Christmas with the Luckens

On the 26th, we headed up to Minnesota (through at least 9 hours of dense fog - I swear I had checked the weather and it did not indicate fog!) so that we could celebrate Christmas (late) with my family. It was nice to see everyone and spend time together.

I hate to see Benjamin cry, but I love this picture because it captured his 'very upset face' perfectly. Notice how his Mom and Dad seem way more interested in his gift than he is!

Christmas dinner - one end of the table!

Christmas dinner - the other end!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful time hosting Christmas at our place this year. Steve's family (his Mom, sister Shelley, sister Amie and her family - Doug, Colin and Lexi) joined us for today and then stayed through to the next day. Benjamin got some wonderful presents and it was fun to see him immediately interact with the toys. He loves to touch and pound on things and of course put everything in his mouth!

Christmas Morning

Benjamin with lots of presents (though, not all his - many are for his cousins)

Gift opening time!

Grandma Zusman, Auntie Shelley, and Auntie Amie with Benjamin on the day after Christmas.

Happy Christmas Eve!

We had a pretty quiet day today, but Benjamin kept himself quite busy today by continually flipping over from his back to his tummy. It actually started last night, when he was trying to go to bed. His new trick kept him awake, though! Finally he went to bed for 7 hours (not bad!) and he woke us up this morning by crying out on account of him flipping over!

After Benjamin went to bed, we watched the Notre Dame vs. Hawaii bowl game and it was great to see some of the sights we had seen on our honeymoon and it was even better to see Notre Dame win big. Then Shelley got into town and came over with Vicki and hung out for a couple of hours.

Here are some pictures of Benjamin after he had flipped himself in his crib:

Peeking out through his crib.

Examining the side of his crib, with his tongue sticking out and curled up (a new trick Daddy taught him).

He's such a big boy!

Sticking his hand through the side of the crib. He sometimes got his foot stuck, which would not make him happy.

Video of him performing his new achievement:

Rice Cereal - Yummy!

Today we decided to try giving Benjamin rice cereal mixed with some of his milk. The first couple of bites, he scrunched up his face a little at the texture, but then he most happily ate every last drop of the mixture! He kept grabbing the spoon, the bowl, and eagerly awaited every bite with excited noises. Perhaps this will help him sleep through the night more (though last night he slept for eight hours in a row! I got 6 1/2 hours of sleep in a row - the last time I got that much sleep in a row was on November 13th (yes, I have been keeping track!)). However, we are not sure we want to begin the process of giving him solids before we really need to do so. It sure was fun today, though! I have included lots of pictures from his feeding, as it was too hard to pick only a couple! They were all so cute.

I like how he has his hand on Daddy's arm.

Finally, everyone is okay but we had a minor incident where we needed to call the fire department out to our townhouse. Our carbon monoxide detector's alarm was going off at around 7:30 pm this evening and we realized we weren't sure what we should do. We opened the windows (burr!! at least it wasn't last night when it was -26 windchill) and Steve decided to call the fire department. They came out with their truck and checked out our place and told us that they couldn't detect anything in any of our rooms or in our blood (they tested Steve's oxygen and carbon monoxide levels). They also reset our detector. Benjamin was very surprised to see so many firemen (around 4 or 5) in our usually quiet home and watched them as they walked by. When he started crying, one of them tried talking to him so that he wouldn't be so upset. They were all very nice - I'm so glad Steve called so that we could know that we hadn't been exposed.

Snuggling up with Daddy waiting for the firemen to come.

Videos of Steve and I taking turns feeding Benjamin:

Excited for Christmas!

We were excited for Christmas today, so we took some pictures and video of Benjamin next to some of our decorations. Doesn't Benjamin look so cute standing next to Santa? In the video below, you can see that he loves the little mini-Christmas tree that we have set up. In fact, soon after the video was taken Benjamin pulled the tree over because he was holding on to it so tight.

Weekend at Grandpa Zusman and Grandma Jane's

This past weekend we traveled to Grandpa Zusman and Grandma Jane's house in Mishawaka, Indiana to celebrate Christmas with them. Steve's sister Amie and her family were there as well as Steve's sister Shelley and some of Jane's children. In the picture above is Benjamin getting a glimpse of their lovely Christmas tree. He had a great time looking at all the lights and ornaments.

Grandpa Zusman also prepared for fun a Hanukkah celebration so that Benjamin and his cousins (Colin and Lexi) could experience other religions.



After we opened our Hanukkah presents (Benjamin got an adorable frog rattle and a baseball rattle that Steve loved!), we opened our Christmas presents. Benjamin got many wonderful things from Grandpa Zusman and Grandma Jane, including a very nice umbrella stroller that we really needed. Thank you again for the wonderful presents!

Grabbing his presents.

Grandpa Zusman, Grandma Jane, Shelley
Steve, Benjamin and I, Amie, Doug, Lexi and Colin

The three generations of Zusman

Colin happily accepting Benjamin holding his hand - what a sweetie!

With Grandpa Zusman and Grandma Jane

Trying his hand at Wii.

In this video, Benjamin is opening his second Christmas gift (the video of his first one was a little hard to hear what was going on).

