Benjamin is now rolling over. He's a bit behind on this milestone, but we'll forgive him! We found out that he was capable of this maneuver when we began finding him on his back after putting him to bed on his tummy. One morning I went in and turned him back onto his tummy and he flipped right over onto his back again! Hooray!

We are getting mentally ready for our much needed vacation later this month! The cold weather, stressful jobs, etc are making us look forward to sunny Florida!!

Mike, Andy, Benjamin and Bert went to Twins Fest this past weekend. Benjamin was able to meet lots of past and present Twins players and even had his picture taken with "TC" the mascot. Andy bought Ben a Twins kids book and had the famous Rod Carew sign a page in it. No doubt this will be a treasured item as Ben gets older!

I have some good news to share! I was offered a new job at Mayo. It is a part-time job as an Education Specialist in Women's Health. I will be working 2.5 days a week so I will be able to spend more time with Benjamin. I am not sure when the actual start date will be, but it will most likely be around March 1st. We are traveling to Florida to visit Benjamin's Great Grandma on February 22nd. It will be a wonderful vacation before I start on a new adventure! Thanks to everyone for their prayers and support as I waited to hear something about the job!!

I have posted new photos from our second Christmas (okay, Mom??) and from Benjamin's weekend with the ladies. Everyone is doing well here. We are glad to have Mike back from Vegas!!

It is Wednesday in my week of single mom-dom. Things have gone smoothly thus far and I don't think that Benjamin has even suffered toooo much! We both miss Daddy very much and can't wait for him to come home on Saturday! Mike seems to be having a good, but very busy time in Las Vegas where he is working at IBM's Software University.

I had class last night, so Grandma Schmitt got to spend lots of time with Benjamin! I think they both had fun!! Grandma Andrews, Aunt Mary, and Erin are coming on Friday because I have class all day on Saturday. We can't wait! Benjamin is going to need some time with some men soon, he's getting too much estrogen!! Haha.

Happy New Year everyone!

2006 is here and I can't believe it. 2005 was an interesting year. I know it was very good for some of you and some of you are really looking forward to leaving it behind. In any event, I hope 2006 brings wonderful things to all!

Grandma and Grandpa Andrews have come and gone and they left behind a huge pile of gifts for Benjamin!! His toy collection quadrupled in one day, haha. He is having so much fun playing with everything (and I must admit, so are we!). It was hard for all three of us to go back to the daily grind, but so far we have made it through the majority of the first week back unscathed. We are very much looking forward to the weekend though! Benjamin has his sixth month shots on Friday, which were delayed because he had a fever last week. I'm sure he is really looking forward to them! Haha. We finally figured out that we need to schedule his appointments late in the day so that he has less time to be cranky after shots. We are learning as we go, I guess.

Last month Benjamin had his picture taken by a photographer at daycare. We didn't expect much from the pictures, but they actually turned out quite good. We didn't buy any, but I scanned them at a very high quality so we could print them ourselves...sssshhh, don't tell! Here's a taste...

It was a very Merry Christmas at the Schmitt House this year. We celebrated on Christmas Eve by attending church and listening to Jessica do the service readings. We then came home and had a delectable meal and finished it off by leaving cookies out for Santa. Benjamin also received a special gift from Jessica. She presented him with her childhood book " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas". We read it to Benjamin just before bed so he had visions of sugar-plums dancing in his head.

On Christmas morning we arose to find a tree stuffed full of packages for the three of us...boy we must have been good! Benjamin's big gift was an authentic red metal Radio Flyer wagon. We already see him flying down the street going mach 10.

Christmas day was spent with Grandma and Grandpa Schmitt and Benjamin's aunts/uncles/cousin. We opened even more presents and lazed the day away. That evening we ate another delectable meal of Polish cuisine.

We still have one more celebration this weekend with Grandpa and Grandpa Andrews here in Rochester. We cannot wait to see them!

