It’s a GIRL 8lbs 10oz

Yay.  After two contractions of pushing we got a girl!  Penelope Beth Willes (tenative)

Christmas Preview

So, I’m going to post a Christmas overview to make sure everyone gets a peek.   On account of I’m going into the hospital first thing tomorrow to be induced, and I don’t want Ben’s Christmas to be overlooked in the hub-bub of the new baby, so I’m going to post a couple of quick pictures and video.  I’ll try and get more up later tonight or maybe when my family is here next week.

This was really the first time that Ben was an active participant, and he was a real hoot.  We started the festivities yesterday morning making gingerbread cookies.  Ben really had fun with that.  We gave him a little rolling pin which he tried to use (video to follow, I’ll have to upload it).  Mostly, he just picked at and ate the dough.  We gave him a cookie cutter and he would push it into the dough, then start eating the dough he’d cut out.  He had fun decorating them too, but he was mostly pumped about the car-shaped cookie that his daddy cut out special for him.  Check it out:

(The one on the left is a zombie cookie that Jon made)

Ben took a really good nap and we took it pretty easy in the afternoon.  I had to run a couple of errands while Ben was sleeping.  We had some delicious sandwiches for dinner while we watched a movie, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (Jon’s choice).  In hindsight, it might be a bit scary for little kids, but Ben liked it, mostly he liked the songs.  Ben went to bed like a champ after we attempted to tell him the nativity story.  Jon and I watched Christmas Story and I went to bed early.

As for today, I didn’t think Ben had any idea that today was Christmas.  We’d planned on doing a quick breakfast with Ben this morning before presents because he always wants to eat as soon as he gets up.  But when I went in to get him this morning he immediately started pointing towards the family room saying “car”, “truck” (it turns out the few presents he’d opened before today were cars, so he thinks all wrapped presents are cars or trucks).  Anyway, so we did presents first and breakfast later.  He got a real kick out of opening presents.  In typical small child fashion, he wanted to stop and open/play with every toy. 

Here’s a picture of the post-present-opening wreckage:

And here are some pictures of our delicious breakfast of Belgian waffles and bacon and cinnamon bread:

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And our little family in front of the tree (thank goodness for a camera with a timer):

We took video of him walking in for Christmas and opening some of the presents, but that’s on the video camera and it takes a lot longer to post and I have to track down the USB cable.  However, Jon’s parents gave us an awesome new webcam for Christmas (ours broke), so we took some video straight to the computer.

I’m sure this is what everyone wants to see, videos of Ben playing with his new toys.  He really loves everything he got.  He’s been a crazy little boy all day, running from gift to gift.  Here are a couple of the highlights:

Ben riding around the giraffe tricycle that Grandma and Grandpa Willes sent:

Ben put himself in one of the boxes.  He was highly amused.

And, last (for now), Ben playing with the spiral racetrack that my parents gave him.  The boy sure loves his cars.

That’s all for now.  I hope you all had as wonderful a Christmas as we have had.  Jon and I will do our best to keep everyone updated on the baby situation.

Hooray for the Holidays

So, I decided it was about time to post about Thanksgiving.  And, since Ben, Jon, and I are trapped inside enjoying a snow day, I figured today was a good day to post.  I haven’t been taking a ton of pictures lately, but we do have a couple from Thanksgiving and from today.

Thanksgiving was just the three of us.  It was actually lots of fun.  Jon helped keep Ben out of my hair when he wasn’t helping me cook.  Ben really likes to pitch in and “help” with the cooking too.  Sometimes I put him in the sling so he can stir and watch.  These aren’t my best pictures, but I feel that being pregnant and slaving away in the hot kitchen all day are a decent excuse to look a little under the weather.  Plus, it’s really about the food isn’t it?

Ben chilling in the sling:

And the spread:

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Everything was quite delicious, if I do say so myself.  We had to feed Ben a snack shortly before the meal so he didn’t eat a ton.  He did love the leftovers, though.  He gobbled them up every time we served them to him, even the vegetables.  So that was a major win.

As for today, we decided to take Ben outside in his first snowstorm.  It took about 45 minutes to get everyone all bundled up and then Ben was a little bit freaked out by the whole thing.  I don’t think it helped that we have about 6 inches of snow and it was really windy.  The snow in his face really bothered him, but he still wanted to be outside.  We’ll probably try taking him outside again later when it stops snowing.  Regardless of how much he enjoyed it, he looked really cute in his snow outfit.

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I’ll try and upload some videos later.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

So, my mom has been bugging me for pictures of me pregnant.  As I don't usually feel very camera-presentable, I've been avoiding it.  Then Ben woke up early yesterday and Jon agreed to feed him and such so I could shower and actually take some time getting ready for church.  It was the first time in a while that I thought I actually looked cute, so I made Jon take a picture.  Plus, Ben looked really cute in the Sunday outfit that Geri sent him, so we had to have some pictures of that.  Without any further ado:

Apparently, Jon didn’t get the whole “pregnancy photo” concept at first as he totally cut out my pregnant belly.  Luckily, he took another, long-ways one.

