Dad and the Jammies

It has not been easy putting clothes on Cole lately, because he wants to go-go-go. I even got a video of Nick trying (and me standing by laughing) to put Cole's jammies on. Oh, and at the end of the video, that was me making the farting noises, not Cole..ahaha!!



Here are a couple of pictures of my little man and me. I feel like I'm always the one taking pictures so I don't get a whole lot of him and me. You can tell by the first picture that he's not diggin the picture-taking.

Yesterday, I made a pretty big purchase. I've been wanting to get a BOB stroller so I can get back into running and with me working, I really don't have time to go to the gym so I thought if I can get a jogging stroller then I can come home and go on a run with Cole. Since we are doing the Dave Ramsey budget stuff we made plans to purchase the stroller next month so we could set some money aside for a couple months. Well....yesterday morning I went to put my skirt on and it was a bit snug, so this is my conversation with Nick....
Me: Um, I'm going to go buy the stroller TODAY (as I continue to pout)
Nick: Why? We didn't plan to get it till next month
Me: Too bad, I don't fit in my skirt as I would like, I'm getting it today....so there!
Nick: Um, ok

Nick knows not to mess with a girl and her body image!!! Good job babe!!! :)
I purchased the stroller, came home and went for a jog....and I love it!! Can't wait to really break it in!!

After my jog today....wow, he sure is excited about his new ride huh!?! Oh, and I know he has one shoe on and his shirt is half-way up his gut...who cares, he's still cute! :)

The slider phone

See this phone??

Apparently this is THE coolest and most fun phone out there! Well, according to Cole. This is Gramma Tracy's phone and it by far surpasses mine and Nick's iPhone's!!! We aren't sure what it is exactly, maybe that Gramma will purposely call the phone so it plays Bon Jovi songs when it rings, maybe deep down he's a Bon Jovi fan, we aren't really sure, but even when he sees Gramma he goes straight for her purse. He's a pretty smart cookie!
Gramma Tracy came over today to watch the Baylor Duke game so he had several hours of fun with his phone :)
Side note: We were so proud of our Baylor Bears making it to the Elite 8 and that they stayed with Duke till the very end!! What a great game. And what are the odds that both Baylor teams are playing both Duke teams in the Elite 8!!! Crazy! Go Baylor Girls!!!

Here are some pictures of Cole with his favorite phone

Gramma Tracy even tried to distract him with a calculator....didn't work

This video shows you just how happy he is with his phones in his possession. Nick put played songs from his iphone and he was very content just playing with his phones.



This video is kinda funny but sad at the same time. Gramma Tracy left to go get dinner for us and Cole was not too happy. Tracy thinks he's just crying because she took off with his phone, but I'm sure it was the fact that she left...he sure loves his Gramma! The only thing I could do to get him happy again was to let him take a bath, ha! As soon as I turned the water on he stopped crying, squealed and ran like a drunk man to the bath tub.

Roxy love

Lately Cole has REALLY noticed the puppies!! Like I've said in previous posts, he's been such a cuddler and loves to "love up" on everything and say "ahhhhh" and now he's trying to do the same with the puppies. Unfortunately Benson is still a bit of a crouch and doesn't like to be loved on but Roxy loves the attention! She'll kiss all over Cole and he just thinks it's the funniest thing!

Oh, and sorry Wendi that Cole is naked again! I know you think that we let him run around naked all the time, but I promise that these videos were taken right before his bath and he was getting naked anyway. :) ha!


Here is another video of Cole being silly with dad. He was super loud tonight and was just being crazy.



Tonight after we put Cole to bed, I went in to do a quick check and this is what I found, how cute is this?? He loves to cuddle with his monkey :)

Good Job Rachel!

My sister-in-law Rachel wrote a very good post about the recent happenings in our goverment. I'm not even going to try to explain what she said so I'm just going to ask that you go read it yourself!!! Click here
Rachel is much better at things like this than I am, my emotions would be all over the page but she gives facts and it is well explained! Good job Rachel!

Mickey Shirt

I said I would post a picture of Cole wearing his new Mickey Mouse shirt that he got from Walt Disney World. It's a pretty cute shirt, but yeah....Cole was not too happy with me at the moments, ha! I know I'm a terrible mother for laughing (yes I was laughing) and taking his picture but he really was crying for no particular reason, hence the reason we have our hat on ready to go outside.

