Halloween, Thanksgiving, 9 Months, 10 Months, Christmas and New Years!

Keeping up with a Blog is hard... Don't judge me!

That being said, hello again! It's that time of the year where we bring much cheer and rhyme when there is time. You know what I am talking about. The time of year where we come together as family and friends and remember what the Lord did for us in sending his son down as a baby and ultimately the sacrifice that this Christ made for us on the cross. I'm so grateful for the family and friends in my life who have made for a great year, full of fun and excitement and great joy!

At this time I do want to take the time to remember Mary Lou Okerstrom, Benson's Great Grandma, Pauline's Oma, who passed away suddenly on Oct. 25, 2013. I had known Mary for about as long as I've been with Pauline, which is a little over 10 years. My first thoughts of her were a little jaded, because I heard rumors of a woman who was strict and had a "no nonsense" approach. But what I quickly discovered is that she was a kindhearted and loving woman. She seemed to always be there for Pauline when needed, whether it be loaning her money for a car or being available via phone for a question almost all the time. A fond memory I have of her is her giving heart, even though I was not a part of the family yet, she had always made it a point to include me for Christmas when we all got together with extended family on Pauline's side. (Which Pauline didn't appreciate since that meant she was given less of a gift.) Overall I just remember how loving and fair she was to all her grandchildren and how much she adored them all. It was great to hear that in her last days she was able to hear the letter that Pauline had made for her and was even reciting scripture as the pastor read it aloud. We love you and miss you, thanks for making such an impact on all our lives!

There was a lot of first Holidays this past couple months for our little guy, and even though he will likely never remember them, I am sure he enjoyed himself!

Shortly after my last Blog post, Halloween happened upon us, like it always does on 10/31. This is the opportunity for parents of small children/babies to dress them up in the cutest outfit they can think of or find. We as parents did in fact fall into that category and therefore did exactly that, and of course our little guy was as cute as ever!

Little puppy dog and I made our way around to a few of the neighbors for this first Halloween, since Benson didn't eat the candy, I helped him out and ate it for him. :)

Another holiday that came upon us quite quickly was Thanksgiving! Obviously this year our biggest thanks was for Benson and all the supportive family members in our lives, what a blessing. This year, at the Keeler household, it was the first ever Keeler Gobble Day 5K, and even though we ran a little bit more than a 5K, it was a great way to start off the Thanksgiving festivities and try to relinquish at least some regret from eating too much later on in the day. Overall it was fun to relax with my immediate family, eat some lefse and enjoy each others company. We even got to Skype with Erik and Ingvild!

We transitioned to Pauline's family's get together a little before I had to leave for work at Best Buy, yes I am working there again. Even though I didn't get a chance to spend much time there, I had a great time catching up with everyone and eating some pie! Benson seemed to have a good time with his second cousins Nate and Zach from the pictures I saw!

There he is with those video games again... Uh oh, might end up like daddy even more!

The final two holidays of the year (obviously) were Christmas and New Years, which were a month long blur of family get together's, parties, presents, and overall chaos. But all of the above were exciting and fun to share with Benson and Pauline. It is again such a blessing to consider the reason for the season, that God had sent his son Jesus as a sacrifice for all people, so that all who believe in Him and turn from sin, can live in eternity with Him in heaven. Even though it is too early for Benson to really grasp that concept, we tried to instill a sense of that as we celebrated this year, so that he doesn't grow up wanting more gifts or more food or more "stuff," but remember the only important gift that any of us can ever receive, salvation.

Here are several pictures of the various gatherings and going-on's from the past month of December:

 The first two are pictures of Benson in his new shirt that he got from the Mehrer's for Christmas, thanks Mehrer's!

 The second set of pictures are from when Benson visited Santa at the mall, credit to Pauline for the meme, she was the one who thought of it and created it. :P

 This is a picture of Benson and I in the IDS building when Pauline took Benson to go see the 8th floor display at Macy's (apparently the last year they are having it as well as the Hollidazzle parade).

 These four are some of the presents that Benson got, an old school phone that Benson will only see in museums going forward and an iPhone/smartphone of his own! (My son has Elmo on speed dial, be jealous)

 A couple of Benson in front of the tree in his PJ's.

 He doesn't look the happiest in this one, but he definitely was, this was over at Dave and Loretta's.

 Here is a shirt he received from our good friend Christa!

Here is a picture of Grandma Larson with all of her great grandchildren on Christmas Eve.

And the last two are him happy as a clam at the Larson household after opening his gifts!

I again missed a couple months of Benson's monthly photos, so I will post those now, this kid is getting huge, but in a good way!

