Benny went to the beach!!

Hey, I have some awesome pics of the little man at Seaside, Oregon. I took him a few weeks ago to visit a friend. It was his first time at a big, expansive beach and he LOVED it.
Oh, and I thought I'd throw in a couple totally cool pics of my crash wounds from the STP in July (Seattle to Portland bike tour). Yay for scars. :-)



















In this picture, he was slowly bobbing his head down towards the water and back up again. We figured out he was watching his zipper handle float up and down as he lowered and then raised the front of his jacket into and out of the water. Fascinating! :-)





















So I developed a new Olympic sport, called Kid Jumping. Look for it in the 2012 games.



















Benny's just takin in the world here...












I like to call this one, "the worst diaper blow-out of all time". Uh, nasty!! Ok, so it was just dirty sea foam, and he happened to sit in just the right place, haha.


















The little man escaped!!! And with no clothes on to boot!!











I love my boy oh so much!!!!


















Lastly, I leave you with a few pics Steve took on his cell phone when we did the STP. I had a few gnarly crashes. The leg one was 22 mph into gravel. Ouch. But the worst by far (as far as pain) was the road rash on my arms. I didn't shower for a week after because it hurt waaaaayyy too bad!!

















Oh, a quick developmental update on Ben: he's now 31 inches tall and about 25 pounds. Super duper!! And he's starting to talk a lot more. He has one and two word phrases that he says....most of them only things that a mommy would understand. :-) But he's talking A LOT!!! He's all of a sudden gotten very verbal. He has lots of stories to tell and lots of things he needs to tell his toys every day. :-) Such a fun kid, boy are we blessed a million times over. Hope you all are enjoying the last month or so of summer. I'll update when I have more cool pictures! :-)

Hi,

Dad and Ben wanted to write a blog. It has been awhile since I have blogged, like 2 months. Ben wants to type something....... adfashpods adslsf=-202,fasdejfq[0ew.

OK, SO.... Ben got to go watch a bunch of crazy people throw themselves off a barge and try to fly (red bull flugtag). He thought they were very entertaining/idiots. haha. here is a picture of him watching.......

And these pictures are of us (Ben and Mo) at the park.

Ok, so that is pretty much all I am gonna say.

...And, we're back!! ;-) Sorry for the delay in my blogging. I do have lots of pics though!!

So, within the past couple of months, we have moved down to Oregon, and now live in Wilsonville, very near both of our families. What a blessing it has been to us to be near them all again.

We have settled in very well, and Ben is a happy boy!! He's Mr. Curious, loves his dog Mo, and adores both of his grandpas. Although he loves the whole family he's a man's man, and really prefers all the uncles and boy cousins in the family, although at the end of the day he'll almost always come running back to mama. :-)

I'm having a hard time with formatting this blog and I'm really frustrated with trying anymore tonight so I'm just going to describe some of the pics here instead of trying to put comments by every single one. For some reason the formatting gets all messed up and I'm just really over it now.

Ben has several things on his list of what he's going to be when he grows up. He's considering piloting, lawn-mowing, tractor driving, motorcycling, and race car driving. Go get em, kid!! It is amazing to me how boys are just programmed naturally to like that stuff! It is serious business when we go up to Grandpa's house. Number one priority is to find Grandpa, and number two is to get down to the barn and on some heavy equipment. :-) He loves to fly and goes crazy over race cars. A few of the pictures I posted were at Portland International Raceway, and he got to sit in two real race cars. That kid was in his heaven!

We also had the pleasure of going to the Portland All God's Children Int'l picnic today. We got to see some of Ben's Ethiopian buddies from Washington!! Hooray for little Grace and Ruby making the drive down. :-)

Summer is here...for a few days at least

With the past few days being pretty warm here in the good old wet northwest, we've been able to pull some tags off of Ben's summer clothes, bust out the popsicles and of course, provide him with water to play in.

Here are some pictures from Ben's Adventures with a Red Bucket...














Don't know exactly what his plan was here, but he saw something cool and had to get a closer look.












Today, I met Suzi and little Grace at the park. Note Ben grabbing the plastic rake...













