to tight swaddling and an ace bandage for backup!




Benjamin looked so cute in his bear bunting! Almost makes me wish it were still cold!



I'm still struggling to potty train Clara. I let her sit in her potty chair and watch a little tv to keep her interested in staying on it. I have a hard time convincing her not to sit with her legs crossed...not exactly gonna get the job done.

A Busy Week

Last Sunday (the 30th) was Benjamin's baby blessing. It was a beautiful blessing and a beautiful day after a somewhat crazy week. The girls had Spring Break that week and a friend called and asked if we wanted to go to the zoo with her. I thought that would be fun and even though it was cold, our zoo has a lot of good indoor stuff to do. It was my first time taking all four kids out in public and I completely failed at managing them. Clara was mainly the problem. I lost her, and didn't even notice she was gone for almost 10 minutes! Luckily a nice couple found her and after convincing security that she really was my child, we headed home. So anyway, like my friend Jess, I'm now going to ground myself for a while.

A couple days later we were all getting the house ready for Scott's family to arrive from the airport (they came for the blessing). The girls and Scott were taking a lunch break when I heard this loud crash and Scott starts yelling. I knew something bad had happened. Once again it was Clara. She'd been laughing and goofing off at the counter and fell off her barstool. Her chin hit the edge of the counter first and then her head came down on the hard tile floor. When I came upon the scene I saw blood and Scott limping. Clara split her chin open and had a huge lump on her forehead next to the scar from a couple weeks before. Scott took her to the ER while I stayed home to calm down my other three crying kids. Oh and Scott was limping because he'd broken his toe kicking the barstool with his bare foot. Luckily instead of stitches they were able to glue the cut on Clara's chin and Scott and I were even able to still go out to eat with his family that night so it was a good ending. Poor Clara had a rough week though.



We had a great time with Scott's dad and his brother and wife (Steve and Suzanne). We're so glad they came!

Easter

We had a "White Easter" this year - freezing weather for wearing spring dresses. I know I'm not the only mom in Michigan who wonders why they only sell sleeveless Easter dresses. I always end up buying cardigans for the girls to wear over them. Anyway, we had a nice quiet day. The Easter bunny (who is now finally recognized as a bunny and not a beagle after convincing the kids Charlie Brown's Easter was a little different than ours) came while we were at church. Clara was so excited to see her big chocolate bunny and ripped it open immediately. I thought she'd devour it but instead she started playing with it and "feeding" it all her candy. She never did eat it!





Benjamin was happy despite not getting an Easter basket.

4th Time's a Charm

I have a lot to catch up on since it's been A WHOLE MONTH since I last blogged! I guess I've been a little busy...
Benjamin is 8 weeks old now. Here he is on St. Patrick's Day - Daddy's lucky charm (and mommy's too).


He really is a "charming" baby! For two weeks now he's been sleeping 7-8 hours straight at night. That alone makes him wonderful, but he also is so happy during the day. He starting cooing and laughing last week and of course he's still smiling at everyone who will pay attention to him. The girls love playing with him and getting him to smile.







Grace made Benjamin a little crown to wear and we were ordered to call him "Prince Benjamin."


So that's why my shoulder always feels wet!

These last two pictures are from an 80's party we went to at a friend's house. I went as cross between Madonna and a teenage mom who went to the alternative school (Benjamin was my prop). Scott and I are on the left in the front row (you can see my sweet hot pink leg warmers)!

Go David!

Our whole family is addicted to American Idol this season and it all has to do with this cute boy! We love him! Scott and I are plotting how to get him and Annica married (not possible I know, but that's how much we love him).

The Milkshake and Annica is 10

Scott has been disappointed with his inability to pacify this new babe - the girls were no problem for him to calm. He would simply bounce them and they stopped crying. Benjamin apparently has different requirements though and Scott was feeling like a reject Dad. Well a few days ago, Scott came home from work excited to try a new baby bouncing technique that a buddy of his (who is also a new dad) taught him. (I would've loved to see that demonstration happening in his male-dominated work place). He calls it the "milkshake" I guess because of the way you bounce the baby. As you can see from the pictures the technique worked like magic! Dad and son are happy now.





Annica is now in the double digits! We had a quiet celebration for her here at home. Her big present this year was a new bike since she grew out of her old one. Here she is modeling the bike helmet. Thank you Grandparents for the great presents!

A few of my favorite pictures

Pacifiers and Chicken Legs

None of my kids have ever taken a pacifier. They always gagged on it and hated it no matter how hard I tried to encourage one. I figured Benjamin would be the same, but I decided to have Scott buy a couple Nuks anyway so we could try them out. Here is a picture of the result. He instantly loved it! We've had mixed feelings. It's nice to have a tool that works so well to calm him, but I've heard so much about the challenges of pacifier weening. I'm going to keep giving it to him though and hope that it's worth it. So far we love it!

Although he's already filled out a lot (he gained a whole pound in 2 days!) Benjamin has some major chicken legs. Probably inherited mine, poor thing! He's crying after having a diaper change here.

On Thursday, we had a one week old birthday celebration for Benjamin. It started because Scott decided to make a cake for him (can you tell how excited he is about his first son?) and then the girls made a poster that we all wrote on. We lit the candle and sang to him in this picture. He is going to be a well-loved boy with all the attention from three older sisters. By the way if you can't read the cake, it says "birthday happy." Scott was apparently having a backwards moment when he wrote it.

Maybe it's because he was overdue 8 days so he had more time to develop his muscles, but Benjamin is pretty strong. He's been able to hold his head up from day one. He'd been holding this pose for over a minute when we took this picture. You can tell by his crossed eyes that he's concentrating really hard!