Our Crazy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2010 took place at our house this year. We were so excited about having everyone in town and it was kinda nice to not have to travel for a holiday! :) The whole Volk clan got here the morning of Thanksgiving and we all went straight to work...but not before Cole got re-acquainted with all the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousin. Cole was pretty good with showing Cameron all his toys and sharing. Every once in awhile we'd catch him taking something away from her because it was "mine" but overall he shared so well!

Uncle Ross and the kiddos getting some play time in after they got to our house

Cole being silly with Mimi. I love that he's at the age where he now remembers my family, especially since he doesn't get to see them a whole lot. As you can see he was pretty excited to have everyone at his house! :)

Cameron is at the age where she always wanted to be by Cole, sometimes even tackling him, ha! I thought this was such a cute picture, just shows how much of a size difference there is between the two of them.

We all baked, cooked and roasted most of the day and we had SO MUCH food. I'm always worried that we won't have enough food, but we probably could have fed 20+ people easily. Luckily we still have leftovers!
The day of Thanksgiving didn't seem too crazy because I got a lot of cooking done before everyone got there. I love hosting and cooking and baking so it was a lot of fun for me. Not that I'm any good at it, but it was still fun! :)

Cole was so funny while him and Cameron were eating their Thanksgiving meal....he had all this good food on his plate but for some reason he was so interested in Cameron's puffs. He kept asking Aunt Rachel for "more more" and after we said he was all done, he then just decided to pull Cameron's high chair to him and steal hers. What a stinker!

The rest of the weekend was lots of fun. I was a little worried that they would get bored because when you have kiddos in the picture, sometimes you have to plan your days around naps and when Cameron and Cole's naps sometimes overlap eachother, it's hard to plan things out. BUT, I think we stayed pretty busy.
Here are our cute flannel pajama babies...haha!

Cole and Cameron even got to take a bath together. They are going to hate us when they are older!

Since we saw Cameron last time, she has become quite the talker!!! It's pretty funny because it really sounds like she is saying complete sentences but it's just babbling. She's even got this funny side-smile-popeye thing going on, and her tongue is constantly in motion.
Please don't pay attention to my crazy, obnoxious dialog going on in this video. I was just so amused by my silly niece that I couldn't contain myself :)

Even though it was pretty chilly this weekend, we still managed to take a family walk to Starbucks. We just bundled the kiddos up and doesn't he look so cute!

After Starbucks we stopped at a park to let Cole play some. Thankfully Nick, Uncle Ross, Uncle Ryan and Papa played on the playground with him. I didn't feel too much like climbing all over the place :)
Here is a picture of my weirdo brother Ryan and I hanging out at the park

And we had to snap this picture because our two manly husbands with the strollers :)

Just thought this picture was pretty cute....Cole on his way to church. He looks like such a big boy!

Nick and I had to go back to work on Monday but my family was still here so they watched Cole for me in the morning. That afternoon, we decided to go to the big ICE exhibit at the Gaylord Texan. It's a huge Charlie Brown ice sculpture presentation and they even have slides and fun stuff for the kids.
This is our cute family before we got into our big coats

Here is Cole with his gigantic coat

Cole wasn't sure at first about this giant slide but by the 2nd time, he had a big smile on his face. It was pretty cool, all ice and people can get going pretty fast!

My cute parents in Snoopy's house. Yep, that whole thing is ice!

The hubs and I in the ice tunnel.

After we were done in the ice, Cole got to bond with the Gigi and Mimi

The family left very early this morning and now we are back to our regular grind. I think Cole was a little bummed that everyone was gone because he was very stoic today and just wanted to cuddle a lot and kinda whined a bit. I know he had so much fun with everyone visiting and he probably gets bored with 'ol mom and dad.

However, this evening, Cole's Christmas present from the grandparents showed up!!! I know we should wait till Christmas to open it, but we didn't know what to do with a giant box. So, Nick's mom said to open it now, so we did :)
Cole always loves sitting in Lexie's chair when we go to their house so we knew he'd love his own chair.
Here are a few funny pictures of him posing with his new chair

Thanks so much Papa, Mimi, Granddad and Gigi!!!! We are so excited to have it!

