10 1/2 hours!!

We have had a great time with Grandma Lucken here and I have had little time to blog! I have included lots of pictures of everything we have done the last few days. First, though, I need to share the wonderful news that Benjamin slept for 10 1/2 hours on Sunday night!! He went to be at 8 pm and I didn't hear him until 6 am! Even then, he was just sucking on his hand and not fussing too much. It wasn't until 6:30 that I decided to get him. He then slept for 9 hours the next night and then 8 hours last night. He falls asleep so nicely in his crib now, too. Good job Benjamin!

Sunday:

As it was a lovely day, we spent some time on our front porch. Here is Benjamin with Grandma looking cozy in his fleece hoodie.

Later that day, Grandma read to Benjamin some of his new books. Grandma brought a big bag of Clifford books, which keeps him very engaged. We discovered his love for Clifford at the doctor's office thanks to their collection of books.

Monday:

We invited Grandma Zusman to come with us to baby storytime at the public library. There were other babies with their Grandmas, but Benjamin was so lucky to have both of his Grandmas there!

Here is Benjamin lounging in our living room with Grandma Lucken. They spent some quality time smiling and talking to each other. You can see video of this at the bottom of this blog.

The last few days, I have been taking pictures of Benjamin when he cries. I realized that I do want to remember what he looks like when he is unhappy - I want to remember everything!



Tuesday:

Here is Benjamin hanging out on the floor. He had lots of smiles for the camera today.

Another adorable thing that we want to remember about Benjamin is that he likes to hold the back of his head with his left hand while he sucks on his right.

It was beautiful on Tuesday, so we decided to take a walk to the park.

Perhaps Benjamin will enjoy sliding down this hill in the park in the winter one day!

I love how Ben's face is scrunched from Grandma's kisses!

In this picture, Benjamin is letting us know that it is time to head home.

Benjamin and Grandma having a great time!

Grandma Lucken is Here!

Grandma Lucken arrived Thursday evening for a nice, long visit. We are very happy to have her here, especially Benjamin. He has given her lots of smiles. She had perfect timing - the weather is beautiful! Finally, fall has arrived for good.



On Thursday evening, while waiting for Grandma to arrive, I was busy in the kitchen preparing dinner. During this time, I put Benjamin in his bouncey chair by the mirror we have in the living room and he very happily examined himself.

On Friday morning, we were able to get some family pictures taken of us before Grandma, Benjamin, and I headed out for a fun day.

Now that it is fall weather, we decided to make a trip out to the pumpkin patch to get some cute pictures of Benjamin and enjoying some hot cider and apple doughnuts!

Here is Benjamin with Grandma! Isn't he cute with his hat? Benjamin's cousin Colin is very kindly letting him borrow it. I have been excited to have Benjamin wear hats now that it is getting colder, so Grandma gave Benjamin some cute winter hats. We have also purchased a couple more during the last couple of days. You will see my favorite of those in the pictures below.

We got several pictures of Benjamin by the pumpkins, the one above is just one of the many cute ones!

After a busy time looking at pumpkins, Benjamin fell asleep in his stroller. Grandma and I took this time to have some hot cider and apple doughnuts at the Flying Monkey cafe.

Above is a picture of Benjamin on Saturday morning. He is sporting the new hat I bought him at the mall the night before.

On Saturday morning, we went to the Farmer's Market in Urbana. Here we are by a stall that had beautiful mums.

Later, we went to the outlet mall to do a little shopping. Here is Benjamin with Grandma at Old Navy where Grandma bought Benjamin a couple of items, including a darling sweater and hat set.

Self-imposed Tummy Time?

After I fed and changed Benjamin's diaper when he woke up this morning, I set him in the crib while I went to the bathroom myself. When I came back, I found Benjamin like this - on his side with his hips turned toward the mattress. He seemed quite content this way and I waited a few minutes to see if he would be able to flip the rest of the way, but he just couldn't quite get his shoulder to shift back from under him. I suspect he might be close to flipping onto his tummy! In the video at the bottom of this post, you can see how he flips to his back when I put him on his tummy. He was able to do this at around one month but sort of lost his ability to do this until this morning!

In a previous post, I mentioned that we take pictures of Benjamin with his bear to track his growth. As he is now a big three month old, I took a picture of him with his buddy yesterday.

Benjamin also seems to be getting better at sitting up in his Bumbo chair. He loves sitting in it, but as you can see in the video below, his head is still not quite strong enough to sit in it for very long.

