Christmas Turtleneck

I realize that in a few short years, Roman will start to have an opinion on things that he doesn't care about right now. For example, what he wears. I know that there will come a day when he will no longer allow me to dress him in Christmas sweaters. But until that day comes, I'm going to enjoy seeing him in his festive attire. I know that this particular turtleneck looks like something an 85 year-0ld would have bought for her great grandson, but I think it looks cute on him. Let's face it, Romie can make anything look cute.
Here's a close-up of the print since you can't really see it in the picture above.

First Steps

Anyone who knows me knows that I can tend to be slightly paranoid or a bit of a worrier. This is especially true when it comes to Roman. I am almost in a constant state of worry with him. I know that it's stupid and I tell myself all the time "Worrying won't do you any good" but I kind of can't help it. So, what I'm getting at here is that Roman is almost 15 months old and he still isn't walking. I've been telling myself that he's OK and I really did know deep down that there was nothing wrong with him, but I couldn't help but worry just a little bit. All my friends kept telling me that there was nothing wrong and that I should even be thankful. Well the other day when we were in Wal-Mart this lady was telling me how cute Roman was and then she asked me how old he was. I told her he was 14 months. She said, "Is he running around everywhere?" I told her he wasn't walking yet and she said,"Oh no! Have you told his doctor?" I was so taken aback by her response. I just said, "Oh, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I'm not worried about it. He'll do it when he's ready." But really I was thinking to myself, "Oh man, maybe I do need to talk to his doctor." Then she just kind of looked at me with this pitiful look like, "Your son is paralyzed and you don't even know it." So, I'm happy to report that my little Roman doesn't have anything wrong with his legs! He took 5 steps in a row last night. After he saw how excited Jason and I were about it, he kept walking back and forth to us. It was pretty fun. However he hasn't done it at all today. Oh well...at least I know he can do it. And now I'll just have to find something else to worry about. :)He was pretty proud of himself. I love that look on his face.

The Traumatic Santa Encounter

Last week there was a Santa in town, so we decided to take Roman down to get his picture. I knew that he probably wouldn't love Santa, but I wasn't prepared for the reaction Romie had. While we were standing in line he seemed just fine, but when I put him on his lap he just started screaming so hard. Roman does this scream when he's really upset where he'll like hold his breath for a LONG time (I'm talking like 30 seconds or more.) Anyway, that was the scream he did. Poor baby. The photographer hurried and snapped a shot and then I rescued him. I have to apologize about the quality of the pic. I took a picture of a picture since I don't have a scanner, so that's why there's the big glare above Roman's head. Maybe next year he'll have a more positive experience (or maybe not.)

Like Mother Like Son

Yesterday I decided that it was about time I try to clean my bathrooms, so I reluctantly decided to do it. It's really hard to do with Roman around though, so I put some toys out for him in the living room. I was cleaning away and enjoying my peace with I noticed that I couldn't hear him playing with the toys. So, I went to check on him and this is what I found. My sweet little Romie had found my Christmas candy dish filled with Hershey's Kisses. I was surprised by a few things. First of all, I had just barely put that dish out the night before and he didn't know there was candy in it. Secondly, how did he even know that it was candy? I never buy Hershey's kisses and I don't usually have a candy dish out either. It's like he knows that anything with a shiny wrapper is candy.

I was also impressed with how quickly he could unwrap those little things. I was trying to pick them up and he kept unwrapping more and more of them. He wasn't too happy with me though when I moved the candy dish to somewhere out of his reach. I guess he's inherited my love for chocolate and sweets.

