November

October was busy.  December is going to be even busier.  So, for the most part, we tried to be as non-busy as possible during November. It still happens anyway, even when you don't intend for it to be!

Lazy FALL Saturday morning. I miss fall already. 

3 Weeks..his favorite spot is his changing table. 

Shopping trip with mommy

First Smiles

This is pretty much what it looks like at my house most of the day.

This kid loves to dress up!

Ben's first time to church...he did great!

Silly boy loves the leaf blower

He was sick and doing his schoolwork at home :)

Love my boys in maroon!

He is ridiculously snuggly!

Sweet boys

Date with Claire to see Frozen. LOVED it. 

One Month

• Has smiled 3-4 times (on purpose) and it is the sweetest thing. They are few and far between but they make me so excited about all of the cooing and smiling to come. 
• Sleeps from about 10-11 until 3:30 and then until about 7. I think Bishop may have been sleeping longer at this point but I am by no means complaining! I only have to get up and feed him once during the night and he eats and goes back to sleep so no complaints here!
• Is kissed on by his brother ALL day long...when he isn't being kissed by his momma
• Loves to lay in his pack and play swaddled up. He naps there but sometimes he will just lay there looking around forever as long as he is swaddled with his Aiden and Anais blanket. He sometimes fusses in the swing but if I swaddle him up and lay him down, he is content. 
• Has not had a bottle yet. I am not ready. With Bishop, I was ready before now but it is different with Ben. Probably the number one reason is because I am lazy...it is just easier not to deal with bottles! But also he doesn't seem quite as good at eating as Bishop so I want to make sure he gets it completely before we go confusing him. 
• Can follow the voices of his momma, his brother, and his daddy really well. He seems so concerned every time we talk to him. 
• Can raise his head a few seconds. He doesn't get tummy time too often because if he fusses about anything, then his brother won't allow it. "Momma, he needs you!" or "Momma, I think he needs some milk!" Luckily, he is a very quite baby that doesn't cry much but still I can tell he probably won't have much of a chance to cry around here!
• Hate, and I mean HATES the Miracle Blanket. I sold that thing to half of my friends. I gave it as baby gifts. I didn't know if I could ever give it up with Bishop. So, the first week he was home I tried it out. He wasn't having it. I remembered it taking a slight adjustment, so I waited and re tried it when he was sleepy one night. He feel asleep in it and woke up in a panicking scream because he couldn't move his arms. Nothing would calm him down. I unswaddled him, and he was fine. I have tried it once more with the same screaming episode so I am just sticking with his blanket this time. He loves it and I'm fine with it. It is just odd to me that one of my children LOVED the Miracle Blanket and one HATES it. I guess that is what happens when you have two different people...I'm learning these things :)

These posts are for myself for the most part. I already find myself going back and looking for things Bishop, etc and I have the WORST memory! So they might seem a bit boring :)

Halloween

I think I've mentioned before that my child might actually be more festive than I am...and that is saying A LOT. And, he absolutely LOVES Halloween. I love having an excuse to do fun, crafty things with him and so does he. And we both love an excuse for candy! 

Pinterest inspired spiderweb treats...these were cute but they break super easy. Bishop didn't care, he just liked to eat them. Notice he had to build a house also :) 

Our church is relatively small and doesn't usually do the whole "trunk or treat" thing that a lot of churches do nowadays. But, this year each sunday school class set up a little booth with activities and treats for the kids and they loved it. I really hope we do it again next year! 

Decorating cupcakes

Our class's booth was a Duck Dynasty theme 

I forgot how fun we have making (and eating) sugar cookies. To help with my cookie making OCD, I let him decorate 4 or 5 however he wants and I do the rest. He also gets to help cut them out, measures sugar/flour/etc, cracks the eggs, and mixes everything together. He's usually a great little helper, but he loves to eat flour. And the cookie dough. Drives me crazy. I can handle the flour (but, um, gross!) but I got my degree in microbiology and I am a food germ freak. He's probably not the only kid who eats cookie dough I guess!

Because of the weather and sickness, we didn't end up getting to go to my sisters for our annual trick or treat party. We were all really sad. Bishop had talked about trick or treating for literally weeks! And I had planned lots of fun treats via Pinterest. I just couldn't get Ben out in the rain. We had made the cookies for the party...so we send some to his daycare, even though he didn't even go and we ate the rest! They are so good..didn't bother us too much! 

His school had a little festival type day with booths set up for them...face painting, pumpkin painting, snacks, and balloon animals. He asked for a sword...cute little Peter Pan. 

Bishop has a hard time with decisions (no idea where that comes from!) and the Halloween costume was no different. I really wasn't planning on Ben dressing up a whole lot since he was not even 3 weeks old. I thought the football player/football idea was cute. He didn't like that idea. I think he went through Cat in the Hat/Fish, chicken/worm, fireman/dog, and spider/ghost. Most of those were his idea.  He changed his mind to Peter Pan so I got the stuff to make it and he was super excited. I was thinking Ben could be Mr. Smee because I had a striped shirt and red hat already. But then a few days before he was born I got bored and sewed him a little jacket with a hook and a hat with little $0.25 felt sheets I had already. I kinda planned it for a 6-7 lb baby...not a 9 lb baby so it was a bit snug. I'm pretty sure if Halloween had been the next week, I couldn't have even gotten it on him. 

He doesn't particularly look like the happiest Captain Hook ever, but he's still cute :)

Since we didn't really get to trick or treat like we usually do, we made the rounds at our family's homes. And, he wasn't short on treats AT ALL! I'm pretty sure he had just as much fun this way. He LOVES his grandparents! 

Notice by the end of the night Ben was down to just the onesie :)

Bishop woke up the next morning so sad that Halloween was over. Thankfully, we have a fun Thanksgiving and Christmas to look forward to. 

Pumpkin Patch

We try to take the boys to a pumpkin patch every year and although most people probably thought I was nuts (MOM), I wasn't going to let having a 2 week old stop the tradition. Obviously Ben didn't have the time of his life or anything, but he slept the entire time in the carrier I wore. No one even breathed on him. It was perfect weather and it was nice getting out. Of course, we love it when the Warrington's come no matter what we do. But, the boys REALLY loved it.

They loved this bouncy pillow thing. It kinda looks like Bishop is about to shove Harvey off in this picture :) I don't think he did for the record. 

They had a little concession stand in which we collectively purchased one of everything- pumpkin "juice" (grape Koolaid), hot dogs, hamburgers, cookies, pumpkin bread, kettle corn, witch fingers, etc. 

And an awesome slide that both boys and Hazel loved

Little pumpkin baby was soooo good :)

2 Week Checkup

9lb 2 oz

22 1/2 inches

Pumpkin carving

Bishop wanted a dragon on our pumpkin, so his daddy carved him a dragon. While this was supposed to be a joint effort, it mostly ended up being Leon carving and Bishop playing :)...and Ben snoozing on mama!

2 Day Follow-up

Baby boy is back up to 8lbs 3oz already! And, everything going great!

Ben on top and Bishop on bottom at the same age. They certainly don't look identical but I can tell they are brothers still.