Ever heard of Baby Beethoven?  We have one!  Ellie stopped over today for a few hours and the girls got along beautifully!

Gracie tried her doorway bouncer today.  It was fun but Daddy couldn't figure out how to untangle the straps.  She didn't seem to mind that she was a bit lopsided!

This is how I found Grace and Red sleeping on Daddy!  mmmmm... comfy!

We finally met little Blake Sauer today.  Glenn and I were both in town and well so Carissa invited us to come down to Mercy hospital to meet her son.  What a sweetie!  It's amazing how alert he is (not in this picture!) for as small as he is!  Here he is a little over 3 weeks old and a whopping 2 pounds, which is actually quite a milestone.  Thanks so much to the nurses and the staff in Mercy's NICU for taking such good care of Blake and the Sauer family.  You guys are angels. 

Oh my gosh!  What a weekend.  This is what Grace decided to do today!  All of a sudden she decided that she could sit on her own.  On Saturday she couldn't and on Sunday she could.  I wish I could learn to do things that fast!

This means I'm too tired!

Look at our big girl!!! I was on my way home from work tonight and decided that I couldn't come home without a high chair.  Grace is eating green beans or carrots once a day now, but doesn't sit well at all in the Bumbo seat.  So, I got a high chair off Craig's List for $30.  The guy told me that it wasn't height adjustable and I thought is was kind of dirty, but for that price I thought I'd give it a try.  Well, it cleaned up good as new and it is, after all, height adjustable!  So- I'm very excited.  

Happy Valentines Day!!  Lots a fun things happened today.  First, Gracie got her very first gift from the Valentine's Monkey (a Benson tradition).  Then Mama B decided that Gracie needed "real" food so she got her first taste of something other than breast milk and rice cereal.  She tried green beans and really seemed to like it.  This was also the first time she sat in a high chair (we don't have one at home yet) and she sat up really well.  Holy Rosary's Lucky Hearts dinner and dance was tonight and Glenn and Kathy Eagan graciously offered to babysit.  So Grace got to spend the evening with her cousin Kyndal while daddy and I tried to win some money (...we didn't).  

We headed to Monroe for the weekend and spent time with the fam.  Of course we had to visit the Mexican restaurant for Glenn.  Papa Buford was caught trying to multi-task.  Then we got to meet Hank- Jenny and Alan's new wiener dog!  This makes 3 wiener dogs in the family now!  

We think Gracie is going to be crawling soon.  She gets up on all fours and tries to bounce around a little bit.   Some of her attempts at crawling look a lot like baby yoga poses!

I don't care what the Academy of Pediatrics says, I think we're going to need to get a bumper pad!!!

Today is Papa Buford's birthday.  Happy Birthday Dad!

Today Nick and Cheryl welcomed their new bundle of joy- times two!   Caleb and Lydia Thome were born at Methodist Hospital in Omaha.  They each weighed about 5 1/2 pounds and they're doing great!  It's hard to believe that they're now a family of 5!!!

We had a little fun family night tonight.  We took Gracie swimming for the first time!  It was so cute.  She wasn't so happy about it at first but she slowly warmed up to it.  We had a really good time!

Sometimes Red forgets that he's not the baby anymore!

OK so this was supposed to be a progression of pictures showing how Gracie moves herself around.  But, the pictures got out of order somehow!  So I guess you'll have to put them together yourself!  The point is... she is just getting so big and strong and mobile!

I think she's going to be a ballerina!  Look at the perfect form!