Ben Won't Stop Rolling: Nap Edition

Ben sure had us laughing this weekend! Even though he's been able to roll for months now, he decided to become a rolling machine during one random nap on Saturday. We have no idea why, and he hasn't really done it sense. Sorry, the video is really long!

Benton Update: 8 Months

Ben has continued to be the happiest, most content little guy. :) He is inching his way towards being a one year old, and we can hardly believe it. Happy 8 Months sweet boy!

Some facts from Benton's eighth month of life:

-Wearing 6-12 month shirts and sleepers and 12-18 month pants.

-Mainly wearing cloth diapers with no snaps. In disposables, he is wearing a size 4 diaper.

-Eating 4 times per day. Each of his bottles/sippy cups has 6 ounces of formula, and he is eating solids for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

-Sleeping great! He has changed up his sleeping times a little bit. He likes to be in bed BY 7pm. He starts really letting us know if we aren't moving that way. He is also waking up at 6:30am instead of 7am, but this actually works out better for us anyway. He is taking 2 really good naps in the morning and afternoon (about 2 hours each).

-Eat/play/sleep...we all love you.

Random things we don't want to forget:

-He is a clapping machine. Everything remotely interesting gets a clap. :)

-His favorite word is "dada," and he will say it over and over all day long. It is only fitting that his new favorite person is also daddy. :)

-Ben is really starting to let us know what he wants. He reaches for us when he wants to be picked up, grabs our legs when he wants us to play with him, he reaches for his crib when he is ready to sleep, he has a very specific meltdown when he ready to eat, etc.

-Big milestone: he holds his own bottle/sippy cup all by himself. We lay him on the floor with his bottle/sippy cup and he does the rest! We have almost completely switched from bottle to sippy.

-He still thinks his toes are the tastiest thing ever.

-He has started dancing (ie, bouncing) when he hears familiar songs, such as the songs that some of his books play and The Zac Brown Band. He has good taste!

-When he is sitting or laying on the floor, we can put our fingers in front of him and he will almost always grab them and pull up to stand.

-He is a really good eater! I have made all of his baby food, and he likes pretty much everything but peas (I can't blame him). Right now, he eats pureed peas, green beans, carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, avocado, pears, apples, blueberries, mangos, plums, and peaches. He also likes oatmeal and bananas. He is eating quite a bit of table food such as yogurt, cheese, rotini pasta, cheerios, pancakes, scrambled eggs, puffs, yogurt melts, graham crackers, toast, quesadillas, or anything else that we are eating that we think he could eat.
-He empties each toy out of his toy basket, inspects it, then throws it down...he does this unti his toy basket is empty.

-We bought a walker for Ben and he LOVES it. He does a weird bounce step thing, and he can only go backward. :)

-He imitates many sounds we make...fake coughing (but please don't try to get him to do this!...ha), clicking his tongue, consonants, laughing, etc. He's a little noisemaker!

Little love, you are such a blessing to us and we are so grateful for you!!!!

Baby Blog: January 19, 2011

We had an OB appointment yesterday, and the twins still look great! They are still right on track for growth and there are no concerns. One reason they have been doing so many early ultrasounds (this is the third) is to look for Vanishing Twin Syndrome. In short, this is when one twin disappears (usually in the first trimester). It's pretty common, and the pregnancy usually goes on as a normal singleton pregnancy. Both twins still look perfect though, so we will now move on as a multiple pregnancy. We are expecting a call today from Dr. Stanley's office, and they should give us a time and date for our perinatologist appointment. It should be scheduled for the next couple of weeks. Thanks for all your prayers and kind words!

Pray For Ella!

Please join our family in praying for Ella Burk today! She is having one of her open heart surgeries this morning. Read their blog for updates... Pray For Ella!

Baby Blog: January 10, 2011

We have slowly been letting the news leak out, but we are now ready to make it blog official. We are pregnant...with twins. Identical twins. You can read our Hidden Baby #2 Blog's below to get the update, though that title is not exactly correct...it should be Hidden Baby #2 and #3 Blogs!!!

We are sharing this pregnancy a little earlier than we would like for a couple of reasons:
1) Whitney is getting married in February. We assumed we were having one baby and we thought we could make it to after her wedding to share the news (we would have been 14 weeks). But, twins is a little different. I will be showing by her wedding.
2) Benton is 7 months old!? Sweet baby boy.
3) This twin pregnancy is more high risk than a common singleton pregnancy. Therefore, we would covet your prayers for an uneventful pregnancy and healthy babies. This is our main reason for sharing our news so early.

Obviously, this is all crazy. We will have 3 babies under the age of 15 months at one point in time. However, we know this is God's plan for our family, and we wouldn't want it any other way. There are lots of things we have to figure out right now, and we are just keeping an ever growing list...it's helping to keep our panic attacks to a minimum. :) We will be sure to keep everyone updated as this pregnancy progresses.

One last thing... The question I have been asked the most is whether twins run in either of our families. These are identical twins, so there is absolutely no genetic component. A total fluke!

Hidden Baby #2 Blog: January 6, 2011

I'm just going to say it...we are having twins. Identical twins.

We had our ultrasound this afternoon, and we noticed both babies fairly quickly. They were measuring exactly the same (7w 3d) and we heard their heartbeats. Everything looks really good.

We are still reeling from the news. Excited and terrified, and just trying to let it soak in. Having one surprise baby this early after having Benton was definitely guaranteed to change things. Now two. Wow.

We have another appt with our OB on January 18th. We will also have an ultrasound at that appointment. Additionally, we will have an appointment with Dr. Stanley, a perinatologist/maternal-fetal medicine specialist, sometime this month. Dr. Stanley will be looking at all the details of the identical twins (placenta, amniotic sac, etc).

We'll keep you updated!

Christmas Pictures

I don't have very much time for blogging these days, but wanted to post a few pictures of Ben from Christmas. He was so sweet and happy for all the celebrations!