Halloween Fun!

I'm terribly behind on my blogging!  I'm exhausted and I should really be going to bed, but I'm going to do my best to summarize the past 2 weekends.  It is mostly going to be in pictures.  :)  Two weekends ago, Ben had a "trunk or treat" event at his school.  The teachers decorated their cars and there were a bunch of other games for kids.  Andy had school, so he met us a little later.  Ben was not quite sure what to think at first.  He was a little overwhelmed and he definitely did not like the full-fledged costumes such as Clifford or anything else that covered the head.  Well, except for his own costume.

He did finally start to like it when he realized everyone was giving him candy.  However, he preferred to play the games.

He was a little timid at first. 

As soon as daddy arrived, he was all about the games!

We continued with the Halloween fun on Sunday and decided to carve pumpkins.

Ben was not a fan of the pumpkin guts.  He wanted me to put the seeds directly on his spoon so he could dump them into the bucket. 

It was all fun and games until he fell off the chair and smacked his head on the tile.  :(  Pumpkin carving was cut short and I actually have yet to carve the now moldy thing.   We decided to move on to Christmas after that sad fall.

Kidding!  Well, sort of kidding, we went to the mall and I couldn't resist stopping in the Christmas store.  I hope Ben loves Christmas as much as Andy and I do!

On to this past weekend!  Andy had school again, so it was momma and Benji on Friday night.  There is a church Halloween festival that my siblings and I went to as kids, so I wanted Ben to get the chance to go to!  We've gotten a lot of use out of his bat costume that my mom bought for $4.50 on clearance last year.  Woo hoo!

Auntie Anna, Nana, and Papa John wanted in on the fun too!

It was a little loud and rather dark, but that didn't stop Ben from finding all of the fun games!  

Again, he was a little hesitant at first, but after he realized that you got to throw things and then pick out a prize, it was hard to stop him!

Last Saturday, Benji and I did our first 5k together!  It was sooooo fun!  My mom and Auntie Gail came to watch us!  We alternated between running and walking every 3 minutes, so it took about 40 minutes to finish, but it still felt good!  I haven't done a race in over a year and I missed it!

Daddy even got there right in time to watch us!

Ben didn't want to wear his costume, but he still looked cute!

We slept at Auntie Gail's house and it was Ben's first time sleeping on the cot that I just bought for him.  He sleeps like a dream on his cot at school, so I thought it was worth a try.  We had to wait until he fell asleep in our bed, but then we moved him to the cot.  He stayed there until about 4:00AM when he joined us in the bed.  

(Too tired to figure out how to rotate this right now.)

The next morning, Andy and I headed up north for a little getaway at our favorite place and Ben went back home with my mom.  I was sad to leave the little guy, like always, but he and Nana were plenty happy!

Ben got to go trick-or-treating with his cousin Jacob while Andy and I got to RELAX.

It was a baby-moon/ early anniversary celebration.   I knew I (we) needed some down time, but it was even better and more relaxing that I was anticipating.  I read an entire book!  There is a quiet room where we spent a lot of time.  When you walk into the building it is hard not to feel more relaxed instantly!  

Andy even got to watch his first full Packers game of the season.  He has caught bits and pieces of games, but thanks to school, he hadn't been able to sit back and enjoy a full game…until last weekend.  

We took the day off on Monday and the weather was BEAUTIFUL!  We headed home fairly early so that we could pick Ben up from school.  He was happy and surprised to see us!  (And he has asked us to take him to/from school every day since then.)  It was in the mid-70's so we decided to take advantage to this and we went to the ZOO!  Ben never turns down the chance to see some animals!  However, his first request was the choo-choo!

He pointed out each and every animal he saw.

The boy loves to wave to people and animals alike!

Love my BEN.

I love watching how excited he is to see the animals.  "BIG FISH!!"

Last, and definitely least, Ben got his first bee sting.  It was so sad.  I seriously think Andy and I were both almost in tears as well.  The poor guy didn't know what hit him!  Andy was holding him and they were innocently looking at the elephants when a "mean bee" stung his little arm.

But being the true tough guy that he is, he said he wanted to stay and see more animals.  Gosh I love this boy!  (These boys!)

And that is our last 2 weekends in a nutshell!  Happy Halloween Eve!  With a forecast in the low 40's and lots of wind, I think we are going to hand out candy instead of get more of it.  (He has plenty!)

Hopefully the bump updates will be coming soon!

30 Weeks

How far along? 30 weeks
Maternity clothes?  Of course.  I primarily wear dresses because everything else is so tight it makes me uncomfortable.  I want to buy more things but I only have 10 weeks to go!!
Best moment this week:  I'm currently on a high tonight because Ben took 2 bites of chicken for the first time EVER!!  He was totally motivated by the playground at Chick-fil-a, but it worked!  He gagged a bit at first, but then it actually seemed like he liked it!  He was so excited to tell daddy.  Almost as excited as I was!  Of course, I had to document this historical moment with photos.  