The lighting isn’t great, but that’s the general idea.  There’s me at 34 weeks pregnant.  I have to say, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I’ve been pretty pleased with my weight gain with this baby and I don’t usually feel super huge.  That is, until I went to church and a lady came up to me after sacrament meeting and told me how I looked like I was ready to pop and was that baby ever coming out. I’m chalking it up to cultural/language differences as she’s Hispanic, but I couldn’t help but be a little bothered.  I think it’s worse when people make pregnancy comments like that when I’m feeling good about myself because it just totally wrecks that.  When I feel bloated and huge I don’t mind because they’re just confirming what I already know and it makes me feel less crazy.

Anyway, as promised, here is a picture of Ben’s Sunday outfit.  Again, I don’t think Jon totally got the point as he didn’t include the awesome pants, but Ben’s adorable nonetheless. 

Lastly, here’s a quick video of Ben kissing my belly and making the sign for baby.  It’s pretty dang adorable.  You’ll have to excuse the belly nudity and the very messy house.  What can I say?  Some days I don’t bother cleaning up until Ben’s asleep.

Halloween Revisited

So it’s me, Chelsea again.  I’d like to thank Jon for his very entertaining post.  I’m just going to update with a couple more videos and some cute pictures I think he left out of the last couple of weeks.

Ben and I did a little fall photo shoot outside the other day, Jon posted a couple of pictures from it, but here are a couple more.

Ben playing tetherball:

Pointing at a bird flying by.

 

Playing in puddles.  What can I say?  Boys will be boys.

And rolling around in the grass all on his own.  Sometimes when we’re outside he just lies down in the grass and laughs and claps.

And a couple more pictures with the fire truck.  Notice that he puts his hands in his little pockets on his vest.  I think it’s pretty stinking adorable.

And playing in the leaf pile

Oh, and Ben Flexing his his little baby muscles.

As for Halloween, it was hard to narrow down the footage we took of Ben romping around in his costume.  This is what I came up with, I took this video the day we bought the costume and tried it on him.  Turns out he loved it.

Here’s another little video of him showing off his roar and costume on Halloween.

And of course, his very first door on Halloween.  I have to say that it’s pretty classic, but see for yourself:

Happy Halloween!

So this was Ben’s first halloween as an active participant and with out further ado we give you our little monster.

Oh and this is Jon not Chelsea posting, so don’t expect anything spectacular.  We dressed Ben up as a dinosaur monster thing, but really here are my best guesses at what we really dressed him up as

Bub – From bubble bobble

I think that there is pretty good evidence for this

 

See? there’s the blue one!!  And the life like bubbles really sells it for me.

But if you aren’t buying that, here’s an esoteric 80’s reference: It’s Denver the last dinosaur!

Anyway, it could be possible that this:

is really the same as this:

or this

I’m sure that who ever looks at this blog is more interested in seeing pictures of Ben than my witty image banter so here’s some more Ben.

And here’s a picture of Ben driving a fire truck.  It turns out he loves fire trucks and the firemen at the station just across the street are really nice  (aren’t all firemen nice, or is that just my experience?).  We go visit them every once in a while.

 

And a video of Ben hugging Owen during the trip to Pittsburgh.  This is pretty classic.  Ben loves his cousin.

I haven’t loaded the drivers for the video camera just yet so there’ll be more to come, including videos and pictures of his first Halloween night.

Long Overdue

So I know this is long overdue.  At this point it's way too overwhelming to try and catch everyone up on everything. So, instead I'm going to give a quick update on what's happening now and try to catch people up slolwy. Mostly, right now I'm in Pittsburgh visiting my sister and her family who just had a new baby, Tobin Joshua Grant. It's been great, especially because Ben loves playing with his cousins. Owen and Oliver are great cousins. They are so fun. Oh, and it should be noted that I'm using a Mac (I hate Macs) for this post, so I don't know how to do slideshows and such. As a result, this will be one of those posts that has lots of pictures that take up a lot of space, so prepare to scroll. Anyway, I'll start off with a couple of pictures of Ben, since he is the star of this blog.

Here is Ben saying peekaboo

And helping me sweep, one of his new favorite pasttimes

And showing off his finger painting skills

And getting cleaned up after finger painting

And being the adorable and cool dude that he is.

Here's a shot of my pregnant belly at about 25 weeks I think.

Ben loves his mama ( most of the time)

Risky business baby (This was Jon's doing)

Ben playing with the new corn popper that Nammy got him while she was in town.  It was so fun having Nammy and B-Pa here (albeit at different times).  Ben loved playing with them so much, and he loves his new toy.

A couple of shots of Ben enjoying the little tricycle at Rachael's house

Rachael with the baby all bundled up because it was chilly out.

Owen being Owen.  That is, just posing silly for the camera.

It takes a lot of focus to ride one of these things.

Me and the boys

Courtney enjoying the sweet little guy, and he surely is sweet, and tiny.

Courtney, Rachael, and Tobin, the man of the hour.

Lance made fake mustaches for the boys.  They thought it was pretty hilarious.

Here's a close up of the cute, little guy.  He's seriously adorable.

Tobin and his dad.