Grass!

I had a ton of pictures in my last post about all our weekend fun.  So I pulled out Ben's first grass pictures.  I love seeing babies in simple situations like this.  Sitting in the grass seems like no big deal.  But to a baby it is so new and different!  I love Ben's reactions to things.  I also love how much fun I have watching him experience new things!

Ben seemed to enjoy sitting in the grass.  Once I took  his socks off he wasn't too sure.  He didn't get too upset, and any time a car drove by he had to watch it.  Yes, Ben is already into cars.  Trucks are better, but we have to watch any car that drives by.  And yes, I think it is fun to look for trucks with Ben now too!

Here is Ben's first time in the grass!

Grass is fun!

Not so sure about the bare feet in the grass.

I love his baby feet!

He's getting so big!

I'm excited for more playtime in the yard this summer!
-Kim

Weekend Pictures

Saturday night we celebrated my birthday!  Meo and Omi came over to celebrate with us.  It was a quiet celebration, but I really enjoyed myself.  I had my new camera to play with, my family, and yummy food!  What more could a girl want?  I was super lucky because Meo and Omi got me a few new shirts too!  I remember when getting clothes for your birthday was just the worst.  Now it is the best!!  Meo has great taste and I loved it all.

The guys with my cake!

After handing out March Madness awards, we had dinner and of course cake!  Another great part of it being my birthday is that I have a great excuse to pick out a wonderful cake.  I got my favorite from the grocery store.  The more chocolate the better for me!  After all that eating, Meo and I took Ben over to the park for a few minutes.  Sadly I forgot my new camera!  But he had a good time.  Ben loves to be outside.  I'm not always the most outdoorsy of girls, but that is going to change with this kid!  Overall it was a wonderful birthday celebration.  I am so lucky to have such a great family to spend it with.

Sunday we got to spend time playing with Ben and my camera.  We took Ben to the park again.  I love having it so close to us!  After going on the swings and slide, we decided to let Ben feel grass for the first time.  Yes, it might sound strange, but Ben hadn't touched grass before.  This winter has been so long and cold, we haven't been able to spend a lot of time outside.  Any time the weather warmed up, all the snow would melt making everything all muddy.  Last fall Ben was too young to put out in the grass.  He didn't seem to mind it at first.  It was fun to touch, and he was allowed to pull at it.  Once I took his socks off he wasn't as sure about it.  I'm sure he'll come around though.  He enjoys being outside too much to not like grass.

We were able to Skype with Gramma and Grampa, where Ben was able to show off his awesome eating skills.  I love that we are able to skype with them.  It's hard having a set of grandparents so far away.  I am trying to be better about setting up skype and phone times so Ben can know Gramma and Grampa as well as Meo and Omi.  I'm so excited for Ben to get to see them this summer!

Overall, a nice little weekend.  Thank you for all the birthday wishes, everyone!

Here are a ton of pictures.  I love my new camera!!

Ben wore his tie for my party. :)

Team Cartwright!

Lounging on Daddy

My happy boy!

-Kim

March Madness Results!

We have our March Madness results from the Team Cartwright/Omi and Associates pool!  I know, the final four games just took place.  The championship hasn't happened yet.  But yes, the entire group of us is done.  And has been done for some time.  Kind of sad, but we tried.  We all had fun too.

As the Bracket Commissioner (yes, a title I gave myself), I get the fun of making awards for everyone!  This is an award for everyone type of event.  That is part of the fun of doing it!  I really get a kick out of making the awards, so I am so happy my family humors me and lets me hand them out.  Let's get right to the results!

7th Place: Priscilla! (Meo and Omi's cat) The "What do you people expect from me, I'm a cat" award.  Sadly she came in last place last year too.  But basketball just isn't her thing.  I'm not sure what her thing is, besides napping.  I'm sure it is awesome and she rocks at it though. ;)

6th Place: Omi! The "Yay! My name is on every award" award.  Okay, this one only makes sense because Omi and Associates is on the certificate.  He found it funny though.

5th Place: Dagger! (hehe, yes, Omi lost to a cat) The "I should have had Daddy make my picks, but at least I beat Priscilla" award.  Yeah, Dagger is pretty competitive with Priscilla.  I made her picks this year so she didn't do very well.

4th Place: Meo! The "If you combine all the brackets I filled out I would have won" award.  She covered the whole of Meo, Omi, and Priscilla picks.

There was a tie for second place!
2nd Place: Kim!  The "Not too bad for being more concerned with getting pictures than actually making picks" award.  Yes, I really was more interested in getting pictures of us making our picks.  Priorities, right?

2nd Place: Pat!  The "Already beaten by my own son" award.  We always knew a time would come when Ben would best Pat at something athletic related.  We didn't know Ben would only be 7 months old when that happened.

Which leads us to...
1st Place: Ben!!!!  The 2014 Champion Award!  I am so proud of my little man.  He has already won his first March Madness pool.  And yes, he really gets the winnings.  It's only $7, but it has already been deposited in his bank account.

So let's recap.  Only one person lost to a cat (Sorry, Omi!), but we all lost to a baby.  Yep, we are that awesome.  :)  But we all had fun, which is the whole point of the game.

Here are some of the winners with their awards:

You can tell they are super pleased with their awards.  Way to go, everyone!
-Kim

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday was my birthday! I know, it may not be cool to tell yourself happy birthday, but I don't care.  I love my birthday!  I strongly believe in being your own birthday cheerleader.  If you don't wish yourself happy birthday, how can you expect other people to?  So happy birthday to me!

