It's about dang time!

So, for those of you who know anything about Bentley, you know that he needs two things to fall asleep: A good snuggle from Mom and a pacifier. I always thought that I would be the mom whose child would never have a pacifier, but things never quite work out the way you plan. And with all the moves and being sick and whatnot, there just never seemed to be a good time to take it away. Well...Last Saturday at work, I decided to be nice and let Bentley have his pacifier a few times, even though we were down to only at bedtime or nap time. He had only gotten about 8 hours of sleep and was having a really rough time at work. Well then he decided he needed to have it all the time again. And he would throw huge fits when I said no. So I decided I was done. I cut the tip off of one on Tuesday and he has since hated it. He still will ask for it, but I tell him it's broken and show it to him, and he then tells me to put it away. The first few days were rough-ish (not as bad as I thought they would be), but he would only nap in the car. I personally did not plan on driving around for twenty minutes every afternoon just to get my two-year-old to fall asleep. So naps have been rough. BUT....on Wednesday night, his birthday, Bentley fell asleep in his own bed with no pacifier, no crying, no snuggling, nothing!! It was AWESOME!!!! We started making him go down without any snuggles a few weeks ago and he did pretty well with that, but I was totally shocked at how quickly he picked up on going to sleep without a pacifier. Today, however, was the first time he took a nap without needing to drive around.

I love this boy. He is growing more and more everyday. As am I. It's truly amazing how much you learn as a mother. Even if you are stubborn and take forever to actually do anything with it. Oh well, I still love every day of it!!

Oh, and in other baby news....This child moves around so dang much. And apparently he lives on my bladder (Bentley lived in my rib cage). Yay!.....NOT! That's really about it, though. This has been a pretty low key pregnancy (fingers crossed it stays that way). I'm finally started to show, though, thanks to turkey, rolls and pie. Mmmmm....I love pie!

Happy Day!

Hey Look, I'm Updating!

Well, I figure it has not been almost a year since I last posted on my blog, so I've got some catching up to do. That pretty much isn't going to happen completely, but I can at least give you some sort of update as to what is going on in the lives of the Farnsworth family.

So, as an update to my last update...We finally lost our house and are now back home with Spencer's parents. It is actually working out really great for us. They are awesome and Bentley LOVES them. It's giving us an opportunity to pay off some debt and get our little family somewhat settled. Spencer is finishing up the season of mowing with his brother-in-law and is nearly halfway through his second year of school. This semester has been pretty stressful for him, but he's doing great and I'm so dang proud of him. I'm back at Gold's Gym after a short stint working with the Idaho National Guard Family Programs.

Bentley is AMAZING!!! We sure do love him. He's getting ready to turn two in a few weeks and is the smartest stinking kid ever. His nursery teacher at Church said he should be the one teaching :) He can count to fourteen on his own and will actually count items instead of just rattling off the numbers. He knows his shapes, some letters, the colors brown and blue (everything else is green), and how to follow directions--when he's in the mood to obey. He says "Please", "Thank you", "No way, thank you" (instead of just "no thank you"), and "You're welcome". He says new things everyday and surprises the heck out of me every time. And he speaks clearly, which is FABULOUS! He has no interest in potty training and loves to watch movies, but he's awesome and we love him.

And the last item of business for the day....

We are expecting a baby boy come March. I'm due the day before my birthday, March 19, and am feeling pretty well. I went to the Doctor today and everything is going perfectly. We were totally surprised to be having a boy since everyone, included us, all thought it was a girl so we have no idea for names, but we are still excited and I think it will be fun for Bentley to have another boy to play with since he is such a BOY! He loves cars, trucks, buses, airplanes, trains, explosions, dirt...all that boy stuff. We are excited to meet this little man and see how much he turns out to be like his brother! As far as belly pictures, since that always seems to be the next question....I'm not showing yet, so you're not getting any. I push sideways and back before I push out so I look like I gained about 15 pounds (which unfortunately I have), but I don't look pregnant at all. Sorry.

