My Sweet, Sweet Video Mama’s Day Card!

Awesome Mama’s Day! My guys took me to P.F. Chang’s for dinner, Pinkberry for dessert and then they gave me this video mama’s day card! My heart is sooo full of love! Love my family!

Happy Mother’s Day from Jeff Forslund on Vimeo.

Summer Fun!

Continuing with the meandering mind flashback…

Let the start of summer begin!  Over Memorial Day weekend we purchased some SUPER FUN water toys for the backyard.  One Elephant blow up pool (& one super pump to pump this baby up!)  & a really cool Water Table.  Both Ben & Ben’s mommy & daddy have really enjoyed these toys :)  Check out some pics of the FUN–

A Perfect Day In May

Beautiful sunny morning in May spent at the park.

Ben discovering playing the the grass for the first time.

Excellent chill time.  Love my family :)

Ben’s Magic Helmet

Continuing with the meandering mind flashback…

For this one lets back up to last October.  Ben had been diagnosed with plagiocephaly (flat head syndrome) & needed to have cranial helmet treatment. This meant wearing his Magic Helmet 24/7  for 5 months.  We thought of the helmet as the 4th member of our little family :)

What a journey this was from taking Ben to the hospital to have 3D pics of his skull done, the casting appointment for the helmet, taking care of the helmet, the crack-of-dawn helmet appointments, & the interaction with the public about why Ben was wearing the helmet.

I think this story is best told in pictures.  Here we go—

In order to determine if Ben was a candidate for helmet therapy & didn’t need corrective surgery, the docs wanted to see inside his head.  And so the process began.  First thing to do was a 3D CT Scan of the happenings of Ben’s skull.  The results came back that Ben didn’t need to have the surgery & having helmet therapy was the way to go.  Whew.  Thank goodness!

Next, the oh-so-memorable casting of his head for the Magic Helmet appointment.  I’ll never forget that day.  I was super glad that the casting only took about 20 minutes.  Ben was not a happy camper :(  Would you be happy if someone dumped some sort of plaster all over your head to make a mold of it?

Then, we got the Magic Helmet mid-December.  Let the Magic begin!!!  Ben really adjusted to the helmet quite quickly.  Hooray!!!  We were soooo happy that part was easy.  He loved wearing it.  As the days and months went by, we thought it became his lovie.

Memories that stick out during this time…

I would always introduce Ben as the future #1 NFL Draft Pick! :)

While we were in the airport during the holidays, Niki Taylor & her husband chatted with Jeff & I about Ben’s Magic Helmet.  On another plane trip, Ben got a smile & a head nod from Scott Hamilton.

We learned that the helmet should NOT be worn @30,000 feet in the air.  Baby in helmet = swelling of helmet on baby’s head!  And, trying to yank that thing off mid-flight was an experience.  I’m sure the other passengers on the plane where thinking… What the heck are they doing to that baby?! Don’t worry, no harm to either the baby or the helmet.  Lesson learned.

It was always pretty cute going to Ben’s helmet appointments and seeing all of the other baby’s in their helmets.  They all looked like they were part of a football team!

From the ‘Seriously?!’ or ‘Really?!’ category…

People are really funny.  During this time, I felt like I always wanted to make a public announcement ‘why’ Ben was wearing the helmet.  Really just to stop all the whispering about why they thought he had it on.  I had one lady approach me and say how sorry she was my baby had brain surgery.  What?! ?!

This is just a sample of the helmet stories.  It’s funny, just when we were really getting used to the helmet, that’s when it was time for it to come off.  On a very early morning in May, we got the most awesome news that Ben no longer needed to wear the helmet.  Hooray!!!  We were sooooo very excited that this chapter was over.  What a journey.  What a happy day!!!  And, most importantly, we were happy to see the results of what the Magic Helmet had done.  Excellent work Magic Helmet.  Excellent work.

I don’t really have any great before/after pics.  Trust me, the helmet really worked some Magic!  Check out some of my favorite pics of Ben wearing this wonder of a helmet.  You can really see him growing up from little baby to becoming a toddler.  And now that he’s toddling around, I sort of wish I could put the helmet back on his head!

Happy 1st Birthday Ben!

Come with me & lets take a trip wayyyyy back to March!  An amazing event happened!!!  Benjamin Wyatt had his first birthday!!!  We celebrated this awesome occasion in SoCal with family & friends.  What FUN!  Some of the big highlights during this 10-day adventure included:  birthday beach day @Corona del Mar, lots of swing time @the park, San Diego Zoo, & 2 birthday parties!!!  (Yes, 2!)

