Another Art Project

This time I cut out a big heart for Benjamin and gave him some stickers and a couple markers to decorate his first Valentine. He had fun with the markers, but got frustrated when the stickers wouldn't come off his fingers! It was really funny to watch him wave his hands around trying to get the stickers off. And of course he was nice enough to pose for one picture, but after that he wouldn't have anything else to do with the camera or his finished project. At least the one picture I got turned out well enough :)

Tribute to the late LDS President Hinckley

This is from Glenn Beck's show Monday night. He closed his show with this.

Benjamin's First Birthday

Ok, I finally got this post done. I wanted to add a lot more pictures, but I just don't have the time. And I'm sure you don't have the time to sit and read a novel today either :)

Benjamin's birthday was last Friday and we had a whole weekend celebration. On Friday we spent a quiet day at home and let Benjamin open his presents from his Mom and Dad that evening. He got a new Baby Einstein DVD and a basketball hoop and balls for the bath! He enjoyed both very much!

Friday night Grammy and Uncle Blake came from California to visit. We had just barely put Benjamin down to sleep for the night when they got here so Grammy went in to get him because he was still awake and talking to himself in his crib. He got the biggest smile on his face and reached right for her! And Uncle Blake got a big laugh and smile too. It was hard to get him to go back to bed after he knew Grammy and Uncle Blake were here to see him.

Saturday was Benjamin's official birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's. He had a good time, especially with his balloons! Actually, we couldn't get him to go anywhere more than 2 feet away from his balloons. It was fun to have so many people come and celebrate Benjamin's birthday with us!

Benjamin was absolutely hilarious with his birthday cake. I had ordered a cake from Macey's and they gave me a free 8 inch round cake for Benjamin to smash all by himself. Benjamin stuck his hand into the cake right away, but then did not know what to do with it. He tried eating some of the cake, but apparently did not like it at all. He made the funniest faces!

Here's a picture of the cake we served everyone else.

Everyone was so nice and generous with their birthday presents. Benjamin has quite the little savings account growing and we'll also be able to get him a nice new car seat for daddy's car. One of Benjamin's favorite presents though was this Elmo chair from Grammy. He loves to sit in it and press the button in Elmo's hand that makes Elmo talk. He gets the biggest smile on his face, and I've even found him laying his head down on Elmo's lap and giving him a "hug." Benjamin also enjoys his dumptruck and loves to push it around going "vrrroooommmm." He is such a boy! These things must be ingrained in them from the beginning.

Benjamin has Moved on to a Big Boy Sippy

At Benjamin's 12 month check up on Monday the doctor suggested that we start transitioning Benjamin off the bottle and onto a sippy cup, particularly one with a straw. There were several reasons for this, but mostly because 1. children develop object attachment around 15 months, so it will be easier to get rid of the bottle now than later and 2. it's better for their developing teeth and palate. Benjamin has been using a regular sippy cup for awhile, but we weren't able to get him to use one with a straw. Until today :)

I started by having Benjamin watch me fill it with water. Then I showed him how mom drank out of it. When I handed it to him, he stuck it right in his mouth. It took just a couple minutes of me telling him to drink "like a ba-ba" to get him to stop chewing on the straw and start sucking out of it. He was surprised when he first got some water out of the straw and then he was excited!

The cup is a little heavy for him to hold by himself, so we'll be heading out to the store this week to get him some lighter ones. But this one that Grammy gave him for Christmas will be great for the diaper bag because the lid locks down so it won't spill. Plus it has his name on it so there won't be any confusion when we're visiting with other big boys and girls and their sippy cups. Now just wish us luck with phasing out the bottle completely....

PS- I'm still working on the post about Benjamin's birthday party. There are so many pictures and so many things to write about that it's going to take me awhile, but I'll get it done!

Benjamin's DVD...

I have been working on a DVD for Benjamin's first year. This is a sneak preview, and probably all most of you will see because I won't be able to post the entire DVD... This is only one song I have picked out and a small portion of the pictures.

Benjamin's Art Project

I've decided that every once in a while I'll provide a "structured" activity for Benjamin instead of letting him play freely all day. Today was my first attempt and it actually went fairly well. What I did was rub a glue stick all over a piece of white cardstock. I gave Benjamin a bunch of scraps of paper I had from my scrapbook stash and showed him how to put them on the paper and pat them down. He decided that method was too boring so he started picking up the pieces of paper and throwing them onto the big paper before patting them down. Overall I think he enjoyed it. And he only tried to eat a piece of paper once, which surprised me :) He is proud of his final art work and was very good about showing it to his dad when Jonathan got home from school. I think we'll try another activity next week sometime. I'm open to suggestions, so let me know if you have any!

