Music to my ears

I adore both my boys. I mean really, I have an entire blog dedicated to it. Zeke cracks me up constantly with the silly things he does all day long. But Ben has the sweetest little laugh and smile right now.

Mr. Personality

Wide open laughing

I had to include this one, I know he isn't smiling, but look at that face!

Caveman

Zeke now insists on feeding himself. He is pretty messy. Most nights end up being a bath night these days. (Which hasn't been so great for the excema) He loves, loves, loves to dip. Anything and everything. Some of his recent combos have been: nuggest in applesauce, strawberries in ketchup, blueberries in applesauce. UGH! In fact we have caught him with a spoon scooping up just ketchup. GROSS! Zeke has learned this word from our recent dining experiences.

Racing Stripes

Most babies get bald spots. It's a normal thing. But most babies get it on the back of their heads from sleeping on their backs. Since we are not rule followers here in the Shelton house, Ben sleeps on his belly. (But if my dr asks you, yes we put him on his back) Because he sleeps on his belly, he has lost hair on the sides of his head. I call them his racing stripes.

We finally fed Ben

No we haven't been starving him, we finally fed him real food. He tried oatmeal. We decided to skip rice cereal because of Zeke's experience, and really it's not that different. Ben did really well the first time and has gotten much better as the week went on. He is even grabbing the spoon and pulling it to his mouth now. I can't wait to try out bananas next!

Ben, this is gonna be good, promise!

This is gonna be great!

Rethinking that...

The bib tastes better

I think more ended up on the bib than in the body...

Nananana-nananana, hey, hey, hey, goodbye

Zeke's Yaya has been teaching him again. I love hearing him try to sing.

Raindrops on Roses...

My friend Erin did a favorite things blog and it has only taken me about a month to try to get mine together. So, Erin for you here are my favorite things:

*I am loving this springlike weather we have been having. It has me totally excited for these:

but hopefully with a tan soon

and these on a little boy who can run circles around me

for lots of this

and this

*I love ridiculous tv shows like this The Marriage Ref

*Family time is a blast for us

*I adore crafty things like this

can't wait to try this

these aren't the ones I made, but I have done this one

this is a bookmark that is a magnet, how cool is that?!

*I love

this guy

then

and still

*I am a blog stalker of

craftiness

ways to keep my marriage fresh

ways to improve our home

ways to teach my kiddos

*I love my babies in cloth diapers even if it ends up like this

*Pondering dating my husband again because of this.

What are your favorite things? I'd love to hear about them and then maybe copy you and find a new favorite thing for myself :)

Bright, Bright, sunshiney day

Last week we had some amazing weather. Zeke wanted to spend more time outdoors than in, which was fine with me. We headed out to a park one day and Zeke had a blast! I had fun trying to capture some fun pictures while wearing Ben and keeping the load of germy big kids out of their faces. I can’t wait for more days like this one!

Climbing up the stairs (yes instead of helping I took pictures)

"Mom, seriously, you aren't going to help?"

Such a BIG boy!!!

What are YOU looking at?

Peeka


BOO!

For the Huffmans

Zeke put this hat on and it made me think of ya'll:

Our little rice field worker

Who aparently also specializes in SUMO

Future Linebacker?

Zeke can identify any kind of ball. Footballs, baseballs, soccer balls, basketballs, even golf balls. He even knows what to do with each one. He has Spence hold the football for place kicking. He puts the soccer ball down and says "kick it". He tells me to catch and flings balls towards me. He constantly asks for "shoot ball" which is how he tells me he wants to shoot the basketball. He has even been known to pick up the remote, point it at the tv, and say 'football' or "shoot ball". With all that said, here is a video that does nothing to show case any of those skills, but it's pretty funny. He also said a few things we had never heard before, so that was also fun.

Thursday Throwback

One of my favorite memories from Meredith was my sophomore year. My dad and I went to the Father Daughter Dance. My mom just sent me some pictures from the night, enjoy!

Us before the dance

Girls and dads

Suitemates

Girls and dads on the bridge

19 months

My sweet boy is closer to 2 than 1!!! How did this happen? I feel so blessed to get to hang out with this kid everyday. He is so cool and so much fun. Everyday is different. Here are some of the fun things he is doing now:
*he loves to sing- he can sing parts of Jesus Loves Me, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Old McDonald, Patty Cake, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
*he prays and has even started trying to sing the blessing from church snack time
*he tickles Ben
*went a whole month with out a cold or fever- this is HUGE in our house
*still loves airplanes
*loves coloring/painting/anything arty or crafty
*is saying 2+ word phrases
*learning his colors and size words

chilling with his bff Isaac

"Won't you be my neighbor?"