Ben, I know we've been working on techniques for hitting people with rakes, but not on our friends...












Ben and Grace, best buds forever.

Ben's Noo Doo

These pictures are from about a month and half ago, when Ben and I took a week long trip out to Moses Lake to visit our dear friends. This was where Ben first stood on his own! And while he was at it, he practiced some belly dancing.

He also was working on his driving skills like he was back in February. He even knows to adjust his rearview for maximum visibility. Good boy!


I just had to throw this picture in here of Mo (right) and his brother Norman. They just totally hate each other.









Here is a typical interaction between Mo and Ben. Ya, to some of you it's gross, but this is a picture of beautiful familial love!! Haha. Mo just wants Ben to know he's there for him. And that Ben's face tastes good.

















Here is a pic we took of Ben in his new Fox hat. Gotta get the right gear for his next adventure. He's gonna be starting on downhill mountain biking soon, he just doesn't know it yet. He'll be bombing hills before he can even say "Mammoth Mountain". We just need to find body armor that will fit him. :-)







And lastly, Ben's new chrome dome. haha. Shiny, huh? He looks much older we think. Yesterday I asked him to go give Norman a kiss, and caught the tender moment on camera...

























And finally, here is quintessential Ben!! (Hilary, that was for you)
Happy as ever...

Ben's New Blog!

I have officially stepped into the world of blogging moms. I figured it was time to stop using my 4 year old nephew's gmail account and get an account of my own (my sister in law originally set up Ben's blog for me, which was wonderful). So yippee skippee, here we are!

A lot has happened since the last time I updated the http://www.babybenleasure.blogspot.com/ blog. A couple major items of discussion...we are moving to Oregon in T-minus 3 weeks!! Wahoo!! We love our families oh so much and we'll very literally be a hop skip and jump away from some family members. So, now the family discord can really start!!! :-)

Needless to say, we are pretty excited about our move south, and we certainly feel that it is the right time. I know I won't feel so isolated anymore, that's for sure.

Another cool thing is that Ben is walking now! I mean really really walking. He started about two weeks ago, and within a week he was practically running, grabbing toys, carrying them around, taking the wild adventure down our hallway and back. He is LOVING it!!! It is pretty cute. Except he probably didn't think it was so cute when he ran face first into our sliding glass door, thinking it was open. Poor guy....

He is also trying to talk, big time. He is obsessed with lights, and calls them "dights". He has a pet stuffed boxer named "Nah-Nah", which is his version of "Norman". He loves finding Norman every morning and pummeling him with a kiss.

Last week, we gave Ben a haircut but decided that it wasn't quite short enough, so last night we went at it again with our electric razor. Wow, I tell you, there is no way to do a discreet "test" patch on his hair to see if it will be too short. Nope, I just buzzed my way across his scalp and he's practically bald now. Oops. Steve really likes it, but I kinda miss his little curls. Oh well, it's hair and his grows back pretty quickly.

About a month ago, we had this weird but amazing weather come through, and we had an 80 degree weekend. Grandma and Grandpa were in town, so we headed to the beach. Little Benny got to sport his Hawaiian shirt and shorts, and he splashed in a tide pool for an hour or more!! He sure loves water, and doesn't mind getting it all over him.

We also took him kayaking last weekend, but the weather was far from 80 degrees. He loved the sand and the water just the same though! It will be fun to take him out in the kayaks when it's warmer and we can play in the water...

Oh, I also can't resist putting these pictures in...Ben's first bike helmet. They just can't make those things very small apparently. His head looked like an orange on a toothpick!! :-)We got a bike trailer for our road bikes from the grandparents, and he's an official road biker extraordinaire. He does pretty well in it - we've taken him on a few 16 mile bike rides and he naps for most of the time!!

Don't worry, we figured out a better support system for him than what is shown in the picture where he's slumped over, fast asleep...

Well, that's all the Adventures of Benny for now. I have more pictures but I need to get them off the camera first. Please pardon the messy format of my blog (I'm speaking to all you fancy bloggers out there, you know who you are). I'm working on it!! :-)

More to come soon....

Love Heather, Steve, & the Benskie