A few things before Thanksgiving

A couple Sundays ago, we had big plans to watch the Vikings/Bears game at our house and have Nick's family up. I've said before that Cole won't fall asleep anywhere but in his bed...and sometimes the car. So, Sunday before everyone got to our house, Cole and I were sitting on the bed watching some pre-game show and all of a sudden....Cole literally just fell over. I thought at first he was playing around, but when I looked at him, I realized his eyes were closed! Poor guy, he must have been pretty tired! He has never done that before.

I guess he knew that he wasn't going to miss to much watching the Vikings game :(
He looks pretty comfortable though doesn't he?

So my last post I talked about how Cole kept trying to climb out of his crib and it worried us a bit because we would have no idea that he was even awake. We were literally out of options and were ready to break open the crib conversion set to make it into a toddler bed but then a friend from high school recommended that we do the following......

She said to take the springs off the crib and just put the mattress on the floor! Genius!!!
Now, Cole can't even come close to climbing out and our problems are solved!

Yeah Cole...you keep laughing, till you realize your climbing days are OVER!! bwahahaha!!

This week has been a little chaotic, trying to get everything ready for Thanksgiving. It is a little stressful hosting Thanksgiving and being in charge of food, but luckily Nick's parents are helping out with the turkey and ham because preparing that meat may have taken me over the edge!! :) Meat is still very yucky to me!
We've been putting up Christmas decorations (Nick is NOT happy about this, as we aren't supposed to do it till after Thanksgiving), doing lots of baking, cleaning and organizing. I love being busy like this tough, much more fun than being bored!
Last night we even got to watch our little friend Jayden for the night. One of my YoungLives girls called and asked if we could watch her little guy for the night so she could go out with some friends and I know that she doesn't get a chance to go out much anymore since she has a baby so we were more than happy to help her out! Jayden is the sweetest boy and was such a great baby! He was so easy to have around and I kinda wish he could have stayed longer. Lucy told me that Jayden still doesn't sleep through the night and I thought, "great, that's all I need is a bad nights sleep before all our company comes"....but he actually slept through the night, and Lucy was so mad!!! haha!! Doesn't that always happen when someone else is watching your baby? Cole wasn't too sure about this baby that was hanging around this morning but he shared his things and was very nice to him. We can't wait to have Jayden again!

My whole family gets here Thursday morning and will be staying for about 5 nights. We are so looking forward to having everyone here and celebrating this wonderful holiday!!

She spoke my mind!!

I came across this blog awhile back and I've gotten a big kick out of it. The girl actually won "pregnancy blog" of the year on thebump.com and she is quite entertaining.

For the longest time, I've tried to explain to people how I've been feeling this go around with rugrat #2 baking away and it's just so hard to explain. When I read this girls blog post, I was like, "uh hello....she read my mind!" She totally hit the nail on the head and I would love to just copy and paste her blog post and claim it as mine, but obviously that would be wrong of me :)

So, I'll put a link to her blog post and hopefully you'll think it's as funny as I did and you'll get a good understanding on how I've been feeling lately!!

Click Here to read her blog.

And just so you don't think I've been neglecting any grandparents with current pictures of their #1 grandbaby (and I don't mean #1 because he's the coolest b/c Cameron is pretty gosh darn cool too, but literally, he's the FIRST grandbaby, make sense?)....here are a few pictures and things we have been up to lately.

Here is just a random picture from this morning. He usually never does this, but he fell asleep on our way into Jennifer's this morning. He did wake up pretty early for some reason so maybe that is why. Ok, speaking of waking up early....here is our current dilema. The past couple weeks when Cole wakes up from his naps or in the morning, he doesn't say anything, doesn't cry, we can barely hear him. So, the next thing we know, we look on the video monitor and he's half-way out of his crib, trying to climb out!!! I mean, all he has to say is, "Mama, come get me out"....ok, he can't quite put sentences together yet but even if he made a peep of any sort, I would come get him. So this is our dilema. Do we go ahead and take down the one side of his crib and make it into a toddler bed? I just don't know if we are ready for him to have free-reign of his bedroom yet. OR, do we just put some pillows on the floor in case he does fall out...haha! Is that mean? We really wanted to wait a few more months to move him to a toddler bed but unless we are sitting there with our eyes peeled to the video monitor, we would have no idea that he was awake!

