The Amazing Benny Z is Two Months Old

Ben Z Two Months - smiling and serious

Kenzie Two Months

Today Ben turned two months old. Time sure flies by when you're having fun! He's growing so fast and is really starting to show his personality. From the start he's been way more into cuddling than McKenzie ever was. She is more of a cat personality. She will love you when she wants to and only then otherwise don't bother trying to hug, kiss or pick her up. Ben is also really into smiling and cooing these days and has even attempted a little laughter which brings a smile to all who hear it. His hair continues to be in an adorable little rooster spike and three days ago he also showed off his newest skill of rolling over from his front to his back. Here's video of his mad skills!

Hanging With The Bros

We did a Mario Brothers theme for Ben's nursery and it has turned out really well. The previous owners of our house had their Grandpa paint a huge tree in the bedroom that we use as our nursery. When we had no kids it was known only as "the tree room" and we did have requests from guest to stay in there. It's a very cool tree that has worked really well for both the kids nursery theme. Here is a picture of the tree with McKenzie's nursery stuff in the room. Her theme was flowers and bugs which worked well with the tree.



Here is Benny posing with Mario and Luigi from Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Chris (yeah Amazon!).

Free to a Good Home

Ladies, who's going to have the next baby so I can get the bins of maternity clothes out of my closet? I was 'gifted' these boxes of clothes by my sister and some of her friends who had been passing them around and adding to them as needed. There are clothes in there for all sorts of occasions. Need a maternity swimsuit? A mumu for that special occasion? A rainbow striped tank top guaranteed to make you look like a circus tent? It's all right here in these bins. I have been happily packing away these clothes since Ben was born and now they are ready to be the fabulous wardrobe of someone else. Just say the word and they are yours.

Spring Training!

Nope not talking baseball here folks, though I do dream daily of moving to a warmer location where I could have a pool in my backyard and not having to see snow one more time. We're talking about McKenzie's strict training regiment in the sport of Easter egg hunting! Easter was a big holiday for my family growing up. We celebrated with my Mom's side of the family and every year my Grandpa would host the Great Easter Egg Hunt. He would hide hundreds of eggs all across his backyard filled with candy, little toys and "silver certificates", which were little slips of paper that he typed up that could be returned to him for actual cash (coins only). He would use these certificates as a way of knowing if all his eggs had been found. I loved Easter because of the Great Easter Egg Hunt and also because we got together with all our cousins and just had fun.

I'm hoping that Easter can be as special for my kids as it was for me. Last year was McKenzie's first Easter and we had a few things working against us on the egg hunt since it was a rainy day. McKenzie wasn't walking yet and she was not feeling great so while we did have a good time it wasn't a full fledged Easter to me. This year McKenzie will be trained in the fine art of competitive egg hunting. Last year we hosted Easter with Matt's family and we had pork tacos so we decided to do a Mexican theme and called it F-Easter. This year Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Chris and cousin Claire are hosting at their house and we're having GRE-Easter (Greek) so it should be another exciting culinary experience to go along with the egg hunting!

We've been having egg hunts every day for about a week now and McKenzie is getting quite good at finding those eggs. She will also hide them for me, it's quite funny though since she usually hides all the eggs in the location of the last egg she found. I humor her and pretend to look around for a bit before finding all the eggs at once.





You can see in this last shot that is quite serious about egg hunting so if you're attending GRE-Easter be warned that a new competitor is on the scene.

After Hours

"After Hours" used to mean something entirely different to me before having kids. It meant staying out doing something after even the bars had closed. Granted I didn't do this too often but at least it seemed like an option. These days "After Hours" has taken on a whole new meaning. Tonight it occurred to me how much I've enjoyed "After Hours" this past year and a half with McKenzie. To me "After Hour" now means the time at night after the kids had gone to bed when I could get things done around the house, spend time with Matt or work on things like my blog or scrap booking. This past month and a half with Ben on the scene I've been missing my "After Hours" time but tonight by some miracle (read extreme swaddle) I've had that time and it feels so good!

McKenzie was in her big girl bed by eight and Ben was out cold. After reading stories in McKenzie's room before she went to bed, I thought I'd try putting Ben in his crib in the nursery which is now officially his. I swaddled him up and tucked him in for his first real sleep in his crib. Before this he had been dozing for short periods during the "After Hours" either in the pack 'n play in our room, down in the dining room in his car seat or just on my lap where ever I was. But last night after hours and hours of holding him between sleeping and feeding I decided that it was time Ben had a bedtime too. So tonight I tested my new plan and I'm happy to report he's been sleeping soundly in his crib for the past three hours! Yes, I have checked on him seven or eight times to make sure he's still with us.

Here is a picture of Ben's door with a cute little pillow we just received from our friends Kelli, Shawn and Cole that says 'little prince sleeping' - too cute! Yes, that is a child lock on the knob since McKenzie is a baby Houdini and can not only reach door knobs and turn them but also can dismantle child locks in a matter of minutes. I did receive a helpful tip from my friend Carrie today to tape the pieces of child lock together to make them really child proof. What would I do without my friends?



Here's to the return of "After Hours"... cheers!

Flat Friends

We have several Flat Friends around our house - Flat Monkey is McKenzie's favorite. She has recently given Flat Hippo to Ben so hopefully he likes hippos. If you missed the earlier entry on my blog about Flat Monkey you can check it out here.

Here's a picture of Ben from last week when he was auditioning to be McKenzie's favorite Flat Friend. Unfortunately for Ben, upon further examination it turned out he wasn't so flat after all so he just wins favorite brother status and Flat Monkey keeps his title as favorite Flat Friend.

Happy Birthday Dada!

Any day is a happy one when McKenzie gets to eat chocolates and ice cream with her Dada. Last Monday was Matt's 32nd birthday... where do the years go? Scary that before we know it we'll be celebrating the big 4-0 with all our friends. I'm not even going to think about it for another 8 years. We had big plans for a fun party for Matt's birthday complete with cake and party hats. But our day was side tracked when McKenzie toppled over the edge of her booster seat at lunch and whacked her forehead on the hardwood resulting in a call to 911 because her head developed a huge lump on it that looked pretty serious. Turned out to be nothing more than a ugly head wound but we now know the response time of our friendly neighborhood firemen. We had made it to the mall to pick up some Godiva chocolate for Matt. So when Matt came home early to make sure things were okay McKenzie was happy to spend the afternoon sitting on Matt's lap looking at things on the Internet and eating chocolates. She definitely didn't get that love of chocolate from her mom.

Here's Matt and McKenzie enjoying some birthday ice cream. Matt decided we only needed one bowl for everyone. That's probably the last time he'll do that. McKenzie was spooning it frantically into her open mouth in a manner that may have resulted in some drips back into the bowl.



Here's Ben enjoying a snooze with his Daddy, what a great thing to do. Keeps them both occupied and out of my hair : )