Double Bath

These pics are actually from about a month ago, but I thought they were worth posting. This was Joel and Grant's first bath together... oooh. They both thought it was fun, as you can tell from the smiles. Just a few days ago, we tried it again, only Grant was in the "ducky" bathtub that you sit up in. That didn't go as well, I think because Joel wanted to sit in the ducky. I wonder what will happen when Grant is just right in the big tub with Joel... hmmm. Scary.

I just love this picture of Joel... :)

6 Months Old

The months just keep flying by... Grant is sooo close to crawling on all fours now, it won't be long before he is into everything. I was just thinking that I need to look through the toys around here to check for choking hazards, because this one puts EVERYthing in his mouth.

This was my own attempt at a professional 6 month photograph... lighting is never quite right indoors. You can see Grant's actual professional 6 month photos at the Flash Portraits website. Just type in "benson", click on "Katie Benson" and then enter password "grant". It wasn't the best picture day ever, but there are a handful that I think are really sweet.

On another note, for those of you that haven't heard, Mitchell tried out for the church christmas program and got the part of Joseph :) He has lots of practices at the church in the coming weeks and the program is at our church, on Sunday, December 14th, at the 10:30am service. I'm sure he would love to see in the audience if you can make it.

Joel continues to say more words everyday and usually surprises us each day with something... not ALWAYS something pleasant, but he always surprises us. It took almost 2 years, and it was a very long wait for me, but he is now calling me "mama" (he's been saying "daddy" nonstop for a couple months), which made the wait even longer. Little by little, his words are starting to come. Maybe it is the work with the speech therapist that has helped because he has really made lots of progress in the last couple of months.

I am still working on finding more bookkeeping jobs. It takes time, but there are lots of people keeping me in mind for the next time they give a referral and, at any time, I could get quite busy. I sent my first invoice in October, and received my first paycheck a couple days ago!

Also, Happy Birthday to Grandma Benson today!!!

Grant Scooting

There is nowhere Grant can't maneuver to these days, from one end of a room to the other, wherever the toy is, or Joel is, he can get there. Here is a little clip of his scooting skills from today.

Trick or Treat

Here are some Halloween (and preparation for Halloween) pics. A couple things to note... there is one picture from pumpkin carving night of Joel crying and Mitchell working on gutting his pumpkin, the look on Joel's face was his reaction every time he even LOOKED inside the pumpkin... he didn't even try touching it! He was scared of the "guts" of the pumpkin. However, he loved them when they were all done, cleaned up, and lit up. Also, Joel is a surgeon for Halloween (which I didn't think was a very fun or cute costume for a 2 year old), because he didn't want anything to do with any costumes. In fact, I brought a couple home that were much cuter, but I should have known it wasn't going to work out when he didn't allow them to even be next to him in the cart when we bought them. So, I put the scrubs of his costume on him when he got dressed on Halloween, so he just though they were his clothes for the day, and he finally allowed us to put the hat and stethescope on him after we bribed him with candy (good parenting technique in a pinch :)

It was Joel's first time trick or treating. He went with dad, Grant, Nora (the little girl across the street), and her parents. He did really well, but never stopped wanting to go inside of each and every house we went to. I suppose he didn't understand why we were knocking on all these doors and then leaving right away... Mitchell did his own thing for the first time this year. Him and 2 other friends went around the neighborhood and then ended up at a Halloween party a friend of his was having a couple blocks away. It was a fun one for him too.

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