I promise I'm not obsessed with pictures of Cole sleeping. However, the other afternoon we were running errands and he fell asleep in the car...again. He was in such a deep sleep that yes....that is DROOL dripping down his chin!!! Poor little guy! :0) Is he not the cutest thing ever?

When our friends Beau and Stacey had baby Grayson, we let them borrow some of our baby gear. The other day they brought some of it back because obviously we're going to need it in the next couple weeks (enter sarcasm...ha). I was like, "no really, keep it at your house for awhile". I don't want the clutter, haha! So, before Nick has a chance to put this stuff back up in the attic, it has been sitting in our family room and of course Mr. Cole is pretty curious. He's been sitting in the chairs and bouncers and thinks it's pretty funny. What do you think, does he still fit?? I can't believe that he used to fit in this thing at one point! Where does the time go?

My craftiness...that I stole from a friend

I know some people may be shocked, or just plain annoyed that I might say this....but yes, sometimes when I'm at home with Cole in the afternoons, I do.....I sometimes get bored!!!! How can I be bored with a toddler?? I am just not one for sitting around, having nothing planned, I like to have things planned or things to do at all times. This is another reason why the first few months of this pregnancy has been kinda hard because it has totally put me down and out and I do not like that!!! I want so bad to just go hang out with friends, try out new restaurants, but that just isn't doable yet with how I've been feeling lately. So I've been stuck at home more than I'd like and that's why I've had to come up with things to do.

But let me just say, anyone that knows me knows that I DO NOT have one ounce of creativity in my body!!! Not one!!! I absolutely love doing crafts and attempt to make things, but coming up with the ideas is just not in my blood. I would love to be one of those moms that can sew up all my new babies bedding, curtains or even make clothes...but no. I even attempted to knit, but my basic scarf ended up looking like an hourglass, not pretty.

However, I can do some easy crafts....if I have step by step directions!! :) A friend of mine who is an amazing DIY (do-it-yourself) person, has started a blog and she has some pretty basic crafts with step by step directions. Yay, I was so excited! I have to say this because I don't want anyone to think that I came up with these ideas on my own. :)

My first craft was to get peel-n-stick foam and I cut out numbers and stuck them to Cole's bathroom mirror. My friend also had directions on how to make a Thanksgiving turkey, which I may attempt today, but this may also be a disaster, we'll see. I realize now that you can probably just buy these pre-made, but that's no fun! They also have fun glitter foam if you are making it for girls!

The second craft I completed was this wreath. This was a little more tricky, but, I think it turned out pretty cute and I was pretty proud of my self!

I'm not going to go through on how I made these, but if you want to check out Amanda's website, it's pretty fun!

http://theivycottageblog.blogspot.com

This weekend, I am actually going to attempt to make something on my own!! Well, kinda. If it works out and I'm willing to show pictures, I will post those later. Wish me luck!!

13 Weeks

13 Weeks

(People are NOT lying when they say you start showing much sooner with the 2nd!!!)

Pregnancy Highlights

(I stole this from a couple blogs I read and thought it was a cute idea)
How far along: 13 weeks

Size of baby: 3 inches, the size of a giant shrimp

Total weight gain/loss: Gained 1 lb...which is good, but at this point with Cole, I had lost about 10lbs!!! Yikes!!

Maternity clothes: I sooooo want to wear maternity pants b/c my regular pants are so uncomfortable, but I don't feel like I should just yet.

Gender: Not going to find out

Movements: None yet, although I swear I have felt something, but it's probably just gas....ha!

Sleep: Much better!! Had total insomnia for a few weeks but getting much better! No more sleeping on my tummy, kinda sad!

What I miss: Eating normal food! Sitting on the couch at night with Nick past 8:00, that's my new bedtime :)

Cravings: Nothing really, just eat what sounds good, which isn't much

Symptoms: Still not liking food too much, watery mouth, bad taste in mouth, very sensitive to smells and tiredness

Best moment of the week: Finally getting some candles and plug-ins in our house to make it smell better...haha!! I was the same way with Cole, but for some reason the smell of our house is yucky to me, ha!

