To you and your family.....MERRY CHRISTMAS

Wishing each and everyone of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love, Misti, Mike, Zachary and Benjamin

5 months (a little late) and our Student of the Week

Since I forgot to post a 5 month post (Dec. 15th). I am posting photo collages (below). I made these for family holiday calendars. Each collage represents July (my mom, dad, and Mike's parents).

It's official. Ben's first tooth is through. It's so cute! You can't see it when he smiles but when you look in his mouth you can see the tooth. He's got 3 more that look like they will be coming anytime now. He's rolling all over the place, sitting up (when we sit him up) and even attempting to crawl! Today I had him on the floor for playtime and went to the kitchen to grab something to drink. When I came back in he was in a different spot and was in the crawling position. He just giggled at me.

His sleeping routine is MUCH MUCH better than it was the first 4 months. He falls asleep between 7:30-9:30 each night and will sleep until 5:30. There are times when he gets up about 3:30 but I've learned just to give him his binkie back and to leave him be and he'll go right back to sleep. I think his oatmeal and baby food at dinner is helping his belly feel full and letting him sleep longer. He eats 4 tablespoons of the bananna flavored cereal in the mornings for breakfast and then for dinner he gets a vegetable and cereal mixture. I don't measure it out, just mix enough to go along with the jar of food. So far the only food we've had problems with is sweet peas. His cheeks got rosey red and broke out after we tried them. I'll go back to them in a few weeks I think - just to try it again.

I cleaned out his dresser today and officially got rid of all of the 3-6 month outfits. I should have done it weeks ago, but I wanted to hold on to the baby for a little bit longer. I can't believe how fast the last 5 months have gone. I don't remember Zachary's first year going by so fast.

Zachary is still a great big brother. Last night when he was at my dad and Bev's house spending the night he found a binkie of Ben's in his overnight bag. It was after 9 and he called us to tell us he found it and was worried that Benny wouldn't have his binky when he woke up. How sweet! Today we finally put together our new high chair (shower gift from my grandma milligan). When it was finished Zachary in the cutest baby voice said "Benny you must be so excited, you get to sit in your new chair." It was cute and he was more excited to see him in it than we were.

Last week Zachary was Student of the week for his kindergarten class. Each day he was recognized for something he enjoys and got to tell the class about himself. Mike and I were invited to go to lunch with him and his class on Friday. We got to eat yummy (NO!) cafeteria lunch. On Thursday night Zachary and I made rice crispy treats and used icing to decorate each one of them. We bagged them up and he passed them out to his class for a treat on Friday.

We still have 3 people to shop for - I know it's 4 days until Christmas! I'm lazy. Most of our wrapping is done, still have a lot more to do. I'm proud of Zachary because he hasn't messed with some of his wrapped presents under the tree. We have presents from Mommy & Daddy under the tree now. Tonight he shut his bedroom door and wrapped one of Mike's hats and gave it to him as a gift. LOL And then he decided to go ahead and wrap my gift from him and Benny and put it under the tree.

Today has been a special day for Zachary (and Ben). This morning I stayed home with Ben while Mike picked Zachary up from Dad & Bev's house. They went to breakfast, shopping and then stopped by Mike's work. I stayed home and did a little bit around the house. When they got home we all pitched in and organized the house so it's not a wreck come Christmas. I still have the kitchen to do, but I hate cleaning the kitchen! When we were cleaning I found a flyer to see Pinocchio at our local Arts theater. So I decided to take Zachary and make it a Zachary and Mommy date night. The play was amazing and Zachary loved it. He sat completely still for 45 minutes watching the play and interacting with the cast when asked to. He asked me if he could join a children's acting group. I'm going to look into it, I think he'd do great. I was very proud of him for being so well behaved. We are going to go to more plays together since he had such a great time. When we were done we went to dinner at Wendy's and then went to McHappy's so he could pick out some donuts for his breakfast tomorrow and finally we headed home. Both of the boys got to spend alone time with Mommy and Daddy today. I think we all enjoyed it.

In the beginning of this novel I promisd pictures of Ben. Here are some from the time he was born to about 3 weeks ago. Our little man is growing up so fast!

