More Benjamin...

Benjamin is learning new stuff every week. This week I turned his old playmat that he used to lay under looking up at hanging toys into a tunnel to crawl through... he got the concept right away after I stuck my head in and coaxed him through. Now anytime you put the tunnel down near him he'll crawl through it. It's so fun! Also check out the clothes he's wearing. Grammy sent those from California- they are size 12 months! He's growing so fast. We just weighed him on our bathroom scale and he's about 19 1/2 pounds! We're going to need a new car seat sooner than we thought!

Benjamin's newest favorite thing to do is crawl over to our TV entertainment center and pull himself up to the DVD shelf and dump them into one big pile on the floor. He also likes to turn on the TV sometimes too. For the time we don't mind cleaning up the DVDs so we let him do it... but who knows when that will change. Hopefully he'll move onto something else before we decide to stop letting him pull the DVDs down five times a day!

So we're going to start taking bets on when Benjamin will start walking on his own. Just in the last week he has learned to take steps when you help him by holding both hands. And in the last 2 days or so he has started letting go of one hand on his own and trying to keep his balance. Just today at church he tried to let go of both hands and stand on his own!

And finally I wanted to add one more picture just because I liked it so much. Benjamin is getting this habit of tilting his head to the side when you take too long to take a picture. I'm not sure if he's bored or if he's trying to pose! He also does it when he's "flirting" with girls when we're out shopping or at church or someplace, so who knows what's going on in his beautiful head sometimes!

Benjamin takes 5 minutes to "walk" along the couch

Benjamin is learning how to walk while holding onto the edge of our couch... Here's a nice picture story because the video would be about 5 minutes long and really boring :) This is the condensed version... you can bet I took about 3 times as many pictures as what I've posted here

One... Two... Three... UP!

We're ready... we're movin'... we need a break!

movin' again... another break... Finally!

Benjamin puts his head down on the couch a lot during this process. I think he does it to "take a little break" and sometimes as extra balance when he's moving his arms or legs. He does it when crawling long distances too. He's still really shaky and falls quite often... but he's learning and doing really well! We're so proud!

um, yeah...

Ok, so I haven't been so well at keeping up on this blog thing. I'll try and do better. It may be easier to do short blogs every few days instead of one long one each week. We'll see if that works :)

Well, a lot has been going on. We've been so busy the last couple months. First an update on Jonathan... he quit his job the second week of August at the end of the Summer Program and spent 3 weeks playing with Benjamin and fishing. He's caught some great fish and had a good time. He was worried that he wouldn't have time to fish after starting Graduate School so he had to get as much fishing in as he could. Speaking of which... Jonathan started his first day of Grad school last week at BYU. He's enrolled in the Masters program for Psychology. Jonathan was excited to be goinb back to school, but also a little nervous. He graduated from UVSC 18 months ago and hasn't taken any classes since so he's a little out of practice. But we know he's going to do well and we're proud of him!

Benjamin is growing up so fast! He has 2 teeth on the bottom and loves to eat solid foods. We've introduced him to all sorts of vegetables. His favorites are squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots. We also have given him foods like pasta, avocado, and fresh grown tomatoes. He likes most things and hardly spits anything out. He had his first taste of a fruit last night; we gave him some pears and he loved them! Benjamin is also getting very good at picking up small pieces of food with his fingers and putting them in his mouth. Having a high chair really helps because we can put him in it with a few finger foods on the tray and he'll stay busy long enough for us to get the dishes done and the kitchen cleaned or the laundry started... as long as someone stays in the same room. He is becoming quite the social little baby and doesn't like to be alone for very long.

Benjamin is now crawling all over the place. He learned very quickly how to do it after we put him up on his knees and hands. At first he wasn't quite sure about it but once he realized he could go places he was off and it's hard to keep him in one spot for very long. We've put up the baby gates in the doorways and we're in the process of baby-proofing the rest of the house. Safety first :) One really cute thing he does are little baby pushups. He gets himself into pushup position- hands shoulder width apart, legs straight, and up on his toes. And he'll stay there for a few seconds before going back to his knees.

Benjamin is also learning how to pull himself up to standing position using anything taller than him- the sofa, the TV, the sides of his crib, mom and dad's legs. Whatever will get him standing. We won't be surprised if he's walking by Christmas!

Benjamin is becoming quite the little traveler! Jonathan said Benjamin has now flown on an airplane almost as often as he has in his whole life! First we went to La Crescenta for Tyler and Cassidee's wedding reception in July. That was a fun short trip and Jonathan got to come with me and Benjamin. Jonathan had a lot of fun at the wedding reception dancing to the LIVE band. The food was good too, as well as the company :) It's always fun to go "home" for a visit and we probably won't be back until Christmas...

The weekend before Labor Day Benjamin and I flew to Sacramento for Cousin Candie's wedding. That was a fun trip and it was great to see everyone! Candie looked beautiful and we know she's going to be so happy with Josh!

We bought season tickets to the BYU Football games and the first home game was the Saturday before Labor Day. It was HOT. We took Benjamin to the game with us and he wasn't too excited about it because we were sitting in the middle of the student section (which was LOUD) and the sun was shining directly on us. I took Benjamin into the shade for a while and we drank lots of water while Jonathan braved the hot sun to continue watching the game. Luckily, Rob and Dianne (Jonathan's sister and her husband) had seats in the shade and there were a couple empty seats next to them so we headed over there during the second quarter. It was much cooler in the shade and Benjamin was a lot happier. We even got him to smile a couple times (although you can't tell by the pictures we took). Benjamin is on his way to being a loyal BYU Cougar fan :)

On Labor Day we went swimming at Jonathan's brother Mike's house and visited with the Gibson side of the family. Benjamin LOVES the swimming pool. In fact, he loves all water (the bath, the shower, any kind of water fountain). This was probably the last time we'll be able to take Benjamin swimming this summer.

Well, family and friends... we are glad that you take the time to read our blog and hope that you'll take a few extra minutes to send us an email letting us know how you're doing. We'd love to hear from you! Take care, and we'll post again the next time Benjamin does something truly "amazing" in the eyes of his parents... ha ha ha.