California Vacation

Yesterday we got back from our trip to California where we were visiting Dave's sister Kelly. They live in Palo Alto, which is a really cool little town about 30 minutes outside San Francisco. We had so much fun visiting with Kelly and her husband Andy and seeing all the sites in San Francisco. We packed in our days and really had a wonderful trip! Here are a bunch of pictures from our trip!

Andy is a football coach at Stanford University and we were lucky enough to get to go to one of the games. Here are Dave and Benjamin trying on the hats that Andy gave us when we first got there. I couldn't believe the face Benjamin was making in this picture!!! :)


Our first full day in CA, we spent in downtown San Francisco. We walked around downtown and then went to China Town where we had a yummy lunch. Then we went to the cable car museum and then rode a cable car back through the city. It was a lot of fun and Benjamin loved riding the cable car. Every time he saw one afterwords he would get so excited and beg to get on it again!


Benjamin sitting on this cute statue bench in China Town.


After we got off the cable car.

It was raining on Saturday so we went to a museum in San Francisco called the Exploratorium. It was really neat and full of hands on activities that Benjamin had a lot of fun with. He loved this one where the ball was being blown up in the air and he could catch it. We all laughed so hard after we saw his expression in this picture where the air was blowing in his face!

Benjamin had fun in the music section of the Exploritorium and really enjoyed playing the xylophone with his Aunt Kelly and Daddy!

Here we are at the football game. We had sooooo much fun and Benjamin went wild with all the activity. He loved it so much!

Here we are after the game. It was really a great time for all of us and the stadium was really beautiful!

The next day we drove to Monterrey and went to their amazing aquarium where Benjamin of course had a blast. Once again he said fish about a million times! This picture is outside the aquarium where there were seals laying on the rocks!!!!

The neat thing about going to Monterrey is that on the way back we went through Pebble Beach Golf Resort where you can go along their 17 Mile Drive that is all along the coast where it is sooooo beautiful and you can stop at different places and get cool pictures! Here's a picture to show how big my belly has gotten! It seemed like it grew in a matter of days, which I'm still getting used to! Its amazing and it makes it exciting to be pregnant again and know that our new little one is growing and getting bigger!

Benjamin was sleeping during this drive which was nice for him to get a nap and that way we didn't have to get him in and out ever time we stopped. So here's a rare picture of just me and Dave (and the new baby of course!)!!! :) The rocks in the background had seals on them and they were so loud with all of them "arfing" as they layed out in the sun. I had never seen seals in the wild before, so it was super cool for me to see this!

On our last day we went to Alcatraz aka "The Rock!". I was surprised by how much fun we had. It was a really neat thing to visit. They give you a headphone set and you listen to it as you go through the cells and such and the old officers and prisoners tell you about life at the prison. It was a great way to see the place and we all really enjoyed ourselves!

Here we are all happy to be in jail! I guess we shouldn't have smiled to make this picture look authentic!!! At least Benjamin had the right idea!

Benjamin loved being in the open cells and pulling on the bars. He even learned how to say bars, which was pretty cute! When we made him leave he threw a fit and we ended up having to let him go in another one and play some more!!!

After we got back from Alcatraz, we drove across the Golden Gate bridge. It was so neat to get to see the bridge in person and drive across it. We were really lucky and it was an amazingly beautiful day and not a cloud in the sky (which is apparently rare in San Francisco)! It was a great way to end our trip!

Sorry for how long this post is. But we had such an amazing vacation and got so many great pictures that I just had to share! Thanks Andy and Kelly for everything! We really, really appreciate it and are so thankful we got to come out for a wonderful visit!

The Cutest Giraffe!

Isn't Benjamin the cutest little giraffe ever??? This is one of his towels and he loves them. When you get him out of the bath and put it on he loves to look at himself in the mirror and smile and laugh at himself as a giraffe, elephant, or alligator! He just gets cuter and cuter!!!!! :)

Also, I went to the doctor yesterday and we got to hear the baby's heartbeat again which was really nice! We also talked with the doctor more and I get to decide if I want to be induced and try labor or go ahead and just have a c-section when I'm 39 weeks. So we have some stuff to think about since they say I only have a 25% chance of delivering naturally. Also, we got to schedule our next appt. which includes our 20 week ultrasound and hopefully a chance to see if we have a little boy or girl!!! Hopefully, we'll have some exciting news to report on Oct 9th!