I got tagged

I was tagged a long time ago, but I'm just barely getting around to writing down the 6 interesting things about myself. So, here it goes...
1. I'm afraid of almost all animals. I blame my mother for this trait. We never had a pet when I was growing up, so I'm not very comfortable around animals. Interestingly enough, I'm the most afraid of cats and mice (which are probably the most harmless ones of all.) I'm OK with dogs if they're small, but in general I'm just not a big fan of anything that's not a human.
2. I really like to try to be domestic. I know that being a mom and a homemaker can have it's boring moments, but all in all it's my favorite job ever. I've loved trying to master all of the aspects of homemaking. I've learned how to sew (kind of...at least enough to sew some curtains.) I even canned applesauce, apple pie filling, and peaches this year. And I love cooking and baking. I like to challenge myself with new difficult recipes. Anyway, I'm not quite "homemaker of the year", but I'm working on it.
3. I love to shop at yard sales. This is a fairly new obsession of mine. In fact, I had never really considered it before. I was always a little squeemish about using something that used to belong to someone else. But, my friends started talking about how great it was and all they amazing deals they would find. So, this past April I went to my first yard sale and I've been addicted ever since. I've always loved a good deal, and it's so fun to hunt through a bunch of junk to find something you really want. Let me just share a few of my great finds with you. I got a cuisinart ice cream maker that had never been used for $3. I also got a food dehydrator that had never been used for $2. I got a nice luggage set for $5. I have found a countless number of cute clothes for Roman and most of them were only $1 or less. I've decided that even if I'm a bagillionaire someday, I will still got yard-saling every Saturday morning in the Summer.
4. I have a knack for impersonating people. This is something I've been doing since I was really little. I love trying to master someone else's way of talking or their accent. My old roommates can attest to the fact that I could do a pretty good impression of my old co-worker, Sara Castillo. Now I like to try to impersonate my mother-in-law's accent. Even Jason says that I'm pretty dead-on. I'm not trying to make fun of anyone. It's always done out of love.
5.I have a dimple on my left thigh. And, no it's not a cellulite dimple. I was born with this one. Of all the places to have a dimple. How come I couldn't have dimples in my cheeks? No, I get one on the top of my left thigh. It's not cute.
6. As you know by now, I have this inability to tell a story in a breif, concise manor. I will try so hard to keep it short a sweet, but I always have to give all these unnecessary details. I blame my mom for this trait too :) In fact all the girls in my family are this way. We just love details. And I appreciate it when someone else tells a story with lots of details too. But I realize that not everyone is like me (Jason). That's why we're such an interesting pair. For example, if someone asked Jason, "How did you and Bethany meet?" He'd say, "We met at college." I one the other hand would tell them all about how I had dated his roommate and how we became friends and then we dated for a few months and then blah, blah, blah. Okay, this post is getting ridiculously long.

Our trip to Powell

So, I know several of you are wondering where I've been and why I haven't been blogging. And when I say several I mean more like one or two people :) Anyway, I haven't given up on blogging. It's a long story, but my father-in-law had to borrow our laptop for a week and so I didn't have a computer and then we left for Powell last Friday, and so I haven't really had a chance to work on it until today. Anyway, enough of the logistics. LIke I said, we traveled to Powell last Friday. I told Jason that since I couldn't spend Christmas with my family then we at least had to spend a week in WY for Thanksgiving. Thankfully he's a good sport and so he agreed. WE were really nervous about the long trip in the car (it's about 11 hours). Last time we traveled with Roman for an extended periods of time he was really bad. So, we planned to leave at about 2:30 pm and hoped he would take his afternoon nap. Then he usually goes to bed at about 7:00, so we planned on driving a long as we could and then we'd get a hotel. Anyway, I'm happy to say that little Romie was better than ever. The picture below shows what he looked like for most of the trip. He was awake for a few hours, bet even when he was awake he was being really good. Since he was so good we just decided on toughing it out and driving the whole way. So, we didn't get into town until 2:00am.
Roman loves playing with Cicily.  She was trying to practice the piano and he decided she could use his help.  It didn't sound very pretty with his little part, but he sure looked cute.
Roman's been getting a little braver with his attempts at walking. He'll go really fast when he's holding your hands, but as soon as you let go then he just sits down. So, my dad had this idea of putting a wooden spoon in each hand to give him a false sense of security.  He didn't really walk, but he did stand on his own for a little bit.  Just a quick disclaimer for that pic above.  I don't know why I'm smiling like that.  I guess I'm trying to show every tooth in my mouth.  I put it up though because Roman looks so cute. The picture below is of Raegan and Roman. Natalee and Chris and their kids gave Roman a cute little garbage truck as a belated birthday present. They got it for him because of the post I wrote a while ago about Roman's love for the garbage truck that comes to our house.  Anyway, Raegan and Romie loved playing with it.  It's so cute.  I can't believe how fancy the toys are these days.  