That's about it for us, though. Who knows, maybe I'll make a habit out of posting more often.

Probably not, though.

Happy day!!!!

Military/House Update

So I have a lot of updates in the works here. Give me some time and I'll post them for you. I just put the pictures on the computer (by myself, thank you very much) so I'll get them going on here soon (fingers crossed).

I just thought I would give everyone a quick update on our house and Spencer's Military situation.

I left to go to my parent's house at the end of September with Bentley. We had a showing on our house the day before I left and apparently the woman put an offer on the table. After about four days and $17 later of sending out faxes, we got all the necessary paperwork in to get the sale finalized. We were set to close November 15, so we had a lot of stuff to get ready. The offer was only $2000 less than asking price, so we all thought it was a done deal. WRONG-O!!!! The bank countered the offer by nearly $20,000 so the buyer backed down. Duh! We were back to square one. The bank realized they had pretty much shot themselves in the foot by doing that so they told us to increase our asking price by $3000 and we could put it back on the market. Well, there hasn't been a whole lot of activity since then so we ended up dropping it back down to our original price and we're going from there. It's kind of nice to be in our home still for the holidays, though.

As for Spencer's Military career...it's a no go. For those of you who don't already know this. Spencer had a mild heart issue when he was younger. This caused him to come home from his mission early to have a procedure done to basicall "zap" the extra electrical connection he had that caused half of his heart to race while the other half beat like normal. He is completely fine now and we have had no issues with it since. So, after five months, they finally agreed to give us what we want and have Spencer see a cardiologist to get the all clear. And that's exactly what happened. The doctor said he saw no issues with Spencer joining. However, the National Guard Board felt differently and denied Spencer. We were super bumbed because of all of the opportunities this would provide for our future, but hey, we'll survive. And now Spence is just concentrating more and more on school. He changed his major to be a Gym Teacher!! I love it!!! He eventually wanted to be in administration, so this is perfect for him. He gets to go to school in his PJs and run around everyday.

Oh, and a side note for me....I have an interview on Monday for a promotion at work. I'm pretty stoked. I'll keep you all posted. It's for the Lead, which is basically the assistant to the director for our location. YAY!!!!

Have a happy day!!!!

I LOVE THIS BOY!!!!

Update

So Spencer and I have been keeping things kind of "hush, hush" in our lives lately. We just figured there was no reason to share information about things that might not end up working out. Well, now that things are alittle more on the "for sure" side, I figured I would give you all an update into what was happening in our lives. Beware: this post will be fairly random and all over the place.

Within the last two weeks Bentley has finally cut his first two teeth. Within days of each other both of his bottom teeth poked through. It has been kind of nice to not have to worry about a teething baby until now (seeing as he's almost ten months old). But the severe diaper rash, snotty nose, and chewing on everything kind of gave me the idea that we were in for some teeth pretty soon. Now that they're finally through things are a little more at ease in our lives. He's still the cutest stinkin' baby ever!!! I can't tell you what a blessing he is in our lives. He still doesn't "speak" but he has a whole lot to say. He's always making some sort of noise and he usually has some sort of facial expression to go with it! He's too funny. And he makes this evil laugh when he's playing with toys, too. It's pretty funny. I'm still working on a video of that. He's still crawling all over the place and pulling himself up on everything. He knows how to squat but is still reluctant to let go of things and stand on his own. Oh, and he figured out how to open the cabinets (drive me nuts!!!) and pull out anything he can find.

Next Wednesday, Bentley and I will be venturing into the air for the first time together. We are both really bummed that Daddy isn't coming, but he's got school and work, so we'll have to survive. We're flying out to the Lou to see my family. My mom hasn't seen Bentley since she was here for his birth and my dad has never met him so we're pretty excited to go spend a week with Nana Boop and Grandpa Charlie. And we also get to go to a Cards game while we're there!!! I haven't been to one in the new stadium yet and Bentley, of course, has never been to one. So we're pretty excited about that!