Children's Museum

We felt bad about making Benjamin ride in the car so much the last few days, so we decided to take him to the Children's Museum today for the first time. It was pretty cool and he had so much fun! They had a house that you could climb up and all around in and then flush yourself down a toilet slide. They also had a bubble room, which was Benjamin's favorite as you can see in the pictures below. He even learned how to say the word bubble!!!!

He also had a lot of fun with this ball drop! He loves balls so much!

After getting some lunch we headed home and the poor guy started falling asleep. He did something that I can't remember and I started laughing and he started smiling really big even though he was asleep and never opened his eyes! It was so cute seeing him smile like that and not open his eyes. I just kept making myself laugh to get him to do it again! I got like five pictures of him doing it!

We had a really fun day today. We went to the museum and then this evening we went to a social with the other families of our church that try to get together every other weekend. It was a lot of fun and were excited to be getting to know so many of the people from our church. It was really great to see Benjamin and all the other kids running around playing! One little girl, Ruby, who's about five months younger than Benjamin kept trying to hug him. At first he kept backing away from her, but eventually he would stay still while she hugged him. Then finally, he hugged her back once! So cute!

Baby #2 Update: With all the excitement of baby Jack being born, I forgot to post some exciting news about our new little one. On Wednesday of last week I felt him/her kick for the first time! It was pretty exciting and I've really enjoyed feeling it these last few days. It makes it so much more real!!!! I was surprised to feel the baby so soon (about 3 weeks earlier than I felt it with Benjamin), but I've read that you usually feel second babies sooner! I'm just excited and grateful for such a wonderful little blessing to feel another sweet baby kicking inside of me! Thanks God!!!!!

First Time Uncle

Dave got to go up and meet his new nephew today. We had a great time and really enjoyed getting to see little Jack and his mommy and daddy again! He's still as cute as can be!


Benjamin loved a fountain that they had outside of the hospital. Here he is with his grandpa playing in it! Aren't his new sneakers so cute?!?!?!?

A Cousin At Last!!!!!

Benjamin's first cousin was born today at 9:13 this morning. His name is Jackson Paul and he is VERY cute!!!! We went up to see him today and it was wonderful to meet the newest member of our family and see Jimmy and Shawna with their new baby! Benjamin did really good traveling even though he didn't get to see the baby because they don't allow children on the floor. I really enjoyed getting to meet the baby and hold him. He's super cute with a sweet little face! Hopefully, Dave will get to meet his new nephew tomorrow too! Here are some pictures of the new little cutie-pie!

Happy Labor Day!

We had a great Labor Day Weekend spending time with my family and Dave's parents and even got to have a picnic with all of my dad's extended family. It was nice to have three days together and to get to see everyone! Unfortunately, I didn't do a good job taking pictures. Below though is a cute picture of Benjamin swimming and having fun splashing Zoe and Mickey! Hope you all enjoyed your holiday too!

Tantrum

Benjamin will be 20 months old tomorrow. That seems very close to two for me, which seems crazy! As if to try and prove to me that he is in fact almost 2, Benjamin threw the biggest tantrum ever today. In total, I think it lasted almost 40 minutes. I was in the kitchen making him breakfast and he started demanding to be picked up. I told him no, that I had to finish making his food so he could eat. I finished and brought the food into the living room for him so he could eat his pancakes and watch cartoons (seems like a nice mommy to me) and things just got worse. He wouldn't stop crying (errr screaming) and everything I did seemed to make him madder. If I picked him up he wanted down, if I put the fork down in between bites he screamed louder, I didn't sit in the right place next to him, etc. After about 20 minutes of him doing this, I decided this was getting a tad ridiculous. I got up and sat in the rocking chair next to him. I continued to offer food and to let him sit in my lap. He just continued to scream, cry, and demand things. He would throw himself all around on the ground and when he needed a break, he would lie flat on the ground on his belly, face down that way he could take a break from crying but continue to show me how unhappy he was. You can see this in the picture below........ (he's naked by the way because I had taken his jammies off and he hadn't let me put his clothes on yet)



More screaming. After another 10 minutes or so and he continued to turn down all my offers, I decided to move to the couch. After he had a wriggled around on the floor and gotten closer to me, I finally decided to pick him up against his will and forced him to put his head down while I rubbed his back. He slowly calmed down and stopped screaming. After about 5 minutes of cuddling, he got down, walked over to his food and ate all of his pancakes by himself (which he's never done before) and acted like the past 40 minutes hadn't happened!

