10 Months!!

I'm a little late in posting this, but last Friday Benjamin turned 10 months old.  Which is so close to a year that I want to stomp my feet and pout a little.  Here's what he's been up to!

Height:  Not for sure but probably between 31-32 inches.  He just seems soooo long to me

Weight:  Again, not for sure but probably around 25lbs.  Chunky monkey he is :-)

Likes:  Jumping, jumping, jumping.  I really think that if I let you, you would jump up and down in your crib all day long.  You even get some air when you jump, it's hilarious.

We laugh at you sooo much because you remind us of a little bullrider when you jump.  You always have your right arm in the air and wave it around as you jump.  Your new thing is to suck on the palm of your hand while jumping....it's a little odd!

You love, love, love phones.  You love to hear people talk to you on the phones and you love to push the buttons.  You love your Floppy.  He is your comfort and friend and I don't know what we would do without him.  You love to wrestle him and tackle him and "eat him" while you play.  Then you cuddle with him at night.

playing peek-a-boo

You still love to pull up on everything and are such a fast crawler now.  This is my view most of the time....you escaping from me.

I like to see you crawl towards me though too.  You've started to crawl super fast towards Daddy when he comes home from work and he loves it.

You love songs.  Your favorites are "You are my sunshine", "Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Hokey Pokey", "Jesus Loves Me", "O God, You Are My God", "I'm in the Lord's Army", etc.  You also like to sit on mama's lap and play the piano.  You are definitely soooo vocal now.  You are starting to mimic what we say a little bit making at least a similar sound in a lot of cases.  Especially when it comes to saying "Christmas tree" or "water" or "dog".  You're definitely not quiet and squeal or yell when you want to be heard.  Your mouth is open ALOT........see the pictures!

You love books (still preferring Little Mouse & The red ripe strawberry best) and you also love "The Three Little Bears."  You love Baby Einstein and Praise Baby dvd's.  You flail your arms when the intro part comes on :-)

You also still looooove your bathtime.  You don't get one every night because of different activities but you sure love it when you do!

 you don't mind the water being dumped over your head

 this fish is your favorite bath toy these days!

 the bathtime obligatory bum shot :-)

 precious!

 he loves stuffing this octopus in his mouth!

 Oh. my. goodness.  Look at his tooth.....it's sooo big!

 doll baby

 splashy splashy!

all warm and cozy in Daddy's arms!

Dislikes:  You still hate the sound of the coffee grinder.  I'm not sure why but you can't stand it and get scared every time.  You also don't like the vacuum but will tolerate it if I'm holding you.  Note:  Vacuuming while holding a nearly 25lb baby is not easy.  You still don't love getting your face wiped off after meals.  You don't like mommy holding other babies!  You don't like it when you have something and it gets taken away from you for whatever reason.  We've had to tell you "no no" a lot more lately and you are soooo pitiful and make the cutest pouty lips.  It's SO HARD for us to keep a straight face because we just burst out laughing at how stinkin' cute it is.

Eating:  Of course you still love food!  You're eating pretty much everything.  Auntie Amanda introduced you to what are essentially baby cheetos and you love them!  You tried Ritz crackers this month too.  You love canned grean beans and peas.  You love applesauce, all fruits, beef, chicken, rice, bread, macaroni, string cheese, all other kinds of cheese, graham crackers.  The list goes on and on!  You are also having 3 8oz bottles every day.  One around 7:30/8:00am, another around 3:00pm, and one before bed around 8:00pm.  I call you my little "Koalas" because after you eat at night you'll usually crawl up into my arms and lay your head down to cuddle while you're being burped.  You can bet I LOVE this time and cherish my sweet boy.

 Sleeping:  You've been sleeping much better!  You usually go down between 8:00 and 8:30 and have been waking up between 6:30 and 7:30am.  You nap about 2 1/2 hours later and sleep for anywhere from 1hr to 2 1/2 hours.  Then you nap in the afternoon again varying in length from 1 hour to 2 1/2 hours (depending on how long your morning nap was).  You still sleep with your Floppy and take your Paci.

Personality:  It is SO FUN to watch you grow and learn and become your own little person.  You are goofy and strong and stubborn and a great football player.  Daddy plays with you almost every day and you absolutely adore it.  (So does Daddy!)  You're becoming really vocal too.  You're sometimes shy and bury your head into mama.  You're starting to hit a bit of a "Mama phase" where you would prefer me to other people but most of the time you're pretty good natured.  You just prefer to climb Mama all day long (see photo evidence below)

You still entertain yourself pretty well, and prefer a few toys and really like "household" objects like measuring cups, spoons, tupperware, etc.

We think you're slightly crazy (who wouldn't be though with us as parents!) but we just love your spunk!

