checkups

Colin had his 18 month check up last week. Really? 18 months? Well, they sure have flown by! He actually got out of needing any shots due to it being one day before his booster shot was needed, so we have that to look forward to at his 2 year appointment. Everything checked out fine with him and he's sitting right at 70% for both height and weight.

We are trying to work on Colin's verbal skills. He understands communication very easily, he just has a hard time getting the words out himself. He says a handfull of words, but they really would like for us to be at around 20 words and we're not even close! Both Brian and I have been chatting his ear off now, hopefully he'll start returning the chatter soon!

Colin giving his monkey, Tails, a bath in the kitchen (not sure why Colin isn't wearing any clothes...)

Gotta clean behind his ears!!

Snow ice cream

Another first for the Teson family...snow ice cream! I looked up a super easy recipe and decided we had plenty of snow to pick from (over 10 inches of snow fell at our house during the week). So, Colin and I set outside to get a bowl full of snow and get cooking!

Ok, so we obviously didn't use the snow he scooped up with the dust pan, Brian got us some new fresh snow for our recipe...

Eating the snow on his gloves

Gross, but I just had to get a picture of it...nice snot rocket! Poor kid, it was so cold outside, we were only able to be out there for 15 minutes or so...frozen fingers!

Taste testing the snow before we added the ingredients

Helping me mix up the snow

And...the moment of truth...tasting our creation

So far, so good!

Must be good, he loved it. He kept coming up to Brian and I asking for "ice". We're still working on the spoon skills, but he's getting it.

Hopefully this will be a new tradition at our house, making snow ice cream. We really had a fun time and since it only had 3 ingredients, very easy to make.

Colin gets so excited when he can help Brian and I do whatever we are doing. Like sort laundry, sweep up the floor, pick up the toys, throw away dirty diapers, etc. He is getting to be such a big helper, which I know I will appreciate when Baby Sister comes along.

Happy Winter!

Visiting friends

In college, I lived with 6 girls and wouldn't you know, we all still keep in touch! It's great now that we've all started families and we try to meet up a couple times a year to have some fun. My friend Jamie flew in from Chicago over the weekend and we met up with another old roommate Deidra (who actually lives in KC, we just have a hard time finding compatible schedules). There were kids galore!

Here is a picture of all of us before naptime...

Colin (18 months) and myself, Ava (10 months) and Jamie, Evelyn (4 months), Deidra, and Brenden (2.5 years). We had so much fun at Deidra's house! They have pretty much every toy imaginable, Colin was in heaven...

The inflatable jumper that was the hit of the day

We had so much fun bouncing around with the balls in the jumper

Brenden and Colin somewhat posing for a picture (hey, at least they were sitting still)

Colin had such a hard time getting up, he was laughing so hard. In this picture, it looks like he is squishing his poor little nose into the ball.

Crazy static hair

Pausing for a quick breath...with Jamie in the background, she was so much fun to play with!

Trying to climb back into the jumper after the fun had ended. Colin was so sad to leave Deidra's house. On Sunday, all the girls met down on the Plaza and we walked around and had a nice dinner. I think we are planning on a trip to Chicago in September to meet up again. Can't believe I will have another little one at that point. :)

Colin has his 18 month check up at the doctor this afternoon. I think he gets quite a few shots/immunizations, so we'll have to be extra sweet to him when we get home. We're also supposed to get a ton of snow (6-10 inches) here this afternoon, so hopefully we can squeeze in his appointment before the weather gets really bad. Ah, the joys of winter...

no words...

Just caught Colin doing some cute things lately.

Eating some messy food and playing in our closet...

It's the little things in life, right?!

Sonogram day

Sonogram day was Thursday the 13th. Of course, Brian and I were a bit anxious, hoping that the baby growing inside my belly was all normal and healthy. We followed the same tradition as with Colin and had the sonographer write down the gender of the baby in a card and we opened it later on at dinner. With Colin, we went out to 54th street Bar & Grill to find out what we were having, and figured we could do the same with baby #2.

