Halloween at General Mills

Today was the Fall Festival at General Mills. My mom joined us and Mindy, Amy, Jason and I took all the Jordan and Janisch kiddos to the festivities. We got a few pictures and the kids got a dress rehearsal for their costumes and a head start on their Halloween bags:)

Fall Fun

We took our annual trip to the apple orchard and pumpkin patch last weekend with Dan and Amy. We took along Grandpa Jim and all the little Jordan munchkins to join in on the fun!

Grandpa and all the kiddos

A few fall family photo opportunities

Benny and Daddy

Magical Medicine Machine

We paid a visit to the urgent care last night. It was not really "urgent" but Bennett has had a lot of gunk in his eye for the last couple of weeks. It never spread to the other eye and it would come and go so I was fairly sure it was not pink eye; but we wanted to make sure he did not have an eye infection. When it flared up at dinner last night, we decided to take him in so we could show the doctor while it was really bad. She very quickly diagnosed it as a clogged tear duct which I guess is quite common in newborns. She said it usually opens itself up within 12 months, but in the meantime we should use some drops whenever it gets gunky to kill any bacteria. So there we were at urgent care at 10pm at night needing a prescription for drops. Who wants to make another stop at the drug store on the way home? She recommended we fill the prescription at the ATM style machine in the lobby. Seriously...I did not know this magic machine existed. It is 2010, of course it does. So she gave us a prescription code and we were able to type it into the dispenser in the lobby. The machine not only dispensed our prescription but also took our insurance ...what a magical little machine. Well worth the $2 service fee if you ask me! Diet Mountain Dew is not the only medicine that comes out of a machine anymore:)

More 3 month photos of Ben

Angel took some fantastic photos of Ben on Saturday at Long Lake Park. She has a few of them up on her blog. He looks so grown up. Check them out.....

http://antonelloadventures.blogspot.com/2010/10/bennett-3-months.html

Our Princess

Hudson remains the princess in the house. Usually at night, she sleeps on her dog bed on the floor in our room. We always keep the door shut so she does not wander around the house at night and get into trouble. Last night we forgot to shut the bedroom door. I woke up at 6 and realized that the dog was no where to be found. I checked the couches, the laundry room and called for her...nothing. I walked back upstairs to check on Ben and saw a big brown blob laying in the guest bed. There she was on the guest bed...all snuggled in and sound asleep. It is so funny to me that she LOVES to be comfy! Any chance she gets to crawl on a bed unnoticed, she takes. She knows she is not allowed up there so it is funny to me that she knew to sneak over there in the middle of the night when we would not notice. What a puppy! She is too smart ...if we leave her a loophole, she finds it!

3 Months

Look who is three months today.....

We did not find a number three this time, but we decided to get a picture with Mr. Bear to show how much he has grown

Our photo shoot was interrupted briefly for a quick wardrobe change.

Milestones

Yesterday marked a couple milestones for Bennett.

Milestone 1 : Hudson barked and Bennett got spooked and started to cry. I felt so bad for him. He was so caught off guard and his lower lip dropped and he cried like his feelings were hurt. This is the first time that I think Bennett realized there is an 80 pound hairy animal that resides in our house. I am interested to see if he starts to observe the dog more now that that happened or if it was just a fluke.

Milestone 2: Bennett sucked his thumb. He has been sucking on his hand (in a fist) a lot lately but before yesterday he had never realized how to pop out his thumb from his fist. Yesterday was the first time I observed him actually sucking on his thumb. It was cute.

My Personal Trainer

Last night I took Bennett and Hudson with me on a jog.... I use that term lightly as I am just getting started trying to get my butt back in shape. I was running intervals and it seems that Benny was a great person to have with me because every time I would slow down in between intervals, he would start to cry in the stroller. It was like he was coaching me to ...."get going mama!" My boy likes speed....its the same way when he gets fussy in the car at a stop light...he wants to keep moving! I am sure I am not the first mother to have to use the "rolling stop" technique at stop lights to keep the baby from fussing. I often wonder if the cars behind me question why I am slowing down so far in advance of the light...little do they know...to keep the peace and quiet I cannot actually let the car come to a complete stop:)

CR Vineyard 2010 Harvest

Sunday, September 26th marked the 2nd annual harvest at CR Vineyards. It was a gorgeous day complete with sun and the beautiful fall colors! A ton of family and friends came out to help my dad in the harvest efforts which was very fun. We picked from about 8:30 until 11:30 and then we ate and ate and ate. There was a fish fry and ribs and pulled pork and french fries(state fair style) and cheesy potatoes and wine...and you get the point...no shortage of food! So we definitely made time for celebrating after the fruits of our labor were picked. Bennett got to jam to the polka tunes and visit with all the grandmas while Pat and I helped to pick the grapes and he loved it. It was his first time at the vineyard and he was such a trooper. We had him bundled up and he took his share of naps in the back of the Volkswagen (as pictured below). As a nice end to our day, we even got to go up for a plane ride with my dad's buddy Joe so that we got to see the vineyard from the aerial view. It was Pat's first time up in a small plane so it was quite the thrill. Kaylee and Mindy joined us too and Kaylee got a wide breadth of new experiences...from driving the five wheeler to going for a tractor ride and then to top it all off she grew her wings and went for a plane ride. She has a future in photography I think because she got some excellent pictures from the air!

The fruits of our labor

Pretty vineyard

An aerial view of the vineyard....and all those grapes

Kaylee and Ben and the neighbor's award winning pumpkin

Ben taking a rest in the back of the VW. This was his nap spot so he did not miss any of the action.

A family photo at the winery


Another shot of the vineyard



Family photo with the Frontenac grapes. We also picked some King of the Nroth table grapes and my co-worker made me some jam with them thtat is to die for!



Enjoying the Harvest! Until next year......

Weighing In

In conjunction with last weekend's harvest at the family vineyard, we had to weigh all the grapes. So we thought we would put Benny Boy on the scale and see what he rang in at.....

11.2 lbs it was at just under 11 weeks. It is hard to believe that he will be 3 months old in exactly a week. Time flies.

He is Filling Out the Carseat

Another month has passed and it has now been more than two months since Bennett was discharged from the hospital. Time is flying. I have added another carseat picture to show how much he has grown in just two short months.......

July 24

Aug 24th

Sept 24th
By his expression you can see that he is now "Way embarrassed and too cool" for his mom's monthly carseat photo session! He is thinking "Seriosuly...do we have to do this every month?"

As you can see in the next picture....it did not take him long to tell me how he really felt....ok ok...photo session is DONE.