I called Dave during all this so he could hear Benjamin and he said that it was a good thing that I did, because he wouldn't have believed me otherwise on how big a fit he was throwing and screaming like he was. He's never done this before and I hope he doesn't again for a long time!!!!!

Because these photos aren't the easiest to see, I thought I'd end with something happier. Yesterday Benjamin fell asleep flat on his back in the living room in the middle of all his toys for the first time ever. I had asked him if he was ready for his nap (to go night, night) and usually once he's sleepy he agrees but he kept denying me, so I let him keep playing. Eventually, I guess he just got too tired! It was pretty funny and I wanted to take a picture, but couldn't find the camera. When Dave got home he remembered that he had left it outside (BIG oops!!!) and to make it up to me made Benjamin give me some good smiles for some pictures! Here's one of him upside down, smiling, hair all fluffed out! Much cuter than the ones above, don' t you think?!?!?!?!

Cincinnati

We went to Cincinnati today and took Benjamin to the Newport Aquarium for the first time. I asked him this morning if he wanted to go see the fish and he preceded to say fish the rest of the day and rush us to get him dressed, shoes on, and out the door like I've never seen before! It was extremely cute and he really had a wonderful time. He looked at all the tanks and pointed to all the fish and said "issshhh!" (the f is silent for Benjamin!) He was even trying to say shark by the end. His favorite were the tunnels that you walk under where the aquarium is all around you and the fish, sharks, sting rays, etc. swim right over your head! We had a great time together!


This diver was in one of the tunnel tanks and she waved to Benjamin. He then preceded to blow her about a million kisses! Pretty cute! He would also say bye and blow kisses as we left each tank! Such a sweetie!


Up close and personal....that's my son!


After the aquarium we went to a mall that had one of my all time favorite restaurants, Maggiano's. It was delicious!!!! Benjamin especially liked the ice cream that came with his kid's meal!

This is the expression he made when I asked him to smile for me! Needless to say, we had a great trip!

Zoe the Toddler

Sometimes I feel like I have two toddlers in the house! I give Zoe a greenie bone sometimes in the evening after Benjamin goes to bed. If I give it to her when he's up, Benjamin will more than likely take it away from her. Usually she is very excited and eats it in 5 minutes or so. Last night, for some reason she didn't want to eat it. However, she didn't want anyone else to have it either. She was lying about a foot away from it and every time one of our cats would walk past, she would slowly creep up to it as if to not give away what she was guarding and still make sure the cats didn't get it. She did this about 4 times and then I looked over and she was laying practically on top of it (picture above). Apparently, its a lot easier to sleep and keep guard of her bone that way. By the way, the cats have absolutely no interest in it!

Then when it was time for bed and I asked Zoe if she was ready to get in bed like I always do, instead of her usually jumping up and running excitedly into the bedroom for this beloved time of day, she got up and looked at me, then down at her bone again and back at me. You could practically see what she was thinking....."I want to go to bed, but I can't leave my bone out here where those cats could steal it!" After about 5 minutes of much though (and me giving up and going on into the bedroom without her) she came running in with her bone in her mouth. Apparently, it would be much safer in there!!!! So silly! I couldn't help but laugh!

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We had our first doctor's appointment for the new little one and everything was great. The baby is growing right on schedule and everything looked good in the ultrasound, including the heart beat which was wonderful to hear for the first time! We had fun getting to see this little one for the first time and to get to share it with Benjamin. My appointment was supposed to be at 10:30 but got delayed until 2:30 because my doctor was in a delivery. So Benjamin was super primed for the apt. when it was finally time and probably said the word baby a couple hundred times. Very cute!

My due date is March 3, but the baby will be born sometime at the end of February because my doctor says I really need to have another C-section and wouldn't feel comfortable with me having a normal birth because I pushed with Benjamin for so long (5 hours) and still required a c-section. He does c-sections around 10 days before the due date so you can avoid going into labor on your own. So, I'm a little bummed about that, but mostly just happy to see my baby and to know everything is okay!

We tried scanning the pictures from the ultrasound at Dave's work, but it didn't work......so I had to just take pictures of the pictures they gave us. It worked fairly good, but there's some glare from the flash (sorry)! I was really surprised and excited by how cute the baby was and that he/she actually looked like a baby this early (11 weeks). You can see the body and head and even the little hands making fists and the legs and a little bit of the feet. So cute already!

(You can click on the images to enlarge them and see the baby better!)