My Second Attempt With Royal Icing!

After my venture into the land of royal icing with my Star Wars cookies, I've been determined ever since to perfect the art of cookie decorating! I knew I had a good opportunity to try again when Joel informed me of their HUGE cardiovascular exam coming up. I whipped out my heart-shaped cutters and got creative with another fun "cardiovascular" themed cookie. Let's see if you can tell what it is!!!

 EKG COOKIES!!!!!!!

I had tons of fun making 60 of these special treats for his medical school class. I think they liked them, too! :) They turned out pretty cute and in my opinion were the best tasting sugar cookie I've ever tried! I really found a GEM of a recipe!

For the record, I am nowhere near being good at decorating quite yet. I have improved, however, and I'm just waiting for the next opportunity to try it out again! (Valentine's Day, anyone???) Practice makes perfect!

A Day With Benjamin Joel...

Oh, how I love this boy...

He's my peanut!

I have great news to share! Benjamin is legitimately a wonderful baby! He's on a schedule, he eats, he poops, he smiles, he laughs, he reaches, and best of all..... HE SLEEPS!!! Thank GOODNESS we are over our hump and nights have become very relaxed around here because we know that when he goes down he will stay down! (98% of the time, anyway!) I'm so proud of my little man!

One of my friends just posted a hilarious hour-by-hour account of a "day in the life" with her baby, which inspired me to describe ours! (Plus, I'm sure I'll love looking back on this in the future!) I'm not going to go into extreme detail, but it's nice to document his normal daily schedule!

Here we go!
Between 7:30 and 8:30 AM: Benjamin wakes us up! He starts squawking and when we go in to greet him good morning, he almost always has a big grin on his face! Sometimes he likes to hang out in the crib for awhile and examine his hands. They're always interesting, you know.

8:45: Joel leaves for school and Ben and start our day out by changing his diaper, singing songs, and eating a (small) bottle. He's not a big breakfast eater!

9:00: We catch the 3rd hour of the Today Show while I make some breakfast. I get a good pump in and Benjamin and I play!

Between 9:30-10: Ben gets cranky and it's nap time! (I love that I can just take him in, lay him down, turn on his mobile, pop in his pacifier, walk out, and know he'll fall fast asleep on his own.) While Ben naps, I hop in the shower and get dressed for the day!

Around 10:30 or so he's up and ready for more fun! We play... and watch KLG and Hoda in the background. He loves his swing and his play center! He'll eat a little more around 11:00.

11:30-12: I start making lunch for Joel while Benjamin sits in his swing in the kitchen and watches me. He usually always gets very weary and I end up putting him down for another nap. Joel is home by noon, we eat, and he gets to kiss Ben around 12:30 after he wakes up! Joel's out the door again by 12:45!

At 1:00 we're doing a variety of different things! Sometimes we go out and take a little trip to the store, and other days I try to catch up on housework or work on different projects. Ben always makes sure I give him LOTS of attention!

By 2:00 he's enjoying some more delicious milk! Not long after his snack he's getting ready for another short nap.

Between 2:30 and 5:00 we're doing more fun things... We read, sing, and play with his toys. Ben discovers something new every day! Then it's time for him to eat again!

I start dinner around 5:30 and Benjamin loves to watch me work! By this time Joel is (sometimes) home if there are no big tests looming, so he spends some quality time with the boy.

After we have dinner, we hang out until 7:30 - bath time! Ben loves his baths, and he especially loves to splash Mom with water! After his bath he has his nighttime bottle and somewhere between 8 and 9 goes down for the night! Hallelujah!

Benjamin is ready for another bottle around 12:30 or 1 in the morning, but he's usually so tired that he gulps it down and is back asleep in my arms in fifteen minutes or less. What a champ! I go skipping back to bed knowing I'll get a full night's rest until around 8am ! Yahoo!

So there's our (pretty standard) schedule! Gone are the days of multiple night feedings! I couldn't be happier! I'm so proud of my little guy! He's such a fun little person and we love him to pieces!

What I'm Loving Right Now

I'm loving this cookbook right now!


It's new from America's Test Kitchen (aka the kitchen gods), and I'm so excited to have a copy of it! You can pick it up here!

3 Months Old!!!

Little Ben... He's just growing like a weed! As of tomorrow, he is officially 3 months old! As Joel likes to point out, he's finally getting to be more fun! We've been having a blast with him. He smiles non-stop, and he absolutely loves to have conversations - he squawks right back at you! He's been laughing now and then, and he's got the sweetest little laugh! (You know that already if you've watched the video we posted a couple weeks ago!!!) I don't have a clue what's so funny, but once in awhile he'll look at me or one of his toys and just bust a gut!

Ben is so alert and responsive! He's started noticing his hands and now they're everywhere and always in the way! When he eats from his bottle, he always tries to grab it and pull it or push it out of his mouth. He's basically almost feeding himself. :o) He loves music and smiles so big if we sing to him. Mornings are my favorite time of day. Every morning when he wakes up and sees my face he smiles and smiles as I sing him his morning songs! He loves to lay on his changing table and look outside the window when it's nice and bright outside. He's recently changed his mind about his swing and now LOVES it! He almost always falls asleep in it, and I am so grateful that he'll swing for so long so I can get a few things done around the house!

Sleep... Ugh.... Let's just say it's coming along. Two weeks in Mitchell over Christmas break absolutely DESTROYED any schedule we had. When we got back home he was so used to being held 24/7 that our lives pretty much sucked for a few days as we tried to break him of all the bad habits that developed. I'm happy to say that things are improving in the sleep department. We've got him back on a strict feeding schedule and we've implemented a new nightly routine (bath, bottle, rocking/singing, bed.) He still wakes up whimpering to be held every so often, but once I pick him up he falls fast asleep in my arms. It's so tempting to just bring him to bed with me, where he sleeps like a rock for hours on end... I'm just really trying to avoid that habit. He's sleeping longer and longer by himself though, sometimes up to 5 hours between feedings. I just keep telling myself that one of these days I'm going to be saying "remember when Ben was just a tiny baby and I used to get up with him every 3 hours to feed? Where did that time go?" We're trying to enjoy every minute - even the tough, tired ones.

I'm also happy to announce that his nightly screams have (for the most part) subsided. Oh man, am I glad that nightmare is over. It's all about the schedule, I tell ya... He eats more often which means he sleeps more often/more soundly which equals happier baby and less fussing. We are still, however, battling the ever-present eye boogies. I took him to the Doctor today to get a new prescription for eye drops and also made an appointment for him to see an ENT. I'm hoping we can just get those plugged ducts opened up for good.

All in all, we've got a wonderful, handsome, healthy, 11 lb, 2 oz bouncing baby boy that we get to watch change and grow everyday. We're so lucky!

Big Talker

Here's Ben just talking away!

Tired guy

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Benjamin's First Laugh