Ben's Birthday and Other Random Topics

Ben's 2nd birthday was a couple of weeks ago. I still can't believe how fast the last year has gone by. Doesn't seem possible. Actually, looking at the bags under my eyes, you would think 5 years have gone by. Seriously though, it's so much fun to look back at videos and pictures of when Ben first joined our family. He has changed so much.

He really seemed to enjoy his birthday. I think he understood that it was a special day for him. He definitely understood how much fun it was to get a whole bunch of new toys in one day :-) Here are some pics from the day....

He really tore into his cake. He ate almost an entire piece!

Gigi came to visit for the weekend. Below she and Ben are displaying one of his gifts....a tent from my Aunt Jill and Uncle Mike.



Below: Me helping Ben open his new Zhu Zhu pet. He lost his old one a while back, so he was excited to see the new one.





It was a great day celebrating Ben's second year of life. We are so blessed!!!!

Another topic I would like to briefly discuss concerns Ben's stroller. The main reason I'm bringing this up is we're going home for Christmas this year and I'm sure Greg will be broadcasting it to everyone so I'm just going to get it out in the open. Here goes....a few weeks ago, I almost backed over Ben's stroller in the Hy-Vee parking lot. The only reason I didn't actually run over it was a kind bystander decided to risk her life and stand behind my car, waving her hands like she was on fire. Bless her heart.

And to make matters worse, I also left it in the Kohl's parking lot a few days ago.....and didn't even realize it until two days later when I was at Von Maur with Ben. I opened the back of the CRV and SURPRISE!!! It was gone. Luckily, I still have a few brain cells left in the midst of all this holiday madness and I immediately knew where I had left it. Thank God!!!

I really have no defense except the fact that I have been moderately sleep-deprived lately and in the short period of time it takes me to transfer Ben from the stroller to the car-seat, I apparently develop a mild form of Alzheimer's and forget that I even had a stroller in the first place. The poor stroller. Let's hope I can make it through the rest of this year without inadvertently setting it on fire or dropping it off a bridge or something.

Well, that's all I got. I doubt I'll be blogging again before Christmas, so I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. For those of you whom we'll be spending Christmas with....can't wait to see you soon!!!

Love, Brooke, Greg and Ben

It's About Time

Cue the white noise and creepy "Poltergeist" music....WE'RE BAAA-AAAAACK!!!! Yes, after a year-long hiatus, the Reynolds' family blog is back. I'm sure by now there is no one reading this anymore, but that's ok. I've been wanting to start it up again for a really long time, but our old computer just made it impossible. So, now that we have a NEW computer (I heart you MAC), I can finally tend to the blog again.

It's the understatement of the century to say that we've had a lot going on over the last year. Those of you who used to read the blog know that we adopted our super-cute, mega-energetic, sweet-hearted son Ben from Korea last year (Nov. 23rd to be exact). After he joined our family we pretty much went into "survival mode" for a few months. I knew it was going to be challenging to instantly become the mom of a one-year-old but no one can ever prepare you for it. Greg and I lived in a fog of sleepless bewilderment for what seemed like forever. And then....things clicked. We got it. All of a sudden, Ben felt like our son and not just a child we were taking care of for awhile. Now it's like he has been with us all along. We are soooo blessed!!

Speaking of Ben, he was recently a ring-bearer for Greg's sister Heather and her now-hubby Rob at their wedding in Florida last month. While he didn't quite make it down the aisle, he did look ridiculously cute in his tux....



See what I mean??

The wedding was gorgeous and soooo much fun. Here are some more pics....



Above: Heather, me and Kelly at the lovely rehearsal dinner.



Above: Reagan and I. Reagan was a beautiful flower girl as you'll see in the next photo. She did a great job!



Above: Heather and Reagan. Aren't they gorgeous??? Heather's dress was TO DIE FOR!! She was stunning!

And a few more pics....



Above: The Reynolds siblings: Matt, Heather, Mike and Greg...and an orb on Greg's shoulder...possibly a spirit of someone who has passed...I'm thinking maybe Mutt...