I am going to try to check back in before Christmas, I have some pictures I want to post. But if I don't.....MERRY CHRISTMAS!

What is that I feel....well it's a tooth!

Yep, you read it right! Ben is cutting his first tooth! It has broken his gum line and we can feel it. He has been rather fussy lately and his gums have felt swollen so we've been expecting it. He has one more on the bottom that looks like it will pop through any minute and the two teeth on the top are very visible and we expect them to come through soon. I remember Zachary cut 4 teeth at once between around 5 months old.

Last night the boys spent the night with my dad and step-mom. Our first night since Ben was born out of the house. We went and did some Christmas shopping and then we went to Applebee's and I ordered a drink with my meal (yeah!). When we were done eating we went to the Maplewood for about 1/2 hr (oh yeah we sure know how to party!) to have a drink with my friend Ann. She was there celebrating her friend's birthday.

When we picked the boys up this morning Ben didn't even seem to have missed us. He was in the best spirits. He fell asleep around 9:30 last night and woke up around 6:30 this morning. Just about the same bedtime as he has at home. Zachary didn't really like that his little brother was intruding on his Friday night. We promised him it was NOT going to be a weekly occurance. Maybe once every few months until Ben gets older. I know I was very glad to have the night off.

Zachary and Mike went shopping today. He took Zachary to the local dollar store so he could pick out some gifts for grandparents (and his great-grandparents). I know you're thinking it's the dollar store....but Mike wanted Zachary to be able to go through the store and pick out whatever he wanted to buy. The gifts are from the heart.

I am so behind on making calendars that I usually make for our parents and grandparents. This year I don't have the software I've used in the past so I am making them from scratch. It's a lot more labor intensive but they are looking great. I have one almost done and put over 6 hours into it so far, picking pictures, croping pictures, making the collages, layout, design and then creating the calendar. I have 4 more to do. Hopefully since I've already done one the rest will go faster.

Ben's first Christmas Tree

**The following pictures were taken with my cell phone, not the best quality. Our camera's batteries died before we could get some pictures of the boy. I'll post more when they are dressed up.

Zachary and Ben posing in front of the tree after we decorated it.

Boys posing for Mommy!

Yummy, sweet potatoes were introduced tonight!

Ben's first Christmas! He is wearing his Elmo outfit my parents bought him. I wanted to see how well it fit him and decided to pose him in front of the tree. I love his smile in this picture.

We're FINALLY starting our Christmas shopping tomorrow. We are headed to Lancaster with Mike's parents and sister and her family to do some shoppping. Our family pictures are rescheduled for Sunday, so I should have them back in about a week and and a half, JUST in time for the holidays.

Sorry not much to post about tonight, I'm tired and need to be getting to bed. Happy Weekend!

"It has more than 12 million members, most of them inthe South, although it has churches in 50 states."

The Bible of The Newspaper Industry
The Associated Press Style Book

If you read this then you must......
Pick up the book closest to you
Turn to page 27
Find the 9th sentence
Post the sentence as a title in a new post
Write the title of the book in the body of your post then
copy the information in this post into the body of your post.

Game time.....

Pears, Bananas and Squash

I thought it was time to introduce a veggie to Ben's diet instead of all fruits. Last night he enjoyed a bowl of yummy oatmeal (Thanks Angie, he LOVES oatmeal!) and a side of squash. After he had 2 table spoons of oatmeal and a about 1.5 ounces of squash he screamed for more. So I made 2 more table spoons of oatmeal and gave him the rest of the squash. The little man can eat! I don't have any pictures of him eating to post, I know I'm a slacker. I'll try to download pictures and post some this weekend.

We promised Zachary we would put up our tree and decorate our house on Friday night. I am going to do a little bit of shopping for some new decorations when I get off work tonight. We want to get one more blow up decoration for outside. We already have Santa so a reindeer or a snowman would be great. I am not sure what happened to our outdoor lights, we didn't put them up last year and now we can't find them. So I might have to go purchase all new lights. I like the look of the clear icicle lights. I also want to get a few wreaths to put on the windows. For the inside I am going to pick up a stocking tree since we don't have a mantel to display our stockings. There are a few other things I want to get as well.


Well, I actually have some work to do today, it's shocking I know. Better get started.