Happy Halloween!

Well, Romie survived his second Halloween. This year he was definitely a lot more alert than he was last time. As you can see I dressed him up like a puppy. He looked so cute crawling around. In fact, my mother-in-law came over and she kind of jumped for a second when she saw him crawling because she thought he was a real dog. Poor Romie started to get really tired of being a puppy. He really hated that hood thing. He kept trying to take it off, but he'd pull it forward instead of back and so he just kept jerking his head around. I let him keep it off for most of the night.

So, we had a little Halloween/birthday party. My sister-in-law, Amber has a Halloween birthday. We had them over and a few of our other family members and friends. It was fun. Amber just had a little boy on the 25th and I can't believe how fast she's bounced back. She's one of those lucky ones that loses her weight in like 5 days. Anyway, here's a picture of my neices with my new nephew, Everett and Roman. Roman and his BFF, Beck were just staring at eachother like, "What happened to you?" You could tell that they just didn't know what to make of eachother's "new look"

We decided to take Roman trick-or-treating for a little bit. Luckily it wasn't too cold. It was way warmer than my days of trick-or-treating in Wyoming! We just went to a few of our neighbors' houses so I could show off my cute puppy. Then I took most of the candy we got and "regifted" it to our trick-or-treaters. Anyway, we had a fun Hallowen. When I woke up this morning there were tons of pumpkins smashed on the road, but luckily my polka-dotted ones were spared :)

Polka-dotted pumpkins

OK, So I know I'm not the craftiest person around, but every once in a while I'll try to pull something off. Every year I tell myself that I'm going to do one of these really cool carved pumpkins. Like my brother Collin did one of Steven Colbert and it looks exactly like like him. It's insanely good. I wish I could do that, but I've tried carving before and the only thing I can do is the triangle eyes with a big smile. Even when I try to do that I somehow mess it up. So, this year I was all excited when I saw these cute polka-dotted pumpkins in my "Parenting" magazine. And they were super easy too. All you do is put round stickers on your pumpkin and then paint it black. Then when the paint dries you peel off the stickers and voila - you have your very own polka-dotted pumpkin. So, here's a picture of my materpiece.

I was so proud of my one that I made another one. That's about the extent of my Halloween decorating

Today my postwoman delivered my mom's Halloween package (Yea! I was afraid she'd forgotten to do it) Anyway, when I answered the door she said, "I love your pumpkins!" Trust me, I've never been told that before. So, I 've decided from now on no more carving. I just need to accept the fact that I'm not good at it and now I can just stick with the one thing I can do. Plus I wont have to put my hands in the stinky pumpkin guts anymore.

The Balloon

Yesterday we had our family pictures taken and it was interesting. We did them at 9:00 am and it was pretty cold outside. Luckily our photographer was really good at getting some good shots quickly. However, Roman was not in the mood to smile. The whole time he had this look on his face like, "I don't know you, so I'm not going to smile at you." He does that a lot. In fact, he rarely EVER smiles at strangers. So, anyway, I was a little disappointed that he looked so mad in the pics, but whatever.
Later that day we went to the grocery store and they had all of these Halloween balloons for sale. Roman started going CRAZY over them. Jason and I thought it was so funny. So, I put one of the balloons in our cart and continued shopping and he just kept pointing at it and laughing. I even had a few people pass by and comment about how fun it was to watch him get so excited about it. So, we bought the balloon and brought it home and I am happy to say that he's still as in love with it as he was yesterday. He takes it everywhere with him. I keep thinking that he's going to get sick of it, but nope he's still loving it. It's his new favorite toy. He'll play with his other ones, but he has to make sure his balloon is close by. Notice how it's all wrapped around his leg. He likes to have it really close :)