Above: Our attempt at a nice family photo. Too bad Ben looks like he's trying to escape :-)



Above: Greg, Peggy, Me and Ben. Peggy's dress was beautiful too!! I wish I had a full-length picture of it.



Above: Heather and Jerry during the Father-Daughter dance.



Above: The happy couple the day after the wedding.

We had such a great time and wish Heather and Rob all the happiness in the world!!

Later--Brooke

Under Re-Construction

The Reynolds' Family blog is returning soon. More to come......

The Nose

Hello? Hello? Is anyone still out there?

I know. I KNOW!! I haven't blogged in FOR-E-VER, FOR-E-VER, FOR-E-VER (just a little reference to the movie The Sandlot...sorry if you haven't seen it). Really, the only excuse that I have is it just takes too darn long to create a post if I want to include pictures. And we all know that I like me some pictures in my posts. Honestly, and I'm totally not exaggerating here, if I want to post more than 3 pictures, I can pretty much guarantee myself about 2 hours waiting for everything to upload. It is ridiculous. So, I just end up neglecting my blog. Which stinks, because I truly do enjoy writing it. I finally made the decision that I'm just going to have to be super picky about what pictures I post and to keep them to a minimum...even though that isn't as much fun...but, whatever.

Ok, on to the good stuff. A Ben update! We are in the very final stages of waiting. We could get "the call" next week....or 6 weeks from now. I'm thinking it's probably closer to the 6 weeks though. The waiting is starting to become pretty difficult now because his room is very close to being finished and we have quite a few baby "items" thanks to a couple of wonderful baby showers that my mom had for us. Not only that, but Greg's co-workers are throwing us a shower next weekend and Greg's brother, Mike, is throwing us one the weekend after that, AND some friends of ours from church are throwing us one after that! We are so incredibly blessed to have such caring, supportive friends and family in our lives who share in our excitement and anticipation of Ben's arrival.

We received his most recent medical check up results via email yesterday. Looks like we're going to have a short little chunker on our hands :-) He is in the 75th percentile for weight (22.9 lbs) and between the 10th and 25th percentiles for height (28.2 inches). He is doing really well developmentally. Not walking yet, but he is pulling up to a standing position, so I'm sure walking is just around the corner. He just turned 10 months old earlier this month so he seems to be right on target, especially given the fact that he was born prematurely. Here is a pic from when he was 8 months old...



Now, you're probably wondering what the title of this post has to do with Ben. The answer to that is...nothing. The title was inspired by an event that occurred on a recent trip to Colorado. Greg and I went on a 5 day trip to Denver last month. One of the days we were there, we decided to visit the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. It was breathtakingly beautiful and we decided to be "at one" with nature by going on a hike. We were about half way through our hike when Greg noticed a pile of poop that he swore was left by a mountain lion. I disagreed. An argument ensued. It went something like this.....

Greg: Brooke, come look at this, I'm pretty sure it's mountain lion scat.

Brooke: That is NOT mountain lion scat. It just looks like dog poop. Mountain lion poop would be huge.

Greg (grabbing a stick and poking at the pile of poop): NO, this is NOT dog poop. Dogs don't eat rocks. Look at that, there are rocks in there.

Brooke: Those rocks are probably from the ground. And why would a mountain lion eat rocks???

Greg: Oh my Gosh. There's a NOSE in there. It's a DOG nose!!! Look at that!!! Now do you think it's dog poop??

Brooke (getting uncomfortably close to the pile of poop): Holy crap! That IS a dog nose!! I can't believe it.



Brooke: Give me that stick!

I then proceed to poke around at the "nose" to completely separate it from the poop (there's a sentence I never thought I'd type), only to turn the "nose" over and see that it had a plastic piece on the back that is commonly used to sew on to a stuffed animal. Yes, it was a stuffed animal nose. And we were looking at dog poop. Or, if you are Greg, you are convinced it was the poop of a mountain lion who ate a child AND his stuffed animal.

What can I say, we live exciting lives.

Love,
Brooke