Playing Catch Up

As promised, the rest of the stuff that you've missed =) Enjoy!

Now, Amelia is a pretty friendly baby, but she was not a fan when she met cousin Madden. Not sure why because I thought he was an angel!

Mom, Amelia, Mike, and Madden - Dec 2010

Shortly after the beginning of the year, Atlanta got a crazy ice storm. The funny thing is that I had no idea it was coming until about 6 hours before it hit. We were in the Special Agent Oso phase in the mornings instead of mommy watch the news phase and so I was rather out of touch with reality. Thank God my mom came to stay with us and I wasn't all alone with the babies for a week. That's right – we were trapped at our house for a week! Mom tried to make it out once, but slid back down the hill. She also had to hike it to the store once because we ran out of Amelia's medicine and Diet Cokes =)

Braden loved playing outside in the snow and sledding down our GIANT driveway. The main draw for him though was eating the snow!

Mom and Braden - Jan 2011

Shortly after the big storm, we started potty training Braden. He took really well to #1 and learned over a weekend (that is not to say that we don't still have accidents!), but #2 is a whole different story. We're still working on that one =(

Bye-Bye Pee Pee

In February, Amelia started daycare. It was way less traumatic for me than when Braden started, but not any less for her. She adjusted after a day or so and everyone there told me she was "such a happy baby"!





Amelia's 1st day of school

In March, we celebrated the big event - otherwise known as Braden's birthday. He turned 3 and in true Benson fashion, we celebrated for a week! His birthday party was at Burger King with about 10 of his friends. We had a Cars theme and he had a blast!

Amelia started eating "real" food. She doesn't like anything green, and of course loves all fruit. I think she is slightly less messy than her brother was =)

Braden learned how to ride his trike. He was very adamant that he did not know how until we moved and Evan and Caroline could ride theirs. It took all of a day after he saw what fun they were having, for him to decide to join in.

Now, for those of you who know me well, this next one is perhaps one of the most important milestones in a child's life. Amelia (and Pops) got to experience her first trip to McClard's. We spent the day in Hot Springs with Mimi, Pops, and Braden.

McClard's

Hot Springs near the Prommenade

We moved, but I don't want to spend a lot of time on that subject. I miss Atlanta, and so does Braden, but we're both happy in our new home. I'm not sure Amelia has noticed yet =) There was a brief moment right after we moved where Braden started sleeping in his closet, but he's back in the bed…for now.

Aunt Amie came to visit. We had a blast hanging out and I think we might have acted as birth control for the next little while. The kids (all 4 of them) were in rare form that day. I say rare form like it surprises me that they all feed off of each other and run around screaming when they get together…

Memorial Day was a blast. We hung out with Melissa and Bobby and their water slide. Think that pretty much covers it!

My water baby

I guess to sum things up, Amelia is growing like a weed. She's in 88% for height. She is crawling, pulling up, and walking assisted. Braden is also doing well. He counted to 20 for me yesterday and knows at least half of his letters by sight. They love each other so much and you won't found a mom who is more proud of her kids than I am of mine. Check back soon!

Say Cheese~!

Now, I know I owe you all another 6 months of catch up, and I promise it is coming, but I just had to share with ya'll something I've noticed over the past 2 months.


So, everyone with kids (or who has ever tried to take pictures of kids) knows how hard it is to take a picture of one child. You can't ever get them to smile and look in the direction of the camera at the same time. Well, now that Braden is 3, I've sort of gotten him to half way do those two things some of the time…

Then you add in a second child and it's next to impossible. The big kid is always looking at the little kid, worrying about what they're doing instead of looking at the camera. And the little kid, well, let's just say that Amelia is not at an age yet to cooperate…

Now, as if that we're bad enough, now Amelia is mobile. And not only is she mobile, she loves to grab the camera. So, every time I set her down, she lunges for the camera.

So, I have put together a lovely set of pictures below for your viewing pleasure of how our pictures have digressed over the past few months.

Braden trying to make her "stay"

These were especially fun - she went from lunging to trying to eat the paper =)



It's not yours...it's mine!



Still mine

More "Stay" poses

My Camera...

And...I give up.

Well – to say that it has been a while since I last wrote would be an understatement. The last blog I wrote, Amelia was about 4 days old and I was telling you how she was named. That can't be further from where we are now. As a matter of fact – she has several new names. We like to call her Stinky (short for Stinkerbelle) and I have recently started calling her my baby tornado for her uncanny abilities to destroy a room in 2.3 seconds.

But I am jumping ahead. Let's see – since I last wrote, we have celebrated several things in our lives. I shall attempt to document them briefly below.

1) Amelia was baptized. She was surrounded by friends and family. She has two sets of godparents – Ross and Amie Benson were able to make it to the ceremony, and Alison Hardies and Aaron Leatzow who weren't able to make it down. Her great aunt Lisa even made it up for the big day from Florida! She wore the Christening gown that my grandmother hand sewed for me to wear at my baptism. She and Braden both wore it. (December 2010)
2) Grandma and Grandpa came to visit for Christmas. They brought lots of presents and even lights for Braden and Amelia's tree upstairs. (We only have 4 trees we set up each year!) Braden was really excited because he got to open up all the presents! (December 2010)


Grandma, Grandpa, Braden and Amelia





3) Uncle Ross and Aunt Amie came to visit and celebrate Christmas. They moved back to Portland shortly after that =( Amelia slept through most of the festivities and once again, Braden got to open all of the presents. Mommy took Aunt Amie to the Nutcracker for her first ballet while Mimi and Uncle Ross took care of the babies. Great times had by all! (December 2010)



The destruction



4) Christmas Season – we have many Christmas traditions that we celebrate in our family, and this year was no different. The kiddos met Santa, and Braden, mommy, and Mimi decorated Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve. We then went to church and came home to wait for Santa. That night our one act of sibling violence occurred – Braden beat Amelia on the head with a giant plastic dinosaur. He hasn't done anything before or after to cause any harm to her, matter of fact, he is the sweetest big brother a girl could ask for!

Mimi and Braden making cookies

Some were bigger fans of Santa than others



Toy Story seemed to be a common theme with gifts this year

 Christmas – this was special not only because it was Amelia's first, but because it snowed on Christmas Day in Georgia for the first time in a long time

We were so excited! If only we had know what was to come!

I think that is enough for today. I promise not to let so much time to pass by again. I shall begin the next blog with the big snow storm of January =)