I guess I'd have to say that overall I am feeling better. I am actually able to sit at the table when people eat now, still can't eat the food but sitting at the table is a huge step! :) Last weekend Cole had a sleepover with Nick's parents so we could sleep in. BUT, did we sleep in??? Heck no!!! Nick was up at 6:50 and me 8:00 (which actually is pretty late for me). We still really appreciated Nick's parents taking Cole for the night, I know they all had a blast!

Dennis even got to watch Cole all day Saturday because us girls did some more wedding dress shopping and Nick was with some buddies watching football.

When Nick and I packed Cole up to take him home, he WAS NOT happy to be leaving!

It was a great weekend, but I was pooped by the end of it! :)

Halloween festivities

This past weekend we went down to Houston for Cole's furture wife's 1st birthday. Originally we were supposed to go down to Austin for the Texas/Baylor football game, which by the way......WOOHOOOOO for Baylor!!! Nothing better than beating those Longhorns!!!

Anyway, I knew going into the Austin trip that I would not be up for the entire game, plus going out afterwards and staying up late. I knew I'd be a party-pooper so we decided to not go. Instead, we went to Houston to see our great friends.

We headed down to Houston Friday evening. Luckily our neighbors let us borrow their car DVD player so that kept Cole busy for about 3 hours and then he fell asleep. I'm all for DVD players on long trips, but personally, I HATE having DVD players in the car and watching them all the time, just to drive to the store, silly to me. I think kids having some quiet time in the car is good for them, lets them use their imagination and day-dream.

Ok so anyway, Friday night we stayed at some different friends house and they have a little girl named Paige who is just a bit younger than Cole and they had a blast playing! Cole loved all the new toys and loved going up and down their stairs. Now I'm realizing I love not having stairs in our house!

Here is Cole playing on the rocking moose! :) I think this was his first time on a rocking animal but he loved it!

We finally met up with the birthday girl on Saturday. We all met up for lunch, then the plan was to all go back to their house for nap time, then head to the birthday party. We set up a pack n play for Cole and he went right down....so we thought. I'd walk past the room every once in awhile and I'd hear him talking, so I was wondering if he was even going to sleep. After about 1.5 hours he started to fuss and it was about time for us to leave so we got him up. I then realized why he had not slept during naptime.....he got a hold of my cell phone that was on the edge of the bed and was playing with it for 1.5 hours. ha! So, if any of you received funny calls, texts or emails from me, that might be why :)

So because Cole did not take his nap at the proper time, this is what he did during the whole birthday party!!!!! What a party-pooper!!!
This is the birtday girl....little Miss Reagan, and Cole's future wife :)
Reagan's mom made her outfit and hat, I was so impressed!!!
We headed back to Dallas Sunday morning because we had fun Halloween plans. First, here is a picture of Cole's Captain Hook outfit. I know, the hat is on wrong, I realized that a little later, but this is the only picture I got of Cole and his entire outfit.
We met up with some friends at a huge Fall Festival that one of the churches puts on. It's is gigantic and their is so much stuff to do. We started out with me taking Cole on a train ride, which he loved!!!

He then participated in the Lawn Mowing race :)

Granddad and Grandma Seeman also met up with us because Granddad had not seen Cole in a really long time and Cole sure was excited to see them!

Here is Granddad helping Cole with the water gun

We also got Cole to go into the bounce house. We weren't too sure if he would like it but he loved it!

Peek-a-boo!!!

On the other side of the bounce house was a big slide. It took Cole a little bit to figure out how to get up the slide but a nice lady helped him out.

Weeeeeeeee!!!!!

And how's this for your typical proud Dad and grandparents??? haha!!! They were trying to get Cole to come down the slide, I just thought that was funny! :)

Cole loved the train so much that he wanted to go again, so Granddad took him. They had so much fun together.

After we left the Fall Festival we stopped by our old babysitters, Andy and Teresa, so Cole could see them. They always have little treats for their daycare kids and Cole definitely enjoyed seeing them again. We then went home and handed out candy to all the kids. I think Cole had more fun watching the kids come to our door.