Have a Happy New Year

Just wanted to wish all of our regular blog visitors a very Merry Christmas! The big day is only two or so days away and we are sooo excited! Benjamin doesn't seem to know what is going on, but it doesn't matter to us! He is WAAAAY into his Baby's First Christmas stocking though (thanks, Aunt Arlene!). He stares at it all of the time and wants to touch it whenever he gets close enough. His big thing right now is reaching and grabbing. He wants to grab everything in sight! A couple of days ago I was holding him when I was getting something out of the refrigerator and he tried to reach in and grab some condiments. He is teething like crazy now, but as my friend Lora (a Mom of 5 and 3 year olds) said, "Do they EVER stop teething?" I haven't stuck my finger in his mouth yet to check for any new teeth, haha.

Benjamin is also sitting up by himself now and is doing very well at it. We don't even need to put the boppy around him anymore because he hardly ever falls over now. He is growing SO fast! Just think...my orignial due date was 6 months ago today. How life changes....

We celebrated our dear (and old) friend Laura's 30th birthday last weekend! Benjamin was quite the party animal...here is a photo:

Well, thanks to Grandpa Schmitt, we made a very interesting discovery this weekend!!

Benjamin has his first tooth already!!!

We had no idea until Bert was bit by Benjamin this weekend! Haha. I'm not sure if it is because we now know that he actually is teething, but Benjamin seems crankier at night now. He slept pretty well last night, but he wakes up almost screaming in what sounds like pain sometimes. We think there is another little tooth poking its way through! Looks like we aren't going to get by with another surprise tooth, haha.

Teething Bites.

Benjamin enjoyed his first "real food" this weekend! We have started to feed him one bowl of cereal per day for the next couple of days and then will bump him up to two. He is just getting so big and active that the bottles weren't cutting it for him! He took to it like a pro and gobbled up every bowl full so far! We had a lazy weekend here: decorated the tree, went to Rochester's Kris Kringle day, watched the Bears beat the Packers, and hung out with some friends. All in all, a great weekend! I have posted lots of new pictures at flickr...so check them out!

We just got home from a very very busy week!

Last weekend (11/19), we traveled up to the twin cities for my birthday where we spent some time visiting Grandma and Grandpa Schmitt and Benjamin's aunt, uncles and cousin. Mike and I had the whole week off of work for the holiday so we got to spend a little time at home before heading off to Illinois. On Wednesday, we drove down to Grandma and Grandpa Andrews's house where we stayed until Sunday. We celebrated Thanksgiving with them, visited with two Santas and went to the Chicago Marshall Fields where we ate in the famous Walnut Room. We also visited my Aunt Cookie and Uncle Scott, my friend Tracy (from high school) whom I had not seen in about 8 years, and the Coopers and Murphys. We also squeezed in a quick visit with my Great Aunt Mollie at her nursing home. Unfortunately, Benjamin was sick the whole week with a nasty cold, but he seems to be recovering finally. We had a great time visiting with everyone! I have posted a few pictures on our photo website and will be adding more tonight. Benjamin is really anxious to get the Christmas tree and decorations up, so we are planning to do that tonight, too!

We are on the mend! Finally.

As many of you know, Benjamin has had some serious skin issues with his eczema the last couple of weeks and because of it, hasn't been sleeping very well at night. Mike and I were at the point of desperation yesterday when we went for our sixth doctor appointment related to his skin. The doctor gave us a plan of action to not only fix his skin but to get him to sleep through the night once again. Well, we started our regimen last night and we already saw an improvement. Benjamin only woke up 3 times last night!! I think I see a light at the end of this tunnel.....

Other than a serious lack of sleep lately, we are all doing great! During the day Benjamin is smiley and laughs all of the time. He is really doing well on his tummy and can actually sit by himself for a short period of time. Mike put his highchair together this weekend so we could start to eat at the dining room table again like human beings! This way, Benjamin can sit up high with us and enjoy our company! We won't be using the chair for solid foods for a while, but he enjoys playing with all of its toys and musical features!

