10 Months!

On the 23rd of February, Benjamin turned 10 months. I can't believe how quickly time goes with the second one. He is a happy boy who LOVES to be around people. These days he is happiest standing, clapping, eating or watching activities around him. Dare I say that his sleep has improved? I know by saying it that I tempt fate and it gets bad again but he seems to be beginning to sleep longer stretches and take more consistent naps. He is up to a 3 or 4 hour stretch at night and usually two 45 minute-1 hour naps during the day. He is so much happier (as am I) if he gets a couple hours of naps in during the day. Of course, he slept better at night as a newborn, but as long as we are trending toward better I'll be happy. 4 times this past week he slept in his own crib until 3 or 4 in the morning. Here's to the improvement continuing :) Whoever out there is praying... keep it up!!

This isn't really representative of how well he can stand these days. He seems to get thrown off by the camera but he can stand/balance for quite a long time. He loves to push my hands away as I'm getting him stable as if to say, "I do it myself" If he is anything like his sister those words will be uttered a lot in the coming months.

Valentines Day

Josie was really excited for Valentines Day this year. She had been making Valentines Day cards for her friends and family everyday for the two weeks leading up to the big day. Mostly, they went to Aunt Liz (sometimes Uncle Ed was included, sometimes not) but she had a ball making cards for people.
So, when the cards and package arrived for her, she was SOOO excited.

She wasn't all that excited that her brother wanted in on her action even though it was clearly for him, too.

She quickly discovered that giving him some tissue paper would keep him distracted and in his own space long enough for her to admire her goodies.

When I took the tissue paper away he found/she gave him one of the envelopes to chew on
And then we snuggled up with his new lion

And Josie with her card with the golden coin

And the gift card and cookie. Thanks Oma and Opa & Grandma and Papa for making it a special day for the kids :)

Valentines Day morning we decided to make pink heart-shaped pancakes. She even talked me into letting her put sprinkles on them.... As if pancakes and syrup are not sugary enough?!

Yummy!!!

Benjamin didn't need syrup or sprinkles. He just needs a bigger mouth to shove more of the pancake into.

This kid LOVES food. He just devours anything you put in front of him.

And the tradition continues. I think this is the 4th or 5th year that I've made homemade pizza for Valentines Day dinner. This year I had a little helper.

Rolling out the crust.

And decorating it with a face and many other fascinating things.

She had fun and they turned out yummy.

Crystal Mountain Part 2

We had to drive up pretty near the summit to find enough snow for sledding. It basically was just a small pull-out off the road but between making snow angels and sledding, it was a big hit for everyone.
Thankfully, Benjamin is very comfortable with his masculinity in this borrowed, pink snow outfit from Mia.

Mia making snow angels

Several lively games of pool

What a great place to learn to crawl

What a great time!! It was really hard to come home. Hopefully, we will have the chance to use the cabin again.

Crystal Mountain

Last weekend we loaded up the car... two cars,actually and headed up to Crystal Mt. Marty has a good friend with an awesome log cabin about 7 minutes from the summit. He was generous to let us use it for the weekend so we invited our good friends Markus, Jen, Mia and Ellie up to enjoy a weekend away from the city.
Here is the gang, minus Lea (Julie's friend) who was taking the photo

The stairs were a big hit with Josie and Mia who did jumps from about the third stair to the ground... over and over and over.

For being a rustic type cabin it had all the comforts of home with an awesome kitchen

Many meals at the bar

and at the table

It was gorgeous on Sunday morning so we decided to go hiking up in the woods surround the cabin.

Heading out

Josie and Mia both did great. I think we might have a little hiker on our hands. She walked the entire way... They didn't hold hands the whole time but much of it.

Helping the girls across a slippery wooden bridge

The gang again, minus Lea

There wasn't much snow where we were but some frost that made it look like snow

Sledding photos coming up next

Bag O' Tricks

Benjamin has been practicing some new tricks...

Banging the Tupperware drawer. In and out. In and out. I don't have it on video but he also enjoys throwing ALL of the containers he can reach all over the ground. Often he will put them on his head to see if they make a nice hat.

He's getting really good at standing. He can stand with support like this table for at least 20 minutes but has been letting go and standing on his own and "cruising" from one support to another.

