15 Month Old Words

I came across this list from January of words Benjamin could say. There are 54 words we listed that he used regularly and that's probably doubled now. He learns new words every day. He loves talking and babbles all day. When we understand him he gets such a kick out of it. He says "yeeeeees" with a little bow when we repeat what he wants.

The Highlight of My Day

I had Benjamin at the bank with me the other day. I was opening another account so I had to wait 45 minutes (!) to see a personal banker. You can imagine how Benjamin was after waiting so long. So when we finally got in the office he was up to his toddler-ness - trying to slam the door, grab things, throw things etc. As I left his office dragging a screaming Benjamin I apologized to the man. He told me, "It was no problem! It was the highlight of my day. Really." That really impacted me. All throughout my errands people were staring at him - laughing at his silly antics, pushing his toy car back to him, talking to him... I get to live with and be with him (almost) all the time. Is he the highlight of my day? I think I could honestly answer that yes, he is. I love all my time with him; I love holding him, playing with him, nursing him, taking him places, feeding him and teasing him. The only times I get frustrated are when he should be sleeping and isn't or when I really need to be sleeping but can't because he's up. But even then, I would still call those times with him a highlight of my day. I'm glad that the banker helped me realize that.

February 2015

Saying good bye to cousin, Lauren Brightman, before she left for her mission. So glad they could stop by and see us even though Benjamin took his usual 30 minutes to wake up from his nap.

Those two have SO much fun.

He knows how to play up being sick.

We have spent many hours in this Thomas the Train tent that Grandma Kara gave him for his birthday. We throw those balls back and forth and back and forth and...you get the idea. He never tires of it.

Serving up some Benjamin salad.

Science experiments already. 

We caved and bought a pass to Explora Children's Museum. We really enjoy going there and Benjamin happily goes from one thing to another...as does Lamoni.

Stages of unwrapping a cake-pop from Aunt Courtney. He's never had any so I don't know how he knew it was worth getting into. He ate the whole thing.

We started time outs for hitting. He spent some time with a friend who is going through a hitting stage so he decided to start his too. At first time outs were effective but that only lasted about 2 days. We had a Family Home Evening lesson on how Jesus wants us to be "nice and soft" to each other and not to hit. He is very receptive to our lessons and listens intently. He totally got it. He loves learning about Jesus and flips through the pages of our monthly church magazine to point out all the pictures of him. Since then he has only hit a couple times over the past few days (instead of a couple times an hour) and immediately apologized.

Mr. Cool Dude - his favorite place to be and my way of getting my daily reading in.

 

My attempt at getting a picture of us.

I have to document when I have a meal success to prove that it happens sometimes. Lentil soup and bread sticks that I can't take credit for because they took Lamoni 4 hours to make! Delicious, though. 

We got real snow in Albuquerque! Two whole snow days (one was Saturday so didn't really count). It was nice because we were sick pretty much the entire month of February and it decided to surface again that weekend so we had a nice time home recovering. I was confused why my sinuses have been freaking out this month, but then I read that we the temperature ranged from 16-70 degrees in Feb. No wonder! That's crazy. 

No, we're not potty training. Just practicing. :-) He thinks it's a fun game.

When I was planning how I would do babysitters when I was pregnant I tried to imagine which parents would be okay holding him and which I needed a sitter for. I guessed I'd need a sitter for Nobuko and Sara but boy was I wrong! Benjamin adores Nobuko and she is sooo good with him and always has been since he was newborn.

Look at his cute suit. :-) There is a suit jacket too.

I LOVE this picture. We were at Walmart and I told Lamoni that I didn't have many pictures with Benjamin so he took this right away. Benjamin's face sums him up right there!