2!!!!!

This weekend kicked off Cole's 2 year celebration!!! It sure seems strange having a 2 year old! His actual birthday was Saturday so it was fun to have his party on his actual birthday. Our friends the Bell's came in from Houston Friday evening to stay with us for the weekend. Their little girl Reagan is 1 years old and Cole's furture wife. Don't they look cute sitting together on his chair?

 It was so great having the Bell's here, they were such big helps getting everything ready for the party! AND, we are super excited because we planned a mini-vacation with them over spring break. We always love traveling with them, so it should be super fun!

Back to the party.....his party wasn't till the afternoon, so that left us most of the day to prepare. Luckily both Cole and Reagan took great naps before the party so we didn't have to worry about chasing them around while getting ready.

Once Cole woke up, he was pretty curious about all the decorations and such, so he spent some time playing with everything...even trying to put his Elmo hat on.

 

We had an Elmo party for him becasue he LOVES Elmo right now. Our cake lady, Rosie, made his cake again this year and it turned out great! We did carrot cake again because that's what she did last year and everyone seemed to really like it.

 We had probably 30 plus people in our house which is a little tight, but it was fun! There were lots of kids and we hope everyone had a good time. Luckily, it was SOOOOO nice out this weekend, in the 70's, so there was lots of playing going on outside which made for less clutter in our house :)

Over the past couple weeks, Cole had been practicing blowing out his candle. Anytime he'd see a candle burning, he'd "try" to blow it out. So....I knew he'd have fun blowing out his candle this year.

 He had the funniest look on his face while everyone sang to him, but he did a great job and blew out the candle all on his own!

I had to take a picture of one of my favorite gifts. Cole got this awesome hat...doesn't he look like he needs to take a trip to New Orleans??

However, the hat is a 3/4T and it's still small on him! Yikes, he really does have a big head!

Cole got a lot of great presents, our friends and family were so generous! Another gift he got was a Wii game called Just Dance for kids and it's pretty hilarious. Cole, Lexie and Reagan had fun shakin their booties after the party was over :)

But soon Cole's energy level quickly wore off. After dancing for about an hour or so, Cole climbed up in Gigi's lap and took a break.....cute huh??:)

This was such a fun weekend and are so grateful to everyone who helped us celebrate! Again, we can't believe we have a 2 year old and makes us realize how time flies!
Happy Birthday little man!!! :)

Whoa Baby!!!!

I had my doctors appointment today and also had to do my glucose test. Um, yuck!!! The last couple swigs of that drink and I really thought I might barf. Thank God it's over, and lets pray for my results to come back normal.
I had a couple freak-out moments at my doctors appointment today, one being the amount of weight I gained this month...eeek!!! I mean, it wasn't THAT much but compared to what I gained with Cole, I'm only used to a couple pounds here and there. I asked my doc and he actually said I'm right on track with where I should be it's just strange for me b/c I maybe gained 25lb total with Cole and I'm sure I'll go over that this time!
My second freak-out was when he measures the belly. He measures the size of the uterus and it's supposed to match up with the amount of weeks you are in centimeters. I'm 24 weeks.....but measured at 27!!!!!! Again, all I know what to compare it to is Cole's pregnancy and I consistently measured smaller with him, so this big stuff is all new to me. He rechecked it a couple times and he said that if I had been more than 3 cm over he would have wanted to do a sonogram to make sure I didn't have too much fluid or anything. If I'm measuring 3 weeks ahead of schedule at my next appointment, then he said he'd want to do a sonogram. I asked him if this means I will deliver early (with a big smile on my face) and he said, "um no, nice try". Bummer!!! Ah well, I'm just excited to have a healthy baby!

So now I know my gigantic-belly-ness is not necessarily in my head, because I AM measuring 3 weeks ahead of schedule. Whew...hopefully I don't deliver a 15lb baby! :)

24 Weeks

24 Weeks
(Beware of the torpedo!!!)

 

Pregnancy Highlights:

How far along: 24 weeks

Size of baby: Baby S is the length of an ear of corn, about 12 inches long and just over 1lb

Total weight gain/loss: Not quite sure this week, I go in on Thursday for an appointment so I'll find out then.

Maternity clothes: Pretty much all my clothes are maternity. I'm still wearing a lot of regular shirts if they are long enough. I'm LOVING dresses this time around!

