Ben's first Colorado road trip to see his new baby cousin!

So we figured adding a one year old baby to the mix of an already long car ride would make WAY more difficult.  But I'm here to tell you, this was probably the best car ride to Colorado since we've had kids!  Nate and Lilly were pretty easy as long as they could watch their kindles and eat snacks constantly (road trip, no rules on snacks, don't care).  Ben watched  his Baby Einstein DVD, had an equally large amount of snacks, and he did great!

I have a feeling our much bigger car now was a HUGE part of our success!  In this picture I had hopped back to the middle seat next to Ben (Nate and Lilly were in the way back).   

Eating puffs!

Couldn't wait to hold baby Payton after we got there! She was only one month old!  Tiny little thing :)

The kids had a blast at the splash park with their cousins!  It was HOT HOT HOT!

Nate, Lilly and Emily rolling down the hill in Grandma and Grandpa's front yard

Ben trying to get some time with Payton and Aunt Tiffany

Rockies game!  This was actually the kids' first Major League baseball game.  Nate and Lilly did good, thanks to some huge snow cones.  Ben, not so much.  What a wiggly worm!!

Lilly's turn!

Papa!

Uncle Danny and Ben

MeeMa and Payton!

Meema figured out a good way to get Ben to warm up to her.  The trike!!

Cousin time!!

Aunt Kelly and Uncle Tom!

Brian holding his newest niece

Cousins playing in the sprinkler- they had so much fun!

Nate and Matt

All the cousins together.. from 1 month to 10 years old!  

Ben got an early birthday party surprise one one of our last nights there!  He got lots of presents and even got to try his own very first birthday cake!  (I think he liked it)

Yummm

Family time!  Brian's Mom and her sister Denise.  Brian's aunt and uncle came all the way from Iowa- It was so great to see them!!!

The birthday party was a "Minion" theme so they got all the cousins and Uncle Brian (whose birthday was also being celebrated!) minion shirts!  This is everybody in their cute shirts!!

Everybody was tuckered out on our long drive home.  A sign of a wonderful vacation! :)

Mr. Ben playing with all his new birthday toys after we got home.

What a lucky boy!  

Another good trip in the books, with lots of sweet family and play time with cousins.  Can't wait til next time! 

Getting teeth pulled!

Trying to be a better blogger to keep everyone up to date, since I haven't been on Facebook at all lately :). 

Nate's adult teeth have been growing in on the bottom but his baby teeth just weren't budging, so we finally had to get them pulled at the dentist yesterday.  

Here is a before picture.. Weird, huh?

They let me sit right here, just outside the room.  He did so awesome, not one single tear !  He told me he was a little nervous, but he didn't act nervous at all.  Big boy!!

Giving him some "silly gas"

A little groggy and lips still numb..

He did have some pain once we got home and numbness wore off.  Dentist said that would happen because she had to dig deep to get the roots out :(

Big holes!!

Holding his teeth.. Check these roots out!!! These teeth weren't going anywhere!!  The one on the right was long too, but broke off (that's the one she had to dig out).  Ouch!

He was excited about the tooth fairy, she brought him five whole dollars for his first two teeth!!

Behavior Chart (Testing app on my phone)

Testing this blogger app, trying to do this from my phone..

Behold, our version of a "behavior chart".  At the very least, we'll get some laughs out of it.  We already have gotten a few :)

Ben is 11 months!

Oh boy, he sure is getting big, and SO FAST!  We've had a very busy summer so far, and Ben is doing great running around and keeping up with Nate and Lilly.  He walks holding on to things and actually has even started trying to take a step or two on his own!  Still stumbling a lot and mostly crawling to get across the room, though.  He just wants to go, go, go.  If he's fussy, we can usually take him to a different room and let him play and that change of scenery seems to do the trick most of the time!  I tried to baby-proof the play room (i.e. throw all barbie shoes and super hero swords away), so I don't have a heart attack every time he crawls over there, but we still have to keep an eye on him because his favorite thing to do in there is try to knock the TV over or pull it off the stand.  I cut even more hair off this month, it grows so fast just like his big brother!  He's got a major case of stranger danger and when any adults that aren't mommy or daddy get in his face, he very well may start screaming and crying!  He loves to play peek-a-boo and so far loves the water, and going to the pool with brother and sister.  He also loves to move the kitchen chairs back and forth on the tile, making a really loud noise which he seems to think is funny (I do not)!  I finally took these two large brown square decorative tins off the wall in the living room, because for some reason they were upsetting Ben terribly!   He'd crawl over there and touch them, trying to lift them off the wall, then scream and cry.  I had to go as far as to put them under my bed because he got upset every time he saw them!!  So funny.  Who knows.  

This is my friend, April's little boy, who is 5 months old here.  Ben loves him and tries to reach out to touch him when he can.  So sweet, they are gonna be good buddies!

Handsome haircut by Mom

Caught him sleeping like a pretzel.

In his big boy car seat for a month or so now..

                                       Some 11 month pictures.  Oh, how I love this boy so!!

July 4th FUN!

We had a great July 4th this year!  On July 3rd, the kids, Brian, my mom and I went to watch fireworks out at Big League Dreams stadium down the street from our house.  We sat next to some friends, so the kids had their friends to play with too!  We were way too close to the fireworks for Ben's comfort, and he was traumatized pretty good.  I was holding him but he screamed pretty much through the whole thing.  I don't blame him, it was really dang loud!!  Overall he did good for his first fireworks.  Then on July 4th, my sister and her kids came up from Waco and the kids had fun swimming and playing back at the house.  We grilled burgers and hot dogs and then managed to find a spot a few blocks away where we could sit and (kind of) see the fireworks over the lake.  Either way, we had fun!  

 Pictures from July 3rd.. 

Ice slide!  There was a small one, which Nate and Lilly both went down, and then there was a really tall one that Nate slid down too!  He was very brave!

We got crafty and made some flag shirts with hand prints, but Miss Lilly had to wear her dress that MeMaw and Papa got her for her birthday!

Ben was bear crawling to avoid the AstroTurf!

I don't think he really cared for his first taste of cherry snow cone Daddy gave him!

Sitting with their sweet friends enjoying snow cones!

Love Grandma!!!

ok, I had to post this funny, because this is what I wanted to make...

and this is what I ended up with!!  Whatever, close enough.  And it still got eaten, for the most part!  HA

Sweet cousin Avery taught Lilly how to make these loom bracelets, she can NOT get enough of them now!

Our attempt to see the lake fireworks from the street with the other chumps!  They were SO TIRED from swimming all day!

Lilly lost her first tooth!

It's been wiggly for quite a while, but she finally let me pull out her first tooth two days before her 6th birthday!  It was the bottom left, and the one next to it will be out shortly!

So here is a picture right after I pulled her tooth out.  She was a little nervous, but didn't cry at all and was actually super excited and laughing as soon as it came out.  She put it under her pillow and got three whole dollars!  I have it on good authority that the first tooth gets more money than the rest, so I told her not get her hopes up on the rest of them :).

Here's to the beginning of weird smiles full of gummy holes!!!