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!