SNOW DAYS

On Wednesday, December 9th, we had a huge snowstorm and ended up with 12-14 inches of snow.

Time to play! Here comes Ethan overload...:)

Our snowman friend

19 Month Little Man

We had an appointment with Dr. Nau last week. It went great! Bennett is 32 inches tall. He is now in the 32nd percentile for height! He weighs 22 pounds, 12 ounces... still a little pip-squeak. His percentile for weight dropped down to the 4th percentile but Dr. Nau is not concerned because he is moving so much he is probably just burning additional calories. His head circumference is 46.9 cm, which is at the 22nd percentile.
All of this + all of the cool words he is saying = adorable!

Bennett is talking up a storm saying: Thank you, all done, down, duck, uh-oh, hot, balloon (ba-oom), pup, ki (kitty), ball, snack, juice (uice), si (paci), blanket, ba-ba, bite, book, mama, dada, apple, up

He continues to sign "more" and started signing "help" tonight!

We still go to physical therapy every week. Bennett has taken up to 5-6 steps independently now and Adam and I catch him trying walk away from a table or couch all on his own. He knows he wants to walk now, he just isn't quite strong enough yet.

Bennett is, I'm pretty sure, the LOUDEST child on the planet. Seriously loud. And, he is almost always at his loudest when we are in the car. Ethan will tell him he is hurting his ears and to be quiet, and we all laugh because Adam and I are feeling the exact same way. How do you teach a small child the concept of an "inside voice" when it seems physically impossible?! What he lacks in size he makes up for in noise!

Pictures to come, I promise. My homework is killing me!

Fall 2009

So, now it seems as though I am only a seasonal blogger. I got sad when I wrote the title of this post...is it really getting to the point that I am only blogging once a season? :(

During October at daycare, Leia sets special days aside for the kids to wear fun outfits. One of the days is favorite sports team day. This picture made me laugh, Bennett looks like one mean, fighting Viking!:)

This was Ethan's first year going trick-or-treating. We practiced trick-or-treating at home and Leia practiced it at daycare, but Ethan didn't say a word all night. He looked just like this all evening long...stunned.

A sweet dragon and a little punkin.

Grandma Smith gave the boys "scary eyes" for Halloween!

Halloween loot! Bennett's first sucker, he's hooked!

Ethan gets to paint a pumpkin each year at Leia's house to celebrate Halloween. He did a fantastic job painting his this year!

Playing in the leaves is what fall is best for!

Bennett walked nearly around our entire block with his favorite walking toy. He was exhausted but thrilled that he could do something all by himself! You could just see the joy on his face as he walked beside his big brother.

We picked out a few pumpkins at the local Pumpkin Patch this year.

Bennett and my cutie husband.

Isn't my ear cover fashionable on Ethan?! :)

Boo!

Bennett's 18 Month Pictures

Here is the link to Bennett's 18 month pictures:

The password is: thilges

http://infiniteimagedesign.exposuremanager.com/g/children

Our little man!:)

3-5-8 and a Bunch of Words

Bennett went from 3 teeth to 5 last week, and by the end of this week he will have 8, I'm sure of it! I feel awful for him, his mouth looks like a bumpy, swollen mess. Bring on the tylenol!

Also, Bennett's speech is blossoming so much right now. Some of his new words are: yuck, down, I want that, car, duck, kee (for kitty- or anything that comes remotely close:), and pup.

I have tons of cute fall and Halloween pictures to put on here, I'm getting there.

Oh, and I forgot to put on here that Bennett took his first steps!!!! I put it on my Facebook page, but not here. Anyway, his physical therapist is letting Leia borrow a small bench for him to do exercises on. He was sitting on the edge of it last weekend, stood up, and took a couple of steps towards me. He did that several times, but hasn't attempted anything like it since. He is such a chicken! :)

18 Months!

Bennett turned a year and a half last week! We are so proud of him...little sweetie:)

He finally cut his 3rd tooth, his 3rd tooth!!! I was starting to wonder again if he had anymore than just 2 in there! But now we can see that his top chiclets are about to pop through too. I'm pretty sure there is just going to be an explosion in there soon. Poor thing.

Elmo's getting smaller and smaller, isn't he?! Bennett weighs around 21 pounds right now...we know because we have frequented the doctor PLENTY lately. He has now had 6 ear infections. He has been on antibiotics 30 out of the last 40 days!:( I don't even want to imagine what that has done to his system, although, I don't really want him to get tubes yet either.

Tooth-less grin!:)

Favorite face he dishes out...

Yeah, I'm cute, so what?

