"Hi"

The reason I titled it this way is because EVERYTHING is "Hi" right now! He enters a room its "Hi!" You enter the room, he says "Hi!" Abby walks in, the tv turns on, Ben says "Hi!" Pretty cute actually. He also continues to say touchdown every time he throws a ball, or anything for that matter. Getting video of all this is getting trickier and trickier. I included the one video of Ben having a little bit of a fit because every time the video camera comes out he stops what he's doing, crawls over to the person holding the camera and screams out! He just wants the camera. So there is my excuse for having fewer video these days. All I get is Ben crawling to me then crying out. I try turning it on the other room and sneaking up on him, but his hearing is so keen that he can hear that thing jingle on from anywhere!

He continues to try to walk all the time. He still hasn't gotten more than two steps from anything, but he's trying so hard! You can tell that he is so proud of himself everytime. He just smiles and smiles! Again, hard to get it on camera because as soon as the camera comes out he just wants to get to it as fast as possible and that is by crawling. We'll continue to work on it.

Other Ben news: He's working on tooth #8, and tooth #9 right now. You can see them bursting through the seams on the bottom. He's a little crankier but overall handling these better than any of the others. He has also discovered how to turn the tv on and off. This is a lot of fun for everyone in the room. I try to find him something else that clicks when you push on it, but the tv is the most fun. He has really started working with his toys. He prefers things that can be stacked, things that can be opened and have other toys put within it, things like that. He's so serious about it. Very mechanical about everything. And, as you'll see from the videos, everything is a phone. Absolutely everything gets put up to his ear and he talks in it starting with "Hi." Unless of course there is actually someone on the phone, then he just stares at it and generally ends up hanging up on them.

I think that's it for now. We're just getting ready for Thanksgiving. I went out and did all my shopping today. We're having Maggie here on Thursday, then leaving Friday for the cottage to be with my parents, Grandpa, Uncle Rick, Julie, and my sister Lenore and her family. Stephanie and crew can't make it this year as my bother-in-law is having yet another back surgery on Monday (prayers please). We're hoping third time's a charm for his low back.

I also decided to finally put the final pictures of our new front door (notice there are no holes in it!)! I think we're done painting and Brian did the grout last weekend and this weekend. We decided to keep the actual door white, as well as the inside trim white. It really brightens up the inside of the entry way. Then went brown outside but kept the door white which really stands out. It's so nice not to feel a breeze come through your closed front door anymore! Not that I'm asking for colder weather but it does figure that last winter we were sub zero from like November through March. So far this year, we've been 20 degrees above average! It's been beautiful, 61degrees today! Does not feel like Thanksgiving time at all! Well, I went and jinxed it! Sorry midwest, my fault!