A Giving Halloween

From October 31st:

So here are our Halloween pictures - in reverse order, I'm afraid. But, if I take the time to change them to the correct order, then I probably won't get this posted for another week. :P

We carved pumpkins... and once again Seth was the master carver. His pumpkins always get the best comments!

A neighbor brought the kids a light-up blinking smiley face toy and Benjamin LOVED it! He trucked around the neighborhood carrying it. (Oh, and the gash on his nose is from slipping and falling face first into a wooden step. At least his eyes didn't turn black!)

We had a Bride and a snuggly Bear this year. They both enjoyed dressing up a lot. Benjamin thought the candy was fantastic, but just because it had shiny, crinkly wrappers. He didn't get to sample any. Maybe next year!

Seth decided to "prime" Ella's candy carrying pumpkin with some candy from our stash. Eleanor examined it before leaving. Then she walked around, knocked on doors and accepted candy from others. But, before leaving each house she gave a piece of candy to the person offering her candy. It was extremely touching to watch others' reactions to her giving. Some were so touched. Others tried to reason with her. Others "traded." Seth and I just watched and giggled.

About 3/4 of the way through her march around the neighborhood she told us, "I don't have any more candy in here to give out!" We were puzzled. "You have more candy in your pumpkin now than when we started." "No, I don't have any to give out! Now I don't have any candy to give to Judy!" (Judy is our neighbor who is very special to Ella). We realized then that she was giving the candy Seth had originally put in her pumpkin. She thought she needed to give everyone candy from our house since we weren't there to give it out!

Later she had fun giving candy to the other kids who came to our door. We were glad we went early and were back home because it started raining... then snowing. But, it was a fun family day.

Let It Snow Let It Snow Let It Snow

First day of real snow 2011:

Mommy is so glad the snow waited this year! We've had a few days of snow before now (beginning November 1st) but it has been light and has melted right away. This is a full month later than last year! Of course, Eleanor has been waiting and waiting to put on her "snow geared" and build a snowman.

So, these kids just had a blast! And Benjamin lasted outside for a long time while Ella ran around, tried to build a snowman, threw snowballs and made snow angels. I was impressed. It was a fun snow day. We kind of can't wait until we get another one. :)

The first steps

I think I'll just eat some of this stuff

Running around

Hmm, cold!

But it tastes pretty good...

What's that sister doing?

I should try that, too!

Snow angels

Have a happy November day!

Attempting to Reconfigure

Hello all -

The last few months' break happened for a few reasons:

1. We lost access to the blog.

2. We stopped using the internet for a while due to the hacker situation.

3. I didn't have an email address for a long time (I haven't been able to recover my hotmail address, so I'm sorry if you have tried to communicate, but I've had to totally start over and I lost all my contacts).

4. I continued not feeling really great for a long time.

5. We have a just-over-one-year-old and a 3 1/2 year-old who take up 100% of my time!

We are feeling quite removed from so many of our friends and family... so I've decided it is a good use of my time to get this going once again. Plus, we are generally so busy we rarely see our friends around here in Sheridan, so they will appreciate it, too. :)

So, hopefully I will get good at regularly posting again. We have a lot to catch up on!

Benjamin is walking!

On the 17th Benjamin decided to take his first steps. At that point, he was confident walking with a push toy around the house. Since then he's quickly moved to taking steps on his own. I'm not sure how to decide just when he "started walking" since his progression is very different than Ella's was. Once she started, she didn't want anything to do with crawling anymore... Benjamin enjoys using a variety of techniques to get where he's trying to go. He will stand, take 2-4 steps toward something, sit down, crawl the rest of the way and then pull up to cruise around on the object. He's very proficient at this type of travel.

He is now starting to get more interested in just walking and has put many, many steps together at once. This video is from yesterday.

One Email Recovered

So, the process is finally moving along (slowly). I have recovered the email that is linked with blogger, so I can now once again post as myself and & (yah!) will be able to archive this stuff for our family. We are still working hard to get our computer all figured out and reformatted. I have not recovered my main email address, so still be aware of phony emails being sent to you.

