Caught one...

...sort of. I've been trying to get a good smile on camera, but Bennett seems to be a little camera shy. Here's the latest (somewhat successful) attempt.

Still Long & Skinny

Bennett went to the doctor yesterday for his 2-month checkup. He really doesn't like the doctor's office - yesterday for several reasons: 1) they take everything off but his diaper, 2) they gave him shots :(, and 3) yesterday I had to wake him up from his nap when we got there. I was so sad when he got his shots - he did the baby silent scream for a few seconds and turned bright red, then let the noise come out. He did sleep REALLY well the rest of the day though :)

His new stats are:

Length / Height: 25.5" (97.96 percentile)

Weight: 11lbs 12 oz (38th percentile)

Head: 15.5" circumference (24th percentile)

so...he is still long in proportion to his weight - unfortunately, this means a lot of his clothes don't fit great (long enough but too wide), but that's ok - we still think he's pretty cute.

Nate's Birthday and Jazz Games

Life has slowed down quite a bit for us since Bennett was born, but we have been able to do a few fun things lately as he's getting older and I've been feeling better. It was Nate's birthday a few weeks ago, and I had Jazz tickets from work that night so Nate's parents were nice enough to watch Bennett while we went to the game. It was fun, but unfortunately, the Jazz lost that one by 1 point. Fortunately, Nate got tickets from his work and we were able to go to another game last week, and they won that one by quite a bit. It was a fun game to watch! Other than that, we haven't been doing too much - just keeping up with day-to-day life and having fun with Bennett. We did manage to be social last weekend and had some friends over for games and dessert, and I went to girls' night last week with my roommates and friends from Palo Alto, and got to meet Jonathan & Laura's baby Grace.

A couple pictures of what we've been up to - one at the Jazz game (don't worry, Nate's beard is finally gone :), and one of Nate with his new sleeping bag that he got with his birthday money. He went camping with the scouts a few weeks ago and FROZE using the several-years-old sleeping bag that I inherited from my grandparents' house, so he decided he needed a new one. He tried it out when we got home from Cabella's.

2 Months

I know this is late, but here's a little update on what Bennett's been doing. At 2 months old, Bennett:

* can hold his head up (for a little while at least)

* likes to stand up and look around (while we're holding him)

* smiles (not just from gas)

* has rolled over from his tummy to his back...this happened around 6 weeks and he did it 3 times in a row, but hasn't done it since then. As exciting as it was, I'm not encouraging it too much - I'm not quite ready for him to be mobile!

* sleeps through the night sometimes (as of the time I'm writing this, we're going on 5 nights in a row - hooray!!)

* likes to grab things and has a strong grip. Unfortunately, the things he grabs includes my hair, etc.

* is starting to like looking at toys during his awake / play time. He still doesn't seem too interested but he likes looking at some of them.

Other than that, he mostly still eats and sleeps. We love having him around! We're taking him to the dr. on Monday for his 2-month appointment, so we'll have to post an update on his stats. I knew he was growing, but until I held and saw a couple of younger babies recently, I didn't realize how much!

I haven't been great at taking pictures of him recently - but here are a couple cute ones.

from left to right:

- I had just changed his diaper and had to run and get something, and came back to find him like this - his head was on the white part of the changing pad when I left, so he scooted all the way up.

- all bundled up ready to go for a walk with mom - we have been enjoying the fabulous weather this week! (don't worry, this was a couple weeks ago when it wasn't 80 degrees outside)

- we left his bouncy / vibrating chair in St. George at Nate's grandparents' house, but had left the toy bar here, so I figured out a way to set it up so he could still play with it.

St. George

Last week, Nate had to be down in St. George on Thursday for work (shooting a commercial - don't worry, he wasn't the actor/model, just helping to make sure it turned out how they wanted), so we decided to make a little vacation out of it. We drove down on Wednesday night and stayed with Nate's grandparents for a few days. Thursday was great weather, Friday was overcast but still fairly warm, and Saturday was raining off and on :( On Thursday and Friday, I hung out with Nate's grandparents while he was at work. We went on walks, barbequed hamburgers for lunch, and mostly just hung out. It was great to get outside though. On Wednesday night, we went to dinner with Nate's sister and her family, who were down vacationing in Mesquite. Bennett screamed through most of dinner, but it was still fun :)

On Friday night, Nate went to the driving range with his grandpa, then we went out to dinner at "The Painted Pony" with friends from Nate's mission - they were in one of the wards Nate served in and live in St. George now. It was fun to get to know them a little and for Nate to catch up with them. The food was delicious, and fortunately Bennett slept in his car seat the whole time.

The rain on Saturday put a damper on our plans for a hike, so we just hung out in the morning, then went for a drive through Snow Canyon in the afternoon. Nate and I got out and walked around a couple times. It was beautiful! I was amazed at the variety of scenery there was and the contrasts. Here are some pictures from our drive.






(I know I look dorky in this one, I just like that you can see the black lava rock, the green grass / bushes, the red rock, and the white rock on the hill behind me)

"Spring" Break

My parents and sister & nephews came out to visit for their spring break the week before last. We had a great time, although the weather didn't cooperate and it still felt like winter here. We didn't do anything too exciting, but it was fun to just hang out. My mom was the only one who had met Bennett, so the rest were excited to meet him and get to hold him. Nate and I were glad that babies start out little and don't move much - I don't think we would have enough energy to keep up with my nephews! We did get one nice day when the boys were able to play outside on our playground. It was fun to have them come visit when I didn't have to go to work - it seems like work would always end up really busy when they were in town, so it was nice to just hang out with them all day, and have people to keep me company at home!

Here are some pictures from their trip:

Landon and Davis were good with Bennett - they liked looking at him and holding him sometimes, but didn't bother him too much. Landon told his dad that all Bennett did was sleep :)

My nephew Landon had this conversation with my sister after they had been here a couple days:
"Mom, how come our house is so far from Becky's? I want our house to be closer."

"Me too Landon. That would be fun."

"Yeah, I want our houses to be right by each other, just squished together. Then we can just share my yard and Becky's yard, and we can play with Becky all the time." [side note: by "Becky's yard", he's probably referring to the playground down the street :)]

When they were getting ready to leave, he asked Jessica when they were going to move their house so they could be squished together. Jess and I would love that too!

Bennett's Blessing

Last Sunday was a special day for baby Bennett - he was given a name and a blessing in church by his dad, with his grandpas and most of his uncles in the circle. It was a great blessing, and we were so glad our families could be there for it! There was a snowstorm that morning and a several-car pileup on the road behind our house because of the wind and limited visibility, so we were glad everyone made it safely. Here are a few pictures from blessing day:

the proud parents

My family & Nate's family