Random pics of a cute kid

On Sunday of Mothers Day weekend we visited Grammie & Grandad. Olivia was over there and Colin had so much fun playing outside. Olivia is definitely the leader and Colin had a great time mimicking and imitating her. Monkey see, Monkey do!

Sometimes I like to take "self-portraits" with Colin. He usually does a great job of smiling and looking at the camera when I do it. Not the best pics of me, but it was fun anyway!

Colin's latest obsession: "CAR!"
He will cry and cry and cry whenever he gets home from daycare about wanting to "drive" the car. He pretty much just sits up in the front seat and pushes every button possible, hazard lights, turn signals, wipers, garage door openers, etc. He would literally stay in there for hours if we let him. He will open and close the door, lock the doors, climb in the backseat. The only thing that stinks is Brian or I have to be in the garage to supervise all of his shenanigans in the car.
It provides good entertainment...

Mothers Day weekend

What a fabulous Mothers day weekend!

On Saturday, Colin and I had a great morning and ran some errands and just enjoyed our time together. He was in a fun mood and was laughing at everything. We played outside and, of course, hung out with Jake (his best bud).

After naptime, the 3 of us headed out to Penguin Park again to enjoy the nice day. It was packed, and so once again, Colin was very distracted by all the other children playing. But, he tried out some new slides and such that he hadn't tried before.

On Sunday, I woke up at the usual 6:30 to my beautiful son Colin just jabbering and talking away in his room. He and Daddy were going to fix me breakfast in bed, but Colin just couldn't stay out of the bedroom to leave me alone. We watched some Cat in the Hat on TV while Daddy made me heart-shaped pancakes (some with chocolate chips), scrambled eggs, and hashbrowns. I attempted to eat the breakfast while in bed, however Colin really really wanted some of my pancakes (which had syrup on them) and I could see that ending in a sticky situation. Instead, I enjoyed my lovely breakfast in the kitchen.

The 3 of us ran some more errands on Sunday morning and one of the stops (a local grocery store) was having an anniversary party and had a bounce house for the little kids to jump in. Colin wasn't so sure about it at first, but once Daddy got in there with him, he had so much fun running around in there, and had even more fun falling down in there!

Once home, we set up the sprinkler in the back yard, it was a nice sunny, mid-80 degree day and Colin had a blast playing in the sprinkler.

These next few pictures are a series of pics I took (have I mentioned lately that I just love my camera!?!) that show how much fun he was having. I love looking at how his arms are just flapping everywhere, and his arms do this all the time when he is running...

Cooling off by dunking his head in the water...

Clapping the water...

Reasons why I LOVE BEING A MOM!!
-Hearing Colin tell other people "that my mommy" when he sees me
-Kissing ouchies and making them better
-Watching Cat in the Hat & Thomas on TV & seeing Colin get super excited & dance around when the music starts
-Snuggling at night before bed & singing "you are my sunshine" before leaving the room
-Seeing Colin love and hug on his Daddy
-Remembering all those tough newborn and infant phases that we went through and knowing I am going to be doing it again all too soon
-Hearing Colin make all sorts of animal noises
-Watching Colin learn new things everyday
-Seeing Colin get so excited over a balloon or a ball or a dog walking by
-Watching Colin kiss my belly and say "love you" to baby sister
-Spending hours of time watching Colin dig through cabinets and drawers just exploring & learning new things (& not minding cleaning up the mess)
-Laughing when Colin has so much fun at bathtime - splashing and kicking the water
-Watching Colin hug Jake
-Seeing Colin run around the backyard while saying "un, un, un" (run, run, run) and going down the slide while saying "weeeeee" without a care in the world
-Watching Colin's personality develop and seeing both Mommy & Daddy's traits in him
-Knowing that everyday Colin can't wait to see me when I'm home from "urk" (work)
-Seeing Colin make all sorts of new facial expressions (& wondering where he learned it from!)
-Reading books & saying prayers before bed (& making sure Jake is in his room, too)
-Hearing "uh oh" and wondering what I will find when I investigate...
-Watching Colin wanting to do whatever Brian and I are doing
-Singing "itsy bitsy spider" and "old macdonald" countless times in the car and hearing Colin say "more" even after the 15th time
-Knowing Brian and I are doing everything we know how to raise Colin into a good, polite, Christian man & giving him the best life possible

I am so blessed!
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

The weekend happenings...

