Our trip to the Mid-West

On January 27, 2010, Hunter and I boarded a plane bound to Missouri. Our flight this time was much different than our last trip together. The main reason for that being that Hunter was nine weeks old the first time we flew and this time I was working with a much more, we'll call him alert, mister!

Luckily for mommy we managed to find a straight through flight from San Diego to Kansas City. For the four hour long flight Hunter slept maybe twenty minutes. He found it was much more fun to flirt with the old ladies. He even convinced one to play peek-a-boo with him, which lasted a lot longer than I expected.

After landing safely in Kansas City we continued our long trip to Illinois to see my dad and his family. A six hour drive became tedious for Kaley and I about 2 hours in. Hunter, I do have to say, did wonderfully! He handled all the traveling like a champ.

We made our way back to Missouri where we were able to visit with family and friends. We stayed in MO for about 2 weeks before taking off to Iowa, where Hunter met his Great Grandpa and Grandma Benson for the first time. It was exciting! Grandpa Benson sure did think the world of our little Hunter, but then who wouldn't? We stayed in Iowa for a couple days and made it back to Missouri in time to relax a bit and then pack for our trip back home. We had a wonderful time but we were ready to see Daddy again!

While in the mid-west Hunter met a few milestones and also had his first bout with sickness. Poor mister got his little booty kicked by that good, old, mid-west winter. We made a trip to the doctor for both of us and a trip to E.R. for Hunter. Everything turned out fine, but I'll admit it was a little taxing on us.

Hunter learned how to stabilize himself while in a sitting position while during our visit. He learned how to push up on his hands and knees with his tummy off the ground. And of course he perfected the "swim"!

Hunter also had his first experience with dogs. Aunt Kaley owns four and that was just the beginning. Aunt Nee has two and Grandma and Grandpa have one. Needless to say I believe we will own a dog shortly after Hunter learns to ask for one. :) He loved them, even when Kaley's big dog got in his face and barked, Hunter just found it funny!

We had a wonderful time seeing everyone, and we can't wait to visit again. Only this time we'll be coming in the spring, fall or early summer, NO MORE WINTER! :)

Hunter's Five Month Milestones

On January 2nd Hunter turned five months old. He is getting so big! Once again we will not know exactly how much he weighs or how long he's gotten until his six month check-up in February. Hunter continues to learn and discover things daily. He is much more comfortable with tummy time and his eye sight improves everyday. He sometimes will cry if we walk away from him.

We started Hunter on veggies and fruits and he loves to eat now! We can barely get the spoon to his mouth before he's grunting and wanting more. He's even threw a couple fits because I wasn't fast enough for him.

Since I'm a stay-at-home mommy, I like to work hard with Hunter on sitting up and crawling. He's doing so well and even stayed in a sitting position without support for a couple minutes the other day. Crawling is another story.... he's not exactly interested in it. Although he moves around while sleeping and is able to get his legs up underneath him he doesn't seem to comprehend his ability to do this while awake. We call it "swimming", when he's on his tummy and flails his legs and arms as if moving. He really seems to think this does something for him, as if he's really going to get some where by "swimming"! It's so very adorable!

We can now put him in his walker without a blankie for support, and he can move it around on his own. He loves to push up on his legs to a standing position. We will continue to keep you updated on his developments!

Hunter's First Christmas

We celebrated our first Christmas as a family of three this year. Even though I knew Hunter wouldn't really understand what was going on I still had to get him presents. And did I ever, maybe a few too many, but isn't that what moms do?!

I was up around 7:00 Christmas morning to find that my boys were still sleeping. I ended up having to wake them up a little after nine. We started by helping Hunter open his massive amount of presents.

He was so cute, we ripped a bit of paper off so that he could grab it. He did it but we found out quickly that he wasn't so happy to hear the sound of the paper ripping, he got scared and cried a bit. Poor bubba!

We finished our family time and got ready to head to the Sapp's for our non-traditional Christmas dinner of... steak and potatoes. It was delicious. Merry Christmas Everyone!

Hunter's Four Month Milestones

Hunter was four months old on December 2nd, and I can't believe how time has seemed to just fly by! We went to the doctor and found out that our Mr. Man weighs 15 lbs and is 26 1/4 inches long! He's holding his head up with way more control, which seemed to happen over night. He actually enjoys tummy time and he's loving cereal! He's also discovered his feet, I love it! I can't wait til he can put them in his mouth, he's just not the flexible yet. He continues to grow and amaze us everyday!

