Benson's First Sleepover!

Last night before bedtime

Benson had his first sleepover last night! He was SO excited! Hannah's parents, Thomas and Susie just bought a new house in Spartanburg. They closed on Friday and are trying to get all their things moved from the house they were renting into their new one. Susie (8 months pregnant) is a labor and delivery nurse and was working last night and tonight. (I have no idea how she is doing all of this- she is amazing!) Thomas is on spring break this week, which is great timing for the move. SO with all the busy-ness going on in the upstate, Benson asked Hannah if she could spend the night and her parents said yes! So she stayed last night and is planing on staying tonight. If Benson sleeps the way he did last night after chasing Hannah around all afternoon, we're going to have to do this more often!! Hannah slept from 9:30 to 8:30 and Benson slept from 10-7 woke up for a snack and slept three more hours! THAT was awesome!

Benson has had so much fun watching Hannah walk around and crawl (the normal way instead of Benson's army crawl.) They have played together so sweetly. Hannah would grab one of Benson's toys and run away with it and off he'd go scooting behind her trying to chase her down. He has just smiled and laughed at her constantly. It has been so cute!

This is Hannah, before she woke up this morning. She sleeps sitting Indian style with her body folded over the front of her knees. Now THAT is flexibility!


Hannah's makeshift nursery. We were going to put her in our guest bedroom, but didn't have two monitors to be able to hear her, so we put her in our closet! She loved it!


Hannah helped me wake Benson up this morning. (This look of amazement on his face hasn't left since she got here!)


Good Morning Sunshines!


It's amazing how much better a pacifier looks when it's in someone else's mouth!

Here's a video of the cuties playing this morning:

A few visitors to mention...

Kelli and Trey (aka marathon runner extraordinaire) came over to play!


"Uncle" Bud stopped in for a visit. (He's responsible for the adorable Easter afternoon outfit -from head to toe, mind you- that Benson wore) Doesn't he look so natural holding a baby? Ladies, he's single :)!!

Benson's Great-Grannie Hite brought him the cutest Easter basket and enjoyed getting to watch him scoot around!

Easter 2008

I apologize that the Easter pictures are so late in coming... I was waiting to collect pictures from all of the people who took them (aunts and great aunts) so that I could pick the cutest of the cute to post on the blog. Needless to say, there are many more to view, (you can click on the Nine Months and Easter 2008 tab on the sidebar to see all million of them) but here are my favorites:


Look at those chunky little legs. As his daddy would say, "I could just eat him like corn on the cob!"


Sweet boy


Mr. Easter himself


Benson fell asleep after church


The grandparents and grandchildren



Quack Quack Quack (for some reason, he looks like a duck to me here :) )


Family pic


A very unhappy Benson with very happy great grandparents


Toothy grin







Peaches LOVES when she gets to see her Nana, can't you tell?


Benjamin said that Benson's hat looked like a jewish yamika from far away and a German soldier hat from WWII from up close


The Hunter side


Papa and Nana with the grandson and the grand-dog



Benson loves his Aunt Ash


In his Easter afternoon outfit


Hunting for eggs


Swingin with Papa

I just wanna take a nap!


Benson's egg


The grandkids


Hannah, Will and Benson


We stopped by to see Granddaddy and Grandmama


AHHhhhhh


Hannah with her adorable self swinging somewhat regularly here


Hannah showing a little more of her creative side here


Hannah, future cheerleading flyer


Swinging like a big boy


Goin' for a ride with the crew

We stopped on the way home from pageland to change Benson's diaper. I went into the gas station to go to the restroom and came out to see this! My boys are so cute!!!

We Love the Zoo, Do You?

We went to to the zoo with Kelli and Anna Claire and Edward as well as Mary Catherine and Anna Cate. We had so much fun. The weather was beautiful and it was so nice getting to see Kell and MC. Benson probably enjoyed watching the other babies just as much as he did the animals, but the LOVED watching the fish swim around in the aquarium. A good time was had by all, for sure! It's too bad none of the babies were looking in this picture...


See the elephants?


Here we are decked out in our Clemson attire to cheer on the Tigers in the ACC basketball championship. It was so exciting that we made it to the game. Stinks we lost!


Here's a little clip of Benson driving the "racecar" with his Granddaddy Ryan. (aside: i love the word racecar- I don't like racing as a sport, but the word racecar is a palindrome, i.e. it is spelled the same forwards and backwards, and that is just plain cool. )
He thought it was SO FUN! He was hopping up and down in the seat to say "Do it again!" And even though you can't see it in this video, he is securely buckled in, no worries....

Nine months and growing like a weed!

Aunt Becca came to play today... YAY!


Another shower picture!


Here's a little video of Benson drinking water out of a straw. Well... kinda...



Benson...
Not sleepy...

Benson's last week of Month Eight was Great!

Benson's Eighth month was really great. I would say it was his best one yet! He's had minimal "issues" and since he hasn't been having to deal with health problems... he had plenty of time to figure out things like eating and crawling and he's even started saying MA-MA-MA, which I love! (He started with DA-DA-DA on December 31 when Benjamin had gone to the bowl game.) He's got four teeth and he's finally eating like it! Last night I gave him a jar of green beans. He gobbled them up so I gave him his cupful of oatmeal. He ate that up, so I opened up a jar of bananas, and what do you know... he ate the whole thing! I couldn't believe it. Then he slept from 10:15 to 6:45!!! It was awesome!! Also, we've been working on the sign for "finished." And we say, "all done" when we do it. Last night, Benson started saying Ah Dah. I was so excited. He was shaking his hands, too, but he always shakes his hands, so I'm not claiming that he has learned a sign... maybe he's just going to skip the sign and go straight to the word on this one! We're having so much fun with him!

Bath time is fun, but Benson loves taking a shower with daddy. Since he has learned to sit up, he gets to play with his toys in the "rain." Benjamin and Benson have hollering contests to see who can yell the loudest in the shower. (They shout "I LOVE MAMA!" Well, Benjamin does... Benson just says AAAH WAAAH AAAAH!!) He loves to hear himself echo!


We plopped Benson in his car seat and ran back in the house to grab something and came out to find this...


We went to the park with Kelli and Edward and Anna Claire (The twins Kelli nannies for) We had so much fun! It was a beautiful day!



Like a dummy, I took this video with my camera turned, so you have to turn your head to see it correctly. And it might make you dizzy because he's swinging back and forth... still cute :)