Ben the Ham

Ben loves making people laugh.  He loves making funny faces.  He wanted to get in on the action the other day when I was taking some pictures of Adam.  I told him I would take a picture on “3” and he would pick the pose.  He’s a crazy one.  This one might be my favorite.

Love that kid!

6 Months

Technically, Adam isn’t 6 months old until the 9th.  But I’m home sick from church today and he’s napping so I thought I would take advantage of the quiet and post early.  It’s been a big month for Adam!  He started solids.  I was trying to wait until 6 months to start, but he was ready.  He would grab things out of my hands as I was putting them in my mouth and apparently milk just wasn’t cutting it anymore because he was waking up hungry too often at night.  He’s not a big fan of the fruits, but enjoys oatmeal and veggies.  Weird.  Having said that, it’s hard to get really excited about oatmeal.  He is such a happy baby.  He will smile for anyone and even when he’s tired he’s still pretty happy.  He still loves to stare at people until they look at him and then he’ll smile.  I love that dimple.  He is very active.  He’s all over the place.  It’s hard to burp him after he eats because he’s twisting and turning so much.  He gets around really well now by scooting, but he’s been getting up on his hands and knees a lot lately and I think he’ll probably be crawling soon.  Yikes! 

He’s still not a really consistent sleeper, but a lot of that is my fault.  It’s hard to have a set schedule with 3 other kids to take care of too.  He’s doing better though, especially after starting solids.  He’s such a great baby, maybe I’ll think about having another one. 

 

Ha! Kidding.  But it is nice to go out on a good note!

Three!

Let me preface this post by saying that this is an off-year.  As in I am taking this year off.  Not completely, but I am cutting myself some serious slack as I try to get back into the swing of things with 4 kids.  I’m not beating myself up for not putting up Halloween decorations, or taking pictures at Halloween, or not sending bread and cookies in for the bake sale at school.  I just keep telling myself next year I’ll do better.  Next year, I will post about birthdays when they happen.  At least in the same month.  Next year…

 

Anyways, Ben turned three in September.  When I asked what he wanted to do for his birthday, he said bowling and swimming.  Easy enough!  Us Chaplins love a good game of bowling.  Then we stopped by Wendy’s for some kids meals.  Can you find Waldo?No pictures of swimming (you’re welcome), but we did get some of him opening gifts.  Of all the awesome gifts he received his favorite was the whiffle softballs.  This kid loves his sports!  I absolutely love how expressive he is.  Cracks me up every day.  His next favorite thing was this ball.  He is so dang cute bouncing around the house on it.  Ben doesn’t love cake, so we made one out of ice cream sandwiches .  Super tasty.  Funny story about that candle there… When Ben turned 2, he took a bit out of his candle thinking it was candy.  So Carter thought it would be funny to see him do it again.  After a whole lot of encouragement from Carter and Samantha he ate almost the whole candle.  After which he threw it up.  Mike and I were pretty freaked out until we realized what he had eaten.  Older brothers are the best. This kid loves getting his picture taken.  I have to say I think he’s pretty good at it.  One thing he doesn’t love is clothes.  Mostly pants.  They are off as soon as he can get them off.  You know something is important to him when he will put on pants for it.  He loves making faces for the camera.  He loves making faces for anything, really.  He loves making people laugh.  So much that if he makes a face and you don’t laugh, he will tell you to laugh.  He will also tell you to say thank you after he does something nice for you.  “I held the door open for you, say thank you!”  I absolutely love these chubby little hands.  Why do they have go grow up?

He is such a fun, active little boy.  I have loved having him home with me as my little buddy while the other 2 have been in school.  He definitely adds his own brand of crazy to the family and we wouldn’t be the same without him!

5 Months!

This little one is growing fast!  He’s almost sitting up by himself, scooting around, and I think he’s teething.  At first, I’m always surprised at the new things he does.  Then I realize that he’s at that age.  I don’t know if it’s just because I’m busy or just tired, but his growing up is catching me by surprise.  He is a super happy baby.  He’s learning to play by himself a lot better although he definitely prefers to be with people.  We are finally getting on a nap schedule.  He is still up at least once a night, but I’m hoping once he start solids he will stop that.  He loves people and will stare at someone until they look at him.  He’s easily entertained by his brothers and sister and loves watching them play. 

He’s super cute and we are glad to have him around!

11 years down…

Mike and I celebrated our 11th anniversary today.  Holy Moly.  I can’t believe it’s been that long. It's flown by.  We are lucky enough to have 2 of my sisters here with us to babysit, so Mike took the day off and we had a super romantic day.  We started off by cleaning up the house a little, took care of a few little projects and then went to lunch.  Then we ran a few errands, came home and fed Adam and went to dinner.  We topped off the evening with a steamy trip to Target to check out the Halloween clearance. Next year we won’t have a baby and maybe we’ll plan something a little nicer.  It was nice to just spend some alone time with Mike, even if we were just running errands.  He’s been so busy lately with work that we don’t see a lot of each other and we rarely get time without any kids. 

We were talking about the past 11 years over lunch and we have faced some pretty big challenges and made it through some pretty rough times.  But we’ve stood together and they have made us stronger.  We have had some pretty great times as well, and I hope that the next 11 years holds a lot more good times than bad.  But no matter what comes our way, there is no one I would rather be standing by than Mike.  He is the best husband I could ask for. He puts up with and even supports my random eccentricities and obsessions.  He is an awesome dad and takes his job as a protector and provider very seriously.  I’m one lucky girl!

Green and Gold

We started a new tradition this year and it might be one of my favorites yet.  In August the Green Bay Packers have a family night.  Tickets are $10 each and they do a scrimmage.  They also have tailgating, face painting and some other activities depending on how into it you want to get.  It was our first time, so we kept it simple.  It was a blast!  It was fun to be in the stadium with the crowd and just enjoy the show. 

