Our New Favorite Song

I don't think I have gone this long without a blog post! I do have to admit that once you go longer than a week, it's so easy to just not do it. I have been procrastinating and really not in the mood to do one, probably because our lives have been pretty boring lately! ha! Not boring, just nothing too exciting. I haven't even taken any good pictures lately. However, last night Nick taught Cole a new song and it is by far Cole's fav now! Nick was doing the song with him right before bedtime so you can image that the last thing he wanted to do was go to bed. He was just having way too much fun.

You will also laugh because Nick would try to distract him with other songs and he wanted nothing to do with that!

Like I said, we haven't done too many exciting things lately. Last weekend I played Bunko at church with a bunch of ladies and that was super fun, especially being able to meet new people! I love meeting new friends! At church last Sunday our pastor did a message on service so I decided that I needed to start working in the nursery at church :) I'm pretty excited, I'll do it every other week and I'll be with the walkers! These kids are so crazy but I'm super excited for it! ha! I won't be in with Cole because he's with the older group but I didn't want to be in with Cole because he needs to socialize on his own.

Cole and I are headed to Colorado in 2 weeks to see my family. I cann't wait, mostly to be in great, cool weather. I'm getting so sick of this Texas heat and I'm in need of my long sleeves to make their appearance. Nick won't be able to come with us this time because he is going to the Baylor/Texas Tech football game that weekend plus he's super busy with work. So, it will just be me and Cole this time. I'm already having sleepless nights just thinking about flying by myself with Cole, oh, and DURING his naptime. Ugh, what was I thinking!

I'll leave you with one last video from last week. For some reason Cole kept pulling his pants up to his chest, making himself look like a little old man. It was pretty funny!

Lately

We always seem to pack a lot into our schedules and this weekend wasn't much different. We were so excited that last week was the start of a new football season. That was one stipulation in me being Nick's wife...that I have a passion for football :) ha! Well, he lucked out because I'd rather watch football over most sports and we can definitely sit down on the couch for hours and watch the games. Well....before Cole came along, we could sit down for hours and watch, but now it's a different story! :)
Thursday night was the first Vikings game and everyone knows Nick is a die-hard Vikings fan! So, I made chili and we invited his family up to watch the game. Cole has really become a big fan of Blake and Emily lately. He still can't say Blake yet, but he goes around saying, "Em, Em". So cute!
Here is Cole showing Blake his monkey and Where's Waldo cards. Oh, and Blake was nice enough to hold his milk for him. :)

They are deep in thought....

Unfortunately the Vikings lost but it was still fun to watch.

Saturday morning Cole was fascinated with trying to put clothes on himself. He started off with trying to put a swim diaper on himself (which I didn't get pictures of). He would get both legs through one hole and then walk around like a penguin.
He then was trying to put his tshirt on like pants....

Needless to say, he totally stretched out the neck of this shirt!!! Ugh! I know, why didn't I stop him right!?! It was just so funny and I knew he wouldn't wear the shirt again.

We also wanted to take some silly pictures Saturday morning. My silly kid hamming it up for the camera!

This picture cracks me up

Saturday evening we took dinner over to our friends The Phillips. They just had baby Emily a few weeks ago and we had yet to see her. Their older son Joseph is close to a year older than Cole so they had a lot of fun playing together. Anytime there are new toys to play with, Cole is in heaven!
Here is me with little miss Emily

Joseph and Cole playing....Joseph also just moved into his "big boy" room and Joseph was so proud to show it off! He also wanted to show us the stars on his ceiling :)

We also went and got ice cream with the Phillips on our way home. It was way past Cole's bedtime but we had such a great time and I know the kids had so much fun. Although Cole didn't participate in the ice cream eating b/c once again, he does not like sweets! Crazy kid!

Sunday morning we met Nick's family for brunch. Cole was so good at brunch which was a little surprising b/c at his age we usually try to not go out in public...ha! But, Granddad and Gma brought him a few toys to play with so he stayed pretty busy.

There also was a man there making balloon animals/characters for the kids and he is amazing! Seriously some of the things he was making was incredible! When Gma Tracy took Cole up to get one made, Cole said "Dog" so that's what they made him.
Cole was helping the man out and holding the balloons for him.

