The Pants Mullet

Party in the front, business in the back!

Random Photo: Why I'm a Lucky Person

He'll Be Walking Soon

Today Greg had Benjamin tummy-side down across his lap. Benjamin pushed with his feet and ended up scooting off of Greg's lap and halfway across the couch! He really gets around for a baby who seems content to just go with the flow.

Random Photo: Hands Up!

Random Photo: Benjamin's Red Hair

Fireworks Tonight!

We're waiting for Jacob to wake up so we can go to Steve and Jeanne's house for a little gathering. We're going to walk to where they're having a kind of "Freedom Day" celebration with vendors, rides, games, etc. They have fireworks at 10:00 p.m., which is pretty late, so we'll see if Jacob gets to stay up for those. I'm bringing my camera!

Random Photo: We Almost Had to Fight to Get a Turn in the Race Car!

Random Photo: Daddy & Boys

The Children's Museum

Today we went to the Children's Museum with Heidi and her kids. A good portion of the trip was really fun. Jacob got to play with water toys, with sand, and jump and run around all sorts of fun things. He did have several bouts of crabbiness and talking back, though. That wasn't as fun. So, we had to cut out visit a little short and leave before the dinosaur display.

Benjamin is smiling a lot in the morning. It's a wonderful sight to see. :)

Reverse Psychology and Jacob

Lately Jacob has been, to put it lightly, challenging. We have resorted to taking away privileges and/or toys to get through to him. Today Jacob refused to pick up his toys. I told him I would take them away if he didn't. He said that was fine because he didn't want them. He said he'd play with his "runny truck" instead. I said if he didn't clean up the toys that were already out, I'd have to take away the runny truck. He said, "That's good. I don't want to play with it."

Yep. What am I supposed to do now?

So, I took the toys away. He will notice at some point, and hopefully, he will care.

Benjamin Can Roll

Benjamin rolled over from his tummy to his back tonight. It was most likely a fluke, but he did it! 5 weeks old today. He doesn't really appreciate tummy time, so I have to make an effort to remember to do it. It's also slightly more of an effort because we have hard floors. I do miss our carpeting right now.

A Proud Big Brother

While we were loading the car after our few days in St. Louis, my mother asked Jacob if he wanted to stay for the week without us. He said no. She said, "What about Benjamin? Can he stay here with me?" He said, "No, he has to stay with me." She then said, "How about you and Benjamin stay here and your mom and dad go home?" Jacob said, "Okay."

Random Photo: Jacob Rides

A Great Visit to STL

(Jacob was pretty worn out...)

My mom came last Wednesday night and drove us to St. Louis on Thursday morning. Jacob, Benjamin, and I had a really great visit. Greg drove in on Friday after work (and we actually went on a date!).

Jacob had a wonderful time watching for trains, swimming, and being surrounded by people who think everything he does is amazing. His George Bob and Papa, as well as his Auntie Anne and Uncle Ben, were there to "oooh" over everything he did.

Benjamin got to meet his Uncle Ben for the first time. Uncle Ben was head-over-heels in love, but was also very afraid of hurting him. He'd hold him, but wouldn't shift positions or move Benjamin at all.

On Saturday night, we were going to have the Baron K. and Princess P. over for dinner. However, our power was out so we couldn't actually cook inside. It was also getting a little toasty in the house. So, being the polite people that we are (sarcasm employed here!), we invited ourselves over to Baron K. and Princess P.'s house. We had a very nice evening there.

Transformers!

The W Family lives down the street from my parents. They are lovely people. The mom and dad called on Saturday to ask if they could bring a gift for Benjamin over. Wonderful people that they are, they also had a gift for Jacob, which he eagerly opened. (It was a really cool book about trucks and diggers.) We had a very pleasant visit. When they were heading out the door, Jacob came running down the stairs saying, "Wait! I want to show you my Transformers undies!" Mrs. W. kindly showed great interest as Jacob showed her three of his favorite pairs and told her the names of the characters on them. :)

Jacob On the Spot

Jacob can count by threes by singing the School House Rock song about the number three. He is also very interested in addition and can add two or three single-digit numbers. My brother, Ben, said, "Hey, Jake - what's 9 minus 3?" Jacob kind of froze and you could tell he didn't know the answer. Someone else said, "Jake, what's nine take away 3?" He then shoved a huge piece of chicken in his mouth (we were eating lunch) and said, "Can't talk now. My mouth's full."