Eggs

Yesterday, we had a little unfortunate experience with eggs. Look at his poor face, I felt sooo bad for him!!!
Yesterday at lunch I had a hard boiled egg and I gave him probably half of the egg, and as I sat there thinking to myself, "is it the egg white or yolk that isn't so good for babies" I just decided to give him both. And of course he liked the egg white better...which now I KNOW the egg white is highly allergic. So, we had lunch at noon, he acted fine...put him down for his nap at 1:30ish b/c he was starting to act fussy (duh, now I know why). When he woke up from his nap, I could not believe what I saw!!! Then I went to change his diaper and he had welts all over his body. I knew right away what it was so I called the doc and they said to give him Benadryl and if it wasn't better by morning to bring him in.
Cole and I make a trip to Walgreens and this nice lady standing by the pharmacy says to me, "oh honey, you need to get some Benadryl in that baby now!". I was like, "duh lady what do you think I'm doing". She then says, "no, I mean now! Open the box and give it to him now b/c if he's that swollen on the outside, he's also that swollen on the inside". Oh.....I guess I didn't realize that. So, we open the box right there in the middle of the aisle and we are set to go.
I didn't notice any change after we gave him the meds and I was starting to get a little nervous b/c you hear all those stories about airways closing up with stuff like this and honestly...I was afraid for him to go to bed and us go to bed, so I'm guessing as every mother would, I woke up every hour practically and checked the video monitor to make sure he was ok.
When we went to get him out of bed this morning...he was as good as new! His skin looked great and he was back to normal. But, now I have to be so careful with what he eats and it's going to take a lot more planning and thinking. No more grabbing goldfish out of the pantry as a snack or waffles on Saturday mornings. Booooo!!!
I'm now realizing why he's been so congested the last few months, having little bits of egg the last few months was causing his eczema and congestion, it all makes sense now! Thank you Volk family for passing these awesome food allergies onto Cole :) hehe....
Now that we are all back to normal, we had a great day and Cole is super excited about his new Buzz Lightyear jammies that Gramma and Granddad Seeman brought him from Walt Disney World. They got him a couple pairs of jammies and another cute onsie that is hilarious and I'll have to take a picture tomorrow when he wears it.
Lately Cole has been such a cuddler...he gets that from his dad, definitely NOT me! It's so cute because he'll walk up to one of us, his bears, blankets, anything really and go "ahhhhhh" and start cuddling with it. Like in this picture below. Oh, and miss Roxy really wanted in on the action too..haha!!!


The giant school bus that Ryan and Rachel got him for his bday has really come in handy lately! He loves playing in it and tonight we got some funny pictures of him. He saw me pressing my face on the mesh so he wanted to copy me. :)

Me and Cole giving each other kisses through the mesh...ha! Yeah he still does open mouth kisses, yummy!

This toy chest used to be Nick's when he was little. Dennis and Tracy let us use it and it works great! I think if he could, he would climb in it and just play with the toys while IN the toy chest.

He also loves to climb through and under things, although whenever he climbs through the kitchen table he always gets a little stuck.

This week while on Spring Break has been so fun! The weather has been great and we've really enjoyed going out for walks, wagon rides and also playing on Lexie's new giant swing set! :)

Here's Cole ready for his Wagon ride :)

And here's Cole staying current with the latest fashion, it's upside down but really, who cares?? :)

Houston and lots of babies!!!!

This past weekend, the three of us made a spontaneous trip to Houston to see our friends the Bell's. They had a little girl named Reagan last November and we had yet to see her. Little did we know, the Bell's would also be watching their 9 month old niece Paige. We were excited for all the babies and knew we'd have fun watching and playing with them. Wow...this weekend sure made me realize what it will be like with 2 kids. It was super busy and sometimes chaotic, but soooo much fun!!
The weather was absolutely gorgeous so we took advantage of that and went to a couple parks and tried to spend some time outside.

Here is Sharon with her little berry Reagan and Paige is in the stroller

While at the park, Nick and Chris decided to go for a run, so here they are looking "cool" and doing their stretches before the run

Mr. Cole man swinging...with dad's shades

Cole has really taken an interest in climbing lately, he even tries to climb UP the slide...ha!
He's getting pretty smart, he knows that when he's at the top of the slide, he has to turn around, get on his belly and go feet first. :)

I guess it's a trend...but my cousin Nichole saw this picture and said that Cole's going to grow up thinking that he has to take his clothes off in order to eat. ha! I guess that might be true because I feel like more times than not, I just end up taking at least his shirt off to eat b/c honestly, I'm so sick of ruining shirts with stains on them. I can soak a shirt for days and days, but those spaghetti sauce stains do not come out!!!
Cole's favorite toy of the weekend was this pink princess car. This is what happens when he's surrounded by girls. He loved it though, he especially loved to sit backwards on it and sit on all the buttons that make noise.
Here is Paige and Cole....both trying to play with the princess car....which leads me to my next point...