More on Email Hijacking

Hey guys, Bethany here, posting as Seth.

I am still unable to access my email at this time. ANYTHING YOU RECEIVE FROM BRTIPPIN@HOTMAIL.COM IS NOT FROM ME!!!!! Please do not respond to emails from that address, and DO NOT GIVE ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION about us or yourselves to that address.

I set up a second email in order to recover the first email and that was hacked, too.

We are redoing everything we possibly can to fix this issue. At this point, if you need to reach me either email Seth or call or text me. Thanks. Also, we are not using the internet at our house currently, so if you choose the email option, it may take a while to get a response.

Email Scam

Since I haven't blogged very much lately, I'm not sure who will read this, but it is important: This morning my email was hacked and I am unable to access it. An email was sent saying my family and I are in London, in need of cash. Just as it sounds - THIS IS A SCAM. We are safe, home in Wyoming, doing our normal thing - I just can't get into my email account. So, obviously, don't send money, but also know that I cannot send or receive email at this point. Hopefully I'll get this figured out quickly.

Bethany

Benjamin

Our little boy is getting big quickly! He's busy, busy, busy these days. I'm afraid, since I haven't been keeping up on the blog, we're not recording his milestones very well. So, this post is for Benjamin - to remember the general and specific times he's done particular things.

We were on "vacation" or rather, a trip, to the Northwest May 11th through the 25th. During that time, Benjamin...

started sitting up with confidence and without always falling backwards on us (5/13)

began crawling with real crawling mechanics (5/15)

waved in response to another person's waving (5/15)

ate Joe's Os all by himself! (5/16)

learned to transition from sitting to crawling (5/21)

Since being home Benjamin...

broke tooth #3 through, though it remains just a small white dot on his left side on the bottom (5/26)

broke tooth #4 through on the top left (6/2) and is pushing and pushing on tooth #5 on the top right

began pulling himself up to standing (5/26) and has since had many, many bumps and bruises each and every day

has improved pulling to standing so much that he's up and about and working hard at "cruising" all around everywhere (6/4). He stands in his crib, pack-and-play, the bottom of his high chair, people's pant legs, his activity table, the couch, the bathtub - everywhere!

is babbling like a champion (6/3), working on his "da da da"s and "ma ma"s along with various "oooo"s and "aaaah"s and "la la la"s

continues self feeding, eating rice rusks, Joe's Os, mashed banana chunks and watermelon shreds by the fist-full (6/4)

started sleeping through the night!!!!!! As in, 8-9 hours!!!!! (5/29) HOORAY!

likes to crawl/climb up and over things. His favorite "obstacle" at the moment is the dog's food tub. He climbs up on top and sits there babbling away on his hands and knees. Sometimes he climbs off the other side and sometimes he fusses until someone helps him down. He has definitely fallen off face-first a few times, but he is learning to keep his elbows locked as he heads off the other side and wiggles himself side to side until he can get one knee down at a time. (6/1)

wants nothing to do with the cupboards and "toys" Ella liked at this age, but loves any toy Eleanor is playing with, loves the animals and loves to crawl to people. He also seems quite attracted to books and pulls as many off the shelf as possible. (6/2)

For Daddy

Mini golf with Uncle Jeff

 "Run Around the Rosy"

 Looking at tiny fish in the sea water

 In the sand

 First taste of sand

We love you and miss you TONS. We're having fun, but we're tired.

Weather

This is for memory's sake:

Yesterday was 72 degrees and sunny. We played out in the yard all day long and I held myself back from planting seeds in the garden.

Today we have 4 inches of snow, it is still falling, and it's 31 degrees. I guess it's good I didn't plant.

Lovely, lovely Wyoming.