Whew! What a busy weekend...but it was great!
Our busyness got a kick in the rear with my 36 week appointment to the doctor. I have already progressed to a 3 and am 80% dilated. My doc really wanted to do our best to ensure the baby stayed in my belly for at least 1 more week, and she encouraged me to take it as easy as possible, and just kick my feet up...
Well, that's hard for me to do anyway, but with chasing after Colin and having some last minute things we wanted to get done before baby arrived...we kicked it into high gear!
So much for relaxing, but Brian really did his best to tell me to sit down (all the time!) I just wanted to help out so much that I didn't really follow doctor's orders.
BUT...Tiffany and Chad volunteered to take Colin for us from Saturday after naptime, having Colin stay the night with them, and he came home Sunday after naptime. We got soooo much stuff done in less than 24 hours, it's amazing what you can do without any little ones around! :) We missed him so much though...

Colin's room got completely re-painted (a very bright and awesome blue that Brian picked out) and decorated in a sports ball theme. He loved it when he got home. He kept spinning around the room in a circle pointing at all the balls, touching them, etc. It was so fun to watch.

After searching just about everywhere, we couldn't find Colin's favorite little puppy dog, (he calls him "Oof", after what a doggy says "woof"). We had his room completely torn apart to paint and decorate and we hadn't come across Oof. Well, Brian found him...

Along with a couple of Pound Puppies...in his diaper pail. YUCK! They stunk so bad! All 3 of the stuffed animals immediately took a bath in the washing machine. Glad we found them and didn't send them out to the trash!

And here's little baby girl's nursery so far...We finally adorned the walls with the dots


Plus, we spent some major time in the kitchen. When Colin was born, we had made some casserole-type dishes ahead of time and put them in our deep freeze for nights when we couldn't seem to muster any energy to cook. Well, we did it again. On Saturday we made:
1 dish of Chicken Tortilla Casserole
1 dish of Baked Ziti
1 dish of Mexican Lasagna
2 containers of Homemade Spaghetti Sauce
2 dishes of Bow Tie Pasta

Hopefully this will last us for a while!!!
Okay baby, you can come out whenever now, we're ready! :)

Easter with the Cousins

After Easter morning at our house & naptime, we headed to Grammie & Grandad's for some fun with the cousins. Scott and Suzanne and family were in town and there was plenty of Easter eggs to be found. Colin understood better what to do after we had our practice run at our house that morning. The older boys were really sweet and made sure everyone was able to find at least 10 eggs to put in their baskets.

Colin also was pretty excited once he figured out how to pop the eggs open and get the candy. Apparently the eggs at our house were too "new" and he had troubles opening them on his own. He figured it out though, because it seemed like every time I turned around while we were at Grammie & Grandad's, he had a big mouthful of candy. I guess that's assuming his uncles weren't feeding him any (which might be a bad assumption!)

Olivia and Colin on the hunt

Counting his stash of eggs...

Pulling his eggs all around in the wagon

All of the older boys (plus the Easter bunny, minus Johnny, who was probably eating at the time...the kid eats all the time, poor Katie!)

The whole grandkids group. Can't believe there will be one more added into this mix before too long. Our baby will be grandchild #8 for Grammie & Grandad.

Easter morning fun

The whole family went to Easter mass at 7:30 on Sunday morning. We thought it might be a little less crowded seeings how it was so early, but no, that was not the case. Colin did pretty well, until we took him out for him to walk around a bit and he found the toy room. After that, he didn't want to leave the toy room and we had a little melt down. He is still pretty easily distracted though, and it didn't last for more than a few seconds.