The next few pictures a lot of you may have seen on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, but those of you not on there or not friend's with my wife, here were a few of my favorites from the past couple months!

 I will add the disclaimer to this one, no baby's were harmed or emotional in the taking of this picture, Benson did indeed fall, but he did not cry, was not hurt, and genuinely just laid there while Pauline took the picture.

 Reading the Bible for kids to Benson and his cousin Elijah.

 This little guy loves to look at himself in the mirror, can't say I blame him, what a cutie!

 Another gift from Christa, can you say spoiled?

 The "creepy" picture of Benson seeing the camera after Pauline had moved it and thus staring at the little green light that just happens to omit so that there is night vision in a dark room. Our son is not "paranormal!"

He is getting pretty tall, soon he will be taller than even me!

Whelp, I am so glad to be able to post again on here since I have waited so long to do so.

I again appreciate all my readers and hope that you find some enjoyment reading and viewing my blog!

From the Keeler family, here is to 2014, hope you have a great year ahead!

God Bless,

Bryan

"What Happened to Bryan"

No, something bad didn't happen to me, I didn't lose my ability to write, I haven't lost access to the internet, I haven't been too overly busy. To be honest, I kind of forgot about my blog for a little bit... Weird...

Well, it has been a couple months since my last post and since then Benson has become 8 months old, odd how time correlates with age! He hasn't quite figured out how to crawl yet, he has the motion and stance down, but all he can seem to do is face plant and move backwards. If he can just get his little arms one in front of the other, he would be cruising. One thing he has developed though, is a bit of character. Whether it be him letting out a scream, just to make sure you didn't forget he was there, or maybe he'll flash you his cheesy smile. His cheesy smile consist of him doing his "toothy" grin along with squinting his eyes. It's a little bit of a rarity to see, he'll either do it randomly or every once and awhile he'll flash it when I am doing my "Donald Duck" voice. At any rate this little baby is growing up!

Yup, there's the cheesy smile, hope you enjoy having your heart melted. Credit for the last photo goes to Joe Nguyen, make sure to check him out: http://fungifotos.com

Here are a few of Benson's favorite things at the moment, in no particular order:

- His pacifier, recently it has been his go to, not only to suck on, but to bite, play with, throw, etc.

- His mommy, even though he likes to say "dadadadada," this boy is definitely a mamas boy.

- Apparently, he loves my xbox controller, recently I have been playing my xbox and holding Benson, every time I do he grabs for my controller. So because of that I sat him down next to me with his own (non connected of course) controller. Let's just say we have ourselves another, "I just mash buttons when I play," gamer!

- His brothers and sister (pets), Lana is his best bud, I often see him smiling at her and laughing at the things she does, he also tries to roll to her whenever he is on the floor and "pet" her the only way he knows how, which is by taking two handfuls of her fur and trying to pull his face close to her. Gizmo is a sly one, he'll only go to him and if Benson tries to get close he runs away. 

This is as good of a time to segway to our newest addition to the family, Lambeau! Lambeau is our new little Munchkin (literally), he is 10 weeks old, and is already proving to be quite the cuddler! We have discovered he loves Benson's play gym, most likely more than Benson even does. He'll run through it and swat at all of the hanging toys. Benson seems to get a kick out of his running around and tries his best to play too.

No new pics yet, just the one's from Facebook.

Overall I feel so blessed right now to have such a loving family. Coming home to Benson everyday is such a joy, he smiles at me and wants me to hold him. I can't believe the amazing things and people God has blessed me with.

I thank every one for their help and encouragement as we raise Benson, you are all so wonderful!

God bless!

-Bryan

6 Months! Uncle Erik Going to College.

Hello again everyone!

I am very impressed by the number of page views recently, thanks everyone for taking the time to read my thoughts and observations as a first time dad!

With my younger brother on his way to college as we speak, via road trip to CA, I wanted to take some time to wish him good luck and send him off properly. Erik is going to be missed by our little guy, but also by the rest of our family. However I know he is going to have a great time, and with all the technology we have nowadays (Skype, iMessages, Snapchat, Facebook, Xbox Live etc.) it should be relatively easy to stay in touch, even though it is not technically face to face. At any rate, we love you Erik and we know God has great plans for you!