The sonogram was completely normal and healthy and the baby measured exactly at what the expected due date is, May 27th. After the appointment, we headed off to pick up Colin from daycare and went to dinner.

Colin's adventure with a lemon...

Before...

and After...

Colin, with his Best Big Brother shirt on (eating crayons) and Dad

We

Are

Having

A

.

.

.

.

.

GIRL!!!

Yeah, one of each. Brian and I are still in shock that we'll have pink in our house. We thought for sure it was another boy, considering the Teson male track record. What a great surprise!!

Hair bows and glittery shoes, here we come!!

Snow day with my new Camera!!

KC finally got some snow on Monday (thankfully Brian is off on Mondays so I was the only one that had to venture out to work that day). My camera arrived during the day (Canon Rebel T2i) and I was super excited to use it that evening. Brian went outside to shovel and Colin and I got bundled up to "help out". After the 15 minutes it took to get everyone ready, we headed out the door.

The camera is awesome! It takes pictures very quick without any pause between when I push the button and when the shutter goes off. I am able to zoom in really close to get some great quality close-up pictures. I was just so tired of getting pictures of the back of Colin's head or 2 seconds after the cute pose was over. Hopefully that will happen a lot less frequently now!

Brian and Colin ready to go outside and shovel some snow!

Colin with his dustpan "shovel" and Daddy.

It's so hard to get back up after you fall down with all your snowgear on. Probably doubled his weight with all the puffy clothes he had on!

Shoveling is fun!

One of my favorites of Colin that I took that day

Eating some snow...actually, Colin ate quite a bit of snow that day. No yellow snow to be seen!

Another one of my favorites!

Taking a break from the work

Yummy snow!

Daddy teaching Colin how to make snow angels. He wanted nothing to do with it!

Back hard at work. Pretty much just making a mess of what Daddy just shoveled.

When it was time to go inside...meltdown-city!! Colin threw a huge fit!! He cried for some time until I reminded him he was going to get in the bath and that helped (he loves bathtime!) His poor little toes and fingers were frozen, but I thought it was a small victory that he even kept his mittens on this time.

After bathtime...naked Colin running around the house. What a crazy kid!

Christmas in Topeka

I finally think we got all of our Christmas celebrating completed. We headed to Topeka over the weekend to join Meemaw, Aunt Tiff and Uncle Chad for the Dudley-side Christmas. We had a great time!!

Colin immediately went down for a nap when we pulled into Topeka, so my mom and I headed to the grocery store to pick up a few last minute items for dinner (we had an awesome roast and lots of yummy sides for dinner). Once Colin woke up, we opened some gifts. Colin, of course, was spoiled by getting a ton of presents, but we all had a lot of fun watching him tear into the wrapping paper.

Colin was having a hard time unwrapping this gift one-handed. He would NOT let go of this balloon he got, with a little pig my mom attached to the end. Eventually, with help from the exciting new gifts, he would let the balloon go, but not for quite a while. Here's a fun farm animal noise toy from Tiff and Chad. He still just loves animals!

Still unwrapping with one hand...

Okay, the balloons gone for this one...a cool T-ball set! I'm pretty sure Brian was more excited for this one than Colin! Can't wait for warmer weather to try it out!

Putting on some fuzzy cute Chiefs slippers. Too bad they didn't bring the Chiefs good luck on their football game Sunday. :(

Colin was so excited for this one particular gift from Great Gramms Rice. Meemaw was trying so hard to open the gift, but those silly toys are so difficult to get open. He was waiting patiently for the present...

Still waiting...

Yeah!! It was a driving simulator steering wheel toy with lots of buttons and knobs to push and make noise. He wouldn't put that toy down until dinner.

But, of course, a big bouncy ball found in Meemaw's sewing room is just as much fun as those cool toys. He rolled that thing all over the house!

Thanks for a fun Christmas everyone!! Glad the snowy weather waited until Monday to show up, after we had all made the trip back to Kansas City safely.