We definitely had a great weekend and stayed busy busy and now we are all pooped! Luckily we don't have too much going on this week. I have my 12 week doctors appointment tomorrow...I'm really hoping that getting into my 2nd trimester means that I'll start feeling better soon. I'll usually feel pretty good the beginning of the day, but by bedtime, I pretty much feel like death and just go to bed at 8:00pm so I can just sleep and not feel like poo. I still hate food but am really looking forward to loving food again. I'm getting real sick of my diet, so again, I'm REALLY hoping and praying that I start to feel back to normal in the next week or so.

Our Looooong weekend without Dad

Cole and I got to spend LOTS of quality time together this weekend! :) Nick left Friday morning with Blake and his friend Chris to Green Bay for the Packers/Vikings game. His parents were both meeting them up there along with seeing lots of uncles and aunts and grandparents.

I don't want to say I was dreading this weekend, but honestly....I was. Literally, anybody that I would say, "come over and hang out with me" was out of town and normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but I really have not been feeling the greatest and when you are in charge of a toddler all by yourself with nobody to rescue you for awhile...it gets tiring! I even tried to get my mom to make a last minute flight but they had stuff going on.

I guess after whimpering to a few people here and there, I had lots of offers to hang out or to have help with Cole. Friday night I met up with some friends for dinner. Luckily they picked a deli so I could get a baked potato! Eric and Anissa have a little girl Landry who is close to Cole's age so they got to play as well. We all then went to our girls Volleyball game for awhile.

Saturday, our great friends Beau and Stacey said they were going to come kidnap Cole for the afternoon and take him to a Barktoberfest that our town was putting on and then they would take him to their house for awhile. SWEET!!!!! I knew it would be great experience for Beau and Stacey since they now have a 4 month old baby, they could get the true toddler experience. HOWEVER....right around the time they were supposed to come pick him up, we had crazy thunderstorms and tornadoes in the area so we decided it was probably smart if they didn't drive and just stayed home. Oh well, I was just so appreciative of their offer! So Beau and Stacey, anytime you want to steal our child is fine with us! ha!

After the storms left the area, Cole and I headed back over to Eric and Anissa's house. I had told them that I would watch Landry that night so they could go out on a date. Plus, it gave Cole something to do besides play with mom all day. They had so many fun toys and Cole was in heaven....especially because they had the coolest kitchen set!

Here are Cole and Landry playing in the play room....she was so good with sharing her toys!

Cole also found this cool PINK tricycle :)
They also watched some Elmo and Clifford
And part of their first day, they shared some milk and cheerios

One thing that I am super jealous of, is that little Landry will just sit in your lap and cuddle for the longest time with you. I have no idea what that is like because my child won't stop long enough to let me hold him. Landry finally fell asleep while I was holding her and is this not the sweetest thing ever!!!

I finally put Landry into bed after soaking up some cuddle time and of course Cole was still running around like a crazy man! That boy does not stop till we put him in his crib! We didn't leave their house till close to 10pm and I thought for sure he would fall asleep in the car on the way home, but nope!!! Again, he won't fall asleep till he is in his bed! At least he was in a good mood the whole time!

Sunday I had to work in the church nursery so we spent the morning at church and Cole loves that as usual. We spent the rest of the day at home and just hung out. Now, we are ready for Nick to get home because we miss him! Yay, he comes home tonight!!!

One new thing and our weekend

Now that we have told our families, we have decided to tell everyone now!

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** Yes, Cole is going to be a big brother come May. I'm starting to realize lately, that this may be why I've been bad at this whole blogging thing lately. Not that we haven't had anything else exciting going on, but I just haven't had the energy to get on the computer. Yep, those good 'ol hormones have definitely kicked in and Annie is NOT feeling the greatest!!! I'm feeling almost exactly how I did with Cole....tired, gaggy, can't look or even look at food (especially meat!), I've been living off of cereal, peanut butter toast, popcorn, apples and a few other things that MIGHT sound good at the moment. Our poor house has really been neglected, I can't even remember the last time I did a load of laundry. Well, I'll put a load in, but finishing the load is a whole new story. Nick has been so awesome the past few weeks. He literally has done the dishes every day because looking and smelling old food just disgusts me right now. Thanks Nick!