Last Saturday, Spencer and I officially put our house on the market for short sale. We're so upside down on our loan right now and, due to retarded bosses and the dumb economy, (and poor choices made previously in our lives) we can't afford our home anymore. So we're selling it. We have a really awesome agent and are really excited to get out of here. The sad thing, though, is that our house is currently on the market for $50,000 less than what we bought it for. Sad to realize how much the market has gone down, but good for whoever wants to buy our house, though, I guess. So if anyone knows of anyone in the Boise area who needs a good starter home in an awesome neighborhood, let me know!

Earlier this month I started working part-time again. I work in the Kid's Club at Gold's Gym. It's nice because I can bring Bentley with me and I get a free membership. I've really been struggling with wanting to lose the weight I gained after marriage and a baby so it's nice to be in that environment and be able to work out in a good facility for free. Bentley loves to be around all the toys and the other kids and everyone there comments on how great of a baby he is. Which is so true, he's just so agreeable. I love it!

And now on to the biggest news of all. Oh, but before that, just fyi, Spencer start school last month and is doing great and I am so proud of him!! He's got class on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights and six Friday nights throughout the semester. He's kind of stressed sometimes with full-time work and full-time school, but he's able to get everything done and still be happy at home. Now, back to that news. Spencer has been trying to figure out a way that he can better provide for our family lately and has been going back to the same idea over and over. So we did a little more research into it and it turns out that it really is a great plan for our family (if things work out exactly as we want them to). Right now, at this very moment, Spencer is in the middle of a physical for the military. He is going to be joining the Idaho National Guard. Because of his heart issue that he had when he was younger, we've been struggling to get things going as quickly as we would like them to, but things are actually heading in a much better direction now because of that. If he passes his physical today, he will either do so with a medical waiver or without. We are hoping that he does so without. If he gets a medical waiver then he has to go to Basic Training before December 1, which would mean he might miss Bentley's birthday and would have to leave school early. If he doesn't get a medical waiver, he can go anytime within 12 months of his signing date. After passing this physical, however, he still has another test he needs to take because of the job he wants to do. Spencer wants to go into communications and learn Arabic (most likely) which means he has to take a test to determine how well he can learn foreign languages. Once he passes that test, he's good to go for the job he wants. Which means some pretty big changes in our lives here pretty soon.

If all works out like we want it to, Spencer would finish out this semester of school, ship to Basic in January, get home around March and shortly thereafter, we would all move to Monterey, California for at least a year and a half. That's where Spencer would be learning his language. Bentley and I would pretty much just live on the beach!!! After that, Spencer would go to his advanced training while Bentley and I come back to Boise. When all is said and done, Spencer's training would take a few years, but he would finish with nearly an Associates Degree in Arabic Studies and enough qualifications to work for any government or private agency making a lot more money than he would as a high school history teacher. Also, with this particular job, if Spencer ever has to go overseas, he in the safest place anyone could ever be. His job is so important that he would be protected far more than most. So, we're actually really excited about this and hope all works out like we want it.

So that's what's going on in the lives of the Farnsworth family. Sorry to keep everyone in the dark for so long. But any prayers we can get from anyone would be much appreciated!!!!

And of course...here's a picture for your viewing pleasure.

Have a happy day!!!!

Here you go....

So I've been told lately that I need to update my blog and I keep thinking that there's nothing really to say except more about Bentley and what he's been up to. I have videos and pictures that are still on the camera and need to be put on the computer but I'm just too lazy to do that right now. And Bentley has been such a horrible napper lately that I'm struggling to find time to blog. So here's an entry...as short as it may be.