Bennett is making progress towards walking too. He can walk fairly well holding onto one of our hands and then an object in the other hand to give him security. I see him getting stronger each day, but am getting impatient for him to start walking! He wants to be able to keep up with his big brother in the worst way.

New words: hot, pumpkin, balloon, apple, up. We know he is saying a lot, we just can't understand it all.

Signs: all done, more, drink (on a good day)

Favorite toys: anything that Ethan is playing with at the moment...I'm pretty sure just the "act" of stealing the toy from Ethan is play enough for him. He loves the stereo equipment, VCR, DVD player, cell phones, and Playstation too. That's what we spend the majority of our time distracting him from right now anyway!:) When he isn't stealing toys from his brother he is imitating him, so I would say that Ethan is his best favorite toy of all!

Bennett is quite a firecracker, which I wouldn't imagine him any other way based on the way he came into this world. He has a quick temper and almost appears as if he is going to literally blow up when he wants something or is trying to communicate something. I love this about him, it just reminds me what a fighter he is.

I'm sure there is a ton I'm forgetting to mention about how fantastically wonderful my second born is. We love you to bits Bennett!

Maia Torture

I thought I would share a glimpse of what Maia goes through every day at our house...poor thing!! She handles it so well though!:) Forgive how frumpy I look!

More videos!

There are more new videos in the sidebar. Not too exciting, but my kids are so adorable!! (Not that I'm biased or anything)

New Videos

There are all new videos on the sidebar...click to see Bennett's new trick. I think it is the top one.

A Piece of Heaven

I am pretty sure Ethan felt like he was in heaven when we went up to the river at the beginning of September. He got to "fish" with his Uncle Keith, throw rocks into the river, take a long walk, eat a cookie bar before lunch, look at some fish bones that grandma found, go to the top of a "mountain" (Pikes Peak), and hang out with his mom ALL DAY!! What could be better than that!:)

We haven't braved an actual hook and bait yet, but I think he may be ready. He has casting down pat...loves it, talks about going fishing all of the time. I can't wait to take him up to Prairie Du Chein again soon. I have so many memories of my summers there growing up and I want to create those memories for my kids as well.

The only set back we had that day was him throwing up on the way up there...welcome car sickness. Ever since then we can't make a trip into Cedar Rapids or Waterloo without him feeling sick. I used to (still do) have a hard time with car sickness, so I guess this is pay back for what I put my mom through! I feel so bad for him though.

Ethan's 3rd Birthday Party

I am embarrassed that it has been almost 2 months past Ethan's birthday party and I am now just posting about it, but better late than never, I guess.

Ethan's party was a lot of fun. He is really into dump trucks, diggers, dozers, cemet mixers, etc. So we went with a construction theme. The cups for the kids were traffic cones and the cake was dirt cake in the back of the dump truck Ethan got from Grandma and Grandpa Smith for Christmas last year. It turned out great!

We had a pinata made of steele, I swear! The kids had an impossible time even making a dent, we had to have Austin, my oldest nephew lend a helping hand.

Owen giving it a try.

He means business...look at that face!:)
Kez, can you do it?

Surely Bennett will succeed...

I think one of the adults finally "accidentally" ripped a hole in the back to make some progress.

Ethan got a lot of really nice gifts at his party.

Gabbie-Girl

The cake

Make a wish!

Worm balloons are a hit!

Bennett's First Haircut

Bennett got his first haircut at the beginning of September. Unlike Ethan, he sat like an angel on my lap while the stylist cut it. Ethan is doing much better with it now though...in fact, that day all three of my boys got their hair cut at the same time. Bennett looks a lot more grown up now!

Handsome little man.

My cuties:

Whistle While You Work!

Bennett can whistle! This week we have finally confirmed that yes, indeed, we are hearing Bennett whistle. He does it when he is playing really hard and concentrating on something. It is on the intake of his breath. So cute!!!

Phil and Beth's Wedding

On August 1st one of Adam's closest friends got married. Adam was an usher. We had so much fun!! Grandma Smith came to our house for basically the entire weekend and watched the boys while Adam and I attended the rehearsal and dinner on Friday night and the wedding and reception on Saturday.

Adam looking all spiffed up.

Fixing the groom's tie.

Already had enough to drink...

Adam's crew from high school. Why does Danny (in the middle) look black and white? Not sure why that is!

Grandpa Thilges wore his sunglasses during the reception so we were poking a little fun...

My gorgeous sisters-in-law. Jen is in the middle (married to Adam's oldest brother, Chris) and Kate is on the right (married to James).

It had been a long time since we had taken pictures together!

Dad Thilges in his shades. :)

James, Kate, Gabbie, and Paxton

I have excellent footage of Paxton and Gabbie dancing, but I'm having a hard time downloading it...stay tuned!