Cutting teeth

Here's what we are getting to go through much of the time with Benjamin. There is a reason we don't remember much from when we are infants.

Poor child!

(and poor us!)

Actually I understand what the little guy is going through. With each of my first three pregnancies my wisdom tooth (I only had one) grew (and then recessed after the kid popped) and I got to go through that tooth cutting ordeal. It sucked. Luckily, after Joshua I got that sucker yanked. No fun... I really do feel aweful that he is in such pain! Well, two down and a mouthful to go. Fun times!

With Wondering Awe

Last night our baby Benjamin showed us all how to find the beauty and wonder in the simplest of things. It was so cute I had to write about it and put up a picture of his adorable little face. It was about 8:30 and pretty dark in the living room where we were all laying on the floor. All of the sudden Caleb picked up one of his dart guns that has a laser pointer on it and pointed it on the ceiling just in Ben's range of sight. Ben looked up at the red dot and was truly amazed... I mean, mouth open, staring, moving his head to follow where Caleb moved it amazed. He thought that little red dot was the coolest thing. If he lost track of it or got distracted he'd look around again and find it (sometimes with a little help from Caleb who would point it on the floor in front of Ben so he could see it) and the jaw would drop again. I was laughing so hard that I cried. Such a small thing - a little red light moving around -

that would probably normally just annoy me after a certain point, made my night and now I'll always have that picture in my head whenever the kids use their dart guns.

How lucky I am to have baby Benjamin.

And... while the dart gun is taken... Joshy found another use for the darts...

Can't leave the others out...

I was looking at how cute Ben's Santa pic looks on my last post, so I decided to put up the other kids pics... Caleb and Josh were both a month old and Kate is almost the same age in hers as Ben is in his (7 months). Too cute! :)

Caleb with Santa - 2000

Kate with Santa - 2002

Josh with Santa - 2004

That's right...

I did it - I finally did it... I managed to have the car today and have nowhere specific I had to go with it while the kids were at school. I was finally able to take Benjamin to the mall to get his picture with Santa. We got the kids on his lap at Wal-Mart the other day (free 5x7 - not too bad), but our tradition is to get the kids "alone" pictures with Santa on their first Christmas only. Couldn't break with tradition, but, holy cow... 20 dollars for two 5x7 pictures! Yikes! I am starting to think that Santa's photo guys and the Big-time oil guys are in cahoots... hrmmm. Anyhow, Ben sure did enjoy pulling on the Jolly guys beard - good thing it was real! :)

Well, you asked for it... blame yourselves :) Here are the pictures we took Monday night... not the greatest, but not bad for taking them ourselves. I have to admit, next time I'm going to have to burdon someone with coming over to be behind the camera - it was tough to get the kidlets to actually look at it - especially Ben... we even tried rigging one of his noise-toys to a rope behind the camera so we could pull it and make him look up... didn't work all that great and even just writing about it makes me laugh at how crazy the whole scene probably looked. Our neighbors we share our duplex with were probably completely annoyed... we must have said "wiskey" (our version of "cheese") about a thousand or more times - right in our dining room which is near our door for our shared basement stairwell. Oh well, I guess they knew what they were in for when they renewed their lease last October. :) Anyhow... here are the ones I'm acutally printing off to send to family.

What a surprise!

So far the entries on here look like my journal... pretty empty. Yikes. I suppose I just don't sit down and spend enough time on one thing when I am online. Oh well... I'll just recap.

Friday I got a major surprise from James. I had a test downtown on Friday and when we got home he brought this gift bag out from our room. He asked, "Do you want a present?"... haha... as if anyone would say no to this. Sure I did. Opened it up and, lo and behold, my wonderful husband bought me a flash unit for my camera. He (when I thought he was working) went to DODD camera near Crocker and got the scoop on different flashes and got me one. I couldn't believe it!!! I mean, I know I've been hinting at it for quite some it, but it's also not something you would just expect to get randomly. So far it's been hit and miss on figuring it out. I think the morons who wrote the directions must think it's obvious... it's not though - that doesn't make me the moron, does it? ;) haha Anyhow, just was such a surprise and I love it! - thanks again James!


Friday night we were also able to go out... I know... crazy! We did, though, have the kids, so I guess it's not like it sounds. We went out with Brian (used to work with James at his old firm) and his girlfriend Beth. It was so much fun. We went to Nuevo Acapulco - James deals with them on some issues so we got Great treatment from everyone! We were there for about two and a half hours and hardly heard a peep out of the kids. Part of that was because the happen to have the greatest chips and salsa there, but, I have to admit... they are darn good kids. I love them - I am so, so grateful to be able to be their mother. I'm not sure what I did in another life to deserve such good, respectful children, but I'd love to keep doing it because it must have been awesome. James and I enjoyed the company of other adults - we don't see them every week at church either like most of our other friends, so we had lots to catch up on. I'm thinking that the whole "going out" with friends thing periodically is very worth it - good for the soul. :)

Here I Am...

Alright... so it came to my attention last night at dinner that I am behind the pack in this whole blogging thing. Well, my friends, times are changing. That's right... Here I am! :) No promises on how interesting my posts will be to all of you, but I will do my best. It'll be fun to be able to keep you all up to date on our happenings here in Ohio. I'll even try to get a few pics up every once in a while.