A new cousin!

Welcome Marcelo! This is my cousin Loring, his wife Dacia, and their new son Marcelo. He was born Tuesday (March 28) in California. What a beautiful family...

Benji's first pet

The last few days Benji has been walking his pet alligator (also a xylophone) all around the house. He even brings it when he wants to nurse - thankfully it doesn't bite. I guess he's trying to make his parents feel guilty because we don't have any pets. Having none of our own makes Nona's two dogs all that more special when he goes to her house!

Sleeping like a baby

Benji and Daddy fell asleep together tonight - they both were exhausted.

This is a picture from last night, showing how an 18-month old can take up an entire queen size bed! (He eventually woke up again so we transferred him to a position that allowed Mom and Dad a little room... but he is the prince after all!)

Putting him to work!

Here is Benji vacuuming the living room.

Since he spills so much food and water in the kitchen, we decided he needs to help clean it up once in awhile.

Here Benji is polishing the glass for Mama.

Benji is re-organizing the pots and pans cupboard.

It is really cute to see Benji trying to imitate us by helping around the house. We definitely appreciate the "help."

Cooking roller coaster

I seem to have a roller coaster relationship with cooking - for awhile I'll be all psyched, looking at lots of different recipes, and shopping at specialty stores for unique ingredients. Then, I decide I've had enough of this cooking thing and rely on the same, boring foods to survive for a week or two. Eventually I get sick of this boring food (and I'm sure Shearn Yoong does too!) and go back up the roller coaster of getting all excited about cooking.

Admittedly, it is a lot harder to cook with an 18-month old. Benji actually pushes me away from the counter when I try to do anything remotely related to cooking, so it takes a lot of ingenuity - and finishing it up once Daddy comes home and can play with the little guy - to get a meal completed. But I can't completely blame Benji. If I want to, I can take the effort to make at least a decent meal on a regular basis - but sometimes I just don't care!

If you didn't guess, I am currently on the down swing of the roller coaster - NOT in the mood for cooking. When I just looked in the refrigerator I was met with a pleasant surprise. My Korean friend Anna, who is a great cook, gave me some leftovers from last night - a beef and veggie dish to go with rice and some Korean radishes. Lifesaver! Hopefully by next week I'll be back on the upswing of the roller coaster - for the sake of all our taste buds!

New Foods

He recently had his first (veggie) bao - steamed bread with meat and/or veggies inside.

Here Benji is using chopsticks - he actually can get some food to his mouth; however, he just uses one at a time.
Two nights ago he sampled his first bean, cheese, and tomato burrito. As you can tell, he was all smiles!

Shearn Yoong and I do not claim credit for having such a good eater, but Benji sure does eat whatever we put in front of him. So far we haven't given him any meat (except for a piece of turkey at Thanksgiving, which he wasn't that impressed with), but his favorites are veggies, fruits, and cheese.

Nesting

I am now 10 1/2 weeks pregnant and am already wearing maternity clothes! As evidenced by the picture to the right, what I heard about showing early the 2nd time around is definitely true. I didn't show nearly this early last time with Benji.

I have been really tired thus far - sleeping every chance I get, but the last two days I have been able to get by with no nap. This is wonderful! Benji-boy is a great companion, but I can get SO much more done with him sleeping for a short while.

A phenomenom called nesting often happens during the 2nd trimester, and it seems to have gotten ahold of me. Basically nesting is when the expectant mother finally has more energy in the 2nd trimester and begins to get serious about getting ready for the new baby - i.e. preparing the baby's room, cleaning house, reorganizing closets, etc. Well, since this is the second baby, there is no baby room decoration (actually, Benji didn't get much of this either, poor little guy), but I have been reorganizing closets, cutting through the clutter, and cleaning bathrooms. It feels great!

Of course, eventually the 3rd trimester will come, and by then I'll be so big I won't have much energy left. So this is the time to do all those things that should have been done months ago but I just never got around to.

We're back!

It has been many months since we last made a post - yep, we've been keeping busy with this little guy below. But we do plan on blogging at least once a week from here on out. The pictures below were taken on a recent snowy day here in Fayetteville, which is why he's looking out the window at all the white stuff. We had a great time sledding on a cardboard box and trasping around our yard in Benji's first real snowfall.