Benjamin's finished project

Homemade Lasagna... ME?!

So I made a homemade lasagna yesterday after church. I thought it would be "fun," especially because I've never done it before. The only other thing I've attempted at cooking that I was slightly intimidated about was a brownsugar glazed ham. And that turned out ok, so I thought I'd give the lasagna a try. Two hours and three different cheeses later.... it was good, but not my favorite. Just about as good as if I had bought a frozen Stoffer's Family lasagna and stuck it in the oven. Maybe sometime I'll try a different recipe and that will make a difference. Someday... definitely not any time soon. At least now I know HOW to do it.

Benjamin is FINALLY starting to feel and act better after being sick for a full week. He still has runny diapers often (to put it nicely), but he's finally up to playing and laughing and having a good time making a mess of his toys. He still gets tired often, so we've been giving him an extra nap every day. But most importantly his eating has more than tripled and we're so glad! He had lost some weight over the past week, you could really tell when he was in just a onesie or a diaper and I was a little worried about him. He's definitely making up for lost meals! I know we're not completely done with it yet... not until his diapers are back to being regular and he's back to two good naps a day.

We have quite an eventful week coming up! Our anniversary, Benjamin's First birthday, his birthday party, and several other things too. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up on the posts, but if not I'll catch up next week.

This Boy Has Good Taste

Lately Benjamin has started smacking his lips together when he sees something that he wants to eat or when he's hungry. It's really cute, but it also helps us know what he wants. Too bad he won't do the Sign Language sign for "eat" that we've been working with him for months on, but this works too.

Yesterday I turned on the TV when I was done working and Benjamin happened to be sitting on the couch. I turned around to shut down my lap top and heard Benjamin start smacking his lips. I figured he was hungry until I turned around and saw him pointing at a Carl's Jr. commercial for their six dollar Teriyaki burger! It was so funny that he recognized that it was food and he wanted to eat it. We actually eat at Carl's Jr. more than any other fast food place (coupons are easy to come by for Carl's Jr) and we usually share our hamburger with him in small pieces of different parts (a bite of meat, a little bread, some tomato, all of my pickles, etc) so it was interesting to see that he recognized a whole hamburger as something to eat.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to call Jonathan and have him pick up a Teriyaki Burger for me on his way home from school ;)

Antique Mommy

I love Antique Mommy's blog. She totally understands Motherhood and has the best way of expressing it in words. Especially this post that I read this morning. Maybe because we're coming up on Benjamin's first birthday so quickly and I've been thinking about him growing up before I've had a chance to fully enjoy his baby-ness, but I cried as I read what Antique Mommy had to say. Every mom should read this, so I thought I'd share it with you.

By the way, Benjamin is still sick as ever. We took him to the doctor yesterday and were told to watch him closely for dehydration because we don't want him to end up in the hospital attached to an IV. The doctor said hopefully it's just the flu bug, but it could very well be Rotavirus, which is so dangerous for little kids. There's an epidemic of it right now and most little ones end up in the hospital because of it. So if you can, please say a quick prayer for Benjamin that he will keep enough food and liquids down to keep him home safe with us. Thank you!

He's Taking Steps!

That's our big excitment this week. Last week Benjamin started taking 1 step and then falling. Every once in a while he'd get a second step in before falling down or lunging in our arms. But on Saturday while we were visiting Jonathan's brother Evan, he started taking 2-3 steps. And yesterday it became 3-4 steps! Woo hoo! We tried to get some video of it, but it's a little hard because Benjamin gets distracted by the camera. Sorry you don't see his face through the whole thing, but I was mostly concerned with getting his feet. He is getting to be such a big boy!

Benjamin has been sick today :( We're not sure what he's got, but he woke up at 4:30am and when we went in to get him at 5am because he still hadn't fallen back asleep he threw up and his crib sheet had a bunch of wet spots. He threw up all morning until about 11am and then he took a good 1 1/2 to 2 hour nap and woke up acting much better. We're glad about that. It's always hard when babies are sick and they don't quite understand.

Other than that, we're all doing really well and having a good time hiding inside away from all the snow we've been getting lately. Except Jonathan... he started school again today and he's been awesome about going out and getting things for me that I absolutely, without a doubt need... like Olive Garden Soup and Salad for lunch today. What a sweetheart :)

Benjamin is Excited to Tell Everyone...

I downloaded this free digital scrapbooking software last night from scrapbookflair.com and had a little fun putting together this scrapbook page.

If you want to see the page in a little more detail, go to: http://www.scrapbookflair.com/Young_Scrappy_Mama/Gibson_Family/page1

If you don't, that's ok too! :)

Happy New Year from the Gibsons!

(We've been having fun with our new Webcam!)