I'm almost 10 weeks along, so I'm really hoping that this yucky-ness goes away SOON!

I also feel like the worlds worst mom right now. It's definitely hard going through a pregnancy when you have a toddler to take care of. He's at that age where he just wants to play and all I want to do is lay on the couch. I have let Cole watch one too many Elmo DVD's lately and I hate being that mom!

So again, this 1st trimester needs to hurry up and be over so I can start being a better wife and mommy!

Alright, so enough complaining......this weekend we took Cole to a really cool Pumpkin patch. It was on a farm way out in Celina which is about 30 min away from our house and WAY out in the country. I absolutely loved it out there. If anyone knows me, you know that someday I want to live on acreage and have lots of space for my kids to run around and play and be kids and not have to worry about cars running them over! :)

Anyway, this farm was so cool.....they had animals for the kids to feed.

Here is Cole feeding the goats

Although, he hated his hands being dirty :)
They had longhorns to feed

They also had hayrides, which we didn't go on and other fun kid rides. They had some really cute phot opps set up all over the farm.

We also had lunch there, Cole and Nick had thier hotdogs and I ate my peanut butter/jelly sandwich I brought from home b/c hot dogs are y-u-c-k!!!! :) (Again, these are the hormones talking)

Cole then picked out his pumpkin to take home

I think Cole had a great time, especially seeing all the animals and just running around.

The rest of the weekend, we didn't do a whole lot. Blake and Emily came over Sunday to watch the Vikings/Cowboys game. Nick was so pumped up for this game and luckily the Viks did not disappoint.

Cole got to wear his new Adrian Peterson jersey and it sure looked good on him!

Here is Cole hanging with Auntie Em, but being a real cool dude wearing Uncle Blake's sunglasses. :)

Part of our Colorado trip

Last Thursday, Cole and I flew to Colorado to see my family. We were very sad that Nick didn't come with us, but he already had tickets to see Baylor/Texas Tech play and had some friends from Houston coming into town. We definitely missed Nick, but we had a great time seeing my family! I'm usually so good about taking tons of pictures and I had every intention of taking a ton of pictures, but that is kind of hard to do when you forget the card for the camera. Yeah, good job Annie! So, I only took a few pictures from my phone which aren't the greatest quality but I did take a bunch of pictures with my parents camera but of course when I went to copy them before I left, the computer crashed. Just my luck! Hopefully my kind parents will send me some soon! :)

Anyway, I was a little nervous about flying with Cole, all by myself, especially during nap time, but he did awesome! On the way to Denver, we luckily had the only empty seat next to us so Cole could have his own seat. It's nice b/c he's finally at the age where he will sit and watch a DVD and not just want to get down and run everywhere. I was very pleased with how well he did, good job Cole!

We didn't have too much on our agenda over the weekend, just lots of hanging out, enjoying the weather and chasing after Cole. I think my dad is REALLY having a blast with Cole right now because he's starting to be a typical little boy and rough house and "play" more. Whenever my mom or dad would leave the room, Cole would yell either, "Mimi" or "Papa" till they came back into the room. One of the mornings my dad went downstairs to do his P90X workout and Cole wanted to join him. It was pretty hilarious watching Cole trying to copy whatever my dad was doing.
Here are the two guys, getting their workout on

I was super excited to see Cameron, since I hadn't seen her since July. We got to see them quite a bit and I even got to babysit her for awhile one afternoon. She has gotten so big and so curious! She is so funny because she was so interested in Cole and what he was doing and she always wanted to be by him. She would climb right on top of him and he didn't quite know what to think about that...ha! I can just see them two of them next summer, "Mom, Cameron won't leave me alone" :) ha!
The weather was great while we were there. A little chilly in the mornings, which required a jacket and hat, and perfect during the day. I thought this picture was so stinkin cute, he looks like a 3 year old!
Just like we do everytime we get together with Mimi, Cole was due for another haircut. I knew my dad would be horrified by how long his hair was so he got about 2 inches cut off. My dad said his hair wasn't church-appropriate...haha!
I thought this picture was funny because he looks like a Beetle :)

Here is a super close-up of his new haircut, but it gives you an idea of how much he got cut off. I think the new cut makes him look so old! I love it though and he's gotten so many compliments.

