Busy Days

This week has just been busy.  A good busy, but still busy.

Between Dr. appts (was able to hear the heartbeat super easy this time, in the 150's), small group starting again, EPIC girl group issues, making food for Peter for next week, making food for a family in our church, trips to Wal-Mart for essentials, library runs, insane amounts of laundry, normal weekly cleaning and cooking, and a very cute but active almost 19 month old.......it's been busy!  Tonight we took a bike ride to feed the horse and make a quick stop at Wal-Mart.  I'm really hoping Peter and I can sit together in a bit and enjoy a slice of cheesecake and an episode of Storage Wars, an oddly addicting show.

Tomorrow we're taking off for a quick weekend to visit our families.  I'm staying longer than Peter because he has to get back for a really busy week at work with it being the start of the new school year.  I may or may not blog while I'm gone, we shall see.  You'd probably think I'd have lots of extra time on my hands with grandparents and Aunts and Uncles to entertain Benjamin......and yes, that's true.....but I might nap instead of blog.  Because I love naps and they just don't happen enough in my life :-)

Here's a few pics of my little guy.  He's been really affectionate and cute and funny lately and I could just eat him up.

Benjamin loves reading and I guess he wanted to make sure he wasn't missing out on a single one of his books :-)

And this is what we see now when we ask Benjamin to show us his muscles.  It is adorable!!

Cute and strong?  Definitely a keeper!

Our Weekend

It had been a pretty busy week so we were looking forward to the weekend.  Friday night was pretty low key.  We let Benjamin swim in the backyard, I made taco salad for dinner and then we went for a bike ride around the neighborhood.  Benjamin loves it :-)

Saturday morning we made waffles and just hung out around the house.  After Benjamin napped we decided to head to Corvallis to their outdoor water park/pool.  We weren't sure how Benjamin would do, and even though it took him awhile to warm up to it all, he ended up loving it.  And, it was awesome because he finally started walking again after not putting that kind of pressure on his leg for almost 2 weeks!  Ironically, he took his first steps because he wanted to walk back to the little water slide they have....at least his injury hasn't given him a permanent fear of slides :-)

 taking his first steps after nearly 2 weeks!!!  Go Benjamin Go!

Sunday morning we went to church, grabbed a quick lunch and then while Benjamin napped we got a few things done in preparation for our EPIC girls sleepover that we have each year right before school starts.  The girls weren't staying at our house tonight but the boys all crash at our place.  It was busy getting stuff done and then I headed over to Kristen's for the actual party.  We had a great time, the girls were really mellow in comparison to last year, and it was a full night of food, games, devotions, and of course talks about cute boys, ha!  :-)  We slept a little bit then headed out for a day of shopping, lunch at Olive Garden, and more shopping.  Peter dropped Benjamin off in the morning and he went shopping with us.  It was a long day, but was a great time!

Today was a Costco run, a long nap for Benjamin, a bit of some drama with our EPIC group, dinner to be made and then Peter had an elder meeting tonight.  So I went and hung out with Kristen for a few hours while the guys met.  I came home and got Benjamin to bed, then took a bubble bath which was sooo relaxing.  Now Peter and I are vegging a bit before we head to bed.  We're also thinking of our nephew Jack who busted his front tooth tonight at the park.  Poor little guy!!  He's taking it like a champ, but we think he deserves ice cream :-) 

A few videos

I love having a video camera because it captures things that pictures can't show.  Here's a few quick videos I'm sure the grandparents will enjoy :-)

Benjamin has really loved swimming this summer.  He's also practicing saying his name at the beginning.

It's been so fun to watch him learn his shapes.  He can now identify them all, and put them back into the shape sorter all on his own!

I took this video while we were looking for a campsite a few weeks ago.  It's fun how much he likes to talk.  He can now count to 10 on his own (usually skipping 8 though!)  and knows a big chunk of the ABC's.

What I'm Loving Wednesday

I've been wanting to link up with some other blogs again for WILW and finally think I have a free Wednesday to do so!  So here goes.....

*  I'm loving that my sweet husband unloaded the dishwasher before he left for work this morning.  It's seriously such a little thing, but I appreciate it so much and it really shows he cares!

*  I'm loving that we've been enjoying evening family walks and have a quiet little street we can walk to that has a horse on their property.  Benjamin loves to bring the horse 2 carrots and give him a treat!  All Peter has to do is whistle when we get close, the horse remembers us and comes trotting across the field.  If we take too long to get there he starts to kick the fence in impatience for his carrots, ha!

*  I'm loving that our dear friends returned from 3 weeks of vacation yesterday.  We missed them!!

*  I'm loving the abundance of blackberries in our neighborhood.  We go for morning walks and eat our fill....Benjamin loves them!  I even made a blackberry pie for the first time, yum!

*  I'm loving that we're going to see family over Labor Day weekend

*  I'm loving my new Erin Condren Life Planner.  Hopefully this will help me keep things organized for our little family of 4.

*  I'm loving that we are going to be a family of four in February 2012! 

*  I'm loving this fabulous summer weather

*  And I'm loving my amazing hubby and adorable little boy!

His first splint and x-rays!

Sunday after church we all took naps and enjoyed a lazy afternoon.  After dinner we decided to take Benjamin to the park to get out some of his energy.  We were having a great time until we decided to attempt the biggest curvy slide at the park.  Benjamin was too scared to do it himself so I went down with him.

Unfortunately, despite going pretty slow, his foot got caught behind him on the way down because he was wearing tennis shoes.  He started crying terribly and didn't want to play the rest of the night.  We thought he might just be being a little dramatic, so we took him home gave him some Tylenol and put him to bed.

The next morning though, I watched him on the video monitor and he wouldn't stand up in his crib like he always does.  And he cried and cried and cried.  He was inconsolable.  We spent the morning sitting on the couch watching cartoons on PBS until the doctor's office opened so we could make an appointment.

We went in right away to the doctors and they were obviously concerned since he wouldn't put any weight on his foot at all.  We took him downstairs to get x-rays and he was not too happy about those at all.  The x-rays didn't show any fracture though so they put a hard splint on it, wrapped it up and asked us to come back in a week for more x-rays.

We went back yesterday (one week later) and had more x-rays done.  Thankfully, they are still not seeing any fracture but Benjamin is still not wanting to bear much weight on his foot.  He took a couple steps tonight and will put a tiny bit of weight on it if he's holding on to something else, but we're hoping he'll slowly heal.  They told us we could take the splint off and just give him ibuprofen as needed.  It's really hard for him to understand why he doesn't feel like wanting to walk all of a sudden, especially for such an active little boy.  And Mommy is having to carry him a lot more, in and out of the house, etc so it's been a little bit trying in that sense, but we're really grateful for doctors and that he seems to be slowly healing.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying a few more extra snuggles with my little guy.

I didn't think my little boy would be having x-rays this young.....hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come as he becomes more and more of an active toddler.

(Keep scrolling down for lots more new posts I put up tonight!)