I intended to add our pictures from Easter onto flickr, but somehow only two pictures from Sunday got on here. Argh. I hope to have the Easter pics up very soon.

Benjamin is going to be 10 months on Thursday, which is really nuts. He's getting SO big and is crawling all over the place. He now knows to crawl from room to room, which he really enjoys. He laughs the whole way. It is so cute.

Mike babysat our friend, Lora's two daughters on Sunday while she and I went to rehearsal. He took the three kids to the park and took a couple of pictures, which are now on flickr. We are enjoying the nice weather as much as we can!!!

Benjamin visited the Easter Bunny this weekend, which turned out to be more eventful than expected. We drove up to the Cities to go to AJ's 1st birthday party. AJ had a bad cold which was made worse by his asthma, so Joe took him to urgent care. They ended up calling an ambulance to take him to Children's Hospital because his breathing wasn't improving. They diagnosed him with pneumonia at the hospital and he ended up staying two nights. He is doing much better now though. Poor little guy missed out on almost his whole party. He did get some awesome gifts though, which he can enjoy when he feels better.

We stayed in the cities so that we could visit AJ in the hospital and we heard about a Breakfast with the Easter Bunny while we were up there. We took Benjamin and he had a blast (as you can see in the photos). The rest of our photos from the weekend are on our flickr site.

We hope everyone has a great Easter Holiday!!

Everybody watch out...

Benjamin has begun to crawl. And he's coming to get YOU!

On Monday night, which just happens to be his 9 month birthday, he discovered how fun it is to stick your hand in the little door on the VCR in our living room. He beelined right for it. He had been close for a while, but we could never get him to move beyond a step (knee) or two. Guess the VCR was enough to do it. Now he is crawling to toys, to Mom and Dad, and to various other non-baby proofed things around the house. He isn't into long distances yet, so Daddy-the-marathoner needs to show him how to do the 26.2!

Speaking of Mike and running, we are headed down to Chicago this weekend because Mike is running the Shamrock Shuffle. It is a huge race, even though it is only an 8k. Hopefully the weather holds out so we can all go to see him run!

Our nephew, AJ, turns one in just over a week! It is truly unbelievable! And our good friends' daughter, Sidney, is going to be three soon! These kids grow up toooo fast!! Unreal.

I have some pictures of Benjamin from various miscellaneous days on the camera that I have yet to upload, so I hope to do that tonight. I will post them on flickr asap!

We had some spring weather this weekend on Saturday, it was over 50 degrees! So Benjamin went for a ride in his Radio Flyer wagon and he loved it! Whenever we would stop pulling him, he would rock in the wagon to get it to move again! What a hoot. Grandma and Grandpa Andrews came up to Rochester for a visit and to babysit Benjamin while Mommy and Daddy went out for a night. On Monday, a blizzard hit and we were left with 6-8 inches of snow and very cold temperatures...no more wagon riding for now! We are actually expecting another snow storm tonight and another 6-8 inches is possible. Argh.

Benjamin finally rolled over somewhere other than his crib this weekend. Grandpa even captured it on film! He also has recently begun to learn what it means when I say "Benjamin, No-No." It is so funny. He cries immediately when I say it to him. He doesn't, however, seem to mind when Daddy says it. Looks like I'm already the bad cop, haha.

I started my new job last week and am absolutely LOVING it! I am working on some facinating projects and really like my Monday and Friday off-days. I get to be home with the baby AND spend time working at something I like, which is the best.

Benjamin has officially mastered pulling himself up on things to stand. He was a determined little guy and tried and tried and finally got it down perfectly last night! He's getting so big! He is soo close to crawling too, he has been moving backwards for a long time, but now is rocking forward. He never sits still, he is always trying to be on the go. It won't be long before the gates and cabinet locks go up! We really can't wait!

He missed his first Oscars Party this weekend because he decided to sleep 12.5 hours and went to bed at 6:00pm before everyone arrived. The party was a success, even if he wasn't present. This year was our sixth party (minus the one we missed when we lived in England). They are so fun! Thanks to everyone who made it!!

We are back from Florida! We had a great time!! Benjamin got to spend some quality time with Great Grandma, Great Uncle Mark and Great Aunt Debbie. We took Benjamin to the beach for the first time and let him play with (and eat, haha) the sand. Grandma was able to show him off to all the ladies of her condo complex, Kalmia. He's certainly a lady killer with his curly hair and blue eyes. They all fell in love. We also took a trip to Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo with Uncle Mark and Aunt Debbie. Benjamin saw all sorts of fun animals, including a baby elephant that was born in October. Mike and I enjoyed countless tasty seafood meals, including a famous grouper sandwich on multiple occasions! The warm weather lifted our spirits, but it was hard to come back home and throw on our winter coats once again. Here is a picture of Benjamin and Great Grandma playing in the sand! :-)

We just got Benjamin's pictures taken at Sears this week. Here is one of them:

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!