more pictures.

Aunt Ashley took pictures on Sunday, too. Above is one more from the church and then below she got some great shots from his birthday party. His girlfriend Cambelle is below, teasing Sophie with food.




Thanks, Aunt Ashley!

birthday aftermath.

Here's what our dining room looked like this morning, when Sophie, Ben and I were getting the rest of Ben's birthday gifts (toys) out of their packaging. Tomorrow's trash day, so I was excited to get things organized into baskets. He was overstimulated and crawling from toy to toy, but he had a ball.

Sophie has a hard time respecting Ben's personal space. If she could eat him, she would. Not in a mean way, but in a wow-you-smell-good-and-your-feet-are-delicious kind of way. He tolerates her, but mostly because he's not big enough or strong enough to really fight her off just yet. In the last picture, she has his foot in her mouth, giving him delicate pug-nibbles. I promise.

more pics

Aunt Rose was kind enough to send some more pictures from Sunday. We didn't get a picture of Ben in his shirt and tie... but here's one from far away. As I said, he was the handsomest one up there.

And some more from his party... devilish Ben:


... and skeptical Ben:


Thanks, Aunt Rose!

birthday weekend.

Forgive the brevity of this post - I'm still recovering from the whirlwind birthday weekend! So is Ben - he napped for 3 wonderful hours this morning.

We had a great weekend. Words can't really describe how lucky we are. Saturday, my mom had a big birthday party for the O'Keefe side of the family... It was great to be able to spend time with everyone. Ben wasn't too keen on napping, though, so he was Mister Fussbot the whole time. Sigh. My mom and Kevin worked their tushes off in preparation for the day and it was bummer that Ben wasn't at his best. But I think everyone understands.

Sunday, Ben was baptized at our church. I am really bummed that we didn't get a picture of him. He wore a shirt and tie with dark brown khakis. Ask anyone who was there and they'll tell you he was the most handsome :).

When we got home from church, Ben went down for a nap and the family went into party mode. The Reifs, O'Keefes, Alfanos and Byrons all banded together to get the house ready for Ben's birthday party. I don't know what I was thinking, throwing Ben a party without knowing what I was doing. Luckily, though, I have some great party planners in the family and they picked up my slack and then some. THANK YOU!!!

Here are some pictures from the party, taken by Aunt Margie:

Ben reaches for the wine at lunchtime:


Singing 'Happy Birthday' to Ben. He wasn't really impressed, and on both Saturday and Sunday, he had to be convinced to eat his cake. Hopefully he didn't inherit his mother's sweet tooth.


Here he reads Aunt Marcia and Uncle Nik's card with his dad.

... and the Elmo card from Aunt Michelle and Uncle Michael:


He looks a little bored... but he loves his pj's from Auntie D, Uncle Jeff and Cambelle.


Naptime!


And one last goodbye to his adoring fans...

happy 1st birthday, ben!

Today is Ben's birthday! We can't believe it. To celebrate, we took him to his first Phillies game!


It was a 1:05 game, but we decided we'd get there at around 2.


We lasted an inning and a half.


Ben wasn't a fan of the big crowds, and the loud, drunk kids behind us.


In fact, every time a big play happened, and the crowd cheered, he got a little scared.


Chris and I have decided that it's because we're pretty mellow. In any event, we had pretty good seats.