Here he is giving Cole the final product. Cole thought it was pretty cool!

Another picture of Cole with his new puppy :)

Why is it that when I was little, I wanted nothing more than to wear glasses? Were all kids like that or was it just me?? Weird??? And NOW that I'm older, I'm told I have to wear them and I want nothing more than to NOT wear them? This did not work out in my favor!!
Anyway, I never needed glasses when I was younger but in the past few years my eye sight has gotten pretty bad, especially my right eye. After Nick and my mom bugged me for over a year to go to the doctor I finally went today. Another reason I was anxious to go was that I've been getting Ocular migraines a lot! I've kind of always gotten them as an adult but in the past few months I've been getting them quite often. So I wanted to get that checked out too. Ocular migraines don't hurt, I just get those squiggly lightning bolt things in my eye sight and it's super annoying!
Well, my eye sight has definitely gotten significantly worse and he ruled out me using contacts. I have tried contacts before but they have never been comfortable and my new eye doctor from today said that I have dry patches and that would make contact wearing uncomfortable so he thinks I should stick to glasses....boooo!!!
We also had to do the good 'ol glaucoma testing. My brother had glaucoma so anytime doctors hear that it's a total red-flag! He checked me out and said everything is perfect though. He said that if my Ocular migraines get worse and I start to get headaches along with them that we'll have to get a neurological exam. Oh joy! But, hopefully they will subside some!

These are the glasses I picked out. They are Coach and super cute!

I had no idea what kind to look at or what style would be good for my face so I had the guy working there make a suggestion and this is what he picked. I think my picking-out-glasses experience took a whole 5 minutes! If anyone knows me, that's totally how I roll! I hate shopping!
Maybe one of these days when my eyes stop getting worse and worse, I can think about getting lasik, but till then, I'll stick to the glasses, ugh!

Because I had to go to the eye doctor today after school, I had to leave Cole at Jennifer's till after his nap. Typically I pick him up before he naps and we'll go home for that, but he slept there today. Jennifer was laughing so hard because today was the first day Cole slept on a nap mat and not in the pack n play. She said she would lay him down and then next thing she knew, she would turn around and Cole would be standing right behind her. She'd then go lay him back down and same thing. He wasn't upset or anything, he just kept getting up and following Miss Jennifer around. But finally he got that he had to stay there and he took a good nap. Gosh they grow up fast!

Labor Day Weekend

We had a crazy, busy but fun Labor Day weekend! The weather was cooler this weekend so we took advantage and spent a lot of time outside. Friday afternoon we played outside, went on some walks, watched Cole push his car around, and tried to explain to Cole that we couldn't go swimming even though he wanted his crab out. :)

Look at that face!
Saturday morning we headed to Ft. Worth for our little friend Morgan's 3rd birthday. She had it at the Ft. Worth zoo and it was a blast! We had a private room where the workers from the zoo would bring in animals for all the kids to see....crocodiles, penguins, etc. The kids got such a kick out of the animals up close and you can see that Cole was pretty amused by the whole thing!

I've said it before that Cole does not have a sweet tooth. I've tried ice cream, cake....he just turns his nose up to it. At Morgan's party, Cole ate about 3 pieces of pizza but of course did not save room for cake. He was still eating pizza even after all the kids finished their cake.
I did feel a little bad for Cole because he was pretty much the only boy at this party. You can see in this picture that he sat at one end of the table and all the girls sat at the other end...haha!

After we ate, opened presents and ate cake, we went into the zoo to see the animals. Ft. Worth zoo is such a great zoo and Cole enjoyed it much more than our Denver zoo experience this summer! He saw some pretty cool animals and unfortunately, we couldn't stay too long because we had another birthday party to go to.

It worked out for us to leave early though, because Cole didn't last too long once we got him in the stroller. Poor guy, we need to get him a neck pillow!

After we left the Ft. Worth zoo and successfully transferred Cole to the car without waking him, we headed back to our neck of the woods so we could go to Lexie's 4th birthday party. It was a Fancy Nancy theme and once again....Cole was the only boy (besides twin boys that re 3 months). All these little girls were so excited about all the girly gifts and then what is Cole doing??? He's at the TV trying to play with the manly stuff. :)
So....some of my friends need to start having more boys!!! Sheesh!

