Say Cheese!

Ben has just started smiling at us and we love it! He has a huge mouth (don't know where he got that from) and that makes for a huge grin! The kids love doing anything to get him to smile at them.

I just thought this one was funny.

One Month!

Ben turned one month old on the 6th! Overall, we are all doing pretty well with the adjustment. I am looking forward to getting out of the house more but I don't really see that happening any time soon. He eats like a champ, and he still sleeps a lot. We are working on getting him to sleep in the crib more. He would much rather be in the swing or wrap. He loves being held.
I tried to get some one month pictures and Samantha insisted on being in them. Neither of them are great of Ben, but I love the one of Samantha. She is getting to be such a big girl!

I just realized that this is the outfit we brought him home in. He's starting to fill it out!

On a side note, isn't it cruel to make someone go through acne and balding twice in his life?

Why we don't leave the house

Ben is one month old now. I have taken all 3 kids out together one time by myself, to Ben's one month appointment the other day. When my sisters were out, we attempted to go grocery shopping with everyone. We were doing fine until Carter disappeared. We were at the Pick N' Save grand opening and so I thought he had headed out to get some more cookie samples somewhere. My sister was frantically searching for him and I was starting to get freaked out when I ran into someone from my ward. I said hi and explained that I couldn't find Carter anywhere. She replied "um, he's under your cart." And that is why we don't leave the house.

Finally!

This is what our upstairs bathroom looked like when we moved in.  Now imagine it with all of the dreamy blue tile ripped off and a large hole underneath the shower head.  That is what it looked like for the last 18 months or so.  And this is what it looks like now! We have done a little bit here and there (we replaced the nasty toilet right after we moved in), but for some reason this project just kept getting pushed to the back burner.  For the last month or so, Mike has been hard at work while I haven’t had any projects going to distract him and he finished it!  You can’t really tell from the pictures, but the white on the walls is bead board.  It looks a lot better than I expected it to.  I may start sending people upstairs to use the bathroom from now on! This is my favorite part.  We haven’t had a toilet paper holder in that bathroom since we moved in.  It is awesome not to have to search every time I need toilet paper.  It’s all in the little things, right?

Hooray for sisters!

My amazing sisters (my sister and sister-in-law) came out a couple weeks ago to help me out and see baby Ben (I know it was mostly the latter, but I like to think they came to see me too :)). I had a great time with them! I feel a little bit sorry for them because it couldn't have been a lot of fun hanging out at my house all day watching Food Network, but hopefully they got a nice little break from their lives and their fill of custard.

They left me with a freezer full of meals, did the dishes every day, played with the kids, snuggled Ben, helped paint the bathroom, let me cry on their shoulders when we went to put the meals in the chest freezer only to find that my kids had turned it off and I had lost a freezer full of meat (I lost it when I had to toss the bacon wrapped filet and the ribs). We have very few pictures because none of us really got ready while they were here. I did get a few when we went out for custard the lat night they were here. Custard makes everyone look better, right?

A visit from Amber wouldn't be complete without haircuts for the family. Samantha was especially excited about hers. She is all girl.

We all loved having them here and can't wait to see them again!

Pictures of Ben

I have so many posts in the works, but just haven’t found the time to actually post them. I am slowly adjusting to life with 3 kids. It hasn’t been too bad, because Carter is in school 4 days a week for the morning. So I am able to go run errands with just Samantha and Ben. We will see how things go when Carter starts his fall break in two weeks.

Ben keeps me on my toes. One day he will take a 4 hour nap in the swing and so I can get things done around the house, the next he screams anytime I set him down and I don’t even get a shower. He does love his wrap though and sleeps like a dream in it. Overall he is a sweet little thing and I love snuggling him! The kids still are absolutely in love with him and are constantly hugging and kissing him, especially Samantha.

We had some pictures taken by a photographer friend of a friend who wanted to practice on newborns (you can see her work here). We just got them back the other day and they turned out so cute! I love the one where he is smiling and the one where you can see his back wrinkles. Such a cutie, I don’t know where he gets it, but he’s got it!

You can check out the pictures here (click on the picture to go to the album):

Ben's Newborns

Co-Sleeping

Samantha understands that Ben would rather not sleep alone. Or maybe it's her babies that like the company...