Some pictures

Here is a quick picture of Andrew and Frank hanging out on the changing pad in Andrew's room right before a diaper change. Frank looks a little annoyed, but he was purring and loving it.




On Halloween night, we went to our church's Fall Festival with both boys before I took Andrew around to trick-or-treat at a few houses in our neighborhood. Andrew had fun, naturally. This boy has fun with a box.

It took him forever to go up the stairs! He's so cautious.

(The reason I don't have a picture of him sliding down is because I videotaped it. He slid down feet first on his stomach. He's such a chicken!)




This, like last year, was the highlight of the event! Here is this year's picture...



And here is last year's picture:



Here is how Benjamin spent the evening. My friend Heather MADE this baby carrier. It is amazing. I do need to figure out how to get him in it when Matthew is not there to help me, though.

My friend Stephanie had a Fear Not Party on November 1. It was so much fun! Here are some pictures. We didn't get many pictures of the actual party b/c Andrew was so cute being a toddler. So most of our pictures are of him playing on their jungle gym or in the bouncy house.

My Little Pumpkin



Andrew was loving it!









A Family Picture



Benjamin took a nice, long snooze on my shoulder. Good for the baby, bad for the arm circulation. :)



Stephanie, thanks for the great party!!!



Sleeping Beauty Stephanie and her Prince Charming husband, Tim. (Or as Andrew calls him, "Mister Tim." He keeps asking where Mister Tim is.)



It wouldn't be a party without a meltdown. The cause of this particular meltdown was part hunger, part exhaustion, and part my-daddy-played-too-rough-with-me-in-the-bouncy-house-and-bumped-my-head. Sigh...



Now we move onto a totally different subject. Post-surgery pictures. It has been one month and two days since Baby Benjamin's open-heart surgery. He is doing really well. We go see Dr. Herold on Friday and hopefully we can start weaning him off his medicines.

Here is a picture of his poor wrist. It really is looking so much better! In fact, it looks a little bit worse than usual here b/c he's been in the tub.

Here are two pics of his chest scar and the two scars from where his chest tubes were during and after surgery:

This last picture is one I've been meaning to take forever but never got around to. Look at your palm. You will see two, three, or even more lines running horizontally across it. Well, one of the characteristic of some but not all people with Down syndrome is a single line across the palm, known as a single palmar crease, or a simian crease. This was one of the "proofs" we had when Benjamin was first born, before we had all the blood work back to confirm his diagnosis.

Well, time to go. I hear cries of, "MOMMY!" coming from upstairs. That's my cue. Later!