Super special thanks to our NorCal family for driving down to celebrate with us!  Thank you g-ma & g-pa for hosting Ben’s BIG birthday party @your house, and thank you Irvine auntie & uncle for Ben’s special beach photo shoot.  We LOVE our family!  You guys R-O-C-K!!!

Are you ready for photos?  Well, sit back & get comfy.  Perhaps, maybe take this in a little at a time.  Might I suggest pouring yourself a little wine?

First, PLEASE check out Amanda Bevington’s blog. An awesome day @Seal Beach with the fam!

I know you want to see pics of the birthday boy–

Check out the rest on Flickr.

Or, here’s a fancy slideshow of all the action.  Enjoy!

Did you make it through all of that?  Pat yourself on the back! :)

X-mas, New Year’s, and Snow!

Who’s dying to hear what’s been going on in my meandering world???  I thought about calling this blog entry- sit back for the BIG rewind.  I know!  It’s been far too long since I last wrote–we need to do a little rewinding on what’s been going on.  Who wants to see 3 slide shows???  Go grab yourself a beverage & a snack . . .  I’m serious.  There’s a lot of photos for you to check out!

First off, our X-mas & New Year’s celebrations in the Bay Area. We had such a great time with family & friends celebrating Christmas & New Year’s, wine tasting adventures, an afternoon spent at Pier 39, awesome family meals, and there was even a family outing to do some bowling.  The real kind.  Not Wii :)  Although, we did play a lot of Wii with the nephews during our stay :)  Ben even got to ring in the New Year with his Napa Grandma & Grandpa, & his G-ma & G-pa (my parents).  It was a grandparent fest of LOVE!  I know I’m forgetting some stuff– just check out the show :)

If you want to read more about our wine tasting FUN, check out these posts from Raise the Barn-

Livermore

Napa

Finally, a little slide show of us enjoying the SNOW around our house. Ben’s first time experiencing snow!  He wasn’t that excited about the whole thing– I think he was kinda mad we took him away from his jumpy-jump to take him out into the cold.  But…  Isn’t he the cutest? :)

Baby Ben video alert! This one will make your heart melt!

Jeff put this video together of Ben’s First 1st X-mas at our house.  Definitely, one of my favorite 2009 Christmas memories.  Makes my heart melt.

Ben’s First 1st Christmas!

We started the Christmas celebrating a little bit early this year.  This morning, was Ben’s First 1st Christmas celebration!  (His Second 1st Christmas celebration will be with our family & friends next week.)

Wow!!!  Santa, G-ma & G-pa, Uncle Rick & Aunt Janet, Sword family, and Napa Grandma & Grandpa were all VERY generous— THANK YOU!!!

And… Benjamin surprised mommy & daddy this morning with a little trick of his very own.  He can now roll from his back to his tummy.  Great job, Ben!  Mommy is very proud :)

It’s amazing to think that last year Ben was just a little nut in my tummy.  Now he’s here– and we’re all together sharing his 1st Christmas.  Makes my heart feel very full.  I love it very much!!!  Awesome First 1st Ben Christmas!

Here’s a little slideshow of all of the action around our tree this morning.  Enjoy!

Ben’s First Thanksgiving!

What a trip!!!  Ben’s first Thanksgiving was an adventure of a lot of ‘first time stuff’ for him.

• First plane ride to visit family in SoCal– very exciting!!!

• First time staying at G-ma & G-pa’s house– thank you very much for turning your casa into ‘Ben Camp West’.  Loved & appreciated that!!!

• First beach adventure– including dipping toes into the Pacific Ocean & taking a stroll along the Seal Beach Pier.

• First time meeting his great Aunt Mary!

• First time meeting his great Uncle Bob!

• First time meeting his Uncle Rick!

• First time cruising around the Irvine Spectrum.  Loved playing in the turtle fountains with Aunt Janet!

• First time going to the Long Beach Aquarium.  Awesome family outing!

• First SoCal 81 degree Thanksgiving Day!  Can’t believe we were running the air conditioner!

• And… on the plane ride home Ben decided it was time to start cutting two teeth!

I know Ben really won’t have any memories of his first Thanksgiving, but I’ll be sure to dig out all of the pics of all of the BIG FUN we had!  Thank you SoCal friends & fam for such an awesome visit! :)

Now, sit back and enjoy the SoCal Thanksgiving Trip ’09 slideshow…

3 New Videos! That’s right, 3!

Here’s our little star playing in his most favorite toy right now.  His Jumper! We have soooo much footage of Ben jumping in this thing, it was hard to cut it down to just one video.  So I made 3!  All of this footage is from the last 4 weeks.

A word of warning… you might want to cover your ears when our screamin’ banshee gets really excited!  He really loves this thing!!! :)

I Love My Jumper- Part 1

I Love My Jumper- Part 2

I Love My Jumper- Part 3