Creating a masterpiece

5 months

Ben is 5 months! Can you believe it. I know I say this every month, but it really seems like time is flying. I feel like we are getting more settled into being a family of 4. I absolutely can't imagine our life with out him in our family.
Ben has had a pretty big month, here are some updates:
*has slept 11-6 more nights in the past week than not
*has started talking to get our attention and then to keep our attention
*watches Zeke constantly
*rolls all over his bed and on the floor when we aren't watching, but rarely goes anywhere if we are paying attention- we sneak and peek over his crib to see him
*rotates around on his play gym mat
*smiling and laughing more freely

Cooing

Love those baby blues

Jumping Bean, I mean Ben

Ben has decided he doesn't really like to sit anymore. He is pushing and pulling while on our laps so that he can stand up. He gets bored in his bouncy chair and also under his playgym. Since he is still not rolling over when on the floor (at least not when I'm looking), he needed something else to do. So, we pulled out the jumper for him to try out. His feet are barely touching the ground and we have to stuff blanekts around him to help his body stay up. He is liking something different, but definitely isn't jumping. His big brother is up for the challenge of showing him all the cool stuff to play with though.

What have you done to me, mama?

Not sure about this...

Check this out

Oh, wow, how'd you do that?

Ben, you gotta see this!

How to cook a chicken

So, after many requests, people beating down my door, and talks of a cookbook (HA!) I am posting my super secret recipe. I have two now because we have had it again and I spiced things up a bit.

Roasted Chicken:
Preheat oven to 400. Remove insides (ewww, yuck). Rinse off chicken and pat dry. Rub with butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 65 minutes. DONE! Easy Peasy, right?

Sweet and Sour Chicken (recipe stolen from magazine when I went for my kidney stone appt):
Preheat oven to 400. Mix together 1 tbs each of brown sugar, oregano, chili powder, and olive oil, and 1/4 tsp pepper and 3/4 tsp salt. Remove insides (ewww, yuck). Rinse of chicken and pat dry. Rub chicken with mixture. Bake for 65 minutes. DONE!

I like them both and am now obsessed with baking whole chickens. Seriously, it is easy and so yummy! Let me know how it goes if you try it out.

Thursday Throwback

Today’s Thursday Throwback is going to be stories from and about my Grandma because her 79th birthday is tomorrow. I have more stories than I can even begin to count about Grandma. She lives up the driveway from my parents and always has. We went to Grandma’s all the time. But this wasn’t your typical go for Sunday lunches at Grandma’s house visit.s My grandma is a bartender and has been for almost 60 years. Girl can make a mad L.I.T. (not that I would know personally). I have tons of stories surrounding growing up having a bartender for a grandma, too many for this one post, but just ask me sometime and I’ll be happy to share more.

I am going to share two stories about Grandma today. First, her Elvis story and then her chickens story.

My grandma served Elvis. And yes, I am talking about THE Elvis Presley. As in the KING. Back before he was a huge megastar, he performed in Burlington. He stopped in Whitsett (my hometown) at Brightwood Inn (my grandma’s bar/restaurant) to eat. Grandma’s story has changed a bit over the years. Originally he had a cheeseburger and beer and she had to tell him to quiet down. The story that she shares now is that he had a cheeseburger and milk. He was also very nice and well behaved. She tells the story about twice a year to a local tv station and also is written up in the newspaper. She’s a celebrity in our town.

Grandma was interviewed by a paper that did a montage thing on their website a few years back. She was asked to share some stories about working at Brightwood for so long. One story she shared was about Henry the rooster that lives at Brightwood. She recalled someone trying to pick up Henry, to which her response was “you just don’t go around pickin' up chickens”. Thank you, Grandma, I definitely wouldn’t have learned that one with out you.

Isn't she cute?!

Zeke's got a new song

Zeke learned a new song while hanging out with his Yaya last week. He has been so funny singing it. It isn't caught on this video but he combines it with wheels on the bus. After saying "baby, baby, baby," he says "waa, waa, waa" and then "shhh, shhh, shhh". It cracks me up everytime.