To end this post, I want to say that Benjamin is presently taking a nap in his crib! We are finally making progress - thank goodness! He still sleeps wonderfully in his crib at night.

Three Months Old!

Today Benjamin is three months old! Time has gone by so quickly and Benjamin has changed so much. It is amazing what new things he does every day. To celebrate his birthday, we took him to the Illinois vs. Minnesota football game. It was a great game - it was close, but Minnesota pulled out the win 27 to 20. Go Gophers! We support both teams, though, so we would have been happy either way.


Before the game, we put Benjamin in Minnesota gear so that we could show support for the Golden Gophers!

However, we dressed him in Illini gear for taking him to the game to show our support for Benjamin's hometown team. Again, I worried about how he will be at the game (especially since it was in the mid-80s!), but it went pretty well. We found a cool place to hang out for part of the game so that Benjamin didn't get too hot.

Here is Steve with Benjamin during the game. You can see the field of orange behind him of Illini fans. I would have worn a Minnesota shirt but I only own long sleeve shirts and sweatshirts!

Benjamin, as you can see in this picture, is chilling out during the game on my lap. He seemed to watch the football game a little bit, but mostly just looked around. In this picture he is also demonstrating how he puts his hands together now. This is a relatively new development - he started doing this a week or two ago.

Go Illini! It is a revamped stadium this year - they did construction last year to make it larger and more advanced.

Here is a little bit of the game. You can see that we found open seats under the shade of the upper section. That was some needed relief from the sun!

Of course we had to have a picture of Goldy. He is being lifted by the MN cheerleaders. I wish we had a cute mascot here! Now that we (supposedly) have gotten rid of the Chief, Steve and I have come up with the idea that we should be the Illini Igloos and have a penguin as our mascot. During the game, it was funny because the two guys immediately behind us were making fun of the U of Minnesota the whole time. They were talking in a Minnesota accent and saying the stereotypical phrases. I thought it was only a so-so impression, but Steve thought it was hilarious.

Behind the seats in the shade was an area that was very kid-friendly. It was a nice place to walk around when Benjamin needed a little bit of motion to calm down. We love the colonnade - each column is dedicated to a different participant of World War I and II (the stadium is called Memorial Stadium).

Beyond the colonnaded area is a view of the practice field for the Fighting Illini.

I mentioned before that Benjamin seemed to watch a little bit of the football game, but he seemed much more interested in the marching band during the halftime show.

Ben's First Pumpkin

As I mentioned in a previous post, Steve and I had been looking forward to visiting Curtis Orchard with Benjamin and picking some pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. Although it was an unseasonably warm day (upper 70s!), we decided to go yesterday and Grandma Zusman came with us. Benjamin had a pretty good time, though he was not his complete cheerful self. This has been fairly typical this past week, as he has not been sleeping very well during the day. He sleeps well in his crib at night now, but it is still rough during the day. We will have to explore Curtis Orchard again when it is more Fall-like weather!




Here is Benjamin with the first little pumpkin that we found for him. As you can see, he is not a happy camper.

Here is Grandma Zusman with Benjamin in the pumpkin patch. She is holding the next pumpkin we found - a cute medium-sized pumpkin. Benjamin took a nap during this portion of our outing, which was just as well as it made him much happier afterwards.

I always wanted to get a picture of Benjamin surrounded by lots of pumpkins. In the past, Steve and I have gotten some great pictures of us by piles of pumpkins and gourds and now we will have this one and others we took during this visit to add to our collection.

The last pumpkin we picked out was a massively big pumpkin. That will make a lot of pumpkin seeds! The girl at the register commented that it weighed more than Benjamin - Benjamin weighs a little over 13 pounds now and the pumpkin was over 39 pounds!

A New Expression

Sometime during the past week, Benjamin discovered how fun and funny it is to stick out his tongue at us. This started when Steve was able to make Ben laugh by sticking out his tongue and now Benjamin sticks out his tongue in response! Below are a few of these moments caught on camera.

Taking Ben to School Again

This entry is three days late, but I wanted to mention that I took Benjamin to my school again this past Wednesday. He hung out in my office for awhile and then we dropped by another of my classes.





This time we visited my Latin III class and it really is that small. I love that aspect of my school - the reasonably sized classes! They were very excited to see Benjamin. The girls call him Baz and Bazzy (his initials - Benjamin Allen Zusman) and we have started to call him that, too!