Love how he contemplates it, then goes in for it while keeping his eye on the prize.

Miss anything? I do miss feeling comfortable in my clothes, but I really and truly cannot complain.  
Movement:  He is moving all of the time.  Sometimes he kicks so hard that I cannot believe he is only about 3 pounds right now.  
Sleep: I am still baffled that I do not have to get up in the night to go to the bathroom.  It is so nice!  I'm sleeping like a dream!  Having crazy dreams, but at least I'm sleeping well!
Food cravings:  Not really.  I'm not as ravenous as I was earlier in the pregnancy.  I don't have to do my midnight snack prevention program.  (I haven't for weeks!) 
Anything making you queasy or sick: Not really.  Just too much perfume.   
Labor signs: Braxton Hicks contractions every once and awhile.   
Exercise: I'm still running/walking.  I alternate every 0.25 miles.  I love it!  I'm doing a 5k next weekend!
Looking forward to:  I have another ultrasound next week that I am pretty excited about.  I cannot wait to meet this little boy!  I'm excited for the upcoming Halloween festivities at Ben's school this weekend too.  He is so excited to trick or treat, but I really don't think he knows just how much fun he is going to have.  :)

(Tried to tuck my shirt in but…)

Weekend Recap: Family Fun & Date Night!

Happy Monday!  It's been awhile since I've had some free time on a Monday night to write a blog post.    I could be finishing up some notes for work but…they'll still be there tomorrow. ;)  We didn't have much planned this past weekend, which I was happy about, but it turned out to be a pretty darn good one.  I'm drawing blanks on what we did on Friday night besides stay home and watch Dateline.  We were both so tired we barely made it to the end.  It was our usual Saturday morning of music class for Ben and me and studying for Andy.  Ben and I stopped by my mom's after music class.  Even though they had big "to-do" list, Nana and Papa John graciously offered to take Ben for several hours so I could get some stuff done.  I was a little sad to leave him, but it was so nice to have some free time!  My mom was inspired by my blog post from last weekend and wanted to check out the park we went to.  It is a good 45 minute drive, but totally worth it!  So while Ben was doing lots of this:

I was busy doing this:

I did some much needed organization of all of our baby clothes before my pager went off.  I'm on call 1 week a month and I typically get 1-2 calls a week, but I had to go in on to see a patient on Saturday.  At least I didn't get interrupted doing anything fun! ;)  On Saturday night, my dad came over so Andy and I could have a date night!!!  We really don't go on many dates these days and we especially do not go to movies, and we decided that we were due for one!  Again, I was sad to leave Ben, but he was SO excited for grandpa to come over.  Despite his 20 minute power nap in the car earlier in the day, he was in a great mood.  This boy LOVES to play baseball, and I love any opportunity where I don't have to be the pitcher.  (Mostly because he hits the ball nearly 100% of the time and he hits it HARD.  Andy got pelted in the arm right before we were about to leave and the ball left a mark.  He has a tee but apparently a real pitcher is more fun…)

I do not know what he is doing in this picture, but I do know that he did NOT want to stop playing to take a picture.

And of course, we needed one of us, since it was such a special occasion!

We tried a new local "farm to plate" restaurant and it was excellent.  We will definitely be going there again.  After dinner, we went and saw "Gone Girl" which we both really liked.  I want to read the book now!  It was our first movie since we went to a movie in Belgium when I was pregnant with Ben.  We kept saying, "we need to do this more often" and we definitely do! 

We missed Ben, but I'm pretty sure the only thing he missed was Grandpa not being there in the morning.  "Grandpa go?  Grandpa come back to Ben's house!!!!"  (Almost with tears, I might add.)  So he did the next best thing: played with the new toy from Grandpa.

Later on Sunday morning, we went to our cousin Lydia's baptism.  Andy and I were both too busy telling Ben to whisper and that he can't eat a granola bar in church that we didn't have time to take pictures.  (Side note, he later received a sucker in the middle of the service after he went up to the front with Auntie Anna and the rest of the kids.  He is probably going to want to start going to this church on a regular basis…)  I only managed to get a few pictures from the day.

As always, Ben loved hugging and kissing baby Lydia.

After I tried REALLY HARD for over an hour to get Ben to take a nap, I accepted that a good nap was not in Ben's plans this weekend.  Instead, we decided to take Rosco to the dog park.  We didn't last very long because it started to rain, but it was still fun.  There were about 25 dogs there and Ben wasn't scared at all until this giant dog came over by him.  I was scared too!  Mostly he just watched in amazement.  Love those little folded hands.

My boys!

We wrapped up our weekend with some much needed grocery shopping and an early bedtime.  Ben was asleep before I even left his room!  That never happens.  Have a great week!

29 Weeks

How far along? 29 weeks
Maternity clothes? Yes, and they seem to be getting smaller and smaller…  Hmmm…  I did get a winter coat from my cousin though and it is so comfy! 
Best moment this week:  Seeing ultrasound pictures!  It was just for a study (i.e. no doctors looking at them) but they said they would have stopped if they saw anything abnormal so I'm taking that as everything looks great!  And I cannot get over how much Baby Fish #2 looks like Ben!  I'm going to be one of those moms who can't tell her kids' baby pictures apart!  Can you tell who is who??