This weekend was the first weekend Nick and I have noticed the bully come out in Cole. With him being at our sitter and us not seeing what he's like during the day, we really had no idea how he was with sharing. I guess we got a clue this weekend. He was being little sour puss and did not like these "girls" touching his car. We definitely tried to nip that tude of his in the bud but I guess kids just go through that stage. We would try to tell Cole that that was not ok or try to take him away from the situation, but how much does a 13 month old really understand??

This picture kind of shows how Paige wanted so badly to play with Cole and I'm pretty sure after this picture was taken, he pushed her down....yeah, what a nice gentleman!!

We again went to another park and let Cole play and climb
Cole and Paige playing
And I couldn't forget sweet little Reagan. Since she is only 4 months old, she just had to sit and watch a lot of the action, but she is the sweetest little thing and was just so happy!

I am on spring break this week and will really enjoy the good weather and will hopefully make a few trips to the park or go on some wagon rides.

Young Lives

I have a big heart for teenagers (well, not ALL teenagers...like the ones in some of my classes I could do without..ha!) and I especially love my teen mommy's. I have been involved with YoungLife for several years now, but I work with the teen mom's which is called YoungLives. We meet up a couple times a month to either just hang out and watch the kiddos play or get committee members to watch the kids and all us girls just hang out, eat dinner, play games and just be silly. Even though the girls probably think we are crazy sometimes, we sure have a great time!

Speaking of crazy....here are things we do at club night. This is Melody with shaving cream on her face! Melody is such a sport, she's pregnant with TWINS and is still participating in these crazy activities!

My sweet friend Casey.....cheeeeeese!!!!

Melody AFTER the girls threw cheese puffs at her face :)

Each summer we also take the girls to a YoungLife camp. This past summer we went to Arizona and had such a great time. It was quite the adventure actually getting to camp....6 hour layover in airport WITH kids, being quarantined b/c someone on our bus had the flu, and flights getting cancelled on the way home. But when you look back at the entire trip it was nothing but great memories.

Getting to know these girls and being a part of their and their childrens life is such a great experience. Knowing where some of these girls come from and how they don't have a lot of support makes being a part of their lives so worth it! It truly is a great feeling when one of them gets in trouble and they call you for help, whether it's that they need a babysitter or a ride or help finding a job....it really means a lot!

Now that I am mom myself, it makes me totally appreciate those single moms out there! Even if Nick is gone for a few days, I feel totally inadequate sometimes. I have so many people I could call up in a second to come help me and lots of support, but these girls don't have that, which makes me appreciate them even more. I don't think I could do what they do, but they have to...for their kiddos.

Even though we teach these girls a whole lot about life...they have certainly taught us just as much!

I WILL get out of this funk....

I love reading people's blogs, I love catching up on friends lives and seeing pictures and also being able to share our life with friends and family. It is especially a great way for family that is out of state to keep up on all the new things that Cole is up to. I have found so many great blogs out there through other friends and I love reading about people's journeys...even if I've never met them.
However, I've totally been in a funk lately....Nick has noticed and I have noticed. A lot of times I will blame it on the job, the fact that I have to work everyday and can't spend it with Cole or that I'm not getting enough exercise or that our dogs have been acting out and driving us crazy. I just couldn't put my finger on it. I have also felt that I need a change in my life....whether it's my job, teaching something different, moving, I just need something different. I've been teaching the SAME thing for almost 7 years now and I need change!
BUT...that isn't what has been weighing on me lately.
I think I have come to a conclusion......as much as I love reading blogs and catching up with friends and stories, I have realized that those stories and blogs I have been reading have really been hard on me and this is why.....
I feel that I have been surrounded by stories of families that have lost children due to illness, other tragedies or people that are just unable to have children and desire to have one so bad. I have read story after story and and heard story after story of parents having to say good-bye to children in the last couple weeks and it is just heartbreaking. Whether it is a friend that knew her baby would not live as soon as she gave birth and spending those 20 minutes with the baby before he passed, or a complete stranger that has asked for prayers for their 2 year old Layla Grace suffering from cancer that just went to heaven yesterday, or another friend of a friend that lost their 2 year old....yes 2 year old who just didn't wake up from his nap at day care. I know these things happen all the time, but when it's people we know and you realize how easily life can slip away....it's just something I don't, or can't think about.

