carrie's first pregnancy

This weekend was a lot of fun up in New York. We got there late Friday night, and Ben slept most of the way up there. We stopped around 12:30am and he woke up, and then stayed up for the last half hour home. Which was fine, since Joe's mom was awake when we got there, and had no problem staying up with him :) We spent Saturday in New Berlin visiting, and then made our way up to the camp. Ben was a champ and gave everyone a TON of smiles. We seriously couldn't have asked for a better weekend with him :) He did get sick on Monday evening... as Grandpa Bob was holding him he coughed and sounded like he gagged... only his gag turned into projectile vomiting his entire dinner that had just given him. Luckily he got it mostly on the floor, but whoa! What a site that was! He seemed fine after that, so not sure what spawned that mess. I got a ton of photos (minus the puking), and loved using the portrait lens. Definitely have to save up some money for a few other lenses... you can see what a difference it makes!





















































Now we're off this weekend to Michigan for Laura's baby shower, and Ben gets to see Grandpa Jim (who hasn't seen him since the week he was born!), as well as some of my other family members. Should be a fun time, and we're looking forward to Ben's first plane ride!

5 months 1 week 5 days old

Posted by carrie at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

Well, we're off to NY for the holiday weekend, and I hope to get some great photos of Ben's first time at the camp and lake. I have a few photos to share of Ben in his Detroit Tigers outfit, per Grandma Dee's request since she apparently has a full scrapbook page dedicated to Ben in Tiger's apparel :) So enjoy!















5 months 1 week old

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Look what we put together on Saturday! No food yet, but we know he can sit straight up in it! :)















We're travelling out of town this weekend (NY) and next weekend (MI)... so we probably won't try our first solid foods until the weekend after that. We're in no rush, and we'll make sure we video when we do :) We started putting him in size 12 month clothes, and surprise surprise, they fit him just fine. Still growing like a champ! :)

5 months 4 days old

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5 months has FLOWN by... I can't believe how big he has grown! I weighed Benny yesterday, and at 5 months he is a whopping 19 lbs and 28 inches long. His weight is slowing down and I think that's only in the 85th percentile... but his height is still in the 95th percentile :) Their percentiles can apparently jump all around at this age, so he could very well gain a bunch of weight over the next few months and jump back into the 95th again. He's healthy, that's all that matters!

I saw a glimpse of him rolling from his back to his stomach, but only once, and he hasn't done it since. He's teething like mad... you can tell the days where his gums really bother him as he chews and moans and makes "mmmmm" sounds like he's whimpering. We got him teething tablets and they really work! I don't know how, but they totally help. I know we won't see teeth for a few more months, but he's definitely got teething pain. At 28 inches, he has actually outgrown his infant carrier (but not by weight yet) so in the next few weeks we'll have to upgrade him to a convertible carseat that can face backwards. Poor guy will probably be 3 feet tall by the time he's a year and we can flip him forward!

He's also amazing us by pulling himself up to a sitting position! We had him on an incline on the couch, and he pulled himself to sit straight up! Totally shocked me as I had never seen him do that before. He can't hold it there, and toppled forward, but it's progress! So I play with him every day, and try to get him a little more steady :)

We're going to try to introduce solids this month, so we need to put together his highchair this weekend. Even though he can't sit straight, we'll probably prop something in there, and see how he tolerates his first baby cereal :) I made the hard decision to stop pumping (gradually, I can't stop cold turkey without severe pain), but it wasn't without guilt. My supply had dropped, and I always said if he started to get less than half breastmilk each day, I'd quit. He was down to one bottle (if that) of breastmilk a day, so I finally called it quits and figured I made it as long as I could. It was a hard decision, but I am looking forward to having that free time back! I think 5 months was a good run... my goal was 6 months, but it's close enough :)

Now we're just getting ready for our trip to NY for Memorial Day weekend, and then to Michigan the following weekend. Lots of travelling, so let's hope Benny does well! Everyone's excited to see him!

5 months old

Posted by carrie at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Comments

My first Mother's Day, and what a gorgeous day. The weather was in the mid 70's, breezy, no humidity, and the sun shone all day. I ran a 5k race, and even though Benny and Joe weren't there to meet me at the finish line (they tried but I gave them the wrong directions), we still got a photo of us together (excuse the hair, I was a hot mess after the race):



I look forward to making it a yearly tradition, and hopefully one day Benny will run it with me! Benny got his first Metro ride and then we took a long walk up to Eastern Market and around our neighborhood, enjoying the weather. We stopped at a lemonade stand from one of our neighbors, and then stopped at the corner market to get ice cream for dessert :) Perfect day :)

I also shot some more portraits of Ben, using my other lens. I love the portraits this takes, but I wish I had another high quality lens to use more often. But these turned out great. Only 5 more days until he turns 5 months!!











4 months 3 weeks 4 days old

Posted by carrie at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

Before he grew out of it, Joe put Ben in his "first Yankees shirt" :) The two were matching today, so of course we had to document it!









Tomorrow is my first Mother's Day, and I'm looking forward to spending time with my two favorite guys :) No "new" news about Ben... he's nearing his 5-month birthday in less than a week, so I'll have to update with his current weight/height (or our best estimate)!

4 months 3 weeks 3 days old

Posted by carrie at 9:43 PM | Permalink | Comments

We got some new clothes last week from my mom, and Ben sported the baseball pj's yesterday. He has recently discovered his feet, and grabs them any chance he gets! Which makes diaper changes interesting. I tried to catch him doing it, but once he was on the ground, all he wanted to do was roll. So I still managed to snap a few fun photos:











I'm sending out the baptism invites this week, so hopefully a few folks from Michigan and New York can make the trip down here. It's June 14, and should be a fairly small celebration (about 20ish people). So we're planning on just inviting everyone back to our house for an afternoon bbq afterwards :)

Benny is getting over a cold, and last night I put him to bed slightly awake, so I listened on the monitor to see if he would fall asleep. Well after a while I suddenly heard what sounds like choking followed by water gushing... and when I ran upstairs I found the crib and Benny SOAKED in puke. He of course was smiling away so it must have made him feel better, but man was that a mess. He sounds better this morning, so I think it was just a combination of general malaise and too much food.

All in all, he's still doing great. He loves to roll over and hang out on his stomach, and he finally figured out how to fall back asleep while on his stomach, so at least he's not waking us up in the middle of the night in a panic anymore. Not that I'm a big fan of the stomach sleeping, but it rarely happens, so I'm not going to stress about it. He's babbling a LOT, especially while he's on the changing table. Not sure why getting a new diaper sparks conversation, but he's a chatterbox up there! He also reacts to his toys now, and I can make silly noises and get him to laugh at them. Fun times :) I'm working on helping him get stronger so he can sit up by himself, but we still have a ways to go before he does that. He still teeters and falls forward, but it won't be long! I think we are going to assemble his high chair this weekend, and hopefully sometime next month start feeding him solids! I'll be sure to have the camera rolling for that one! :)

4 months 2 weeks 6 days old

Posted by carrie at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments