November and Peter at 5 months

Peter enjoys sitting up. He isn't rolling yet and doesn't like to be lying down on stomach or back so I don't see it happening anytime soon.

He started saying strings of consonants. His favorite is dadadadada. He is usually very quiet but gets into talkative moods and goes on for an hour without stopping. Usually that happens at night. :-/ He has definitely regressed in his sleep this past week or two. He enjoys nursing all night from side to side and sometimes just wants to be up talking. I think he's probably in a cognitive development stage or something. I'm excited for him to get back to his normal self!

I've let him suck on a apple a couple of times because he wants to eat sooo bad. When I was eating an apple and he lunged for it on my lap I let him suck on it and since then I can't say no when I'm eating an apple. He is currently 20 pounds at 5 months old! He is in 12 month clothes and a couple of 18 month shirts!

Benjamin has been so inquisitive about everything and adorable in everything he does and says. We got him an illustrated Old Testament book and he loves reading in it. He asks for more and more and prefers it now about any of his other books. He asks questions about it and later refers to things we read so I know he's thinking about it.

Lamoni had him on his shoulders and then let him down to walk while we were out. Benjamin said, "Daddy, I have sparkles in my feet!" (they were asleep).

Peter still enjoys giving us kisses. He grabs our face with both hands and brings it right to his mouth where he gives a long, slobbery, open-mouthed kiss.

Benjamin is so ready to go to primary at church. He gets to start going in January. I thought it would be a hard transition because that is the end of playing during church, but it is hard in a different way than I thought! Each Sunday the nursery has been coming to primary for singing time so they can get used to it. Whenever they head back to nursery Benjamin sobs and ends up having to be carried back by a teacher. I asked him Sunday why he cries and he said, "I just want to stay in primary!"

I don't remember if I wrote about our deer accident, but I hit a deer on the way back from Indiana. The damage was more extensive than we originally thought, so our new car ended up in the shop for 2 weeks! Luckily we had good insurance on it so we had a low deductible for the $3,000 of work they did and a rental that whole time. I added up, in a month's period of time, I drove the boys in 6 different cars! I got a couple of comments on that at preschool when I'd drive up in a different car each time. lol. The 6 cars are: Our old Mazda before we sold it, our Corolla while we were looking for a car, my mom's Volvo when Lamoni took his car for work, our Highlander when we bought it, our rental while that was gone. That's only 6. Hm, I'm missing one in there.

More Benjamin sayings:

"Mom, if somebody hits my brother can I TACKLE them??" said with a rough and mean face on.

I walked into the hall to make sure Benjamin was sleeping and saw him with a book propped up staring at it. I asked him to put the book down and go to sleep. He blatantly ignored me. I asked again. No response. I entered not happy he wasn't even responding to my request and then saw that his eyes were closed looking at the book and he had fallen asleep looking at it!.

Benjamin woke up coughing and accusingly said, "The BED made me coughing." He still hates bed and the dark. Starting as soon as he gets up in the morning he says, "Mom, what are we doing next?" I tell him the full agenda for the morning. Each time he says, "then what?" When I get to lunch he looks darkly at me and says, "then what?" again. When I respond with "nap" he crumples onto the floor bawling that he doesn't want to go to bed.... at 8 in the morning!! He dreads it all day. Poor guy.

We were talking about full names and Benjamin told me that Kin Kin's (one of his imaginary friends)  full name is Kin Kin Righteous Sam.

I finally forced, ahem I mean encouraged, Lamoni to get some healthy breakfast cereal because Benjamin was getting addicted to his junky stuff. He bought some whole wheat chex or something. The next morning Benjamin excitedly told me he wanted "Daddy cereal". I just as excitedly poured it for him looking forward to his reaction. He took a couple bites then asked me, "Mom, is daddy's cereal made out of wood?" I said no and he replied, "then what's the brown stuff?" Needless to say, he's back to eating yogurt or toast in the mornings.

Benjamin was playing with his trains and in a loving voice said, "my husband, you are such a beautiful wife."

