why spaghetti is followed by bath time

comparisons...

here are basically the first pictures of each of the boys. benny (on the left) definitely has more hair that's much darker than andy's. also, i think andy's nose and mouth may be a bit wider. and i've been told that andy has big ears. other than that, i think they look very similar.


















this next picture set (benny on the left) shows similarities as well - although benny's eyes were really dark blue/grey before they turned brown and i think andy's will be lighter.

i think they're just the cutest and i'm so excited to watch them grow up together!

Benny and Andy

I know I have already blogged today, but we have more pictures to put up (and since blogging is still a novelty, I can imagine there will be a bunch of new posts for about another week or so, then the novelty will wear off and I will probably be done). Benny came home from Grandma and Grandpa's today (thanks again Mom and Dad), and really got to meet Andy for the first time. Overall, we think it went really well. Benny absolutely adores his little brother and as you can see from the pictures and videos, was smothering Andy with love.

More Andy

Andy is now 2 days old and home from the hospital. It is time for some more pictures.

Dressed and ready to leave the hospital.

Andy's first night home.

Might seem unremarkable until you compare it to Benny's first night:

My brother Dallin must have caught on to our parenting ineptitude (see above picture) and shared with us an informative online parenting manual:

Parenting For New Parents

We will post more pictures as we get them.

New Baby

This is my first attempt at blogging, so bear with me.

We are happy to announce that Benny II now has a name and a birthday. This morning (Feb 7) at 1:43 am, Anderson Clark Cotterell (Andy) was born. Faith had been having contractions all day yesterday that got stronger and more frequent as the day went on. I still went to my classes, expecting at any time to get a call from Faith letting me know it was time to go to the hospital. After my last class was over at 5, I still had a test I needed to take, so I reviewed my notes for about 10 minutes and took the test in less than 30. (It was not my best performance, but I passed and that is all I need to do this semester-pass my classes so I can graduate.)

I got home and Faith's contractions were getting stronger as the night went on. The doctor's office said to wait till the contractions were 3-5 minutes apart. We decided to leave about 10:30, called Eden to watch Benny for the night (thanks again, Eden!) and headed to the hospital. I kinda wanted to get pulled over so I could tell the officer "My wife's in labor!" and possibly get a police escort the rest of the way, but alas, we had an uneventful race to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital, Faith was dilated to a 6 and after another hour she was to an 8-9 and ready for an epidural. After slipping into lower-half blissful oblivion, it was another hour or so till she was ready to push and after less than 20 minutes of pushing Andy was born.

Important stats

Weight: 8 pounds 3 ounces
Length: 19 inches
Hair color: Light brown with a hint of red
Temperment: Much like Benny-very calm and sleepy
Eyes: 2
Cuteness: Off the charts

Enough blogging, here are some pictures:

The Andy burrito

Post-bath Andy and parents

Andy's initials are ACC-like the college sports conference. This reminds me of a video I saw a little while ago of an ACC ref at a football game.

major milestone

there are things in my head that keep popping up that i've forgotten about. about 2 1/2 weeks ago benny turned 18 months. this means that during church he gets to go to nursery for the last two hours! it's funny because spencer and i love being with benny and seeing how much he's learning, but the opportunity to listen to an uninterrupted lesson in sunday school and the third hour is nice (although i must admit that sometimes it was nice to have the excuse to go into the hallway). benny is great and he's done really well in classes with us - we're of the opinion that taking a small kid like him into the hallway to run around and play every time he makes a fuss is actually only teaching him that it's okay to act up - but three hours is hard on a little body and nursery is a great outlet.

before we reached 18 months i had been thinking that there shouldn't be any problems with benny playing with other kids. he's never had a problem when we've left him with a babysitter (although i think that they've all been family up until now) and he loves being with kids his own size. i thought at first that spencer or i would stay for a while to make sure that he did okay - that was very short-lived... we went into the nursery room and put him down and benny didn't look back. he went straight to the toys and had a great time. we looked in on him a few times (gotta love that peep hole) and he was just playing with his friend austin the whole time (my friend heidi's son). i do think it helped that there was someone he knew there. when it came time to leave, spencer said he just didn't want to go - he used the limp rag approach.

we are so glad that our first nursery experience was a good one. we know it might not always be this way, but knowing that it's possible is great news!

benny

i've realized that in my excitement for the new baby to come i have neglected to show how benny is progressing. he is doing really well right now. i can't believe what a big boy he is turning in to. he really is not our baby any more and we're so excited to see what a great big brother he's going to be.

be prepared for a whole lot of pictures. and believe me, i chose carefully. :)

back in december i finally took him out to walk through the snow in the back yard. he had a great time!

in front of the greenhouse.

after playing in the snow he went to play in his stack of blankies. i love the smile on his face. he looks so happy!

spencer and i scored big time for christmas for benny. we got him this little car and he couldn't stay off of it for days! he absolutely loves it still and the really great thing is that the noises it makes aren't horribly annoying.

we also got benny this little table with a couple of chairs just his size. he loves eating like a big boy with a plate.

he's also getting really good at eating with a fork. spencer taught him to stab his food and eat it. he still needs some work with the spoon, but that will come. and he still switches between righty and lefty, so we'll have to wait to figure that out.

spencer has wanted for a while to get benny a couch or chair just his size. shortly after christmas he found this great spiderman couch online that folds out into a little bed with a built in sleeping bag. i love how excited spencer was to open this box.

benny trying out his new couch for the first time.

benny loves looking at all his books. it just cracks me up that he'll do that while sitting on his car. he just doesn't want to miss out.

also reading on his spiderman bed. another favorite spot.

i thought it would be fun to make a little house for benny out of the box that the couch came in. all i did was cut a door into the side. benny loved it for a while (i think it's dying down finally) and would keep asking me to close the door and push it right open again (playing "where's benny?").

i started noticing that things were going into the box and not coming back out... benny's stash.

last thursday spencer and i were in the living room and we heard benny in the kitchen asking for cereal. before either of us had a chance to get up we heard some cereal being poured. how else was he going to get it if mom and dad weren't going to get it? and there he is holding onto a little tupperware lid that he likes to use as a dish.

sunday morning reading the comics. i love the look on his face.

just cute.

spencer dressed benny today and i thought he looked like such a little man. i just wanted to share these.

sitting like a big boy.

hope you enjoyed our last month-and-a-half with benny. i'll try to be more on top of things in the upcoming months - we'll see if it happens with a newborn...