I don't think there is anything worse than to lose a child...so I've heard. I think that is certainly my greatest fear right now and I hate that I've been bombarded with thoughts of that lately. I just can't even imagine the pain a family goes through and how they will live with it forever.
I hate feeling this way and thinking so much about...."what if that was me?"

As much as I love reading blogs and stories about other people, I feel that I'm just going to have to force myself to not read these sad stories anymore. I know they are out there to help people to know that their is hope but it just does bad things to my brain.

I need to get out of my funk and stop being paranoid, I guess I am a worrier at heart :)

Baylor beats UT...at something....finally!

Saturday morning Nick and I headed down to Waco with our friends Chris and Laura so we could go to the Baylor/UT basketball game. We knew it would be a pretty good game because the Bears beat the Horns the last time they played and well....it's UT. We were really looking forward to going and spending our first night away from Cole. I mean, we weren't "excited" to be away from him, but we knew we would have fun just hanging out with friends and being back in our college town. This was my first night away from Cole and I actually was totally fine with it. Everyone said they were surprised I didn't worry more, or call to check in more. :)

Anyway...after seeing campus and walking around a bit (holy cow have things changed on campus...sheesh!!!) we headed to the game and watched an AWESOME game!!!

Here's me and Nick excited to be at the game!!

It was a little weird sitting up so high. When Nick and I were AT Baylor, we would go to almost every home game (mostly the girls games though) and we always got to sit right behind the net and practically be on the court. So being up so high this time, obviously wasn't as cool, but was still so much fun!

Speaking of fun....look at THAT score!!!!

It was such an exciting game, Baylor killed them! For Baylor, that is so exciting because everyone knows that we don't beat UT at much.

After the game, we stopped by our old boathouse. Well, we actually had to park there so before we left, we had to take a couple pictures. In case you don't know, Nick and I both were on the rowing team at Baylor, Nick was actually the head coach and I also was an assistant coach for a couple years. Those were some fun years!!

This picture is where the dock is on the river. I would love to say that we spent a lot of time on this dock, but they actually only built this dock my last semester at Baylor, so I didn't get to use it much. We had to do it the old fashioned way....actually walk into the water and put the boat in. We didn't get those fancy docks :)

Here are pictures of me and Nick super excited that our Bears won!!!!

Since we were in Waco, we had to take advantage of our favorite spots....aka Georges, Crickets, and Ninfa's. We ate dinner at George's and as you can see by this picture, it was a lot of fried goodness!! We knew going into it that we would not be eating healthy, but it was SO good!!

For some reason, Chris wanted to climb this tree. He wanted to climb the wall, but settled for the tree instead :) Dork!

Guess I was pretty hungry....finishing off the basket of chips is so attractive Annie!!!

Chris and Laura

I was pretty anxious to get home on Sunday, but we had to stop at the Czech stop and get some kolaches. They were so good but would get into a lot of trouble if I ate those all the time. When we got home I just thought that Cole would run to me (well not run quite yet) and give me a big hug.....pshhhh....I picked him up and he immediately reached for grandma. What's THAT about!!! :) ha! Nah, I've heard that's totally normal for kids to do that so I didn't think too much of it, just thought it was funny. At least I knew he had a great time.

Something completely random. Nick and I have had the same duvet cover since we moved into our house over 4 years ago and I was in the mood to get some spring bedding, and something brighter. I feel like our house has such neutral colors and I was wanting something bright!

How's this for bright!?!

I'm just surprised that Nick let me get this new bedding...pretty girly huh? It was a sale item at Pottery Barn so unfortunately they didn't have king sized shams so I had to just get orange pillow cases to go with it. It is a pretty wild choice, but I like it so far. :)

Oh my gosh, I just realized there are no pictures of Cole on this post!! Don't think the grandparents will like that...so here are a couple from tonight. Yes, he's walking around with no diaper. I'm just asking for him to potty all over right? He needed to air his booty out a bit, if that makes me a bad parent, oh well!!