Hide and Seek

B's new favorite place to play...

He hides his toys back there to play on the window sill and has attempted to crawl up on to the ledge a few times. Can't wait to start building blanket forts for him to play in! :)

Hair Cut!

Due to a *small* misunderstanding between mom and dad, Bennett got his first buzz cut! Here is a before and after shot...

Yes, I will admit he was getting kinda scruffy in the back (our friend called it the old man 'horseshoe'). I was excited to trim it up a bit and get him used to the clippers! Ty got him ready to go while I got the camera ready.

It was at about this point (see above photo) that I realize Ty doesn't have ANY attachments on the clippers! Bennett is quickly losing ALL of his hair!

Me: TY!!!! OMG you are shaving him BALD!!!
Ty: Yeah. So his hair will grow in more even. Right?
Me: I AM NOT EMOTIONALLY PREPARED FOR THIS!!!

Well, seeing as how Ty had already shaved half of this little guy's head, there was no turning back.

Thumbs up, Mom! Nothing to worry about!

Of course, this little man will be handsome no matter what. And hopefully his hair will grow in thicker and more even.


But in the meantime, his head is prickly like a French lady's legs...

Happy Birthday Bennett!!

I have put this off on purpose because I still can't believe it's true- Bennett turned ONE!! It really seems like its only been a few months since I was feeling that kid doing acrobatics in my tummy whenever loud music turned on... Now I get to see his angry eyebrows when he thinks something is too loud =) cute kid!

We decided to go all out and throw him a birthday bash complete with grilled burgers and an inflatable water slide for all his pals! More than 50 people came! Whoa! It was so much fun!!

I put my craftiness to the test prepping for this party. It took a long time, but I think the decorations turned out SO cute!! The picture above shows the "Bennett's Favorite Things" wall- puppets, mac n cheese, playing ball with Dandy, fingerpainting, going to the zoo, reading with mom, watching sports with dad, and avocados. I also put together a year in pictures from each month during the last year (although he hasn't really changed much since about month 5...). Party favors were these adorable M&M tubes with a little coordinating tag at the top (wish I'd taken a picture!). There was also a cute little activity to do (see Papa Dave, above) where guests could illustrate a picture of Bennett on a paper that only had his head printed. We got some GREAT ones! I'll see if I can scan some on here...


And then there was cake... My friend Kathrin volunteered (or was guilted... I don't remember now) to make Bennett's cake! It was incredible! I can't believe we forgot to take pictures of the cakes before they all got cut! She had multiple sizes that were all frosted in white with a different texture on the outside. She made little flags for the top that coordinated with the decorations. And the inside... Oh, the inside... 

Bennett got his own little cupcake, but had no idea what to do with it! Especially since he doesn't like having dirty hands...

MOM! I need a bath!!

Then Grammy stepped in with all of her Grammy wisdom and cut the cake for him so he could see the inside... Brilliant woman.

omg dad- this is CAKE!

no going back

proof that he will use anything as a phone! haha- just calling his girlfriend on his cake phone

Once he had finished his cupcake, Bennett went for a dip outside.

And finally, PRESENTS! This kid is set for life! (assuming all he wants or needs for the rest of his life consists of plastic toys and board books...)

giant bowtie and fake dog poop from uncle Chris... what kid doesn't need that combination at age one?

Bennett got hyped up on sugar and ended up staying up wayyyy late (10:30 I think!) and was just playing and smiling the whole time. What a happy kid!

I still can't believe a whole year has gone by and that he is leaving the 'baby' stage already! He has definitely brought more joy and smiles to our home than I could have expected. Baby Number Two has a lot to live up to =)

Love you, BMan!

Happy Fourth of July (two weeks ago...)

A little behind on blogging... Trying to finish up my preschool summer session and celebrating lots of birthdays! Bennett turned ONE on June 29 (I am still in shock) and Ty had a birthday on Monday. We have been eating LOTS of yummy food to celebrate!

I tried to get some pictures on the Fourth of July of Bennett and the sparklers, but they didn't turn out super well (photographer friends- how do you do it??)

Last year on the Fourth, BMan was only 5 days old!! 

What a chill baby!

Baby Girl Bogle (I really hope we don't have to put that on her birth certificate!!) is growing fast :) My stomach really popped this last week and a stranger commented on it for the first time as he bagged my tortillas, salsa, and enchilada sauce.
Bagger at Fry's: Do you know what you're having?
Me: Yeah, enchiladas. (duh.)
Bagger: Oh. Uh. I mean... *touches his stomach, looks uncomfortable*
Me: OH! It's a girl! Sorry! I forgot I was pregnant for a second...