Cole and I flew home yesterday and I really wasn't too excited about coming back to TX. It still feels a little bit like summer here and I'm totally ready for winter!

I knew yesterday's flight wouldn't be as smooth as the way to Colorado because I had a middle seat and the flight was completely packed. I also realized as we were walking onto the plane that we left Cole's favorite monkey in my mom's car! Not Cool at all!!!!! He has to have this certain monkey to sleep with so I totally started to panic. I called Nick and he said it would all be ok and then I called my mom and told her to "mail it right away!!!!"

So, the flight went great, Cole did absolutely amazing! We literally had no room to move but he sat so still and watched his DVD. I was so excited because I bought a Snapple to drink on the flight and I accidentally spilled the whole thing in my bag. Everything was soaked! So trying to clean that up without touching the people next to us and trying to not drop my kid on the floor, I was not too successful.

BUT, when we got to DFW, Nick picked us up and we were so thrilled that he stopped and got a few treats for Cole!!!!

Nick found the exact same Monkey as his other one, it just doesn't have the nasty smell from Cole chewing on the hands and he also got him Elmo, which is his new favorite thing right now! Cole was pretty excited about his new toys, but when I was putting him to bed last night, I was watching him on the video monitor and I could tell that he was looking for his favorite monkey and checking all the hands of the animals. Luckily, he didn't fuss, I think he was just so tired that he slept with whatever was there. Thank God!

Now we are back at our regular grind, looking forward to Thanksgving break. Only a month and a half! I can do this!!!

This week

Man, I really am slacking on the blogging thing! I must be in a funk, either that or our lives are boring and not quite blog-worthy. Here are a few things that have been going on this week:

Last Friday afternoon I took Cole to our pep rally. It gave us something to do and it totally engages him! He loves all the dancing and hootin and hollerin, and he claps for everything! I don't think he has ever sat so still in my lap, ever! He also had fun with his little friend Evan that came. They are only a few months apart and they were acting like crazy men, running all over the place.

Here are the boys shaking the gate. :)

Then we went outside and the boys were running around like crazy men...again. They would run up to the door and then back to the parents, like they were chasing eachother. It's so fun to see Cole "play" with other children now. I know that until they are closer to 2, they don't really understand how to interact with other kids and playing with them, but now he loves being around other kids and being silly. Sometimes I think Cole would have made a great 2nd child, because he loves being around older kids! :)

The last couple days I've noticed that Cole has been a bit crabby. He would wake up from his nap after an hour (which is so not like him b/c he'll usually take a 3 hour nap) and he would just cry, like he was in pain. Same thing at night...he would wake up every few hours and just cry. We knew something was wrong but didn't know what. Good thing we have a smart babysitter because I mentioned it to her and she said, "he's getting his back molars, didn't you know?" Haha, I guess that totally makes sense, duh!

So after Cole woke up from his nap yesterday and cried on and off for an hour and looking pitiful like this picture....and yes that is a tear going down his face....

I finally gave him some tylenol and he quickly felt so much better and was back to his normal self.

Last night, I was in a mood for sushi and we have a pretty good place by our house so I took Cole with me to get an order to-go. When I walked in, they had totally redone the inside and it was pretty cool. They even had a place in the back with a bunch of kid stuff. So while we waiting for about 15 min, Cole was pretty entertained by all the fun stuff there.

Lately, Cole has been into this phase of trying to put his clothes on himself. Although, most things always end up on his legs, even if it's a shirt. When Nick got home last night, the first thing he usually does is takes off his dress shirt, so Cole grabbed it and tried to put it on. Of course he first tried to put it on like pants so we helped him out a little bit. :)

This is just a cute picture on our way to school this morning. We have about a 25 min drive into Jennifer's and he usually just sings or eats some cereal but this morning he was being so quiet and just looking out the window. Wonder what he's thinking about.....:)

We have a pretty busy weekend planned. Nick is going out with "the guys" tonight and then we are going to Top Golf tomorrow night to celebrate a friends birthday. Ryan and Casey are going to watch Cole tomorrow night so I'm sure he'll have a blast!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!