The Ella Girl

Ella is currently:

a girl through and through...

obsessed with dancing & being a ballerina. (She will tell you once she turns 3 she will take dance lessons and tumbling!)

very into gardening, worms and bugs.

in love with wearing dresses.

hopelessly sure she will soon "get big, get married and be a mommy to a baby girl in my tummy. Her name is Ashlynn-baby or Maxson." (This story stays the same except for the names... currently we have 3 friends who had new babies this week and their names are Max, Paxton and Ashlyn, thus the current names).

always wanting to go on a walk, out for a run or on a bike ride.

completely, utterly, irreversibly in love with Rapunzel (Tangled). My favorite part of this obsession is the concept that she should always play outside in the grass barefoot, "like Rapunzel does!" (As much as Ella is a girly-girl, she still has this rough and unrefined side. She's not super princessy and she's just as likely to tell me in the morning that she'd like to wear sweats and running shoes as she is to want a leotard and tutu).

7 Months has come and gone!

Now that we are 1/2 way through Benjamin's 8th month... I guess I'll finally get his 7 month post up here. We've had a rough go of it the last month or so with RSV as well as some other nasty cold/cough thing and a huge breathing (or rather, not breathing) scare. Thus, we've huddled down and tried really hard just to get everyone well. Not much else (on a large scale) has happened or gotten done.

Since 6 months Benjamin has:

started eating avocado, rice, oatmeal, banana, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, peaches, pears, green beans, applesauce and peas - he still loves to eat, but sweet potatoes are by far his favorite. He barely tolerates green beans or peas.

gotten teeth (4/6) - both bottom guys have popped through and look huge! We thought he was having tons of trouble with teething and were confused because we thought it was just the one on his bottom left side. Instead, both broke through together! He certainly knows how to use them, too!

started crawling - or rather, "inchworming" (4/21) - he reaches with his arms, gets up on his right knee and pushes himself forward, dragging his left side. It isn't very efficient, but it certainly gets him where he'd like to go. He also gets himself up on hands and knees, but then he looks around like, "now what?" and then flattens himself back to the floor.

begun making it impossible to change his diaper! Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get a small boy to stop wiggling long enough to get poop off and a clean diaper on!?

talking more and more. He says, "gluh gluh gluh" a lot as well as, "ah ya ya ya." Only at the saddest of moments will we get a "MA MAaaah!" The funny thing is, he started this right about the same time his voice turned super hoarse because of his respiratory illness - I think he realized his voice sounded strange!

is no longer Mr. Super-chunk. He weighs 19 pounds (which we know well thanks to numerous visits to the dr. and watching to be sure he wasn't losing too much weight through this illness). I think he must have gotten longer recently since he seems a lot less chunky to me right now. We won't know his height/length again for another couple of months.

has not slept through the night for an entire month. He currently wakes up every 1 1/2 to 2 hours (Mommy is feeling the effects of this for sure!).

loves hearing people sing and nursery rhymes. We get lots of giggles from This is the Way the Ladies Ride and Humpty Dumpty. His favorite soothers are Hush Little Baby and Jesus Loves Me.

is obsessed with attempting to grab the cat.

will finally play for short periods of time while sitting up unassisted. We assume he was against this before because his tummy was so chubby that it was uncomfortable!

Eleanor Christine

I've started several posts about our Ella over the last couple of months, but they haven't quite gotten finished... and now I hardly know where to begin. Eleanor continues to grow in stature as well as vocabulary daily. She is a healthy, happy, spunky girl who gets girly-er and girly-er all the time. These days she is very into nursery rhymes, singing, being a ballerina, swimming, playing with dolls and Sesame Street. She often plays pretend and loves to "be" a baby, puppy, monster or mommy. Her imagination is WILD! She always keeps us smiling.

This evening, after dinner, Ella was running around the house and finally settled herself in the kitchen. She started pushing a toy on the refrigerator that plays the ABC Song and each time it played, she would turn around and around in circles - making herself dizzy. Finally she sat down on a small stool and we giggled about her facial expression. Next thing we knew she said, "Our house is turning... around... and around!"

Many days, Eleanor picks her own unique outfits. Leotards and tu-tus are a favorite. The above pictures are from a few days ago when it was quite warm outside, but had recently been raining, so the backyard was kind of muddy. She chose that outfit completely on her own. The rain boots are out a lot right now because it is fairly "warm" (by our standards) but it has been snowing a lot over the last week. Snow and thaw, snow and thaw...