Benson turned 6 months on the 18th! He is getting so old, I think I already see gray hairs on his head... Just kidding. But in all seriousness, he is so darn cute and just a joy to be around each day. His teeth are prominent now and very hard to miss if he opens his mouth. You can tell he feels them because he always has a goofy look on his face that he makes with his lips. Which unfortunately I do not have a picture of. Here are the progression pictures that Pauline posted to her Facebook, but I wanted to have on here as well:

You may not be able to tell very much from the pictures, but he is getting bigger and bigger. The way we have noticed is the fact that we have had to put his older clothes in storage and now even the 6 months clothes we have are getting tight... What a chunk! :)

Here are some additional pictures I took for the 6 month photos on the 18th. (I am a so good at taking pictures.... NOT):

Does not look happy in that last one... And he is kind of making that face I was talking about. Haha.

It's been so refreshing to see Benson interacting with others now. When he first came into the world, there wasn't much reaction to anything really. But now, whenever someone talks to him or when he interacts with the pets or one of his toys, there is always a reaction! Whether it be a smile, a "straight serious" (Pauline) look on his face, or sometimes if he is scared/doesn't get what's going on a frown or cry. He is also pretty independent, we can put him in his exersaucer or just lay him under the play gym and he entertains himself pretty well. There are times when he does want to be held though, which I don't mind, it is nice to be wanted!

Here are some pictures of Benson interacting with our dog Lana, our Goddaughter, Sabrina and her sister, Lily (aka Julie and Albert's kids, aka our flower girls, aka two of the cutest little girls I know), and finally, him interacting with Lucy, who is Julie and Albert's cat, but is also the sister of our deceased love one, Mousse.

What a cutie, props to Pauline for taking those last pictures.

Looking at all these pictures, I can't help but feel blessed. Not only for Benson himself, but for all the loving people in our lives that are so supportive and love him dearly as well. The best part of him growing up, is that we are becoming a more tightly knit family and we can only grow closer and closer.

So again, I thank everyone for their love and support, but also for all of the prayers. We most certainly wouldn't be the parents we are without such positive influences in our lives as well as the love and support of our great Savior!

On that note, I leave you with a few more pictures that I like, but again are probably already on Facebook, but whatever. :P

BPK update!

Hello all!

I decided it was time for another update regarding our little guy Benson!

Benson and I have now had several times where it is just father-son bonding time. My favorite is when him and I have Saturdays together to spend the whole day. Yes, usually we just chill at home and do nothing, but that is one of my favorite things to do anyway! Here are a few stories of the Saturdays we have had so far:

Several Saturdays ago now, I ran, with him in the stroller, to the basketball court that is about a mile or so from where we live. There is a little trail that goes almost all the way there. Once we got to the park, it was time for me to feed him, so we sat in the shade while I fed him his bottle. It was such a nice day, I don't think he minded being outside at all. Unfortunately, I did end up having to change a diaper that he had dropped a deuce in... That's not fun, but it wasn't even that bad. Eventually, my brother Erik and friend Joe met up at the court and we played a little H-O-R-S-E while Benson watched from his stroller. Overall he did really well and didn't seem to mind watching, but after awhile he did get a little cranky from lack of a nap and I ran him back to our house.

Last Saturday, to start out the day, him and I were being a little dorky before helping Linda and Israel with the last day of our family garage sale. All I have to say is, Pauline is probably going to have two dorky guys on her hands for quite some time...

Sorry the face he made for the picture warranted the comment and yes those are his pants on his head. In my defense, his pants were sitting above his head and he kept pulling them down over his head, so I figured putting them on his head was what he was trying for...

Most other days, like I said, we just chill at home. I play with him, he plays with his toys, rolls around, I do laundry, I play video games, he naps, he eats while I feed him, he pees/poops, I sneak myself some lunch, etc. In other words, for those of you bored on Saturdays, text or call me, if you don't mind hanging out with a baby, I am generally open!

Speaking of rolling around (see last post), this little guy only rolls now when he is on the floor... He'll be playing around on his play mate and all of a sudden he will have rolled next to Lana (our dog) and she will be eye-balling me thinking, "uh, what am I supposed to do with this thing?" Not only that, but when he is on his stomach, he tries his darndest to crawl, Pauline has posted a couple funny videos of this and I believe has linked them to her Facebook page, so check them out!

Something Pauline may also post, is video of Benson eating his first "real" food other than the formula that he has likely been getting sick of (all I can smell is formula and formula bi-products)! We fed him some squeezable peas (with a hint of mint), which he did not seem to care for from his facial expressions, but did end up eating the majority of. The reason we started him on the real food is based on him teething the past couple weeks and finally having two teeth coming through on his bottom row, which is super exciting! It's unfortunately very true what they say, "they grow up so fast!"