We started working hard on his tummy time and he has become more comfortable now that he can hold his head up for longer amounts of time and see things. I have two favorite milestones this month, one being that he now holds his arms out for me when I pick him up and he now can turn him self in a circle in his crib and knows how to kick his crib toy to turn it on! My smart little man! Oh yeah another great one is that he has successfully put his own binkie back in his mouth the correct way a number of times!

Daddy continues to work with Hunter on saying... you guessed it "dada"! And it's working, kind of. Hunter will say the consonant sound of "d" now which was a sound he was having trouble with. Because of my consistency with "mama" he has taken to saying "mmmmmmmmmm" all the time, this just coming to my attention in the last few days. He is still the mover and shaker we love and babbles all the time. He's completely interested in everything we do, so I try to make it a point to tell him about things that are happening. Poor baby is probably sick to death of hearing about dishes being done! :)

Hunter's First Meeting with Santa

On November 15th we piled Hunter in the car to make a trip to Bass Pro Shop for Hunter's first meeting with Santa. It seemed early for Santa to be out to me too, but hey the pictures were free and they also let us take our own!

We stood in line for around 30 minutes. While waiting Hunter looked at boats with daddy and met Mrs. Claus and also had time for a bottle. I was really hoping he wouldn't spit up on Santa but I think Dustin was hoping he would, naughty guy will probably get coal in his stocking! :) There were elves to meet too. There was so much going on and Hunter had a great time looking at all the different stuff.

After meeting Santa we took him to see the giant fish in the tank and of course hung out in the fishing section so daddy could buy lots and lots of lures. We also bought Hunter a fun camoflauge sippie cup bearing the bass pro shop emblem! Good times had by all and I think Hunter will definitely receive what he asked for.... a maid for mommy, right?! ;)

Hunter's First Thanksgiving

Hunter had his first Thanksgiving and although he couldn't eat the turkey that mommy and daddy slaved over all morning he still had a wonderful day!

It started at 9 in the morning and Dustin helped me by cleaning the turkey. I prepared it with 2 sticks of butter and spices. It turned out wonderfully and I couldn't have done it without Dustin's help! Surprisingly he was a natural in the kitchen! (He's been holding out on me!) Five hours later we went to the Sapp's and enjoyed a delicious meal complete with every side you could imagine! Amanda and I later decided that we'd made waaay too much food, but it was still yummy!

We spent the rest of the evening over there chatting and watching football. Hunter and I slept very well that night! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

3 Month Milestone

Our little Hunter has reached his three month milestone! He's growing and healthy and truly a blessing in our lives! Everyday he does something that is new! He's definitely a talker or maybe I should say screamer. He loves to have screaming contests with Daddy! They could ahhhh and ohhh at each other forever it seems!

When Aunt Nee was here she taught us that if you say certain sounds they will start mimicking you. So it's "mama", "dada", and "bobo" all the time now! He can make the n, g and m sounds and is hard at work on the other ones.

One of the most exciting milestones is Hunter learned to roll over! The other night I woke up to him screaming bloody murder it seemed, so I frantically ran in his room and he was on his tummy! A couple hours later he did it again! Then when he woke up for the day, and he rolled over twice for Nee and Phil, unfortunately Daddy wasn't here to see it. Hunter hasn't really felt like doing it again. We keep trying to coax him into it but I think he figured out that he can't roll back over yet so it's kind of frustrating for him. He'll get there!


He's also trying really hard to sit up. He does not enjoy his car seat anymore when awake and feeding him has become a challenge, as well as diaper changing because he just doesn't want to stay still. He's a wiggle worm for sure!

We won't know how much he weighs or how long he has gotten until his four month check up in December. I know he's getting big though, picking up the car seat has become quite the chore! We got out all of his 3-6 months clothes and most of them fit pretty well. Some are a little too long but he's definitely grown a lot over the past four weeks! And he's getting a little chubby baby belly to boot. Gotta love it!

This weekend we are going to start him on cereal. He's already downing four to five eight ounce bottles! I'm so excited for this! Today we went and bought a high chair/booster seat for him! I can hardly wait to see his reaction, I will be sure to post lots of pictures, they're sure to be entertaining at the very least.