Highlights:  You've started to show a little interest in using your walker toy.  You now have a tooth fully popped through on your top right.  You went to Idaho for Thanksgiving.  You went and cut down your first Christmas tree!  You helped decorate for your first Christmas.  You're really starting to mimic sounds and words.  You had your first hair cut.

 He loves this gingerbread house that lights up and plays music!

 this little tree is in Benjamin's room and we ask him "Where's your Christmas tree?" 
He gets so excited and points to the tree, it's cute!

Benjamin Daniel Klingler we are simply crazy about you.  You have made our lives so full of joy and being your mom and dad has been even better than we ever thought possible.  We thank God for you Benjamin!!

Grout Lines and a Haircut

Today I was tired.  Why was I tired?  Because we were stupid and stayed up too late.  We stayed up too late because Peter wanted to finish the tile project but filling them in with grout and well, I was dumb and said "sure honey".  HA!  Around 11:00pm I told him I was going to go to bed because I hadn't slept much the past couple of nights.........he looked at me and said with those cute green eyes, "you wouldn't want to help would you?"

Oh boy.

Those eyes.

I really have to learn to resist those eyes.

Instead, I grabbed a sponge.

I worked with him until just after midnight making sure the grout lines looked perfect since the tile we purchased had really cool chisled edges.  But that meant you had to kind of "remove" grout from the edges so they weren't covered making the grout lines too thicks.  How's that for completely incorrect tile terminology for ya? :-)  I'll show you what I mean in the picture.

 see how the edges of the tile are chisled, not smooth?

we had to use the sponge to remove the grout from the chiseled edges so it'd have this effect.

When Peter was first working on it, the edges were covered in grout too and I knew it looked "off" so my punishment for telling him how to do it correctly was that I had to help :-)

Here's what it looks like now......

After the grout fully dries we'll add a sealer to the top of them and we'll be done.

Of course Peter is going to replace the bit of drywall next to the tile due to the cat smell issues our house had and we'll give our front door a fresh coat of paint.

But I love the tile......soooooo much nicer than what was there.

I love that my hubby can do stuff like this.  The mortar, grout, cutting the tile....he did it all.  It's awesome that he's handy like that.

In other news.....

I cut Benjamin's hair.  Yep, I did it.  AAAAHHHH!!!

It was kind of sad.  I tried to do it by myself while Peter was at work but if you know my son at all, he does NOT stay still.  So when Peter came home I set Ben on his lap, put on a Praise Baby DVD to distract him and set out to remove the curls that had made themselves known around his ears and at the bottom of his neck.  It really was getting too long.

Still.

I only teared up once.

I didn't get a picture of me actually cutting it because well, I was cutting his hair and Peter was holding him, so there were no picture taker options.  And he was sooooo distracted by his DVD after I was done that I could hardly get a picture.  I need to do a few touch-ups tomorrow when I have great daylight, but here it is.

this is his "I'm watching Praise Baby, don't distract me or get in my way" look :-)

There's a bit of unevenness in the front but I'll fix that...we had small group to run off to tonight.

As to be expected, he wiggled and pushed the comb quite a bit but all in all did okay.

Here's some of his sweet baby locks.....

I love his crazy layered blond hair.  And I the little head it grows on.

Pajamas

Pajamas.  Pj's.  Jammies.  Jam Jams.

Whatever you call them, we stayed in them ALL DAY LONG.

And tonight we just changed from our pajamas to more pajamas!!  Awesome.

It was just a great day to stay at home, take naps and play, play, play.

I love watching my little man discover new things and I love teaching him new things.

He is crawling sooooo fast now and he chases me all. day. long.  I don't mind (too much) though.

Today we wore each other out with our playing antics.  I've been working with Benjamin on learning to use the walker toy.  He's finally showing interest in it and actually walked with it some tonight......crazy!

He's just growing up so fast and though it's fun, I can tear up a little knowing he'll never be this little again.

*Sigh*

Here's Benjamin learning how to work the walker toy.  I'm sure I'll look back to these "pre-walking" days so fondly in a few months :-)

 Please excuse his ginormous belly.  I think he ate more chicken, rice, green beans and applesauce than I did tonight.  OINKER.  And yes, I know he needs a haircut.

I can hardly believe we're to this stage already.  Off he goes!!

he had to stop driving his walker toy to call his friends on daddy's cellphone....it's illegal to talk and drive in Oregon! :-)  Mostly, this picture is just an excuse to see his tummy from another angle, HA.

Benjamin is sleeping.  He was out like a light within 3 minutes I think.  I can't wait to go to bed because we always sneak back into his room to stare at him, ooh and aah at how cute he is, pinch his little bum, tuck in his blanket and give him a kiss.  Then we talk about how much we love him as we get ready for bed.  It's a pretty good life I live.

Totally random thought, but I had to share about my new discovery....

I tried a sample of this stuff at Costco and it was delicious.  I found a smaller can at Bi-Mart and have been LOVING it as a treat in the evenings.  Soooo tasty, go get some!