5-6 months

Winter is still upon us in Ithaca, New York. 

Last year at this time it was warm enough to have BBQ's at the park, and play tennis.

This year, no such luck.  The highest temperature in the next 10 days is 38 degrees!!

Needless to say, I am definitely ready for winter to be over.  

But this last month has still be fun nonetheless.  

We celebrated some friends' birthdays. 

 Went to a couple Cornell basketball games.

Have been going to playgroup weekly.

William and I went to the Palmyra temple with my friend Sabrina and her 3 month old, Miya.
Went to the Cornell art museum & the chimes concert

Life is good, inside. 

Here is William at 5 months.

He learned how to sit up and is so playful and happy most of the time.

 William turned 6 months yesterday, on St. Patrick's Day! 

He is still on the small side, compared to others at his age, but he sure doesn't act like it.

He weighs 15 lbs. 3 oz. and is 25 1/4 " long.

This puts him around the 20th percentile.

You can often find Ben blowing William's hair.  He loves how "long" it is getting.

We're not sure about the blonde, curly haired boy Ben dreamed about when I was pregnant, but you never know!?

He is starting to look like he wants to crawl.  

William often goes from sitting up to laying on his stomach in a matter of seconds.

He loves laying down on my stomach and nuzzling his head in my neck.

This boy is a lot of fun.

We love our little Will.  

Here are a few more pictures from my phone.  

Ben's 30th Birthday!

This guy turned 30 on February 8th, 2013! 

His breakfast of choice was none other than waffles with strawberries and whipped cream.

My favorite boys bright and early in the morning!

Ben was scheduled to go to school and have lunch with a visiting professor on his birthday.  It ended up getting cancelled because of Winter Storm Nemo.  Therefore, Ben got to work from home on his birthday! 

 

We took advantage of this and went out to a nice, last minute, birthday lunch.  Our friend Emily was willing to watch William so we could enjoy lunch with just the two of us.

I got the idea to make a piñata for Ben's birthday from my friend Maren.

 She executed hers much better than I, but given that I started it 36 hours before the big day, I was just happy to have a finished product!

 

Thanks to some Pampers boxes, scissors, a lot of tape, and crepe paper I made it happen... fast!

Note to self: Plan ahead next time :)

Instead of going out for a birthday dinner as planned, we stayed home on that snowy night and I made another one of Ben's favorites: chicken curry.

And what would a birthday be without your favorite cake: angel food cake with more strawberries and whipped cream!

 The next day we continued to celebrate the big 3-0 with bowling and cookie sandwiches with some friends.

 The whole gang

 At Cornell they have the "old-fashioned" bowling alleys where you keep your own score.  Ben is actually quite fond of keeping track of the scores.

 The plan was to break open the piñata at Ben's party.  

Note to self: piñatas are not the best in the winter

  

No one wanted to go pick up candy in the snow outside...

  so we found a hallway and Ben went at it with the bat.   

 We ended up with 5 pounds of candy at our house for the rest of the month!

Fast forward one week and we flew home to Arizona for my brother's wedding! 

It just so happened to be the day after Valentine's Day, so we got to celebrate it with family in warm AZ.

I had been working on a little something for Ben, with the help of my friend Kristen.  

It's a map memory journal of all the different locations that are special to us.

Some of the wedding party at dinner before the big day. 

I didn't do a very good job of documenting the wedding day, but here are just a few pics.  

Isn't my new sister-in-law beautiful! 

While in Arizona, William got to meet his great grandparents, my Papa & Nana.

It was so fun being outside without coats and hats on.  

We went to the park and the boys got to ride the train together.

Cute cousins!

 

  And now we're back in Ithaca, waiting for spring to arrive!

We are getting really good at indoor activities, like watching dad's basketball games.

 

The Day to Day: December-January

Here is what happened in our lives from the perspective of my phone for the past few months.

William wore Ben's same blessing outfit, 30 years later.

Sister, cousin-in-law, sister and three babies all born in 2012

My brother, Michael, showed us this video of the Sexy Sax Man.  Of course "Benny G" was determined to learn it on the saxophone himself, so he did it in a few minutes !

William was our own Rudolph on Christmas

He also upheld the tradition of wearing new Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve

Proof that Ben and I did actually get out and celebrate 3 years of marriage!

This is often where William like spending most of his time, yes, under a chair.
Create your own play gym.

Proof that I flew from Phoenix to Philadelphia to Ithaca with just William

We got home from our Christmas vacation and William was ready to win over the ladies.  Here he was trying to put his arm around Miya Barcus.

Little Will is not quite so little anymore.  Nor does he stop getting any cuter!

I started propping him up and he quickly adapted to sitting up by himself.

Ben had two job interviews in January, one being at the obvious school pictured here.

Here I am trying to stay trendy and wear colored skinny jeans for the first time, post pregnancy

Documentation of William trying rice cereal for the first time.

Will now enjoys this fun Exersaucer

And here is the star of the show!  

Coming soon: Ben's 30th Birthday + Valentine's Day