Halloween 2009

Here is our little Benny. As you can see he went dressed as a cow this year. He did pretty well considering he didn't want to take a nap that day. He wasn't too thrilled to have the cow hat on. I tried to get him to say "trick or treat" but all he said was "treat".

He had a bit of his candy before we got home. He found out that he likes Hershey's chocolate bars. Here is our chocolate cow.

Benny's two favorite things from Halloween night. His big "pop" and his glow stick.

I think he had fun. We visited our friends in the neighborhood. He didn't want to go to any house he didn't know which was okay by me. Once we got back home, he helped me hand out candy. He got so excited when anyone knocked on the door or rang the doorbell.

Pudding Painting

Last week, Benny had the opportunity to finger paint for the first time. I just took vanilla pudding and put food color in it. He didn't really seemed interested in getting his hands wet. He liked using spoons instead. He really enjoyed eating the paint.

Silly Pictures of Benny

Here are a few miscellaneous picture of our silly boy. I was trying to get him to lay on top of the train blanket (which he absolutely loves grandma) but he just wanted to be covered up. Where's Benny? Look at that sweet smile!

Just a little boy in his "hat" walking his duck.

Benny trying to fill Daddy's shoes.

This picture was from the end of summer. Benny had just come in from "helping" Daddy was the car so he was wet from head to toe. I took off his clothes and before he dressed he found his Thomas the Tank Engine stickers and we had fun putting them on his tummy. We were finding those stickers weeks later (on our socks). He liked putting them on, but taking them off was another story.

Aunts and Uncle

Benny had a lot of fun with his Aunt Jenny, Aunt Jill, Aunt Leslie and Uncle Steve when they cam to visit the first part of October. We went to Mt. St. Helens and stopped at one of the observation centers that had a great play area for kids. This picture is of Benny trying to shovel the rocks. He was not quite big enough but he wanted to try anyway. He actually wore his sunglasses most of the time that day. Here is the playground that he liked to climb on. He wouldn't go down the slide. I don't think he liked the fact that it was like a tunnel.

We also took a day and went to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma. Brad and I are members and were able to take 3 guests. They were nice enough to let us bring 4. Anytime Benny couldn't see, he would say "Please, Steve."

Here is Benny and Aunt Leslie standing by some big shark's teeth.

Benny really had a lot of fun with his Aunts and Uncle. He liked having more people to play with. At the beginning of their visit we went to Portland for a Professional Bull riding event. It was the first time Benny and I went to such an event. It was loud and entertaining. Benny liked the big cows and learned a new word "ye-haw".

Pumpkin Patch

While my sisters and brother-in-law came to visit, we took them to our local farm for pumpkins. This is the gift shop where you can buy all kinds of neat stuff.

One thing we did different this year was go on a tour of the farm. We road this little wagon around the farm, picked out a small pumpkin (we now have 7 little pumpkins on our porch), and go through a corn maze.

Silly pumpkin heads!

Benny has a fascination with spiders. He always looks for them when he is outside, so this big spider was right up his alley.

We all had fun. The weather was nice, cold, but nice. Benny didn't want to leave. He wanted to play with the "duckies".

Pumpkin Patch 2

This year Benny had the privilege of going to our local pumpkin patch with his Aunts and Uncle. The weather was nice and we all had a good time. Here is Benny next to a giant paper pumpkin (he is the one with the orange shirt). Here is Benny's favorite thing at the farm. The duckie races!
Here is Benny and Daddy racing their "horses".

Aunt Jenny and Aunt Jill traveling "old" style.

Mommy and Benny in the pumpkin house.

It's a ....

We had another ultrasound done very early this morning. The reason we had this one was because I didn't pass my Quad screening in the area of downs syndrome. The blood test showed pretty much the same risk as my age (about a 1 in 92 chance). The ultrasound was done to try and lower my chances. Well, that didn't really happen. They saw a bright spot in the right ventricle of the heart. It is called an "Intracardiac echogenic focus (EIF)" which means a spot in the fetal heart that is as bright as bone or brighter on ultrasound. An EIF is usually a normal variant of the developing heart. The heart is expected to continue developing and functioning normally. It is seen in about 25% of normal pregnancies. Most pregnancies with an EIF will not have a genetic disorder. However, occasionally the EIF is caused by the baby having Down syndrome or another chromosome anomaly. Since I am at such a high risk, they will be doing a follow-up ultrasound in November. Other than that, this little one was quite active. It did not want to show much. It did however give us a "thumbs up" sign. I am taking this a a positive sign. It wasn't until the very end of the session that this little one decided to open his legs and give us a pretty good look at his boy part. You might be able to make out his hand that just happens to be in that area. The ultrasound technician and I got a good laugh at this one. So as you can see, we are most likely having a boy!