Yesterday, I had the privilege of being able to take a day off in the middle of the week and spend time with my lovely wife Pauline and little B. We had a good time sleeping in, even though, when we brought Benson into bed with us, he kept wapping us both in the face several times... After we finally woke up, we got ready for the day and eventually made our way to the Maple Grove Hospital to visit a friend who recently had her baby, Emily, who had her son Sawyer on 8/1, a little early of the due date originally slated for September (don't know the specific date), but he is doing really well and is such a cutie! Can't wait till him and Benson can be buds! After the hospital, we made our way to Girvan Grille, the restaurant that is connected to Edinbugh Golf Course. There, we both enjoyed a nice meal and were able to enjoy the beautiful day outside and somewhat had a view of the golf course. 

We got home, Benson and Pauline were both sleepy, so they took a nap whilst I practiced my golf swing, on Xbox 360 of course! I'm too cranky when I take naps, so I am disallowed from taking them anymore... This is what I look like when I wake up:

At any rate, when they woke up, Pauline got ready for work and we went to Caribou Coffee by where Pauline works on Wednesdays and hung out a little bit prior to Pauline working at 7:00. Again we enjoyed the outdoors, I sipped some iced tea while she sipped ice coffee, and Benson sipped his lukewarm milk. After we said goodbye to mommy, Benson and I made our way to small group at Phil and Sara Mehrer's house, for some much needed prayer time as well as getting into our book study for the first time in a few weeks! Overall he did great, made me look like a champion dad!

Once small group was over Little B and I went back home to give him a much needed bath, his new nickname was almost "stinky" prior to that... It was a quick bath, but got the job done since we had to go pick up Pauline from work. We picked her up and while we were waiting for mommy to come out to the car, Honey BPQ fell asleep! Pauline and I took the opportunity to grab a late night snack from an undisclosed place (that happens to have a phenomenal bacon cheeseburger on a pretzel bun!), before returning home to finish off what was a wonderful day with the family!

I'll leave you with this thought, a quote that I just thought of, not sure if my brain thought of it or if I compiled a quote together and am now calling it my own, but her goes:

"Without Christ there is a sense of false fulfillment as we reach certain goals that we set for ourselves. With Christ there is true fulfillment as we set about to do His will, not by our own power, but through Christ's gift, the Holy Spirit."

And of course Benson in a hat:

God bless!

Updating to You Live from Work

Hello everyone, sorry again for the delay inbetween posts, it unfortunately has become a reoccurring theme for me...

That being said, a lot has happened since my last post, Benson is now 5 months old, wow how time flys!

One thing I wanted to touch on before letting you know about Benson, in case you did not know, our cat Mousse, passed away a couple of weeks ago now, he was only 5 years old. Our vet referenced that he thinks it was likely a heart attack or heart failure, but we did not pay to have an autopsy done. Here are a few pictures that Pauline had put together in memory of our feline friend.

As you can see, he was a very lovable cat and we will miss him dearly.

We wanted little Benson to be able to have a stuffed animal that looked like Mousse (since originally we had thought they would become the best of friends as Benson grew up), but now it is more of a reminder of what we once had. The stuffed animal/pet named the same way was an idea based on our nephew Elijah, also having a stuffed animal named Latte, which is the name of their chihuahua. Here are a few pictures of little B with his new stuffed animal Mousse:

He seems to like the stuffed animal a lot and as you can see from the pictures, the stuffed animal looks eerily like Mousse actually looked. I'm glad I was able to find the stuffed animal on Amazon several months ago and get it!

It is so fun to hear how vocal Benson has become! Over the past month or so, he has been talking more and more. No actual words yet, but you can definitely tell he is trying to communicate something! He also is starting to be able to sit up on his own and has rolled over several times, in fact, almost every time we lay him on his back he rolls to his stomach! Which has been a little bit of a problem since he also does it when we put him in his crib to sleep, since he is laying face down, we always make sure that his head is turned so he is breathing properly.

We are having so much fun with Benson now, it is great to be able to take him places as a family and just have that bonding time. A few weekends ago we went on a trip to Minnehaha Falls for a family picnic. It was a rather nice day to go because it wasn't too hot and the park/falls weren't too busy. My brother Stephen and my sister-in-law Liz, as well as our other nephew Elias, met up with us there as well. A staple of us visiting there, for some reason, is to take a picture by the pergola walk-way that they have.

Haha, we are dorks!

Another place we just recently went to with BP is to Pauline's cousin Janelle and her husband Nick's open house. They live about 5 minutes away from where we live, so it wasn't too difficult to go and have a good time! Their home is very beautiful and they even had a relatively new edition to their family, a puppy named Munchy (may have spelled it wrong...), but he is a cute little ball of fur. Here are a couple pics of them meeting:

As you can see from the first picture, Benson had rolled to his stomach and the dog was having a good time trying to nibble him, haha! I can't remember the type of dog he is, but he was very fun and loving!