An update on Big B: He's crawling now. Officially. He's been army crawling for about three weeks now and Sunday he finally got up on his hands and knees and has been moving around that way. Which apparently is so much easier for him because now he's exploring new places in the house, including the kitchen and the bathroom. He's obsessed with getting to Lola's food bowl, so that has been living on the counter unless he's asleep. Poor Lola. Oh, and he's been chasing her around and trying to get to her toys, which is disgusting. He pulled himself up to standing on the couch today. I didn't really even notice until he fell backwards and I had to catch his so he didn't hit his head on one of his toys. He's been in to everything lately. He'll find any paper product he can to just rip apart and put in his mounth. He tries to chew on shoes, remotes, cell phones, my hair...anything. He got himself stuck in the corner the other day behind the couch trying to find something to chew on. At least he still has no teeth, though, so I don't have to worry about teeth marks on everything. He's been exploring more and more foods lately and loves to eat bananas like the big kids, just taking pieces instead of eating it smashed with a spoon. He's getting more and more personality everyday and loves to babble...although he's yet to say anything significant and he refuses to immitate. Spencer says he's just like his mother and will learn to do things when he feels like it and without help from anyone else.

Bentley's been to the pool a few times this summer and loves the water. He kicks and splashes and eventually falls asleep in the pool. It's too cute. He has also taken a few roadtrips in the past few months and has done really well. We try to leave after lunch so he can just have a bottle in the car and then eat when we get there. It has worked fairly well, although he gets really bored and eventually screams himself to sleep. OH, and he's learned how to wistle. I know, I know....but seriously. He sticks his tounge out and curls it, purses his lips around it and blows and it wistles. CRAZY!!!

Anyway, Spencer and I are doing okay. He starts school at BSU in the fall and I'm working on a few things on my end (I'll update if anything works out). But for now, I'm going to take a shower since Bentley is still napping. Have a happy day!!!!

Sorry...

To those of you who were so desperately awaiting the pictures I promised from the cabin...too bad. I left my camera at home on accident. Although, I always forget my camera anyway. There are pictures documenting the events, they just aren't mine and I don't have them. Oh well.

Anyway, the cake I was so excited for turned out pretty well. It was a spaghetti and meatballs cake. Just a regular chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting piped on it to look like noodles and chocolate donut holes coated in raspberry jam to look like meatballs. It was fun, and super easy.

Bentley did an awesome job at the cabin and finally agreed with us putting him on an earlier bedtime. We're still working on that at home, now, but we'll get there. He's still getting plenty of sleep at night (naptimes are a different story, however). He also started taking baths in the sink, which he has a total blast with. He loves to play in the bubbles and generally ends up eating his washcloth. Which brings me to my next point about Bentley... He sits up all by himself. He's been doing it for a few weeks now, but he is a super champ at it now. And he's so close to crawling. He gets up on his hands and knees (or sometimes feet) and will rock around and bring his knees forward, but then he won't move his arms. Instead, he just falls flat on his face, generally moving backwards. He's so close, though, and I'm not too sure how I feel about that. At least with rolling over he only rolls in one direction. He rolls from his back to his belly going toward the left and from his belly to his back going back the direction from whence he came. He never actually goes anywhere. Once he starts crawling I know he's going to be all over the place.

Bentley has also ventured into the world of vegetables. He has tried squash, peas, green beans and avocado. He will eat all of them but struggles with the texture if they are not perfectly creamy (he doesn't like the skin on peas or chunks of avocado). Oh, did I mention that I make my own baby food. That's where the texture comes into play since I get to be in charge of that. Next on the list we have sweet potatoes, carrots and cauliflower. I made the cauliflower today and Spence freaked out when he came home because he thinks it smells like poop. What a boy, everything can be referenced to poop. Oh, well. Bentley now eats veggies and cereal for lunch and dinner, and he still nurses for breakfast and snacks. I love that boy. He's too cute!!!

That's about it as far as life goes for us. Spencer is still working with Barry and has been accepted to BSU for the fall. His plans for now are to major in Secondary Education-History and Social Studies. I'm so excited for him to finally become what he wants to be when he grows up!! I still stay home during the day with Bentley and help him learn and grow.


