Ben

This post is dedicated to Ben

I'm pretty sure he is spatially gifted like Aaron as evidenced by these things he built completely by himself, no pattern, no adult.

This is the new face of Ben. He picked these glasses out very specifically because they look like Daddy's.

A couple of months ago he kept saying that things looked weird out of his left eye. After several trips to different doctors we have learned that Ben has amblyopia. It is a type of lazy eye.

All babies can't see well when they are born, but slowly as they grow the brain and the eye work together to learn to see. Ben's left eye never learned to see.

So he has glasses. In January we find out if just the glasses have corrected the problem. If not than he will have to wear a patch. We are really hoping that the glasses work, but I suspect that he will have to have a patch.

Once the problem is corrected he will wear glasses until around the age of nine when eyesight stabilizes. He may not have to wear glasses after that, or he may have to wear glasses the rest of his life. Only time will tell.

Saturday October 24th Aaron and I were at a church meeting and we had a babysitter. Ben was spinning around being crazy and fell and hit his head on the Lego trunk.

We did not have a cell phone with us, but we left my mom's cell number with the babysitter since we would be with her eventually. The only problem was that we went grocery shopping and out to dinner before we get to my mom.

We got to the church where my mom was and I immediately went to find her so that I could tell her that I had given her cell phone number to the babysitter. Before I could finish telling her she said that I had a message. I guessed that Ben had thrown up and she said, "No, worse."

I called the sitter, but by this time 2 hours had passed. She had put a butterfly stitch on, cleaned up the blood and had covered the wound. Ben was up and playing as if nothing had happened so I felt it was ok for us to stay at the meeting.

When we got home at 10:00 I took a look at it and thought it looked pretty deep. I called the doctor and she said that we had a window if time to get it stitched. We could wait until morning, but it would be better to bring him to the ER (only because it was after hours.

Long story short...he got five stitches and we were home in bed by 1:30.

Here is the patient with Nurse Carol (a.k.a. Sophie,) who very kindly and gently washed the wound, applied bacitracin and covered it with a bandaid.

First Snow

October 13th we had the first snow of the season. This of course required running out in our pajamas and playing thuse making us nearly miss the bus, but it was so worth it!

Apple Picking

I am sure that many of you know that apple picking day is one of our absolute favorite days of the year. Somehow those days always end up being beautiful days weather wise. I'll leave the pictures without captions and let the pictures speak for themselves.

Jacob Post

Three random photos of Jacob.

October 7th Jacob woke up way too early and had a total meltdown that afternoon. Aaron snuggled up with him and he was asleep within minutes. For the record, Aaron is not asleep, he was just playing the part to encourage Jacob to sleep.


From October 9th...one of my missionary companions came to visit for the weekend. I didn't take very many pictures for some reason, but I did snap this one.

I had made pizza and everyone was SO hungry. I pulled the first one out and put it on the table to cool. Jacob walked in just as I did and was VERY excited to have pizza, but I had to tell him to wait because it was too hot. So here he is...waiting...waiting...waiting...

Have I mentioned that Jacob is my sensitive drama king?

While my missionary companion was here Jacob shared his booster seat with her daughter who is one. After that Jacob determined he was too big for his booster seat so we took it off and he now sits in a regular chair. I guess the booster seat makes a good drum.

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb...Dum Ditty Dum Ditty Dum Dum Dum!

Fall Foliage

I didn't take too many fall foliage shots, but here are a few of the ones that I did take.

Future Postmen

From October 5th...

It was cold and rainy, but the kids wanted to play outside anyway. Luckily for them the sun broke through the clouds for a beautiful rainbow that was enjoyed by all!

Sleep Eating

English Muffins

I had heard that homemade english muffins were easy to make. Then I found english muffin rings on sale. So here is my first attempt at english muffins. They were YUMMY. A little different than store bought, but in a better way. I do have so tweaking to do to get them just right, but we will never have to buy english muffins again!

They cook right on top of the griddle

Here is the done deal. Don't they look just like english muffins! It makes me feel a little giddy.

Fork split of course

And what else do you do with english muffins than make english muffin pizzas

I do believe they were enjoyed by all!

General Conference Weekend

The first weekend in October is one of my favorite. I love General Conference and all the wonderful words of wisdom that I hear to guide and direct my life for the next 6 months.

Things that also happened this weekend...

Aaron had his wisdom teeth removed. They were fully grown in so it was an "easy" job. It still required Aaron to be put under. It was a lot of fun to watch him a little loopy. In this photo he is planning curriculum. I still wonder if those lessons were even remotely coherent when he presented them.

In between conference sessions we took a fall walk. Jacob found a little nook in the trees.

I love this picture.

Aaron displaying his manliness. I think he might still be taking vicodin at this point ;)

I really liked this cloud

A beetle selected me to be his/her landing place.

I love the motion in these next two photos


Jacob is staring to feel done at this point. It was wet and he insisted on wearing short so the grass was bothering his legs. When he is tired and wants to be carried he says he is busy. I am not sure of the origin of this statement, but he will stop walking and when you go past and say come on Jacob, he says, "I can't. I'm busy."

We found some animal hairballs. Any one want to help identify? They seem to belong to a large cat, by which I mean not a house cat. They were slightly smaller and more elongated than an owl pellet. They were very densely packed hair. I tried unsuccessfully to break them apart with a stick to investigate.

I guess Aaron took sympathy on his "busyness" and carried Jacob for awhile.

The whole family, minus me, the rabbit, the chickens, the cats and the mouse

I love this barn

I love Vermont ingenuity. See the metal flap to protect the light bulb?

Windows

Sophie being a model

During conference Ben was listening intently (HA!) while being Superman taking flying leaps off the Lego trunk