(That's Ben on the left and his baby brother on the right!)

Miss anything? My full lung capacity!  I don't remember feeling like this last time, but I better get used to it since I still have 11ish weeks to go!
Movement:  He is still moving a lot.  I may cheat a bit when Ben is trying to feel him kick, and I'll move my stomach so Ben thinks he feels the baby kicking.  He gets so excited about it.  I'm basically just exaggerating the kicks.  ;)
Sleep: I have had a few nights waking up at 4:00AM, but one time this was Ben's doing.  After I'm up at that time, I usually have a hard time falling back to sleep.  I did get almost 9 solid hours the other night though!
Food cravings:  I've been in to the sweets/candy lately.  
Anything making you queasy or sick: Not really.  
Labor signs: Just those Braxton Hicks contractions every once and awhile, usually in the evenings.   
Exercise: I didn't make it to the gym that often this week for various reasons, but I ran/walk 3 miles today and it felt so good!
Looking forward to:  I can't believe how quickly this pregnancy is going.  I'm sure these next 11 weeks will continue to fly by!  There are so many things to look forward to, but for this week, I'll say I'm looking forward to all things Halloween! 

Weekend Recap: We Love Fall

I'm so late on this post that I'm struggling to remember everything we did this weekend, but luckily I have plenty of pictures to remind me.  ;)  The boys were at school this past weekend, so we got to hang out with Maddie and Sarah on Friday night.  We went over to their house so the little ones could play.  I was again reminded that Ben plays quite a bit harder than Maddie.  She was perfectly content playing in place for an extended period of time, while Ben was turning her microphone in to a baseball bat and drop-kicking balls into the window.  I am usually pretty tired by Friday nights, but Ben made sure I was totally beat this week.  :)

After music class on Saturday morning, I decided to take Ben shopping with me.  I must have temporarily forgotten how busy he is, because I was surprisingly frustrated with his ball kicking, shelf-climbing, clothing stack knocking self.  There was no way of containing him to the stroller so needless to say our trip was cut shorter than it would have been if I was shopping solo.  Of course he balanced his silly behaviors with his sweet behaviors, so I couldn't be frustrated for long.  :)

After our fun shopping trip we went and took care of some business.  My car had been having some issues, so we dropped it off at the dealership and got a super awesome loaner car in its place.  Smooth move, Acura, now I want a fancy new MDX!  I really can't remember what we did for the rest of the afternoon besides count down the hours until daddy came home.   Ben misses Andy when he is gone, but after a trip to our favorite restaurant for dinner with daddy, all was right in his little world once again.

We like to make the most of our Sundays after Andy has been gone, so we decided to have a picnic lunch and go on a hike to enjoy the beautiful fall weather.  Apparently I took about 50 pictures of my boys, but they looked so cute it was hard to resist.

They were both in heaven.  Luckily for Andy, Ben loves the outdoors as much as or maybe even more than he does.  

Not sure what the tongue is all about, but cute nonetheless.  

There were big beautiful bluffs, so we had to take some STEEP stairs to get down to the water.  

But, once you walk down, you have to walk back up.  I did feel a little bad that Andy had to carry 25 extra pounds on his back, but then I remembered that I've been caring an extra 20+ pounds around 24/7 so I didn't feel as bad.  Hah!

Although he was a happy camper in his carrier pack, we did let Ben get out for a bit.

I am pretty sure he could have thrown rocks in to the lake with Andy for hours.  

He did have time to take a quick picture with his Momma though.

The weather was gorgeous and some of the leaves were changing, so it was a perfect afternoon with my boys.  I can't wait to have another little boy joining us soon!

Ben took a nice nap after our big hike, so I was able to go shopping…BY MYSELF for a few hours!  I love my boys to death, but it was nice to have a little "me time."  Although we were all plenty satisfied with our busy day, we decided to squeeze in a little more fall fun on Sunday evening.  We went to a pumpkin farm close to our house that also had a play area, a petting farm, and a train.

 We didn't get to pick our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch, but Ben still had fun choosing the perfect pumpkin.  He made it very clear that the first one he picked was for his baby brother.  It was pretty much the sweetest thing ever.

Love my little pumpkin sooooo much!

Last, and definitely least, Ben went on the train.  The last time Ben went on a train like this, it went in a circle right in front of us.  The farm was almost closing, so there weren't a ton of kids there riding the train, and we were totally caught off guard when the train went around the entire farm!  The poor little guy was on the train all by himself!  We felt soooo bad and I was actually kind of scared for him.  He was excited to get off and wasn't upset when we said it was time to go home after the train.  ;) No tears for him, but still!  That doesn't exactly look like the face of someone who just had a good time.






Time for bed!  Goodnight!  Tomorrow is Friday!!