When he crawls with it he is constantly swatting it away from his face so he can see where he's going, but it still doesn't stop him! So, since he has had this balloon, he's started saying "baaa" everytime he sees it. When he woke up from his nap, he was a little groggy and I took him out to the living room and he saw his balloon and all the sudden he was full of life and screaming, "Baa! Baa!" We'll see how long this love affair with the balloon lasts. It might be the best $4 I've ever spent.

Cindy Spratling tagged me, so here are my Answers

10 FAVORITES
Favorite Color: Green
Favorite Foods: I love a good fettucini alfredo
Favorite Month: July
Favorite Song: With or Without you by U2
Favorite Movie: The Notebook
Favorite Sport: None really, but I guess I should pick football since Jason's such a fan
Favorite Season: Summer
Favorite Day of the week: Friday
Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: I love em all, but right now rocky road sounds good
Favorite Time of Day: It's a tie between noon - when Romie wakes up from his nap, or 8:00 when he's asleep and Jason's home from work.
CURRENTS
Current Mood: I don't know if this is a mood, but I'm kinda hungry (as usual)
Current Taste: I don't get this question. Taste in clothes, music, food? I'll go with music. Right now I really love Justin Timberlake. I have a married crush on him :)
Current Clothes: my black work-out pants and a grey shirt
Current Desktop: These blue waves. I should change it now that I'm thinking about it...
Current Toenail Color: chipped pink
Current Time: 10:55 am
Current Surroundings: I'm on my tan couch in the living room. I've got my coffe table in front of me, and the TV is against the wall. The walls are kind of a greenish color.
Current Thoughts: Hmm...what should I make for lunch in about an hour. And, I really need to get in the shower becaue I have a lot to do today.
8 FIRSTS
First Best Friend: Jody Lynn
First Kiss: Matt Elwood
First Screen Name: bethanybennion (I've always been real clever w/ the screen names)
First Pet: I've never had on and probably never will
First Piercing: ears, age 12
First Crush: I've always been boy crazy. I remember trying to marry my neighbor, Tommy Jones, when we were 4. Danna was the brains behind that one, but I was pretty excited about it. I chased him around with a ring.
First CD: I really don't know. I always claimed Danna's as my own. I remember she had a Janet Jackson one that I liked a lot.
First car: 1972 VW Beetle. Sweet Car, but not as great as my 2nd car...the infamous Retta
LASTS
Last Drink: Water, a few mins ago
Last Car Ride: About 45 mins ago when I drove home from the gym
Last Kiss: Last night before we went to sleep
Last Movie Seen: I think it was one that I rented with Danna called "The Painted Veil". We liked it.
Last Phone Call: My friend in my ward named Korbi
Last CD Played: I never play cds. I always listen to the radio.
HAVE YOU EVER
Have You Ever Dated One Of Your Best Guy/Girl Friends: Yes
Have You Ever Broken the Law: I guess if you count speeding
Have You Ever Been Arrested: Nope
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: No way
Have You Ever Been on TV: I guess if you cound that lame BYU-I commercial I did
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: No
THINGS
Thing You've Done Today: I woke up at 7:51 (Yes, Roman slept in that late...YEA!) I fixed us both breakfast. Then I gave him his bath and we went to my gym at 8:45. I did my step aerobics class from 9 to 10. I came home and put him down for his nap and then I did this.
Thing You Can Hear Right Now: I can hear the wind outside and this computer is making a little buzzing sound.
THINGS YOU CANTLive Without: Jason and Romie, a car, food, my phone, I could go on and on, but I'll just leave it at that. Have you noticed how important food is to me? Yikes, I'v got a real problem :)
Thing You Do When You're Bored:Call Jason or Danna. Sometimes I'll bake, clean, watch TV, sew, or read.
PLACES YOU'VE BEEN TODAY
Just to my gym and back
PEOPLE YOU CAN TELL ANYTHING TO
Jason, Amber, Danna
CHOICES
1. Black or White: Black
Hot or Cold: Hot
THING YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE
I want to travel the world with Jason. Well, I don't know about the world, but I want to go to a lot of places. I especially want to go to Germany because that's where Jason served his mission and he always talks about it. I also want to have a few more kids before I die. I could go on and on here because there's a lot I want to do, but I'll just leave it at that.
TAG 3 PEOPLE
So, now I'm supposed to tag 3 people, but I'll just break the rules and tag 4. I tag Kimmy, Kenna, Cindy C, and April