This weekend we're going to visit our friends Kadie and Jacob for Kadie's baby shower and most of the D25 girls (my roommates from college) are coming so I'm super stoked for that!! Maybe I'll remember my camera this time ;) The last time we were together was for Jana's wedding in Vegas. I miss these girls far too much...and half of them are missing in that picture. POO: HERE WE COME!!! Have a happy day everyone!!!!

Memorial Day

So, Memorial Day is coming up this weekend so we are heading out to the cabin with some friends of ours. The reason I'm posting about this now is because I'm afraid that if I don't do it now while I'm thinking about it, then it just won't happen at all. And the reason that this is even post-worthy before it happens is because of what takes place during this weekend. BENTLEY TURNS SIX MONTHS!!!!! I cannot believe that my little baby will be finishing the first half of his first year of life. My goodness!!

Bentley's life of an almost-six-month-old consists of sleeping 8-10 hours per night, although (unfortunately for mom and dad) the last few hours of that seem to end up in Mom and Dad's bed. That's mostly my fault, however, since he wakes up before I want to and I know he'll go back to sleep if I just snuggle him with me. Oh well, I really don't care too much. He also enjoys his nightly dinner of rice cereal. That little boy is such a champ with food. He loves it and I know he cannot wait until the doctor gives the okay for him to enjoy other foods. He is always trying to grab for my spoon, or my plate, or my glass...basically whatever he can get his hands on. He is rolling over from back to belly all the time, usually when I'm trying to change his diaper, however. He finally starting pushing up when he's on his tummy about a week ago and has rolled over a couple of times from belly to back. We're still working on that one, though. We also discovered that Bentley is awesome on road trips. Last weekend we went with Uncle Rod, Uncle Drew and Aunt Karen to see Dave Ramsey in SLC. We left at 6am, traveled until about noon, sat in an arena full of people from 1-6 and travled back home until about 1am. Bentley did such a good job. He didn't really start complaining until we were almost there and he had been in his carseat for 6 hours. Then, while there, he only freaked out twice from the noise and then slept through parts of it. Such a great kid. Then, after a cold bottle since he was so impatient, he slept the entire way home. Overall, it was a great Saturday. Spence and I thoroughly enjoyed Dave and are so excited to stop being poor.

Bentley talks all the time, but generally with his fingers in his mouth. And he loves to sing. He sings himself to sleep sometimes. It's the cutest thing ever. He smiles at everyone, loves being tickled and gives the cutest, slobberiest kisses in the world. I live for them. His favorite place to be is snuggling in someone else's arms. He holds onto anything he can get his hands on when he's really tired. He spits ALL THE TIME!!! The doctor said he just eats too much. Go figure. He loves to play in his walker (and generally will only poop if he's in there, weird). He loves hanging out in just his diaper, although he rarely gets to do that. He loves to go for walks, but only if he can sit up and look around at everything. His favorite toys consist of a water bottle, a diaper (clean one), his wipe box, and paper. He'll chew on anything, especially Mom's hair. Oh, and he scratches at his legs when he's tired. He also is obsessed with watching TV.

Oh, and our latest development in the life of an almost-six-month-old....Bentley seems to have begun teething. He's not really super grumpy, but his face is constantly covered in either snot or drool. He's finally taking after his mother (My nickname as a kid, given by my mother, was "snot face"...go figure.). We can't really feel any teeth poking, through, and we'll find out for sure after our trip to the doctor next week, but this is what we're figuring. Yipee!! I say this now as Bentley is sitting on my lap, chewing on the table the computer is on. Silly goof.

Oh, and keep an eye out for the next post. In my adventures in facebook stalking I found a cake I really wanted to make but couldn't figure out what to make it for. I decided I'm going to make it this weekend at the cabin for Bentley's half-birthday. Of course, he won't be enjoying any of it until a few hours later via mom's milk, but I'm excited for it.

As always, we'll end with a picture!!!

Bentley was about a month old or so in this picutre. I love it. He has always made some of the funniest faces due to his overly active brow line. Too funny!!!