Happy 7 months, a little late

Husker baby
Originally uploaded by Shanlee

Benjamin,
You turned 7 months old the day before Christmas Eve. You celebrated this day in Omaha, Nebraska hanging out with your cousins, aunt, uncles, grandpas, grandmas, great grandma, great aunts and uncles. You have a big Bohemian Polish family who just loved you to pieces.

You were an angel of a baby on both days we spent traveling. Everyone on all six planes (yes, 3 planes each way) comments on your happy good nature. I am truly a lucky mother. You sat quietly on your dad's lap playing and napping. We did a lot of running around in Omaha and you were a trooper and did a lot of car seat sleeping. You were passed around and kissed and hugged and even thrown in the air by your Uncle Casey.

While you were in Omaha, you developed a cold but you wouldn't let that get you down.

In the past month, you have began really enjoying your solids. Your favorite food is pears and you go crazy or Mum Mums. You also started pulling yourself up and you're doing the Polish Crawl (going backwards). Any day, you'll be heading forward. You will sit up on your own for a while and then topple over but it is getting better each day.

We're still on "Tooth Watch 2008." Nothing yet but my guess is they are coming because you're drooling all over everything.

OH and on Christmas Day you looked right at me and said "mama." What a treat.

I love you, little buddy.

Momma

Happy 7 months

Grandpa Casey and Ben with their hats
Originally uploaded by Shanlee

Benjamin,
Today you have turned 7 months old. I can't write much because we're visiting all of your Polish relatives in the land of corn. I'm not surprised that you are doing so well with all the hauling around and visiting. Thank you for being a good spirited baby.

This photo is of you and your Grandpa Casey. He bought you that hat you're wearing to match his. His hat is actually seal and beaver while yours is leather and sheep wool.

Off to visit some more folks. A complete post about your 6th month is soon to come.

Love,
Momma

Go Elf Yourself!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Five Silly Turkeys

Sporting the Santa hat
Originally uploaded by Shanlee

Benjamin has been learning about Thanksgiving Turkey's for weeks. His favorite book has been "Five Silly Turkeys." The book looks like a turkey and has shiny gold crinkly feathers he likes to hold onto.

His Thanksgiving meal consisted of milk and peas. I meant to start him on sweet potatoes yesterday but I opened up the peas and then thought "oh crap! I meant to open the potatoes."

His first Thanksgiving was uneventful. He woke up at 7:45 a.m. (he slept in) and played a bit. Then he went down for his 9 a.m. nap and slept until 10 a.m. At 11 a.m., he went with Brian to visit Aunt Theresa while I took a shower and laid around the house. He ate and then took another nap around 1 p.m. When he got up, we went to the Maxwell house for a feast of awesome food. I'm grateful for such wonderful friends. He then took another nap at 5 p.m., then woke up and ate peas. See, just a normal day for this kid.

We're now moving onto his Backyardigan's Christmas book and maybe we'll go get photos with Santa tomorrow.

I'm really excited for Christmas!

Holiday traditions

This post reminded me that I wanted to write about making some holiday traditions for our new little family. When I was growing up, we spent just about every holiday with my maternal grandparents. My grandma would slave away making the meal while my mom and aunts would make the desserts for Thanksgiving. If my uncles and aunts didn't make it for the 2 p.m. meal, they showed up at 4 p.m. for leftovers. I always would help with the dishes (it seems to take us hours to do) and of course, take a nap while the uncles, cousins and my brothers watched football. This was always a time to see the out of town cousins and play "school" with my in town ones as well.

Christmas Eve our immediate family would go to mass. This day is also my younger brother's birthday (he'll he 31 this year). After mass, our family would open gifts (youngest to oldest, one gift at the time) and then load up and head to my maternal grandparents house. This would be a late night. Sometimes we wouldn't get home until after midnight. Santa always delivered our gifts early because in the morning my dad would pick us up (if you didn't know my parents divorced when I was 5) and we'd spend the day with him.

Since moving to Bend, I'm sorry to say don't really have a tradition. Most of the time, if we are in Bend on Thanksgiving we are lucky enough to be invited somewhere. I still make a small turkey breast on Friday with the fixings (so I guess these is some sort of tradition in place). Christmas has been all over the place. One year we went skiing. Last year, we went to Seventh Mnt Resort with friends. Brian and I started a tradition that we'd buy each other an ornament each year to symbolize the year and I also buy a bottle of wine to open in 10 years.

Sometimes I really miss being around my family. I told Brian that sometimes, I think that maybe it would be great for Ben to grow up near a larger group of family members. They still gather at my grandma's house on Thanksgiving though she doesn't make the meal anymore -- my aunts decided to go to a buffet last year. My grandma made a small dinner for those who wanted to gather later. They still have Christmas at her house.

Today I bought stocking to put names on and hang over the fireplace. I plan on putting little things in them this year. We usually go and cut our tree but I'm thinking of scraping that until Ben gets old and mainly because I want a smaller, more lush tree this year. We plan on buying each other and Ben an ornament. But what else? Make cookies? Go snowshoeing on Christmas? I need ideas. What do you do with your family?

Happy Halloween

Ben as Charlie Brown
Originally uploaded by Shanlee

At five months old, Halloween is only exciting for the parents so we didn't want to go all out on a costume. Instead, some good friends of ours made Lil B a Charlie Brown shirt and boy was it a hit! He only hit up one house but boy was it cute!

I can't wait until next year when he's walking. More photos are located here. Enjoy!

Prepping for baby

I keep forgetting I'm pregnant. My friends tell me this is all normal and in fact, while one friend was pregnant last year she often said this and I thought she was completely nuts but now I understand the whole concept of forgetting. I usually remember right about when I'm getting dressed and nothing fits. My belly isn't as big as my co-workers who's belly is 5 days behind me (this is her 3rd child) and of all the books I read this is normal.

I've been feeling flutters. Sometimes it feels like bubbles in my belly or something swimming around. One day it felt like something ran it's finger against my insides. I just can't wait till the little sucker jabs be in the ribs! Bring it on!

This week I've started researching furniture and what we really need. So far the list includes: crib, glider, changing table/dresser and some sort of closet storage. We were planning a trip to IKEA in Portland but we may just get the closet storage as I've found Wal-Mart and Target are a goldmine for the other items. I've also set up an rss feed for "baby" on Bend's Craigslist. I don't mind hand me downs. I would like all white since the woodwork is white but we'll see.

I scored the Cadillac of breast pumps from my friend and I'm so excited!!!! That's $300 I won't have to spend. Lil Berger got his/her first gift -- a rattle from my friend Katie.

I still can't believe Friday will be 16 weeks.

Holiday traditions

Is it secure?
Originally uploaded by Shanlee

We spent a good part of the day hunting for the perfect Christmas tree west of Sunriver. We found an awesome spot a few years ago and just by luck, found it this year again. As fun as finding your own tree is, it can be a complete pain in the ass. It wasn't so much a pain because we had friends with us and then went and warmed up at the Owl's Nest at Sunriver Resort.

We came home and decorated our tree for the holiday. After hacking and trimming away at it, our tree was perfect. I also purged some of my holiday decor. I wish someone would have told me that spending all that money on Winne the Pooh ornaments would be a waste someday. I don't even want to hang them up. I'm so over Pooh.

Click here to see the rest of the photos from the day.