Umm.....yeeeeeaaaaahhhh....

Tomorrow is St. Paddy's Day! Wear green, lest you get pinched!

I had another little mini photoshoot for Ben and took some Irishy pictures for cards which I delayed mailing until yesterday....whoooooops. I didn't do it on purpose - they were supposed to go in the mail Friday but I just sort of...well, I forgot about them to be perfectly honest.

Anyway, not much exciting for the Beesley's of Idaho. Friday afternoon, my mom took me out to Boise's expansive (<--that would be in sarcastic font if I had one) outlet malls and bought a ton of uber cute baby clothes. I love baby clothes. That evening we had Hannah over night so Connor could celebrate his birthday party without girls (other than his mom, but she doesn't count since she pays :-p). Saturday we took Hannah to lunch and dropped her off at home.

Monday I went back to work for a few hours. Amy is out of the office most of this week so I went in to help out. I'm worked about 3 hours every day so far and will do that for the rest of the week. I've brought Ben with me for about half the time I'm there, and then Nick takes him home for some male bonding. It's been nice to get out of the house and do something other than housework, nursing and diaper changing - but I love, LOVE coming and going as I please and knowing that I don't have to go in if I don't feel like it. The extra money will be nice to have, too.

Battling a cold this week. I'm not totally sure where I got it (I don't see anyone!) but I think it might have been via Hannah. She was coughing a bit while she was here and sounded a little stuffed up - but that just might be allergies so I don't want to get all dramatic and point a finger shouting "IT WAS HER!!!!" In any case, it doesn't matter - I'm sick. I called the doc this morning and she said I could take Muscinex and Benadryl to feel better so I promptly popped a Muscinex and I already feel a lot better. I'm still way stuffed up and congested but I can actually breathe. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Ben doesn't get it! We're 3 months in and no sicknesses yet. :-)

Susan's probably coming out to visit sooner than we thought. We originally planned for her to come out in June so we could go see the 3rd Twilight movie, Eclipse, but we're thinking she should come out earlier. She so might come next month if she can get the time off and find an affordable flight out. I'm bummed that we don't get to see the movie together (sorry, Nick...you'll just have to take me...I know how much you LOVE those movies) but I'm WAY excited to see her and for her to meet Ben.

Ben's quite the chatterbox recently. He gurgles and goos and squeals and well it's just insanely cute and I keep taking video after video. I think the only people other than us that will never tire of his extreme adorableness are his nana's. Every one else will shortly roll their eyes and think "ANOTHER jabbering movie?!?!?!" :-p

He's starting to laugh a little. Not often but a few times over the last few days we've gotten actual laughs out of him and it's well, to repeat myself: extremely adorable. He's really into being bounced on our knees. It completely cracks him up. He's big enough now that he can face out in his carrier so instead of strapping him in his car seat and sticking that in his stroller so he can fall asleep before we got around the block, I put him in the carrier facing out for our walk today. He stayed awake for the whole walk! He's also tried out the Exersaucer dealie a few times. On the shortest setting, his feet just barely touch the bottom and he needs 100% focused supervision on it so he doesn't smack his little face on any of the toys but I think he enjoys it. He's bounced a few times, which both surprised and delighted him. I see one of those jumping chair bouncy dealies in his future (that's a technical term, FYI).

Nick started class back up this week. Boooo. Thankfully, we've gotten a break of his over a year of Saturday classes. This quarter he's going Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday but the Thursday class he actually takes online so he only has to leave two nights a week. That's a relief for both of us...well, all THREE of us really!

Here's Nick's forced contribution (imagine a 20 minute delay - lots of "ummm"ing and facial hair pulling...geez, I'm only asking him to BLOG not to come up with a solution to world hunger...): At work we're starting development on a new module for our management system. It's regarding basically the hatching and release of the salmon eggs. We're thinking about doing planter boxes with vegetables such as the Iraq and maps. No, really. Peppers, cucumbers, radishes, perhaps some herbs. We want to rip up most of the deck and do some sort of rocked patio. Yay.

Back to me writing now. I entered Ben in this silly cutest kid contest that the local paper was putting on. I had no hopes of really winning, it was more for the fun of doing it and showing strangers how adorable my son is. :-) The first place prize was a $500 photo session package thing which reminded me that I've neglected to look into getting some one with experience to take Ben's picture (well, okay. "neglected" is the wrong term. I looked at it right after he was born and went into SHOCK at the prices, quickly closed my browser and shoved that thought out of my mind). It'd be nice to have something professional and edited of the three of us as well. I want some unique to us - I don't want anything really too "traditional" as far as the photos go - I don't want to get the same picture that every one with a kid gets taken. I want something new and well, us. I've looked at a few places online and mostly my jaw keeps hitting the floor at the prices of professional photos. There's this one thing I want to do, I think it's such a great idea and if I'm going to do it, I need to get a move on. It's a 3 step picture process thing. They take pictures now, at 6-8 months and then at a year. I'm sure you pay for each step separately but I have no idea how much something like that costs. I wish I could convince myself that it's okay to whip out the plastic for stuff like that but I'm trying to pay down my debt, not incur more. Oh well. I'll keep dreaming, maybe I can get something done with this little bitty paycheck I'm going to get for this weeks worth of work. We'll see!