The latest big adventure for the Norsworthys has been our move! We feel very comfortable surrounded by a sea of brown cardboard boxes, as they have been our constant companions these last couple months.
We were blessed with so much friendly help on Moving Day--thank you to all our friends!
....though some decided to sleep on the job...
I don't know what Ben was more excited about: lots of attention, tons of people in his house to play with, or a beautiful sunshiny day!
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| Sarah Bowman and Ben, enjoying the sun and our new front lawn...that's right--we have a yard now!! |
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| Ben had to check out the new digs and make sure everything worked properly. Yep, this sink passes inspection! |
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| Ben is enamored with all electronic devices, but especially phones and computers. Even though my phone is locked, he often manages to unlock it by hitting the right buttons and will call people. So you may receive a surprise call from Ben! |
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| I remember pictures of me standing on those same big Daddy feet...and now Ben gets to try them out. They are great hands to be in and feet to follow. |
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| The new living room....didn't we just leave all this mess? |
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| lots of projects in the new house....this one was fixing a leaky sink....so many things to keep up busy, and keep us appreciative of things we normally take for granted! |
We have had some beautiful sunny days lately...days that remind us of the glory of God's beauty in Washington. These are the days that make all the rainy ones worth it!
Now that we are in the new house we have started unpacking, trying to find our things, playing the "now what box was that in?" game, meeting our great new neighbors, going on walks in our new neighborhood (and getting royally lost the first time we tried to go further than around the block!) and a few other things like....
Snuggling on the couch...
Visiting the tulips....
And walking a 5K through World Concern with some friends from church...
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| Kristina and Conlan and us at the Free Them 5K (to raise money to stop human trafficking) |
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| the stroller lineup: Kristina and Conlan, Marie and Jack, and John (holding my place while I take pictures) and Ben |
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| We had so much fun talking and walking together, though 3/4 of the way through the race Ben decided he no longer wanted to help Free Them, HE wanted to be free of the stroller! |
And celebrating the end of a program Ben and I were a part of called Roots of Empathy. Ben and I would go to a kindergarten classroom once a month and the kids would learn about how he was growing, how parents interact with babies, how babies learn things, and we would have great discussions about everything from safety to personality differences to development. Ben loved the kindergarteners and they sure loved their Baby Ben.
Ben is also on his way to joining the mobile world. He is not officially crawling, though he manages a scooch/wiggle/twist and roll sort of action that does get him moving around a bit. He will sit up on hands a knees for a bit and even rock back and forth, and if we hold him up under his belly he will do the crawling motion for a short distance. This is one of those things that you long for him to do and at the same time pray that he doesn't for awhile, because life will never be the same!
Ben may not be quite as advanced in his crawling, but his fine motor and verbal is doing quite well. Any speck or bit of something on the floor is fair game to his little fingers and mouth now. He is very precise and methodical in the way he approaches an object. He will slowly and carefully reach out his hands or fingers, inspect the item with focus and furrowed brow and then with very controlled thumb and forefinger, or for larger objects just one hand (he can palm just about anything, even if quite larger than his hand!) and then off to the mouth it goes for a thorough cleansing with saliva. He also jabbers on all the time, his favorite sound is "da-da", but he also does a growl/whisper sound, a "he-he-he-he" sound that is much like lamaze breathing :), loves to blow raspberries and splutter with his mouth, and "sing" (holds one sound and then changes pitch up and down--sometimes he joins in singing with me if I am singing to him). Of course he loves doing any of these even more if someone will do it with him. Last night he made a sound that startled John and John started laughing, so then Ben kept repeating the sound to see if he could get his daddy to keep laughing. He definitely got John's sense of humor and playfulness!
Other tidbits: Ben loves holding onto long and narrow objects, such as my lipstick, highlighter, etc. He especially loves baby carrots, because they also offer the option for gnawing. He will often carry a baby carrot around all day, occasionally chewing on it, but mostly just holding onto it, so we have now dubbed them "security carrots" because he REALLY doesn't like it when we take them away!
His other new thing is to wipe/slap his hands together - we joke that he is "washing his hands of us".
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| John is teaching our son all the important things in life.....like fish faces and spitting. :) |
All in all, he is a delight, for anyone around. Sure he has his fussy moments, and there is no denying how he feels when he is in them (much like his mother!) but when he is happy, which is most of the time, he is all sparkles and giggles and personality. Yesterday I was at Trader Joes and Ben was giggling and smiling and playing peek-a-boo with the other customers around us. As we were leaving this older lady thanked us for entertaining the store!