And the other day he discovered how to open and close the cabinets by himself. His look says it all... hmm, how does that work?? He is a handful and I suspect our house will never be the same once he is truly mobile :)

Friends and Football.. Mostly Friends

We thought it would be only fitting to inivite another non-football family over to "watch" the Superbowl. The quote of the night was Markus, who is from Switzerland, wanted to know when the "Superball" started. Simone was there thankfully to help legitimize the whole thing and kept us posted on the score and other important info. Of course, when the the commercials came on we all quieted down and watched and then right back to chatting.
Or hanging upside down in Josie and Mia's case.

They are such a pair and when they are together you have no idea what you might find. During the night we found this scene in the bathroom... they decided to go to the bathroom together.

Benjamin even enjoyed the game with one of his girlfriends, Ellie. He is looking pretty chipper considering he spent the previous 24 hours broken out in horrible hives from a reaction to amoxacillin that he was taking for his ear infection.

Here he is at 2 in the morning when we couldn't think of any other way to relieve the pain and itch from the hives. He LOVES the bath and it even helped him forget about them for awhile.


This was just one of MANY huge welts/hives he had all over his body. Poor little thing. He is a trooper though and other than being a bit more needy didn't complain too much.

9 Months!!

Happy 9 months to our sweet little man. He really is such a joy and quite the charmer. When he flashes his toothless grin even people who aren't his mama melt.

He is starting to get into everything. He likes to bang, hit, push, pull anything within his reach. I don't know if it is a boy/girl difference by Josie didn't seem nearly as rough with toys or play with them quite as aggressively.

He stands now for long periods of time with the activity table and even can balance by himself for a few seconds. Crawling is right around the corner, I think. But I have often wondered if he will walk first. He seems more interested in that than crawling at this point.

I kept thinking that Benjamin seemed so much bigger than Josie at this age. Well here are there stats at their 9 month appointments:

Length --- Josie - 29" (90%) Benjamin - 29"(75%)

Weight ---Josie- 19.1 (60%) Benjamin- 19.11 (36%)

Head ---Josie - 44.8 cm (80%) Benjamin - 45cm (40%)

Amazingly, they were almost the exact same size!

To celebrate his 9 month birthday we took our very familiar walk down to Alki to the Whale Tail Park and then to Pegasus.

7 Days

One week, 7 days, 168 hours... however you want to break it down, it was a long one for us.
Marty started back to work (the paying kind after 16 months of the non-paying kind) He now gets home around 6:30 but the first week he was getting home around 7:30, which made dinner and bed time a lot more challenging.
Here he is back at KMTT studios. Small photo but it is all I had.

Add to that the fact the Josie decided this was the week to give up her binkies!!! Yippee! It was her own decision and she really powered through her desire to pop the binky in when she went to bed even though they were right under her pillow. It was tough but not as hard as I had imagined. She did have a few rough nights in which we had to rub her back until she fell asleep (which was a couple hours later than normal) I was ready to take them away a year or two ago but Marty insisted we let it be on her terms. I have to say that even though she had them for much longer than I (or her dentist) would have liked, it was a much more effective way especially given her personality. And the trade... a trip to Curious Kids to "buy" something with her binkies.
Here we are with her holding her binkies ready to go "pay" for a toy. Just so happens, her hippity hop and big stuffed penguin cost exactly 7 old binkies... lucky us! Actually, we got off pretty easy. I was ready to buy her the entire store.

The woman who was working is a wonderful teacher at her preschool. She doesn't have her this year but hopefully next. She bent down and took her binkies and talked with her about what a big decision it was and how proud she was of her.

Even Fritzy got to play with the trains while Josie picked out her toy.


Not only was it the week that Marty went back to work and Josie gave up her binkies, but Benjamin was diagnosed with an ear infection. He was non symptomatic but the Dr. said it was about an 8 out of 10 for severity. Now looking back he was a bit fussier than normal but not too bad. His sleep has always been bad so it was hard to tell if that was affected at all.
Thankfully, he LOVED talking his medicine. Little did we know it would make him break out into a rash!! (more to come on that)


We survived.. but barely!!