Saturday night we just hung out at the house, Cole was pretty exhausted after a long day of birthday parties...and hanging out with girls. :) He passed out pretty quickly Saturday night and I had to take his picture because I went in to check on him and he was laying so funny.

Does everyone remember my post a couple weeks ago about Cole not sleeping well and then us bringing him into bed with us?? Well, he's been sleeping so much better lately, but Sunday morning he woke up at 6:30 and he was laying in our bed, drinking his milk and watching the Sprout channel. Next thing I know, Cole fell asleep pretty much laying on top of me so I slithered out of the bed because I was so uncomfortable and once again, this is how our bed looked!!!!

Once again....my two guys AND the monkey kicked me out of bed. That monkey is no longer allowed in our bed Cole!

Cole has been obsessed with our vacuum lately and he's always trying to help us vacuum the house. So instead of battling him we decided to just buy him his own vacuum.

He played with it all day Sunday and thinks he's so cool!

Nick even got to play with it a little bit...sorry Nick, I think it's a little small for you!

After a long and exciting weekend, we are back at our normal grind. BUT, how exciting is it that football starts this week! Nick and I are so excited about the Vikings/Saints game on Thursday! We are also so excited that Cole's Vikings jersey still fits him. Well, we can't button it on the bottom anymore, but we'll just tuck it into his pants and not button it, nobody will know! :)
Go Vikings!!!

Mother of the Year

I've said it before, I'll say it again.....I don't know why anyone wouldn't vote me for Mother of the Year! For one, I always keep a watchful eye on my child, never letting him be in danger. And, if he was doing something he probably shouldn't be doing, I certainly would never take pictures of him, I would immediately get him away from any harm!

Again....Mother of the Year right here!!!!

My nice camera is being neglected

Ever since Nick and I got our new phones, our poor camera has been neglected. I'm the mom that usually takes a gazillion pictures of everything but now with our new phones, we tend to use those more because it also has video. HOWEVER...as you can see by these pictures in this post, the quality really is nothing to compare to our regular camera. I think it's time we pull her back out to give us some better quality. It's just so much easier to stick our skinny little phones in our pockets and not have to worry about lugging around our big camera.
So again, sorry for the horrible quality of these pictures!!!

Last Sunday we went to see our friends Matt and Katy and their two girls Morgan and Rory. They have a great house with LOTS of fun things to play with! Cole was pretty much in heaven for 2 hours. Matt, who is a fireman, cooked us the most fantastic brunch. Why are all firemen such great cooks!?! He made pancakes like I have never tasted, eggs, fruit....oh.my.gosh! His pancakes are so good that he won't even give his wife the recipe...ha!
It was so great to catch up with them and let the kiddos play.
This is Cole and Morgan trying to share the red chair. Nick said Cole was pulling an "Annie" in this picture because apparently I will always squeeze my way onto the couch so I can sit right next to Nick....even though nobody else is sitting on the couch. What can I say, I like my husband :)

We haven't done a whole of exciting things this week, just hanging out at home, running errands and playing outside a lot. Yesterday we both ended up drenched while playing with the hose in our backyard. Great times!
Cole has also gotten really good at putting himself in timeouts! Even if I say, "Cole, do you need a timeout", he totally breaks down, cries, throws himself on the floor and basically puts himself in a timeout.
Here is how it usually ends up looking......

To say our child got his father's sensitivity is an understatement!!!!!!!!!!

Even though it's super hard to get stuff done when Cole is awake because he's so fun to play with AND you can't take your eyes off him for a second, I still have to get chores done so I thought I would just hire some cheap labor. :) Isn't he cute?

Last night, well, Cole was NOT in a good mood. We couldn't do anything right, even if I'd leave the room he'd have a meltdown. This picture literally was the only time he semi smiled all night. Mr. Grumpy pants!!! I even took his clothes off, usually if you take his clothes off he gets super happy. :)

Here is a random picture from the other night at Lexie's house. Of course they were getting into all her toys and he came out of her bedroom wearing a necklace and high heels! Maybe we need to stop playing with Lexie...haha!!!