Playing with Penguin

We haven't played with penguin too often lately (he's been resting behind the rocking chair), so when Benjamin noticed and grabbed for penguin's tufts of hair while we were sitting in the rocking chair, I pulled him out for Benjamin.

Wondering why there is a giant penguin on his head.

Obviously having a great time with penguin.

Trying a new position.

Flexible Boy

Benjamin has become so helpful while getting his diaper changed! As you can tell from this picture, he is currently in the process of being changed. While I was changing him, however, he started grabbing his toes and pulling them toward his mouth to lick them. You can see the video of this below.

Recent Activities:
-He rolled over from his back to his tummy in his pack'n'play!
-He just loves to stare at Daddy and smiles every time Daddy looks at him.
-He also seems to love to watch us (especially Daddy) eat food and say 'num, num, num'. Perhaps it is time for rice cereal? I bought the supplies, and we might try on Monday (we are both swamped with lots of finals this week).
-He also laughs when I kiss his hands (I think I mentioned before that he laughs while being tickled under his arms and when I raspberry his tummy).
-As for his sleeping through the night (or lack thereof), we suspect that he might be hungry and needing more food during the day. So we are going to try that!
-I love how, when he wakes up in the middle of the night to be fed, he is so sleepy after being fed that he just slumps over asleep while I am trying to burp him.

Bath Time

We've started having bath time in the bathroom tonight - a novel idea, I know, but before it was nice to have more space by having his little tub in his room. This meant we could have more water in his tub and that meant more splashing around. Benjamin got quite into it, as you can see from the video below. Even a few splashes that landed in his eyes didn't really seem to faze him. He just kept splashing throughout the whole time.


Post bath fun:

Checking out his toes.

Chewing on the bath towel.

Benjamin splish-splashing during his bath:

Rolling Over - Now From Back to Tummy!!

In the picture above that was taken yesterday, you can see that Benjamin was very close to getting from his back to his tummy. Well, today he reached that milestone! I was working on a gift for my Secret Santa (we do this every year at work) in the office this evening and I had Benjamin playing in his jungle gym behind me. I checked on him once and saw that he was on his side and then when I looked back again a couple of minutes later, he was on his tummy! It was funny, too, because he seemed so content on his tummy. What a difference a few months make for tolerating tummy time! He kept playing on his tummy, reaching out for his jungle animals, for awhile longer. Later, he proved that this was not a fluke by doing it again while we were hanging out in the hallway (we were going through some things to prepare for the holidays).

My view of Benjamin from the computer, after he flipped!

Another picture of the amazing boy, who looks very proud of his accomplishment.

Finally, a video we took a couple days ago of Benjamin flipping from his tummy to his back. In case you can't tell (as people often confuse our voices on the phone), it is my Mom taking the video and speaking throughout most of it.

Surfer

We have been increasing Benjamin's tummy time the last few days, and it seems to be paying off! He continues to roll over onto his back from his tummy, he can rotate 180 degrees, and he seems to show early signs of wanting to crawl! In this picture above, he is holding his hands out in a pose we like to call the 'surfing pose'. He is our little surfer boy on his invisible surfer board.


Another new trick:

Throwing himself back while we are holding him. He does this all the time now - he is so trusting!

5 Months Old

Benjamin is now 5 months old! It is so fun to watch him grow and develop his personality. Here are some of the things he does now:

-giggles a lot when we tickle under his arms and blow on his belly
-likes to turn onto his side
-loves to smile at Daddy
-starting to sit up a little on his own for short periods of time
-still very interested in his toes, pulling on his socks
-when he is happy and on his back (not when upright, for some reason), he likes to make this guttural and raspy 'khey' sound - this often happens when he is awake in his crib in the morning and I have come in to say good morning
-rotates himself in the crib, usually about 90 degrees
-seems to recognize his bottle and gets excited for it - he gets around 4 to 5 ounces
-rolls over! only tummy to back now
-has not been sleeping through the night, though last night was much better with 4 or 5 hour intervals
-cries sometimes when I leave the room
-likes to throw himself back while you are holding him
-reaches out to grab things
-can be on his tummy for twenty minutes or so at a time

With a little help (i.e. my hand under the white cloth), he can sit up quite nicely.

With some of our Christmas decorations. He immediately went for Santa's beard and the tree.

Santa's beard is so soft.

We said goodbye to Grandma Lucken yesterday, which was very sad! We very much enjoyed her company.

Doing some tummy time with Grandma Zusman today.

Christmas A Little Early

Today we took Benjamin in to take holiday portraits as well as his 5 month pictures (that is tomorrow already - wow!). He was absolutely adorable - while the baby next door was crying during her photo shoot, Benjamin had tons of smiles and was happy the whole time. I have included the holiday pictures in this post and then will post the 5 month pictures in the 5 month blog entry tomorrow.

Here is the picture of Benjamin with Santa. I must say, I was expecting an older Santa instead of a fellow employee at Sears in a Santa suit. So though it is cute that we have a picture of Ben with Santa, we might look for a more authentic Santa next year. The one at our mall was dubbed 'Bad Santa' by one of the moms in my moms group, so we weren't too excited about him either, though at least he looked more the part (albeit, a more hillbilly Santa with bad teeth).

I also added a couple of cute pictures taken yesterday, including one where he looks very surprised.