Daddy's Little Hunter

We spent this weekend with John's family. Jim, Fran, and MV were in town for MV's birthday. We also celebrated Jim and John's birthdays. Saturday, we went to the camp. This was Ben's first trip to the hunting camp. I saw the overalls at Academy while I was buying John's birthday present. When I told John about them, he thought Ben needed them for this weekend. Of course, Academy is two hours away, but Fran picked them up for me. The cap Ben is wearing was in John's stocking last year and says "Daddy's Little Hunter." The black cowboy boots were a shower gift from Aunt Doris. John now thinks that Ben should wear camo overalls EVERY day.




We all went to church together. Here we all are dressed up in our church clothes. Nana made Ben's outfit.

Happy Birthday, John (and Jim)

John opened his birthday presents from Ben and me last night. I have had his gifts for a week and keeping them from him was killing me. I can't hardly stand an unopened gift, even if it's not for me. Tonight we have something to go to at church and won't have much time at home so I decided that John needed to open his gifts a day early. He firmly believed that gifts should not be opened before your birthday, but I pouted until he gave in.

Roll On

Ben rolled over for the second time while John was home for lunch so we both got to see it.

ALL THE WAY OVER!

Ben has been working really hard for weeks to roll over. He finally made it all the way over -- and I missed it. I was in the kitchen putting lunch in the oven. When I came back to the living room, he was on his stomach. I, of course, grabbed my camera and took some pics.

A Carrot Explosion

I know you are probably getting tired of seeing pictures of Ben with carrots smeared all over him, but he was so exceptionally splattered last night that I had to take a picture. Ben is really enjoying his carrots recently. He also really likes making blowing sounds. When the blowing sounds and the carrots meet, you get a small carrot explosion. The results look like this.



Ben has become fascinated with is feet so he sits around with them in the air a lot lately.

Visits

Last week was a busy week. Tuesday Ben and I went to Tupelo and visited with Rachel and Drew. Last Saturday was Rachel's 30th birthday and I took her out to lunch. It was great to visit with Rachel. We talk on the phone fairly regularly, but she says I haven't been to Tupelo since last fall. Personally I think I've been at least once since then, but Rachel disagrees. I definately hadn't been there since Ben was born.

Drew didn't find Ben very interesting. I wanted to take a picture of them together. Rachel suggested Drew put his arm around Ben. Drew suggested that he sit on the arm of the chair and not have Ben touching him. Here is the compromise. (Rachel -- notice how I rotated the picture (: )



This weekend we went to Jena for Danielle's shower. It was a quick trip. We went Friday and returned on Sunday, as the remnants of Fay passed through. Thankfully the rain wasn't too heavy while I was driving.

Friday night we visited MawMaw Wilma and PawPaw Sherman. Here are pics with each of them.






I have some great pics Emalee took of Mama and MawMaw growling like "scary monsters," but my birthday is nearing and I may not get any presents if I post those. So I'll just post the picture of Emalee growling. Feel free to imagine similar poses by MawMaw and Mama.



Aunt Connie snuck off to visit us by herself after work on Saturday. For now at least, Ben let's her love on him.



Cara was definitely around, but somehow didn't make it into any of the pictures.

Carrots . . . Yum?

I think Ben liked carrots pretty well. It was pretty messy but most of them went down. The carrots on his nose are completely my fault. I was trying to wipe some off his mouth with the spoon and missed. These pics are after he finished eating. I let him play with the spoon while I cleaned up.

More Fun with Cereal pics

Today Ben is getting cereal both in the morning and the evening. The morning feeding was messy because he kept sticking his fingers in his mouth along with the rice cereal. He also took the spoon away from me once.

Weekend Pics

John gagged when he smelled the rice cereal.

Play Ball

Big Boy

I put Ben's high chair together this morning. He's been getting fussy at night while we eat. I'm hoping he'll like sitting at the table with us. I think we are going to stick to eating cereal in the bouncy seat for a while longer, though.

