Benson turns 1!

ok maybe like over a month ago...o well.

Hooray for Benson making it to his 1st birthday! And I say that for a few reasons... 1 - the poor kid was cursed with the Morriss head, which means proportionally its too big and posseses some dangerous attraction to anything pointy, hard, or hazzardeous in any way. 2 - Tyler can be alot meaner than expected, sadly. And 3 - months 7, 8, 9, and 10 when he would only take two 20 min naps a day, I thought I would go insane!

The Benson rundown:

Since month 7 he has only gained 3 pounds for a total of 23 lbs. which is fine with me - it's hard to hold fat babies!

Currently sleeps 13 hours at night and takes two lovely naps that total somewhere around 3 hours.

LOVES to cuddle his big, white, fluffy bunny. It sheds and often looks like we own a cat.

Has 4 teeth on top and 2 on bottom

Survived his 1st haircut. And by haircut, I mean like the 16 that were becoming a mullet.

Loves to clap, dance, climb and follow/copy Tyler

Says mom, momma, dadda, "ty-yer", and ta-da!

Signs more, all done, and sleep. And thankfully has figured out how to point to anything else he wants.

Hates the word 'no' and knows how to throw quite the dramatic tantrum.

He's a total goofball and has made the past year so fun!

His big dimpled smile brightens my day

We love you Benson!

McCall's Winter Festival

Finally, after years of having something come up and missing the festival we were able to go this year! And for the first time since Tyler was born (not because I wouldn't, just a lack of oportunity) Aaron and I went away without the kids. Too bad it was only for 1 night. I wish we would have gone into town and taken pictures of the ice sculptures that night but that was a no-go from everyone else. In the morning the boys went to the "race track" and us girls went into town. We didn't get to see all sculptures and only took pics of 3 because of the parade that went thru town - for 3 hours! Whatever. Then we met up with the boys at the track to watch our friend Brett race in the 2nd ever snowbike race. so they sound a little wimpy in the video but those are all 4-stroke 450s. This last race is all the pro-dirtbikers racing.

The November, December and some January recap!

CHRISTENSEN'S CABIN

So many times our old farmer friends have told us about their cabin(s) but somehow never figured out a time we could all go. We finally had a chance. We had a late start because Aaron had to work but we drove the 2 and a half hours just past McCall where we were meeting Mike. Because it's waay up in the mountains, the only way to get there is by snowmobile. Or this:

SO cool! It was a slow and bumpy ride from all the new snow but a fun way to go the 23 miles. I didn't mind though because Aaron and the others snowmobiling were 45 mins ahead of us so they had time to get the heat going. The meter at the top of the mountain read 6 feet! It was cool seeing only a couple inches of the other street signs.

We changed and all packed in the truck to go to the hot springs just a couple miles away. The water was absolutely perfect. There were 2 smaller pools above us but they were freakin hot! Tyler had fun and Benson made it easy on us and slept most of the time.

After a huge breakfast in the morning Aaron got to take Tyler on a ride. I didn't get to spend as much time on them :( maybe next time.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Tyler was finally old enough to understand the whole concept of it all and that made it really fun. He was sooo slow opening presents though - it took us 2 and a half days to finish. At least it wasn't all over in an hour!

We really had a great Christmas but maybe next year we can see a little of MY family :)




DECEMBER 18th - OUR ANNIVERSARY!
6 mostly wonderful years! We went to PF Changs, like always, and it was the first time in a long time that we really really had a blast just eating dinner, just the 2 of us. AND next time you go don't be lame and get the lettuce wraps for your appetizer, the waiters laugh at you anyway... literally every other thing that came out the kitchen door were the dumb wraps. Get the spicy shrimp - it wasn't really even spicy. It was sooo good. Making me drool. Here's to another year! Or 60.



HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Way late. As usual. But I'm grateful for lots of things and comparing this year to last, I'm happy to be out of our apartment! I'm grateful my husband has a job, also one that he doesn't dread. I'm grateful for 2 healthy, happy boys and I love being able to stay home with them. They make my life so fun! usually.. :)


MY REPLACEMENT
Aaron got a new bike. hooray. He pretty much got the deal of the century on it and got to trade for legal work so I guess I can't be mad. The guy rode it for 3 hours and then broke his foot or something. Brand new, upgrades, never wrecked, bike of the year 2 years in a row...blah blah blah.

Pretty sure he loves it more than ME





BENSON WALKS
With that sock puppet wrap thing on Benson decided he would try walking. He figured out how to stand up on his own a week after that and quit crawling altogether just before 10 months.
gotta love Tyler's encouragement





sorry its sideways

AND then...

So it's Sunday night. Trick or treating is over, Tyler's whiskers are all washed off and the kids are fresh and clean out of the bath - totally on a sugar high. We had some friends over watching a game and I was about to put the boys to bed and we heard a slam. I knew what happened..its their new game. Tyler was running to get away from Benson and slammed his bedroom door so Benson can't follow - which I hate. All for good reason apparently. This time Benson was screaming and when I got to him I saw alittle blood and figured he had his finger in the hinge when the door slammed. Tyler knew he was in trouble and hid under the crib. Now it was bleeding sooo bad and I was pretty sure he would need a couple stitches but I still couldn't get a real good look at it. Our friends we awesome and offered to stay with Tyler so we could take him to the ER. hooray - what a way to end our fun little Halloween.

Benson actually fell asleep in my arms on the way there. His finger soaked an entire burpcloth - those really thick white ones. When we got there I was surprised the ER was completely empty. They got us into an exam room and the bleeding had stopped enough to get a good look. So gross. It was sliced more than 3/4 thru.




X-rays showed he just barely missed the bone which could have easily been crushed. So that was good news. But they would have to put him "mostly under" to keep him still enough to suture it back together. After telling us that we would probably want to leave the room while they put his IV in, the nurse came back with only 1 guy! So guess what, we had to help hold him down. Anyone that has had their kid get an IV totally gets that its the saddest thing ever!


It was nice to be able to stay right by him while they worked on it.
He ended up with 8 stitches - 3 on each side of his finger and 2 through his nailbed to keep it all together.

It was a really long night but Benson has hardly noticed his 'sock puppet' arm.

It doesn't seem to hurt for him to crawl on it but I think its motivated him to try walking more. He's been doing so good - walked about 8 steps this morning :)

Happy Halloween!

This year I've realized I love Halloween. I mean, really, once you turn 13,14 its just not the same. But having kids has totally made it fun again. Tyler was finally old enough to understand the whole trick or treating process and loved loved his costume. I got his costume a few weeks before so he wore it quite a few times while watching the Halloween episodes on nick jr. and pouncing around the house. It was pretty cute.

We went to the pumpkin patch a picked out a few pumpkins


but i guess we waited too long to carve them because our big one was totally rotten :(
so we just carved one

and when I say we, I mean me. Aaron isn't really into pumpkins so he kept Benson away. And Tyler wouldn't touch the insides for anything.




at the trunk or treat Saturday

my cousin Jenna even came trick or treating with us Sunday




the loot

Can't wait until next year!

Tyler is 3!

I was looking at some baby pictures of Tyler wondering how 3 years had gone by so fast! He came in while I was looking and he thought a newborn picture of him taking a bath in the sink was pretty silly. I figured, what the heck...

Benson liked it too

We didn't do anything big - just had family and a few friends over.

Some of his favorite cousins:


Not sure if he understands the whole 'wishing' thing:


And he can write his name!:


Tyler really is a great kid. He's sweet and thoughtful and makes me laugh everyday.

I bought this outfit last year when I was pregnant. Silly me, assumed my second child would be like Tyler - nice and average, wearing the appropriate clothing size suggested on the tag. So I bought 6-12 months. This picture was taken in September, Benson was 7 1/2 months old.

If he moved too much the snaps would come undone - definitely not making it to Halloween!

A First

Tyler never did this.

And sadly, this was a one time deal.