It was a work day, so of course Ben and I went to work.  Then we continued our normal Friday routine of getting the grocery shopping done.  Pat was sick again, so it was just Ben and me.  I was trying to get everything done in a timely fashion, so I didn't stop to take a bunch of pictures.  But Ben can sit up in shopping carts now!!!  I love it!  It is so nice to be able to have him there without bringing the stroller or taking up the whole basket part of the cart with his car seat.  As I said, I didn't take a picture.  However, Ben sat in the cart for the first time this past weekend, and we got a picture of that!  It's pretty much the same idea as grocery shopping, just a different store.

He's getting so big!

After grocery shopping I fed Ben his dinner, then luckily Pat was able to get up long enough for my birthday presents.  I got a new camera!!!  I am so excited.  I normally take pictures on my phone.  This is great for sending them to people.  But our phones are a bit old school (not smartphones), and they don't have a ton of storage.  I'm constantly having to delete pictures and move things around to free up space.  I also take pictures with the video camera.  More memory, sure.  But the thing is pretty big.  My biggest request for a camera was that it would fit in my purse, and this one does!  I still have to read all the info with it, so no new pictures yet.  Pretty soon I'll have more, better pictures of Ben!  Yay!

Overall it was a pretty quiet birthday.  I can't expect a 7 month old to party late, can I? ;)  Meo and Omi are joining us for a birthday dinner tonight.  I am trying out a new recipe!  Yes, I love to cook so much I am super excited to cook for my birthday.  It is a good excuse to try something new.  Fingers crossed it is yummy!  If not, we have a frozen pizza on standby.  :)

Thanks for all the birthday wishes from everyone!

-Kim

Thankful Thursday: Baby Kisses

Today I got the greatest early birthday gift a mother could hope for.  Ben learned how to give kisses.  Okay, so it is more of him just pressing his mouth against your cheek.  It is drooly.  It can be sticky.  But they are the greatest kisses I have gotten.  (Sorry, Pat;))

I know some day he won't want to hang out with his mom.  He won't wiggle with excitement to be picked up.  He won't smile at the sight of me.  He certainly won't want to kiss me, or let me kiss and hug him.  But today I get all of these things.  Today my mere presence makes my little boy happy.  Today I get to love on him all I want, and he loves it.  Today I am so thankful for this moment of being a mommy.  I am thankful I get to experience this great love for my child, and I am thankful that he can share love back with me.  I am so thankful to get to be Ben's Mom.

Sweetest kisses ever

-Kim

Autism Awareness

My sister-in-law does amazing work with a group called Life Styles in Northwest Arkansas.  She pretty much runs the whole program.  Today they are supporting Autism Awareness by wearing blue.  Team Cartwright decided to join in the support!

The program Lindsay runs is really amazing.  It helps out so many people.  It seems like such a little thing to just wear blue, but if it shows we support her and Autism Awareness we are there!  You can see some of the great work her program does here.

We love you and the work you do, Lindsay!

Even Omi wore blue!

Ben is super pumped even his socks are blue.

-Kim

Messy Meals

We are officially one month into Ben's experience with solids.  It is going really well!  Ben caught on to the whole eating thing very quickly.  True, the first couple attempts didn't end with him eating much.  But he was very open to this new way of getting food.

We didn't rush this transition.  We started off just doing dinner and lunch.  We did slow up a little bit after the first few days.  It felt like we were giving him too much too quickly.   Then Meo and Omi weren't super comfortable with giving him such large pieces of food, so he stuck to milk on his stay there.  Then he started teething hard again.  And then he had a cold.  So overall we had a few times to slow things down and stick to just milk feedings.  Every time he had solids he seemed to enjoy them though!  (Except green beans.  Silly boy just doesn't seem to want to eat them.)  I felt like he was getting hungrier and needed more food though.  And I don't know about everyone else, but I eat solids all the time and have for a long time now, so it wasn't like I was starting him on something that would later change.  He is set to eat solid food for the rest of his life.  So we jumped right in full force!  We even started breakfast.  I had been  holding off doing solids at breakfast because it meant reworking our morning routine.  Well, it had to change at some point, right?  So this past weekend we dove right into that as well.  Solids all the time!  Oh, he still gets all his milk feedings.  Those aren't stopping any time soon as they are the main source of his nutrition.  Now instead of just those though, he gets solids at breakfast, lunch, snack time, and dinner.  I know, all we do is eat all day! ;)

Oh my, is he a happy boy!!  He loves to eat!  We have also jumped into additional foods.  The plan was to stick to the traditional time line for introducing foods.  This meant we would start with fruit and vegetables, and slowly add meat as he got older.  Then one day he lunged for my turkey sandwich.  I have him a little bite, and he loved it!  I don't want to give him a lot of lunch meat, it has a lot of salt and nitrates in it.  But he has now had chicken and pork.  He really likes it!  Since he liked that we have given him eggs too!  Just the yolks for now, as I read the allergen part is in the albumin in the whites.  He has had oatmeal and rice. We have given him a couple of tastes of white potato made in the slow cooker, but otherwise he has just had sweet potatoes.  We are going to hold off on all the big allergen foods for right now, and the foods that have known reasons to withhold.  So no peanut butter, honey, citrus, shellfish, or milk just to drink right now.  We are holding off on dairy a little longer as well, but he has things cooked with milk.

It is so much fun!  He is so happy and sleeping so much better with a fuller tummy.  I love that I can give him mainly what we are having.  He is making Pat and I healthier too.  We have so much fruit in the house!  Wow though, can the kid eat.  He took down an entire banana himself at snack time yesterday!   I knew having a boy would mean a jump in grocery bills.  I just assumed that would be when he was a teenager or something!  It is really great to see him enjoying food and eating healthy things.  It is also a great activity for his motor skills.  Am I too old to use that excuse? ;)

As always, here are some photos of the eating machine.  It does get a bit messy, but that is part of the fun!

Always so focused!

I'm so happy it is going so well for us.  We are so lucky to have a good eater on our hands!
-Kim