Poor guy.

I got my first tutorial on baby bows this week (adorable!) and have started buying frilly little outfits that Ty says are 'cheesy'. Haha. I can't wait to have a little girl in this house!

Baby Names

Picking a name for your baby (who, might I add, is still inside the womb) is a really daunting task! What if she doesn't look like an Astrid? What if the hip name you picked out for her just makes her seem out of place when she joins the chess club? I am having issues.

Not to mention the fact that Tyson and I have a really hard time agreeing on baby names! I finally told him that he can't veto any more of my suggestions until he has some of his own to contribute.

"Fine, how about Cranberry?" he says to me.

"Okay. Cranberry it is." I may have sounded a little smug as I said this...

For the next few days I referred to our baby girl as Cranberry. It almost started growing on me, but then Ty vetoed it. Yeah, he vetoed his own suggestion. I just can't win. (Although looking back, I'm glad I didn't add this one to the list. I don't want to be solely responsible for the curse this would inevitably place on our daughter's head.)

The two biggest problems that rule out a lot of names are:
1. I am a teacher. Seriously, I would donate a lung or a leg before naming one of my daughters Isabella... bad experience in the classroom... I've known a lot of kids and heard horror stories about even more. Thankfully, teaching in the inner city means that a lot of the names I would veto are in the same genre as Julio and Maria.

And 2. Ty has a HUGE family. Some of the names I suggest are getting vetoed because of his relatives that I have never even heard of. Most of my adolescence I longed for a daughter named Emmalee. Too bad there is already an Emma and an Emily in Ty's family. We are doomed.

Plus, we know people. (Kids, if you are reading this in mommy's blog book- YES, mommy and daddy used to have friends!) A lot of the cute names we like are already being 'used'... This fact is getting less and less important as time goes on, however. One of my top picks right now is Amelia (so named after an adorable mini munchkin we go to church with). I also love Olivia, Ava, Paisley, and Avery which are all 'taken' by people we know. What's the general opinion about this? How socially unacceptable is 'name stealing'?

I am already more than HALFWAY through this pregnancy and can't believe how short our baby name list is.

....Help?

Camping

Yay! We went camping!! Last summer when Bennett was only 3 months old, we thought it would be a genius idea to take him camping... He wasn't mobile yet and it was easy to get him to sleep. Unfortunately, the poor little dude got a bad case of tummy trouble and the whole trip was one crying fit after another, including a late night drive to town and a call to the on-call pediatric nurse. The pictures turned out cute, but we haven't ventured back into the woods until this summer.

And boy, was it fun!! Bennett was so happy to spend ALL DAY outside! (confined in his baby jail of course) and we had a good time cooking tin foil dinners and fishing! Well, I say fishing. More like we had a good time casting! Yay! No fish this time though...

Some highlights:

Bennett got his first taste of campfire hotdogs! YUM!
We all got a little sunburned, but it could have been a lot worse considering we didn't wear any sunscreen (what was I thinking??) Poor Bennett had a red scalp.
Sleeping next to Bennett... haha. This kid thrashes in his sleep! He was punching and kicking us all night. Oh, and he talks in his sleep too. I was waking up all night to the sound of "dadadadada" Thanks kid. You have two parents, you know.
More tasty campfire cooking courtesy of moi. I am a pro at tin foil dinners. No lie!
**Waking up to the sounds of a baby panther eating Dandy's dog food outside and realizing that there was no scenario in which members of our family did NOT get shredded by its vicious claws. Okay, I woke Ty up to check and no one got shredded... In the morning, the rangers really tried convincing me that it was a javelina, but we know what we saw.

We are hoping to go camping one more time when the weather cools down a bit. It was hot!! The first night we didn't even sleep with blankets or anything. I love camping with Ty! It is so relaxing and we both have such a good time enjoying each others company and being outside in the fresh air. Thank you Arizona for providing us some higher elevations!

Ravioli

This kid is usually a pretty clean eater, but holy moly- ravioli night was a much different story!!

The sauce literally stained his bald head. He had a faint reddish handprint there for about 24 hours. Ty hates having to clean up the mess, but I secretly enjoy watching him explore his food and cackle with joy.