Lunch dates & Park Fun

Today Benjamin and I had a lunch date with an old co-worker of mine, Heidi.  We ate outside at Flattail restaurant in Corvallis and it was really nice.  Benjamin was sooo loving Heidi.  He kept smiling and flirting with her, it was hilarious.  He was a perfect angel just taking in all the sights during lunch. 

Afterwards we stopped by the office where I used to work to say hi to a few people.  My old boss was out of town on business but I saw a few people I haven't seen in over a year.  We were only there 10-15 minutes to quickly say "hi" but Benjamin was sure a charmer.  He smiled and squealed at everyone we saw and received quite a bit of attention.  He seemed to really be enjoying himself :-)

He only napped on the ride home and nothing more but was in a great mood despite it.  Plus, he slept from 8:15pm to 8:15am again last night, woot woot!!!

This evening we went to a park in Waterloo for a bit of playtime

Slides with Daddy are sooooooo fun!

Climbing like such a BIG BOY.

almost to the top.......

I MADE IT, yippee....now, what's up here for me to play with?

I prefer not to have my picture taken, but love playing with my little guy regardless

Hey Mama....Daddy says we can go check out the river....let's go!

do you think they're related????

Love these smiling faces

throwing rocks into the water

such a beautiful (yet hot) evening together

Off to get little one to sleep so I can enjoy some time with the hubby and enjoy my first dessert (Ben & Jerry's) in a long time......stupid diets.

Playtime and Blackberries

Not too much going on for us....just watching Benjamin grow and learn like crazy!

Here's a quick recap of our happenings.

Friday night we just stayed in, ate curry and played with our little man on his new playset.  I found it at a garage sale a few weeks back and it's now all clean, put together and ready to be played on!

He looooves the slide.  It's just his size.  He will now go down the slide completely on his own.  We put him on the top of the slide, say "come on!" and he just wiggles until he slides down. 

You can't see it very well in the picture but he's climbing a mini "rockwall".  He completely has the climbing motion down and thinks he's big stuff!

He couldn't get enough of the steering!  We really don't even need to hold him up anymore, he just stands there on his own, holds on and moves it back and forth.  He actually had the hand over hand driving motion going on for awhile, ha!

Though I'm a little afraid that this face means he's going to have road rage like his Auntie Amanda (and certainly not like his mama!)

Just checking out the trees I watered with Daddy!

Peter and his mini-me :-)

Saturday we went to Eugene to pick up a few things and buy some new tennis shoes for Peter.  I don't think I took any pictures (I wouldn't want to torture Amanda with the never ending pasta I ate!)

Sunday we had church in the morning.  Benjamin did great in the nursery.  They said he played in the exersaucer for awhile then they put him down for his nap with Floppy and he went to sleep!  He was still sleeping when I picked him up after the service.  It was precious.  He came home to eat lunch then took a 1 hr and 45 minute nap, woo hoo!!!

After he woke up we headed out to pick a few blackberries in the field near where we live.

 All ready to go pick some berries, even though I can't eat them yet!

Happy to be hanging out with Daddy!

Mommy!  I know we're cute but stop taking pictures and pick some berries

Our little family

The selection wasn't huge and we only picked for about 30 minutes but hey, they were free!  And there were many more in our bellies :-)

Benjamin has his own version of helping mommy fold laundry

So I can remember, I want to document that today Benjamin took a 2 1/2 hour nap this morning!!  And he slept from 8pm to 8am only fussing for a minute or two at 4:30am.  He also slept for 1 hr this afternoon.  Hooray for good sleep.
Here's a few pictures of our playtime tonight

He is getting so close to crawling!  He can scoot backwards really well and now he gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth like a crazy man.  It's only a matter of time before my free time is completely GONE!

Who knew playing in computer boxes could be so fun!  No, the new computer isn't for us.

Uhhh..........

That's all for now folks, goodnight!

Living life

We're almost done with the week, I'm looking forward to the weekend :-)  The days have been a bit long with Peter gone so much.  Here's what Benjamin and I have been up to....

our daily "crawling" practice time!

riding around in my tonka truck is so fun

Mama can't believe the difference between these pictures taken about 4 months apart!

Today mama and I walked to the park.  She didn't take but 1 picture because we were too busy wrestling in the grass, climbing the stairs, driving the wheel and sliding down the slide.  It was a blast!

Hooray for bath time!  I sure can splash!

He saw his reflection in the metal and wanted to reach himself, ha!

his eyes sure are blue

thanks for helping me stand up Daddy

Benjamin tries so hard to reach the bar on his own (he gets pretty close by pushing himself up on the inflatable tub) so we had to help him reach his goal

a rare moment where Benjamin is content to just sit in the tub

normally he moves all over and ends up lounging in various positions!  Thanks again for the tub Mom, he loves it and it's perfect for his age.

This was too funny.  Tonight while I was fixing dinner Peter was showing Benjamin the video of himself laughing during his pillow fight with Daddy.  Benjamin watched so intently...

and started laughing hysterically just like he does in the video.  He was quite amused with himself (and so were we!)

I also took some cute video of Benjamin while I was singing and playing the piano for him.  He just flailed his arms during the songs over and over.  Later he used his rattle to keep the beat for me, it was so cute.  This mama still has hope that he didn't inherit his daddy's sense of rhythm :-)

So glad that tomorrow is Friday, looking forward to the weekend.