When we got home from church, we had Colin open his Easter basket and look for Easter eggs. He had so much fun. We had a Zhu Zhu puppy, a slinky, some play doh, some candy, a magna doodle and a few sports balls in there for him. The biggest hit...the slinky and the play doh.

Colin and Daddy playing with the play doh. Colin taste tested each color...yuck!

Opening his Easter basket

Hunting around the house

Figuring out that there was actually CANDY in there!!

A great family picture. This, of course, was taken by a timer on our camera that Brian had meticulously set up on the mantle in our family room. Colin thought it was hilarious that the flash would go off with nobody around to push it the button.

HAPPY EASTER!!

Easter Eggs

We thought that Colin would have a lot of fun dying Easter eggs this year. We didn't even attempt last year and we thought we'd give it a try since he's 21 months old now. Plus, this would be a good trial-run for Brian and I seeings how it's been YEARS since we've done this ourselves.

We got Colin all set up with a grubby t-shirt and had the counter all covered with newspaper. The thing we didn't count on was Colin wanting to drink all of the dye that was in the cups and him wanting to eat the eggs that we set out to color. Oh well, at least the colors were non-toxic, we found out after we read the box very carefully :)

Yum, this yellow one tastes great!

Yum, this blue one tastes great, too!

Mommy making Colin laugh. He just loves laughing at different facial expressions that Brian and I make. So funny!

We sacrificed an Easter egg for a snack that morning.

Oh, and Brian got me some beautiful tulips for Easter. I LOVE TULIPS!

Jake is back at our house now that we have the house off the market. He hasn't been feeling well, being very fatigued and having no appetite. We took him to the vet and they said all of his blood work came back fine, just his cardiac markers were a bit elevated. They think he might have an enlarged heart, which could be causing some of his lethargy, but he is in no pain from that. Colin just ADORES Jake. Every morning he makes sure he has food & water and we let him outside. He will give him hugs and kisses and pet him whenever he is around. It's nice to see this caring side of Colin, because we can only hope he will be the same way when the new baby arrives.

Deanna Rose Farmsted

We had a great time at Deanna Rose Farmstead on Monday morning. The weather had been kindof hit & miss over the weekend, but for some reason, Monday morning was beautiful and we were so thankful! After Grandad passed away on Sunday, we weren't sure if we wanted to make the trip on Monday, but we were so glad we did. Colin is totally in LOVE with animals right now and we knew he would just have a great time.

Colin at the train, right past the entrance

There was a fun schoolhouse that we went into, and the "teacher" was so sweet. She got Colin a chalkboard with a piece of chalk and let him get to work.

Ringing the cowbells

The boys looking at the animals (pretty sure it was the cow that was mooing so loudly that Colin felt like he needed to be held) ...LOVE THESE GUYS!

Checking out the baby goats. There were tons of them there, very friendly and fun for the kids to interact with.

Colin really cracks Brian and I up whenever there are other children around. He just sits back and watches them. He's very curious these days.

There was also a small track where the kids could ride tractors all around. Poor Colin's little legs couldn't reach the pedals yet, so Brian had to push him.

We had a couple of our friends join us out there, the same ones that went with us to Lake of the Ozarks earlier in the weekend. Their little girl is 2.5 years old and is a lot of fun for Colin to play with. This is Colin with Madeline's dad Caleb (a very old friend of Brian's from his elementary school days)

Feeding the hungry big goats

This was probably one of the most fun parts of the day...feeding the baby goats milk from a bottle that you could buy for $1. It was still really early in the morning and so they were very hungry. Since they were all little, they weren't intimidating at all for Colin, except maybe when there were dozens of them wanting the bottle all at once. Good thing Brian was there to regulate!

Brian and Caleb attempting to use the tractor track.
Um...boys...the sign says ages 3-6 I think...

Colin "milking" a cow

We still can't believe this whole place had FREE ADMISSION! We are definitely going to be coming back and spending more time there now that we know what it's all about. So much fun for little kids (and for the parents!)