We are ready for the long weekend!!! We have 2 birthday parties and a couple other things planned so we should be plenty busy! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

This past week...it's been awhile!

I started my first week of working part-time and so far, it's been really fun! I teach 2 classes in the morning, leave school by 11:30, pick Cole up and am home by 12:15....just in time for him to take a nap. It's nice because it gives me a chance to get a few things done so that when he wakes up from him nap, we can play. The beginning of this week was unbearably HOT! Like 107....if anyone knows me or has heard me complain about Texas summers, you know I'm not a fan! It's hard to work part-time and spend the afternoons with your toddler when you are stuck inside. One afternoon I had to go get a couple birthday presents so of course I had to stop and let Cole play with all the other kids. He had a great time!

Luckily, there was a cold front that came through yesterday and the temperatures have been in the 80's which is awesome for Texas this time of year! Cole and I even went on a wagon ride yesterday and spent a lot of the afternoon outside, which he absolutely loves! When it was finally time to go in and eat dinner, he threw a big tantrum. :)

Cole has been doing great at Jennifer's (our new sitter). He cried most of last week when we would drop him off, but this week he's gotten much better and hardly cries at all. AND, when it's time to pick him up, it takes a little bit of time to pry him away from whatever it is he's doing.
Jennifer sent some of us mom's this picture today while we were at school. These are the 4 older kids, so you can see that they are all very close in age!

Some other exciting news....Nick and I both got the new iPhone 4! We were thinking about waiting awhile before we got them but we decided to pull the trigger and just go for it. We knew that we wanted to put our old iphone's up for sale on ebay to see if we could get a little bit of money for them, so Nick first put my iphone 3G up for sale and eventually it sold for $167!!! We were shocked!!! THEN, Nick put his up after mine and got $181!!!!! Are you serious!!! So, all in all, we only had to pay a little bit extra for the brand new phones. Crazy!
The new phones are so much fun, Cole loves to call dad at work because we can now video talk. There is also a camera on the front of the phone so it's easier to take self-take pictures...ha!
Cole thought this was the funniest thing when we got home today, he kept wanting me to take pictures over and over.

So I'm going to do a bit of complaining now.....for the past few weeks, Cole has been waking up in the middle of the night, or, he will wake up at like 5:00am. He doesn't do it every night, just a few times a week. Nick will go into his room, rock with him for a few minutes, Cole will fall right back to sleep and that's that. I guess I'm more of the mean parent because I just try to make Cole cry it out because I felt that if we were going into his room every time he woke up, that he would just keep doing it. After a couple nights of trying the cry it out method, which obviously wasn't working because he would get so worked up and have snot dripping down his face and then try to climb out of his crib. It's so much easier when one of us can go in there, give him a little cuddle and he'll be back to sleep in a jiffy. I was reading in my fabulous "Sleep Easy Solution" book that I read when Cole was itty bitty to get him to sleep longer than 2 hours at a time and I read up on the toddler stuff. It said that between 18 months-2 years, they will wake up sometimes in the night because they are afraid and just need a little cuddle. They don't understand that mom/dad is in the next room. So, I'm hoping he grows out of this soon. Till then, our weekends might just keep turning out like this early in the mornings......

This was after a 5:30am wake up.....Nick and I were so tired still and knew that Cole was not ready to get up for the day. I brought him into bed with us (which I hate doing) and of course he passed out, taking up half the bed. We have a king-sized bed and these two guys, including the monkey, gave me the boot! This also was after Cole head butted my face and gave me a puffy lip for awhile, I then decided it wasn't even worth fighting over a space on the bed so I probably went and watched TV or something.
Again, I hope this phase goes away quickly.....I like our "good sleeper" Cole much better!!! :)

Love this Toddler Stage!