Roman and the garbage truck

Most people don't like Mondays. I'm actually not one of thse people. I think they're pretty much like any other day of the week. But Roman actually loves Mondays because that's garbage day. Every Monday around 10:15 our garbage man comes. This happens to be the time that I'm also getting Roman ready for his morning nap. So, since his bedroom window faces the street, we always see the garbage truck. About a month ago Roman started getting hysterically excited when he'd see the truck. And when I say hysterical, I mean the boy was waving his hands, laughing and screaming all at the same time. He seems to especially love it when the truck "grabs" our garbage dumpster. SO, today I decided to take some pictures of Roman's most exciting part of the day (and probably of the week too.)
At this point he is squeeling in delight. I should've videotaped it.
When the truck is out of site he always starts grunting and looking all sad like he wants him to come back. You'll just have to wait til next week, little Romie. If Roman could talk I'm pretty sure if I asked him what he wants to be when he grows up then he'd say a garbage man. Yep, it's every mother's dream to see their boy grow up to collect garbage :) Maybe it won't be as cool to him in 20 more years.

Happy birthday, Jason. Here's a broken fridge.

So everyone keeps talking about their blogs and I've been feeling so left out, so here's my first attempt at this thing you call blogging. So, today was a busy day for me and I feel like I have a lot to write about. Most of my days are not this exciting. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I only wrote a couple times a month. My life's just not that eventful.
So, first of all, today is Jason's 30th birthday! I can't believe he's 30. I used to think that was kind of old, but lately it's seeming younger and younger. So, we have church at 8:30 which is a struggle for us. But, we were leaving for church and we were all rushed and Jason put Roman in his car seat and I decided I'd better pour some milk in one of Roman's sippies because he fusses a lot in sacrament meeting. Anyway, I went to the fridge and i thought, "hmm...this milk is warm." Then I opened the freezer and all this water poured out. Apparently my fridge/freezer is broken. Everything in the freezer was thawed. So, you know how I am, I was like, "Jason, all of our food is ruined! What are we going to do? We have to throw it all away." Then he looked at it and said it wasn't that warm yet. So, instead of heading to church, we had to take all of our food to Jason's parents' because they have an extra fridge/freezer. So, we ended up missing sacrament meeting :( And I always feel so guilty. I was like, "Do you think we can wait until church is over before we move this stuff?" Jason said it couldn't wait. I think he said something about the ox being in the meyer? Anyway, I know this is a really long story but this is how I tell stories. Ummm...oh, so the thing that makes me so mad is that our fridge is only 2 yrs old! Since when does a fridge break after 2 yrs? and to make matters worse, last week our front load washing machine broke too (and it's also 2 yrs old.) And then on top of that, I was gassing up my car yesterday and after I filled it up I went to start it and it wouldn't start. Of course, it just so happened that I had Roman with me and jason wasn't there. So, I frantically called Jason and he saved the day. He jumped it and then took it to the repair shop and they had to replace the battery. Seriously, who ever has this many things break on them in such a short amount of time? So, happy birthday, Jason. Here's a bunch of reapairs you can pay for :) Anyway, we had a little party at jason's parents' house and his birthday ended up being a pretty good one. Sorry my first blog ended up being somewhat of a downer. Next time I'll try to do one that's more upbeat.