It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just over one week away. We are really looking forward to our visit to Illinois and can't wait to dig into that turkey and stuffing!!

Last weekend we drove up to the Twin Cities to visit Benjamin's Uncle Joe, Aunt Jen, and Cousin AJ. We started a new annual tradition of going to the Marshall Fields Auditorium in Minneapolis to see the Christmas display and Santa. It will be annual as long as when Fields changes over to Macy's, they don't stop having the event. This year the display is Cinderella and it was very very neat! Ben and AJ sat on Santa's lap for pictures and thankfully we were allowed to snap a few of our own. Our pictures from the weekend are on our new photo site...see the box at the top right column or go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/familieschmitt

Here is a little shot of the cousins that Jen took...they really do look related here! AJ is 7 months old and Benjamin is 4 1/2 months old.

P.S.: I have made a change again to who is allowed to leave comments. Now anyone can leave them, but there will be one of those funky word verifications which I am using to stop automated spammers from leaving us nasty comments.

So, comment away!!!!!!

HOT STUFF!

Benjamin dressed up as a chili pepper for Halloween today! We figured that his costume would be appropriate considering his Daddy's taste for very spicy foods! We are planning on taking him to a trick-or-treat event at the nursing home connected Mayo Clinic and then to a few friends' houses. We couldn't be more excited to celebrate his very first Halloween!

Grandma and Grandpa Schmitt came down for a short (but sweet) visit this weekend! Benjamin had a great time showing off all of his new tricks!!

Here is a picture of the Chili Pepper:

Grandma and Grandpa Andrews visited last weekend. We drove to Kellogg to visit Lark Toys, which is a huge toy store filled with lots of fun things! Grandpa and Benjamin rode the carousel and I think Benjamin really enjoyed it!

Merry Go Round Movie

There are pictures at our new photo site. Then the grandparents made Benjamin get dressed up in a White Sox outfit (since they're in the World Series and all) even though Daddy was not impressed! I think the little guy is going to quickly become confused with what team to cheer for. He has Cubs, Sox, Twins, Bears, and Packers outfits. You better believe that he has NO Vikings outfits though, ICK!



We had Benjamin's first teachers conference at daycare this week. He is doing very well there and is so happy. He smiles and laughs all of the time! He is SOOO close to rolling over from his back to his stomach and is kind of squirming around on his belly a bit. His 4 month doctor's appointment is tomorrow. Hopefully he doesn't hate us for all of those shots!!!

Finally! A new way to store all of our precious photos! We are now going to keep our photos at Flickr. The little box to the right of this post is a neat way to view them. Just click on any little picture in the box and the photo will open in a new window. Our plan is to pay to get a "Pro" account so we can store lots and lots of pictures of Benjamin without running out of room! For now, I have just uploaded a few recent pictures. More photos are to follow....

Benjamin is doing so well at his tummy time, that I had to take a little video of him during it one day after daycare. Here he is in a little movie I put together....

Tummy Time

I also posted some photos on our webshots account from the last weekend at an apple orchard near our house. He loved looking at the animals!

Mike finishes the 2005 Chicago Marathon!! He ran so fast, we are SO proud of him! The day was beautiful and the spectators were full of cheer! Thank you to everyone who was able to come out and see Mike run, he attributes his fast time to all of your help!! Benjamin was very excited to see Daddy run his first race. What a trooper! The little guy saw much of Chicago on Sunday and even rode the "L" for the first time ever! He also made a trip to Sonny Acres Pumpkin Farm with Grandma and Grandpa Andrews. We had a great weekend!

Mike is running the Chicago Marathon this weekend (Sunday). He has been training hard for months and Benjamin is excited to cheer him on! We will hopefully have pictures of the big event soon...

We took Benjamin for his three-month photos last week and they turned out great! I scanned and posted the proofs online at our webshots account. He is very excited now that he has his Halloween costume! I won't spill the beans on what it is, because he wants it to be a surprise...but it is very very cute!