And for the rest of the post, I am going to show you dorky pictures of us and Benson, that you may have already seen on Facebook:

As you can see, my son will be a gamer!

On that note, I am going to try my best to do a new Blog post every week, again, sorry it has taken me so long and that I am so inconsistent!

Welp, it's been more than a month since I posted last...

I'll start off my post by apologizing to my  many followers... (ha! I don't think I have any)... I mean readers, that I haven't posted on my blog in a long time, for those of you who are not constantly in contact with us, I know you may be itching for an update!

So without further ado, I bring you this post.

Benson Paul is now 4 months old! Wow how time has already started to fly by... Recently weighed, he is now 14lbs, no problem growing now which we can say continuously "Praise The Lord!" 

One of my favorite things about Benson is that he is such a happy baby. It doesn't take much to get him smiling and even laughing now! Even at his daddy's stupid jokes and noises. When he wakes up and is cranky, usually just seeing mommy and daddy sparks an instant smile.

Speaking of sleeping, he does so well, mostly on his own accord. About 3 weeks ago now, Pauline put him down for a nap in his crib, one of the first time's she had done this, and he ended up sleeping the rest of the night for 12 hours! From then on it was an easy decision to move him from being in his bassinet every night to being in his crib, which is what I put the thing together for I am pretty sure! ;)

Random Segway: it was so fun taking the little guy to his first baseball game, and even more so since it was my two favorite teams Phillies and Twins! I won't lie, I had my Twins shirt on under my Phillies shirt... 

The coolest part is that we got him a collectors baseball, I mean caught a foul ball, duh... Not! And they also gave us a "First Game Certificate," which to be honest I didn't even realize they had. By the 6th inning bud bud was getting a little cranky and tired, so we decided to skedaddle and by the time we got his stroller (which we left at guest services, another thing I didn't realize they offered) and put him in his car seat, he was out! We still had to get some pics though so...

That's just some of the stuff we've been doing with our little guy. We just want to thank everyone who has been pouring prayers into our family, we truly serve an awesome God and I am in awe of His great works on a daily basis. That's why it was so great to celebrate Benson's dedication this past weekend, to let the world we can't do it alone, we need a holy God to help us along, as well as the prayers and guidance of a church family. Again, I just feel so blessed and am humbled by all that He has done.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, (Ephesians 1:3 ESV)

Weight Update, Shots, First Cold

Few stats to start this post.

Currently listening to:

That Girl by Justin Timberlake (may change prior to submitting this post)

Last social network used:

Twitter, replied to @EK23_5 message

Current iPhone battery life:

40%

Bus I am riding right now:

663

Sorry, had to reference the facts.

On to Benson! His weight is getting better and better, he is now up to 10lbs 14oz, which is a whole 3lbs 1oz more than when we went to the hospital on April 18th. Praise The Lord for that! Benson is being fed a healthy diet of formula now and he seems to be enjoying it quite well.

It's fitting that we were so distraught about Benson's non weight gaining and at the time the weather was terrible and not spring like. And now that he is gaining and healthy the weather is very springlike and beautiful! Speaking of beauty, I couldn't be more impressed with how well Pauline has been doing as mommy, she does such a great job with Benson and I am very happy to have her as my partner!

Mother's Day is this Sunday, it's fun to be able to help Benson with what to get for his mommy, or at least anticipate what he might choose based on his personality so far... Hopefully I am right...

The most recent 2 month check up, which was three weeks late, Benson got some immunizations. Sounds as of he cried quite a bit getting the shots, but it seems that there have not been any adverse side affects to date. He felt a tiny bit warm the day of the shots, but when we checked his temperature he was normal. Also at the check up, the doc referenced that Benson's sniffles that he had been having for a few days were the result of what seemed to be a cold. We had thought that he was just producing normal boogers, especially since he didn't have a runny nose, but what do we know? 

Just last night and today we started noticing a cough as well, so I guess the doc was right... Poor little guy, according to Pauline, she can definitely tell that he doesn't feel well. Still cute as a button though! (Never really understood that saying, is it because buttons are small?)

Anyway, I am grateful Benson is gaining weight and that I have such a great family! Pray that Benson's cold goes away, even though we know it will eventually.

Closing stats.

Currently listening to:

Mirrors by Justin Timberlake

Last social network used:

Twitter and Facebook to post this!

Current iPhone battery life:

27%

Not riding a bus currently