The night started off with some Army paratroopers parachuting into the stadium.  Then the players played a scrimmage and had a field goal kicking competition. The night was capped off with fireworks. Other than a few minor glitches, it was a really fun night.   The kids favorite part was the wave. Some lessons we learned for next time: 

• The stadium is really loud.  We should have brought ear plugs for the kids.  We ended up using wadded up tissue. 
• There are no drinking fountains at Lambeau Field.  Not a one.  We learned this after a long, long walk around the stadium.  Definitely the low point of the night. 
• We should have gone a little bit earlier so the kids could get their tattoos and faces painted and made their necklaces (would have been easier to park as well).  We missed some of the game while Samantha finished up her necklace and missed the tattoos.  Boo. 
• Adam is a champion sleeper when he wants to be.  He fell asleep on the walk to the stadium and slept through the entire thing.  He woke up again when we put him in the car seat afterwards.  We figured that since we were going to be getting back so late, we may as well just get a hotel room that night.  I’m so glad we did.  The next morning we headed back up to Green Bay to Bay Beach.  It’s this cute little amusement park.  Most rides are one ticket.  One ticket costs $.25.  The kids had a blast.  They rode every single ride and we still had a boat load of tickets left over. 

I will definitely be using this one as blackmail one day…It started raining that afternoon.  Most of the rides kept going though.  These crazies thought it would be fun to ride the train in the rain.  Until there was lightening and they stopped the train mid-ride.  Everyone had to walk back.  We took shelter and ate some lunch.  By the time we were ready to leave, it looked like this.  Luckily for us, the tickets are good forever!  We’ll hope for better weather next time. 

Time Flies…

When you have 4 kids.  I can’t believe how long it’s been since I posted.  I’ve meant to many times – I even uploaded pictures.  But something always happens and I get distracted.  I’m not going to lie (and I’m not looking for a pity party here), having 4 kids is hard.  Really hard.  At least for me.  I know things will get better when Adam gets a little older and is sleeping better, but right now I feel like I am always playing catch up.  I folded and put away 15 loads of laundry yesterday.  And most likely there are already 2 more loads downstairs waiting for me.  My house looks like a tornado hit and as soon as I get one room cleaned the kids get home from school and it’s back to square one.  I keep telling myself that there will come a day when the kids will all be in school or moved out and I will have plenty of time to clean then.  So, I’m doing my best to suppress my OCD tendencies and just enjoy being a mom.  It’s much easier said than done.  Anyways, that’s the reason the blog has been so neglected.  But, I do have things to post and lots of pictures, so here we go!

Adam is 4 months old as of yesterday.  We went to the pediatrician to celebrate.  He weighs 13 lb 15 oz. (20%) and is 26” long (95%).  His head is 42 cm (50%).  Basically he’s tall and skinny with average brains.   I’m not sure where the tall and skinny genes came from.  I’m assuming he’ll out grow those.  He is obviously growing really well.

He’s usually very happy, as long as he’s fed and has slept.  We’ve struggled with the sleep thing, but I think we are finally figuring things out.  He still has a hard time going down for the night before 10 or 11.  I put him down between 7-8, but he wakes up every half hour or so until 10-11 when he usually will go down.  He’s not a great napper, but we’re working on that too.  

He rolls both ways, but is much better at back to tummy. 

He has a great smile and such a cute laugh.  He’s ticklish and it really doesn’t take much to make him laugh. 

He loves watching the other kids.  He’s got super strong abs because whenever we lay him in his seat he tries to sit up to see more of what’s going on around him.

He’s been sick this past week or so.  Just a cold, but he’s been pretty miserable.  I’m really hoping he gets over it soon.

The other night, Mike introduced him to a new friend. Adam sat and looked at that doll forever. And then he made his move.  Apparently Mike forgot to explain first date etiquette. A little privacy here?!? (Horrible lighting, I know)

And here are the other pictures of him that I meant to post:

2 Months: I really love this one. Tummy time! 3 Months

 

Well that’s about enough of Adam.  He’s a cute kid and we love his guts!

Down on the Farm

We have been to this farm twice before and have loved it every time.  So when Groupon had a deal on admission, I snapped them up and we made yet another trip to Green Meadows petting farm.  In the past, we have gone with Carter and Sammy’s classes for field trips.  It was definitely better on our own where we got to take our time and do even more. 

They rode ponies:

 

This is Ben explaining to the nice lady that Spiderman gets aaall the bad guys.  He has Spiderman sunglasses.  This is her laughing at his story.  Ben has this effect on most people.  Catching chickens – Carter would catch them for Sammy and she would hold them for a second before letting them go. Ben wanted absolutely nothing to do with them and would scream anytime Carter got close with one. But he was ok with goats. And bunnies.  He really liked the bunnies.  This is him telling Sarah to put the bunny riiiiiiight here.  Looks like Carter is an animal lover through and through.  I had to tell him a few times to stop rubbing his face all over the bunny.  He fell in love with this kitty, who apparently really liked him also.  There were tears when the adoption idea was nixed.  Feeding goats is always a favorite for everyone except for Sammy.  But after some coaching from Aunt Amber, she got the hang of it.  I love the way Ben and Samantha would walk around like this.  It’s what Ben would do when he got scared.  He would go over to Sammy and ask to be saved.  Which basically meant being held.  And as a side note, baby turkeys are so ugly they are almost cute.  But not quite.  We all had a blast with Aunt Amber and Sarah!  And I think we wore them out.  They are both sleeping on the couch now.  And just for old times sake, here’s today: And the first time we went back in 2010.  It was lots greener then.  Where does the time go?