He was singing Praise to the Man and got to "Kings shall extol him" and he asked, "Mom, why did the kings stole?"

I asked him if he was a big boy or a little boy and he said, "I'm a big little boy."

Benjamin opened up a book and said, "I'm going to read you the scriptures. And it came to pass that the Lord was speakin' by Nephi" and proceeded to give his account of the brass plates.

October/November

Cute things Benjamin has said:

I saw something on the counter Lamoni forgot for work and I said out loud "Daddy's in big trouble!" Benjamin looked up from his work quickly and said "I'm in big trouble?? Oh, Daddy's in big trouble. WHEW!" Haha I guess it's a good thing that worries him.

Santa came out the weekend after Halloween at the mall! We happened to be there during a slow time so the worker invited the longing-looking Benjamin to chat with Santa. He is still bashful around new people/situations so he stared at Santa with big eyes and an open mouth and didn't answer a single question Santa asked him. Santa told him when he thought of what he wanted for Christmas he could come back. He was such a sweet Santa. Well, that's all Benjamin could talk about afterwards. He told me he wanted a tractor for Christmas and would tell Santa. So we went back a little later, waited our turn and he went right up to Santa and said "I want a tractor please." As we left the mall Benjamin said, "We need to go back to Santa because he didn't give me my tractor yet!"

During General Conference one of the speakers had a glare off of his face. It looked shiny so Benjamin asked about it. I explained about the light and that's just what happens. Benjamin said, "He needs to wear some makeup to help it!"

At Joy School Liz told me that all the boys were comparing their dads' heights. "My dad's as tall as a giant!" "Yeah, well my dad is as tall as a mountain!" etc. Benjamin excitedly exclaimed, "My dad is almost as tall as my mom!!" Haha! To be fair, he is 3 inches taller than me, and one of the other Joy School dads is shorter than him. It's still funny to hear things from a kid's perspective, though.

While I was shopping with Peter in the Ergo and Benjamin in the cart, Peter spit at Benjamin as we passed by him! It was his way of initiating a conversation with him and he joyfully laughed when Benjamin responded. Peter stares at Benjamin all the time and Benjamin loves the attention. He laughs and laughs at his antics. It's especially fun to hear in the car as Benjamin makes silly sounds and goofs off and Peter rolls with laughter.

I had Peter in the Bumbo on top of the table while we were eating. He almost back-flipped out of it trying to get something. I thought it was cute and all until a couple days later when I heard a friend of mine's daughter at Peter's age did the same thing but she fell out and fractured her skull!! So we don't put Peter on the table anymore...

Benjamin had his second cello performance at one of my studio recitals. It was only a half hour long! My studio recitals had gotten up to 1.5 hours during the high time. It's odd to have so few students. Benjamin played Bob is a Noisy Bird and announced his name and piece just like everyone else (we practiced it a gazillion times). I've been surprised both times he has performed because he's normally so bashful. I'm careful not to say that in front of him because that's not how I want him to view himself, but it's true.

His cello group class has their first performance next weekend but we're quadruple booked, so he isn't able to play. They also asked me to help with a parents' panel for the lab school that morning that I'm not able to. It's such a busy season! The New Mexico Philharmonic asked me to sub for 3 of their concerts this next month. I turned 2 of them down for different conflicts and accepted 1. I went into it thinking it was fine and it turns out that Thursday night rehearsal is during our stake primary presidency training (I was just called from 1st counselor to president) and a business meeting. Friday night rehearsal conflicts with our ward group dinners that I was excited to participate in. Saturday rehearsal is part of the quardrupled booked time - I'm supposed to be teaching, the cello concert, a grand opening for someone's business we're helping and saddest of all my niece's baptism. :-( I didn't find that out until I had already accepted the gig. Then the Saturday evening performance coincides with the adult session of stake conference! Not a single thing was there when I said yes. I'm really excited to play this concert, though, so at least it will be a good one. A solo violinist is coming to play Prokofiev's 2nd violin concerto, which I played in college, so that will be fun to hear.

Oops, just realized I forgot to post this so it's all a little outdated.