You Call this Hard?

Ben shows off his spoon moves.

Cereal Report

I think more cereal went in tonight than went out. He ate the entire portion for the first time. I made it a little thicker and I think that helped.

Down (or Out) the Hatch

More fun with rice cereal and a spoon.

Snip Snip

BEFORE

Cara got her hair cut today and she gave Ben a little trim. Here are before and after pictures along with several more pictures of Cara trimming Ben's bangs.

AFTER

Cara Claus

Cara is visiting for a couple of days this week, while John is in Dallas at a FedEx meeting. She arrived this afternoon with three bags of gifts -- a fall outfit, a Christmas ornament, teething toys, bibs, bowls, and spoons.

Ben and Cara playing with the froggy teething toy she brought.



Frog legs, yum. (Cara's joke)



Cara and I both fed Ben tonight. I think he ate a little more. He also improved his spitting getting both of us with some cereal a couple of times.



My favorite gift Cara brought is this Baby's first Christmas ornament that she bought Ben on her recent trip to Disney World. This is Ben's first Christmas ornament.

Spoon Fed

Last night, we fed Ben from a spoon for the first time. He had rice cereal. I overloaded John with technology while I fed Ben. He filmed Ben's first bites with the video camera, then switched to the regular camera for the video below, and finally took a couple of still pictures. Ben wasn't very excited about the cereal. Most of it ran back out of his mouth. This is the same picture as above, just not cropped as closely so that you can see his fat little tummy. The spots on the towel aren't formula. I chose an old stained towel that John uses outside to cover Ben's bouncy seat and possibly get some new rice cereal stains.

Joyful, Joyful

You may be wondering why Ben is joyful since he got shots today. That is because he didn't get his shots. I missed his appointment. I thought his appointment was at 1 p.m. I was very frustrated when I sat down at my computer at 10:45 a.m. and saw the Outlook Reminder I had set showing that I was 45 minutes late for his 10 a.m. appointment. I called and apologize for not showing up. I have to call back at the end of the week to reschedule.

I just thought the noises Ben was making were cute so I grabbed my camera.

Family pics

I'm not sure we've had a picture taken of all three of us since we came home from the hospital.

Visit from Nana and Grandaddy

John's parents come to visit today. They spent the afternoon with Ben while I went to Wal-Mart.

4 Months

Ben was four months old yesterday. We went to the pediatrician today for his four month well baby check-up. He weighs 16 lbs and is 25 inches long. Both are in the 50th percentile for babies his age. Ben was very good during our doctor's visit. He only cried when the nurse put him on the scale naked. It might have been a little cool. He smiled and talked to the doctor.

The doctor recommended that we begin feeding him rice cereal with a spoon twice a day. We are going to wait until next week to start that because he goes for vaccinations at the health unit Wednesday. There is no need to start something new when he will probably be cranky for the rest of the week. Expect lots of pictures of feedings coming next week.

More Pics

Relaxin'

Flying with Mama

Daddy and Ben

Ben was kind of fussy this evening while I was fixing supper. John entertained him by singing "Ben will be driving his new Corvette when he comes. . ." to the tune of "She'll by Coming Around the Mountain."

And a couple more

These are a couple of pictures I took yesterday. The picture on the red quilt is outside. I took Ben out in the afternoon to blow bubbles and take pictures, but it was just too hot. He didn't even smile at the bubbles.

Bobblehead, Me?

I just realized that I never uploaded this video I took last week of Ben on his stomach. Notice how much stronger his neck is compared to the "Bobblehead Ben" video. I know it doesn't look like he hates being on his stomach as I wrote in my last entry, but I promise the calm didn't last much longer than this video.

So Hard

Ben is trying so hard to turn over. You can tell by the noises that he's making that he's very frustrated by not being able to accomplish this. I'm not sure what he's going to do once he gets turned over since he hates being on his stomach.