I have said over and over that this 18 month toddler thing is hard! I think between 15-18 months has definitely been the hardest, but still so fun at the same time. At this stage of life, they are sponges and will sometimes repeat everything you say. Everyone knows that you have to say, "no no" a lot to a toddler, and everyone knows that sooner or later, that toddler will start saying, "no no" back to you. When they first start doing it, it's kinda funny. Just like when they learn and associate what "mama" means. Of course it's so cute to hear them call you that, but when they walk around saying, "mama mama mama mama", after awhile you want to pull your hair out and change your name.
Well, back to this "no no" thing.....let's just say Cole has gotten a little too good at this "no" thing and he's starting to get a bit sassy with it now.
I took this video on our way to the airport last weekend when we were taking my parents to the airport and his sassy-ness sure came out! He does not like people touching him while he's in his car seat for some reason....:)

I also forgot to put this picture on my post from earlier this week. We took this picture right before we left for the airport and I thought it turned out really cute. Cole still walks around the house saying, "Papa, Papa...Meme". AND, what's so cute is that he will say Mama, Dada, Papa in his regular voice, but when he says Meme, he gets super high pitched...ha!

I'm so glad the weekend is almost here! This has been a long week full of teacher in-service and now the kids come back on Monday. I guess I'm excited for another year to start, but a little nervous because I'm teaching a new class.
Cole has been doing great at the new sitter's. Her name is Miss Jennifer and she is just great with all the kids. He does fuss for a little bit when I drop him off, but Jennifer is so nice in that she called me today right after I got back into my car and told me that Cole had stopped crying already and they were snuggling. She just didn't want me leaving thinking that he cried all morning. :) There is another little girl there that is one month older than Cole and Jennifer said they had a "No" war today, just saying no-no back and forth to each other. ha!
We are so blessed to have found another great sitter and I know Cole will love it there!

The Past Few Days

This past week was a such a great way to spend my last week before going back to school!! My mom got here last Tuesday and then my dad got here on Thursday. My mom was able to see Cole finish his last 2 days of swim lessons and on his last day of swimming, we decided to take him to the splash park by our house. The heat here in Dallas is a little unbearable to be outside so we didn't stay at the park too long. Cole had fun though and was able to burn off some energy!

All the little kids were screaming and squealing, so in this picture, you can kind of tell that Cole was screaming along with them. :)

Friday we mostly hung out at the house and played since my dad was now in town. We were able to meet up with Dennis and Tracy for dinner and this reminded Nick and I, once again, why we don't like going out to eat with an 18 month old.....

This is what went on for most of the meal...haha!!! Each of us would take a turn and follow him around the restaurant because the last thing he wanted to do was sit at the table. He's just at a hard age that you can't really reason with him yet on why he needs to stay in his seat...ugh!
Good thing Granddad is so tall so Cole can reach the giant beer bottle. :)

After we had dinner, we all went back to our house and hung out for a bit. When I got home, I immediately got Cole ready for bed, gave him some milk and expected to put him down right away as it was already past his bed time. Well, as you will be able to tell from this video, he got a little crazy and rowdy and was pretty much bouncing off the walls! Finally around 10:00pm, I had to be the bad guy and finally call it a night. Cole was literally our entertainment for 2 hours!



Saturday was our little friend Carter's 1st birthday party. Ethan and Oni have a pool in their backyard but they also got this giant water park/slide thing and it was a big hit! Cole, who isn't a huge fan of water even loved playing in it.

It was great getting together with so many friends and letting the kiddos play. It's nice now because all of us have kids now and can all relate better to each other.
This is a picture of Cole with his friend Joseph. They are so cute together and Cole would just follow Joseph around everywhere.

My dad even got Cole to try on some Spiderman gloves...ha!

Unfortunately this week had to come to and end and my parents are having to go back to Colorado tonight, boohoo!! Besides the unbearable heat and not being able to be outside too much, we really did have a great week. One thing that really cracked me up this week is that for the past 1.5 years, we have always referred to my parents as "Grandpa and Grammy". However, while they were here, Cole kind of changed their names to "Papa and Meme". How cute huh? I think he says Papa because Grandpa is harder to say and for some reason, Meme is what he decided to call my mom. He would walk around the house saying, "Meme, Meme....Papa, Papa". So precious!
I start my teacher inservice this week and then the kids come back the following week. Again, I'm super excited that I will only be teaching 4 hours a day so Cole and I can hang out in the afternoons. I think we will start the Mommy and Me swim classes with Cindy but those will only be once a week.
Oh Summer....where did you go!?!