Random Photo: Mom & Boys

Jacob Writes His Name

Greg's family was passing around a Father's Day card for Ted. Greg signed his name and then said to Jacob, "Do you want to write your name?" Jacob said yes. You have to keep in mind that it was only days before that Jacob wrote anything for us. He showed us that he could write a number one and a number three. As far as we knew, that was all he could do. After he said yes, he wrote his name like this (see left). Sure, some of the letters are backwards and the "c" is rotated, but he wrote his name!

Jacob Sings to Benjamin

I taught Jacob a little tune I used to sing to him when he was a baby. Basically, it just repeats, "Who's the best baby in the whole wide world?" over and over again and ends with, "I think it's you." Jacob really liked it and started singing it to Benjamin. It's so sweet, and Benjamin actually seemed to be listening to him.

Random Photo: Jake at the Playground

Random Photo: Auntie Anne & Jake at the Swings

Ben is a Finger Sucker!

Jacob loved a good finger to suck on when he was tiny. Baby Ben is just the same...

Jacob has seen Benjamin sucking on our fingers. Today while I was taking photos of the two of them, Benjamin grabbed one of Jacob's fingers and started sucking. Jacob looked so proud and pleased. It was really cute!

And another product of today's photos... (I love this one!)

Benjamin's First Bath

Benjamin had his first bath today. He didn't seem to mind it at all, actually. As long as I kept the warm water flowing, he was pretty content, and actually seemed to enjoy having his hair washed.

Oreos for Breakfast

With Jacob's new independent streak, he thinks he can do everything by himself. I was in my bedroom feeding Benjamin. When I came out, Jacob told me that he'd had some Oreos for breakfast. I said, "You have to ask me for those! You can't just go get them." His answer was, "Well, you weren't in here." We're going to have to work on that. It's his new way to get around the inevitable "no."

A Visit from Three Cousins

Today three of Jacob's cousins visited for a play date. Jacob wasn't very happy when they didn't play with toys the "right" way, or when Jacob also wanted the same toy. I think we probably need to do these play dates more often so he gets used to sharing HIS toys. I know he's good at school, but none of the toys there are actually his.

Jacob was also very into tattling and telling us what his cousins were doing. We'll have to talk some more about what constitutes tattling.

Benjamin didn't really pay attention to our visitors -- he just slept, as usual. :)

Call 911!

Jacob wanted to talk about calling 911 for an emergency today. I showed him how to use our house phone (you have to hit "talk" first) and how to dial on a cell phone (you have to hit "talk" after). We discussed when you would call. I said if Mommy or Daddy got hurt and wouldn't wake up. I said he shouldn't call if we were just in bed sleeping. He said, "Or if you are bleeding and you have a hole in your stomach?" I said, "Um... yeah." I'm pretty sure he talked about it in school and most likely the hole in the stomach came up then during the discussion with the other kids... but funny anyway. (We really don't show our 3-year-old violent movies...)

Feeding Fanatic

Benjamin's been a pretty good eater and tends to think that every time he wakes up, he is about to die from hunger. He was good at latching on right from the start (I had some problems with positioning, though). Yesterday he decided it was great to eat EVERY hour and to bite down hard. Yikes!

My poor body is recovering today and he's been a little gentler, thank goodness.

'N Sync

Jacob wanted to dance tonight, so we put in 'N Sync's CD. Yes, it's a little embarrassing to own this CD, but it's actually pretty good! We hadn't listened to it before tonight because I only purchased it because I love the song, "Bye Bye Bye."

Jacob danced and danced and danced. It was so cute!!! Greg took some video, so I'm going to try to post that on here.