I'm Still Here

Hi if you're still reading this. Though Jon posted pictures recently, I still feel like I should write something. I get disappointed when people whose blogs I read haven't written in a while, so here I am. I have been very busy lately with work. All I've done lately is work and run to doctor appointments. It's rather ridiculous. The weather has been unseasonably hot lately and I've been freezing out my boys running the air conditioner. Poor Ben. I dress him in sweat pants because I put the air on as soon as Jon leaves for school in the morning. In my defense, it gets quite hot downstairs and even Jon enjoys coming home to the air conditioning.

I have been spending some time trying to clean up and rearrange the apartment (Ben has been counteracting my efforts) to try to make room for the new baby's clothes and be able to put up the Pack n' Play and actually have access to baby stuff when I need it. I realize I have a couple of months, but I'd rather do it while I know I have the time and still have the ambition. I had an ultrasound a couple of weeks ago. Baby is measuring a week big but that's apparently not big enough to change my due date. I will have one more ultrasound, so there's always hope...

Ben is doing very well in his walking. He's still wobbly and goes too fast for himself sometimes, but it's so fun to watch, especially when he's walking to me. He prefers to hold my hand to stay up longer. He loves being on the couch with me, going from side to side and bouncing around. He's climbing on the coffee table and tries to climb up the headboard on our bed. Just a little monkey. We're immensely enjoying our baby boy.

Belated Benjamin Birthday Blowout Bananza

Here are some pictures of the various birthday gatherings that Benjamin celebrated with the family back in Minnesota

Ben's First Haircut

Benjamin has gone from a Baby Mullet:



To A Proper Young Boy (i.e. he got his first hair cut).

Yay For Air

I was so excited, I just had to share with everyone. We just got a brand new air conditioner installed. Even though it's like 70 degrees out, if that, I have it running. It's a bit humid out. The guys thought I was funny for having them leave it on. It even has a remote so I don't have to stand on a chair to change it. So that's my excitement for the week. What I can't believe is that Ben slept through it all. He is one tired kid. He's been waking up around 6:00 lately and then taking an early nap. He woke up for a while but then went back to sleep. What a life. Now only if mommy could do that...

Back In Grand Rapids

And we're back. We had a mostly uneventful trip. We almost got stuck in Mitchell, SD, but the car decided after about half an hour that it was ready to head home, and we didn't turn the thing off until we got to Edgerton. As we were leaving Worthington Sunday morning, we had another delay. But Dad worked some magic and we turned the car off as few times as possible on the way home. So we returned to a bloody hot apartment. It is about 90 degrees and our air doesn't work here, so figure my body temperature right now feels like 110. Aside from the little stove inside me, Ben has been very clingy, adding to my discomfort. Gotta love pregnancy.

We spent a day going through the Tetons and Yellowstone. We also went through Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho. It's basically a bunch of rocks from volcanic eruptions thousands of years ago. It was very eerie to drive through. I think my favorite part of the trip, though, was going through the Big Horn mountains. It was a beautiful drive. We had a nice trip overall. This picture kind of sums up Ben's trip. He is such a good traveler, especially with 3 straight days in the car seat and not a lot of time to get out and move.

Anyway, we had some nice birthday parties. Ben has been enjoying his presents thus far. I think three-quarters of our back seat on the way home was Ben stuff, presents or otherwise. We had 2 parties and he got his fill of cake. He's taken his first wobbly steps now, just a couple at a time. He actually spent a lot more time yesterday with his Christmas presents than he did before we left. He's growing so fast. I packed up his little winter clothes from last year, and it's so hard to believe he's 1 already. The year has just flown by.

So my next goal is to rearrange closets, throw away whatever we can and just try to organize more to make room for the new baby and all the baby stuff I have to haul out. I did this before Ben, but I have a feeling it will take more time now since I tend to have a lot of extra help with my tasks now. The hardest part is getting into a closet without getting the door shut on me.

It is nice to be home again. We have these big tree-type things that grow from under our deck that I usually trim once a week in the summer. They had gotten a few feet high, so Jon spent time trimming them and pulling tree-type things out of our garden. I think we dusted every surface in the house also. It's kind of interesting to see what 3 months of dormancy brings you.

Jon has his first day of classes today and I am back to 7:00 wake-up. We will get into a routine and life will settle down just in time for us to have another baby and disrupt it:) But life would be boring otherwise, right?