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!