Ben turns the big fat One

So, I know this is long overdue.  Jon’s been really busy with tests and what-not, so I haven’t had much Ben-free time to get to the blog except at night.  Which, I’m sorry to say, I usually reserve for watching a show or two and reading before I turn in.  Anyway, Benjamin managed to complete his first year of life on April 18th, which was Saturday (a week and a half ago).  I think I’ll start off by showing you how much has changed in that year.

Benjamin	Me (Chelsea)
Born: 8 lbs. 12 oz. 21 inches long 1 yr: 23 lbs  31 inches long	OK, I’m feeling skinny and good about myself, but not good enough to tell everyone how much I weighed before I delivered.

OK, so I know that the picture of me you can’t really see how much I’ve changed.  But it turns out that Jon and I never take pictures of each other, so it’s the best I’ve got.

Anyway, we celebrated the big day by taking Ben to the park and having a picnic and playing on the playground.  Be forewarned, this will be a fairly long post with lots of pictures and video.  We went a little nuts.  One of the first things we did was show off Ben’s upper body strength, which also serves as a demonstration of how he is quickly turning into a good climber.  It’s cute, but definitely not good news for mom, who has a hard enough time keeping him out of trouble as it is.

Here are a bunch of pictures from the park:

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We also found out that Ben’s two favorite things at the park are:

Tunnels:

and slides:

Lastly, when we got home from the park, Ben took a ride on daddy’s shoulders and showed that dad’s head makes an awesome drum.

That’s pretty much it for Ben’s actual birthday.  We did most of the presents and cake on Sunday.  Pictures and video of that will be in the next post, hopefully tomorrow.

Musicals

So, Geri, my mother-in-law responded to my Zac Efron post with a link to a pretty awesome video of people in a train station. Even Jon thought it was funny. He said it's the funniest social experiment he's ever seen. I just think it's awesome. Does it make me crazy that I want to live in a musical? Check it out:

Sound of Music Train Station @ Yahoo! Video

Thanks Geri, that really made my day.

Easter

As promised, here are some pictures of Ben’s Easter celebrations.  First, I have some pictures I took of Ben at our ward Easter dinner.  He usually loves going to church activities because everybody pays attention to him and plays with him.  Unfortunately, he had missed his afternoon nap on Friday and it was about bed time anyway, so he was pretty grumpy.  Still, I got some cute pictures of him exploring the gym and the halls.  He especially loved playing peek-a-boo with me through the glass doors.

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Now for the really cute pictures of Ben Easter morning.  I also have some video of him when he first got up and found his Easter basket, but I don’t think I have time to upload and edit it right now.  Anyway, he was pretty adorable in his little outfit.  I didn’t get any super pictures outside like I’d hoped because he was so distracted by the cars going by and he was already about ready for a nap.  I pretty much just posted all of the pictures I took.  I’m a little too lazy to be selective and this way you all can decide which ones you like best.  Plus, this way the album sort of functions as a montage of our morning.

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I hope you all had a happy Easter.  I certainly love this time of year where we get to celebrate the resurrection and really turn our hearts and minds to Christ.  It doesn’t hurt that the world is coming back to life as well.  Now, if only the weather would really commit to being nice so Ben and I could go on more walks and enjoy it.

Zac Efron on SNL

OK, so maybe I'm admitting to something I probably shouldn't admit here, but I'm a big fan of High School Musical. As such, I have a bit of a fan crush on Zac Efron. Some of you may think less of me for it, but I definitely don't hide the fact. Anyway, Zac hosted SNL on Saturday night, so I taped it and watched it in spite of my thinking that SNL really isn't very funny these days. I was right. Pretty much the only funny parts were the opening monologue and the skit making fun of High School Musical. I embedded those two clips for your viewing pleasure. I always think it's great when actor's can make fun of themselves. The opening monologue just makes fun of the fact that all of Zac's fans are girls between the ages of 7 and 13 (the tweens). And of course, me.



The High School Musical sketch is pretty funny, especially for those of you who feel the same way about musicals that Jon does. I love them, well not all of them, but a lot of them. Jon thinks they're awkward and silly. Don't get me wrong, it is a little odd for people to randomly start singing and dancing. Obviously that never happens in real life, but a girl can dream, right? Anyway, musical-haters and musical-lovers alike can still get a kick out of how absurd it is when you think about it. It may not be quite as funny if you haven't seen the movie.



I know I promised Easter pictures to some. I promise, they'll be up ASAP, hopefully tomorrow. Ben was struggling tonight, so I didn't get a chance to upload the new photos.

Ben’s First Haircut

So, Ben was starting to look a little bit like a girl and his hair was getting into his eyes and his ears so I decided it was time for a haircut.  Jon really didn’t want to, but agreed to do it because I wanted to.  He thought we could do it by ourselves and I couldn’t find a place here that I felt comfortable taking him so we bought some clippers to make it a little bit simpler.  We weren’t exactly surprised by the fact, but it’s pretty tough to cut an almost one-year-old’s hair.  Anyway here are some before pictures of him in the highchair.  We ended up just disrobing the little dude and rinsing him off afterwards.  He’s got the Wii remote because we wanted to give him some things to distract him that he’s usually not allowed to play with.

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Here is a video of the event as well.  It’s not cut together very well because it was really long and I just wanted to show the interesting stuff.  So, you get the beginning and the end.  The beginning shows him freaking out about getting his hair sprayed with water and trying to see the clippers and being impossible.  A couple minutes in, I discovered the best distraction was some cheap headphones I have.  He was a little more cooperative after that, although he still kept looking at the clippers.  By the end, he was pretty unaffected.  I just put the last bit where he claps, because that’s his new thing.  He claps for everything and gets so proud of himself.

Ben's First Haircut. The camera is sitting on a stool. It makes us look like Charlie Brown adults.

And, here are some after-shots, one right after we rinsed him off and the rest from during his dinner and after I got him ready for bed and trying to brush my teeth.  He was being pretty stinking adorable

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And last, here are two really cute videos of Ben giving me kisses.  Well, I’m not sure if you could call it kissing, he more tries to eat my lips and then laughs about it, but see for yourself.  Oh, and it should be noted that I was taking this video and some of the pictures from above by holding my arm out, so forgive the cutting off of heads and such.

Ben giving silly kisses.

 

More kisses, I love this boy.

One last thing.  I finished a post I had started earlier, so you might want to scroll down past the last post and check out the pictures of when Owen and Ollie came to visit.