No Power

The last few days have been no fun at all. Due to extreme winds of 60-75mph, our power was knocked out. In some areas it looked like tornadoes had ripped through the neighborhood. Roofs were missing and trees were in houses, it was scary. This all started on Sunday. It was a wind storm caused by Ike. Who know that it would have an impact on us. Benjamin liked to watch the wind making the leaves on the trees dance, but he knew that something was wrong because my happy baby has been so fussy the last 2 days. Luckily the power was turned on this afternoon.

I can not begin to understand how the people in Texas are handling all of this. I pray that they are safe and get through this.

The Cincinnati Zoo

For Tim's birthday a few weeks ago, I planned a fun-filled, jam packed day. We started out at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens. I had always heard how awesome it was and Ben loved all of the Giraffe Ridge commercials, so we thought that we would go there. It was actually a nice day, which was quite surprising since it was sandwiched in between two super hot and humid days.

We thought that Ben would get so excited about all of the animals and he sort of did, but something else definitely attracted his attention. When we went to look at the lions, he was looking at the trees. The zebras, flamingos, and every other animal on that side of the zoo, trees. This boy loves his trees. He has had such a facination with them even at the age of 2 months. When he was smaller, I would lay him next to our sliding glass window and he would just stare out at the trees for hours. So it came as no surprise that now that he can say the word tree, that is all he cares about. It is so cute though. He would point and say "Twee."

One part of the zoo that Ben loved was the Lorikeet and Parrot exhibit. It is interactive so you can feed the birds nectar and seeds and they will sit on you and play with you. Ben absolutely loved it. The bird that he tried to feed kept licking him which made Ben just bust out laughing every time. Another cool thing about the Lorikeet and Parrot exhibit was that there was this lady and at one time I think she had 5-8 birds on her. You could tell that she came a lot because she had a towel over her shoulder. It was awesome to see.

He fell asleep soon after the bird exhibits, so we didn't get to see the primates, the giraffes or the new cheetah encounter. Right as we were walking towards the exit, Ben woke up so we decided to see how he liked the Carousel. Let's just say that he is not a fan at this point in time. I ended up having to hold him most of the ride. I guess we will try again next time.We decided that if we ever go again we are definitely getting an annual pass. It was so much fun.

15 Month Check-Up

We went to the doctor's office yesterday for Ben's 15 month check-up. Ben absolutely loves his doctor and all of the nurses. I really like Ben's doctor too. He does so well with Ben and he doesn't make us feel silly for stupid questions. Which as a parent I don't like to admit I ask, but we all know we can get paranoid about things with our bundles of joy for no reason sometimes.

But anyway, the appointment went really well. Ben, who used to be in the 90th percentile for anything is now just an average joe. Which I am not sure I believe that in terms of height because he is much taller than a lot of children his age. Ben is now 25 pound 14 ounces and is 31 inches long. He has really leveled off in terms of weight, only gaining about a pound since his last appointment three months ago. He only got one shot, which did not phase him at all. He looked at the nurse like he knew she was doing something to him, but didn't realize what. He smiled the whole time.

The doctor said he is doing well and that it sounds like he is communicating pretty well. The next check-up they do the communication check where if they feel like a child is lagging developmentally, they are referred to a speech therapist to evaluate them. So that is nervewracking, but what can you do?

So there is the update on the little man. We will post some new pictures eventually. So bye bye for now! :)

The Park

Benjamin's favorite place is probably the park. Now that he is mobile and knows what things do, he goes right to his favorite. First the bouncy car, then the jungle gym, and finally his favorite, the swing. There is a cute little community park that is near our house and they have it set-up into age appropriate sections so it is nice that we don't really have to worry about him getting trampled on by older kids. He was pretty disappointed because the tube that he likes to crawl through was filled with water, grass, and mud from the massive storm we had the night before, but daddy distracted him, or at least tried to. His favorite is swinging right now because he absolutely loves trees and the swing sets are facing lots and lots of trees.

Helping us get him ready to go. Isn't he so helpful?

Running to the car. I think he knew where we were going.

Bouncing the car. He doesn't really care about riding it, but if he can push it

and make it bounce he is a happy boy.

Going down the slide. He won't go down on his

own yet, so daddy helps by giving him a little push.

Daddy helping him across the bridge,

the only way he would go.

Thinking about a way to get around mommy,

then getting frustrated because mommy was too big to get past.

TIm putting him in the swing.

This took a little bit because Ben was holding on to the chains

and Tim didn't realize it so he kept trying to put him in.

Pretty funny.

Swinging fun. Tim thought that it would
be fun to push Ben high, Ben didn't think so.

Ben checking out the trees and

the little girl on the big kid swings.

He is such a flirt.

On the way home he kept talking about the Trees.

That is the only word that we could really understand

Grocery Shopping

So we have always thought that Benjamin was strong and he proves it almost every day. He likes to pick up his heavier toys and carry them around and he pushes and pulls his highchair around while the brakes are on, but when we went to the store he amazed us. The cart was semi-full and he just started pushing it around like it was nothing. He is so funny. Every time we would stop the cart he would get frustrated and start pushing harder. People at the store told us that we had a future football player on our hands, but I like to think that we have a future baseball player. Only time will tell.

First Haircut

We gave Ben his first haircut yesterday. I thought that he would have issues sitting still and wanting to grab the clippers, but he did amazing. We finally decided to cut his hair because he looked like he had an old man comb over on the top and a mullet in the back. Now all of his hair is the same length and he looks like his daddy.

Fourth of July

For the Fourth of July we went to spend the day with Grandma and Grandpa Daidone. The town and their street have a day full of events so we knew that it would be good times, granted it rained most of the day, but we still had lots of fun. We watched the parade and Ben was falling asleep for most of it until he saw his favorite, the fire trucks and then he decided that the parade was worth watching. After the parade we went to their neighbors house for the neighborhood lunch potluck and then Ben finally took his nap. After that we played and then onto another neighbor's house for dinner. Ben had fun walking around trying to get into everything, but by fireworks time he was exhausted, which was a good thing because he is not a fan. It was a fun filled day.