Here are a few quotes I saved. Unfortunately, I haven't been very good about writing down her incredible little comments. Hopefully these will make you smile, though:

"When we get sad, some rain drops coming from our cheeks. Yeah, we cry and rain drops come from our eyes."

Typical prayer over a meal:

"Our Jesus, thank you for our food. Thank you for our family. Thank you for God. Thank you for making us healthy and grow strong... AMEN!"

Looking at a map of Sheridan: "Dis is South America, here Africa, dis Adeline's house and Lucas' house. Dis way to VA, dis to Daddy hunts. Dis way Iowa. Mommy, we go South America now?"

Ella sings and sings all the time... Most songs now end with, "I know my abc's next time won't you sing with me." This inevitably leads to singing the ABC song.

6 Months Already!

Benjamin turned 6 months last Saturday. We took him to the doctor on Tuesday for a Well Child Visit. Here are his stats:

Height: 25.5 inches (18%)

Weight: 18 lbs 4 oz (64 %)

Head Circumference: 43.5 cm (43%)

Thus, he's quite the chunker! We love his little chubby frame these days. Some of his favorite things are rolling over and over and over, his Baby Einstein play mat (with dangly toys he can grab and pull while listening to music with lights that flash in time), our animals, people singing and Eleanor. About a week and a half ago we were cutting down a diseased apple tree in our backyard and had some friends over to help us. They brought their golden for a little doggie playdate and London and Sadie were chasing each other around, being dogs. Benjamin watched and watched and then started laughing. He laughed and laughed at those dogs! The other things that make him laugh are Eleanor and tickling. He is very in tune with his hand-eye coordination and has great dexterity.

Some things he dislikes are being left alone, strangers, sitting up to play, food that is even the littlest bit chunky and getting shots. He is still a very calm, gentle, peaceful little guy. He smiles often and is very patient. He still doesn't vocalize very much, but we do get the occasional coo, giggle and fuss. He watches everyone and everything very intently. He is straining and straining these days to get his little body moving and ready for crawling. I think this milestone is still quite a ways away, however, since he cannot get his tummy off the ground. He is also working very hard on cutting his first teeth. We've had several rather fussy evenings lately in this regard. We can see one little white dot so far, but who knows how long it will take for this tooth to fully show itself (we've been thinking for the past two weeks that it's sure to break through in the next few days).

We are grateful daily for Ben's presence in our growing family. He's a very pleasant, joyful little man. We look forward to watching his continued growth.

Snapshots

I realized recently that we haven't blogged in almost 2 months! Sorry family!

These snapshots are the only good pictures we've gotten over that time... Eleanor is going through a "I don't want my picture taken" stage and I haven't had time to clear our overly full SD card to make more room on the camera. Until today. So hopefully we'll be taking more pictures again soon!

The above collage includes a very cold, but sunny walk out by the buffalo pen - a much needed outdoor activity. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy the outdoors again soon! It also includes Valentine's Day when Seth surprised us by taking a few hours off work in the morning to stay home and make us breakfast, Benjamin's amazing ability to sleep hard through almost anything, his love for bathtime and Eleanor's willingness to have her picture taken when she's holding her brother (after having picked out his outfit for the day).

We hope you all are well and we hope to do a better job of keeping in touch. :)

First Meal

Benjamin recently had his first taste of rice cereal... and it went very well. (3/4/11)

4 Month Stats

Benjamin went in for his 4-month check up this morning. Here are his newest stats:

Height: 25 inches (48th %)

Weight: 14 lbs 14 oz (45th %)

Head Circumference: 42 cm (16.5 in) (39th %)

And just for comparison, I looked up Eleanor's stats... here's where she was at just over 4 months: height 26.8 in, weight 14 lb 5 oz, and head 16.3 in. We always knew she was long and lean, but this definitely tells me why Benjamin seems chubby to us!

Here's a pic of Ella at 4 1/2 months...

And Benjamin...

A Bigger Frosty

It's really snowy around here... and it is cycling through warm and cold spells. So, we've had great snow for bigger and better snowmen. Here's the latest creation - way bigger than the last! Eleanor was going through one of her "I don't want my picture taken" stages, so she ran inside while I snapped Mr. Frosty.