Gender: Not sure. It's definitely hard not finding out but it will be worth it. I'm thinking boy....don't I just seem like a boy mom???

Movements: Feeling lots of movement, which is so fun! Nick felt the first movement the other day, it kinda startled him :)

Sleep: Eh, pretty good. I wake up a lot but go right back to sleep. I just get uncomfortable having to adjust between my sides.

What I miss: Still wishing I could enjoy a nice cold beer or white russian...yummm!!! Not much other than that.

Cravings: I'm so excited to say that my food aversions are 99.5% GONE!!! Halleluia!!! One thing I never thought I'd want this pregnancy that I had been craving like crazy the last couple weeks was burgers!!!

Symptoms: Still feeling WAY better than the first 3 months, but I'm still so tired all the time. I take a nap everyday when Cole and I get home and try to go to bed by 8:30...loser, I know!

Best moment of the week: I'm gonna have to say that over the past few weeks I've been able to eat anything. Nick and Cole are actually getting home-cooked meals and I love being a better wife and mom! :)

Nothing too crazy has been happening with the pregnancy lately. I have to go in for my glucose test on Thursday and NOT looking forward to that. The drink they give you is absolutely disgusting! It tastes like flat, extra sweet sunkist...and I hate orange flavored stuff! Oh well, let's just hope all turns out ok.
I was getting a little excited when I first started showing this pregnancy because it looked as thought I wasn't sporting the "torpedo" look like I did with Cole. But....I'm afraid those nice round bump days are over. I know every girl carries differently but mine just goes straight out. I guess that's better than carrying ALL around. :)
So many of my friends have been having babies lately or just about to have their baby so I'm definitely getting anxious...we can't wait!

Me???? Crafty???

I've said it before and I'm not ashamed, that I have zero creativity! I so wish I did and I try really hard but I just don't and I'm cool with that, there are other things I am better at. However, one thing I am pretty good at is following directions :)
Soooo, I found a few great crafty ideas on different blogs and thought I'd give them a try.

First, I mentioned that Cole is now in a toddler bed. Sometime in March we are going to transition him into a queen bed so we can move the baby furniture into the baby's room. So, this means we needed to get Cole some new big boy bedding. He kinda has a sports theme going on right now and I wanted to stick with that, but didn't want full out sports bedding. I found this cute quilt at Pottery Barn and this is Cole's birthday present from the grandparents.
Isn't it cute!!

 

The easiest craft in the world: I had these letters above Cole's crib for a long time but they had just been painted white. I got the idea from another blog to spice them up a bit, and literally, sooooo easy! I just found some scrapbook paper and glued the letters to the paper, then used a razor blade to cut them out. How easy is that and I think they look pretty cute!

 

I plan on doing this for the next kiddo....if only we knew a gender OR name. Ah well!

Maybe not so easy but FUN craft #2: Ever since I have been in Texas and have seen the ridiculously sized bows that these cute little girls wear, I've always wanted to learn how to make them because you can buy them....for $10 a pop and that's just crazy to me!
Plus, I'm pretty sure I won't have any of my own girls to make these for, so I thought they would be fun to make for presents.
I finally learned how to make them and I think for my first ones they turned out pretty cute. Now I just need to learn how to be a little adventurous and try different kinds.
Plus, I made 9 of them for less than $10!!!

One of many graduations

 This was a very exciting weekend in our household!!! We had a couple "firsts" and everything went VERY smoothly!!

Nick and I decided that this was the weekend we would transfer Cole into his toddler bed. I have been dreading this moment for a long time but we couldn't have asked for a better experience! Saturday morning, Nick and Cole worked on the crib, taking the front off and converting it to the toddler edition :)

Cole was very curious with what dad was doing and of course had to help put it together. Some times Nick would look at me like, "can you please get him out of here so I can actually get this set up" but I had to keep reminding him that even though it may take longer to put it together, the fact that Cole wants to help out makes him feel important and like he's being a big help.

This was one of those moments where things could have gone a lot faster had I dropped the camera and gotten Cole out of Nick's way...but how cute is that??? He truly felt like the biggest help! He loved it!!

Nick then took some time to show Cole how the screws and tools worked and now Cole goes around the house with his screw driver trying to "fix" everything. :)

Once Nick and Cole were finished putting the bed together, Cole was SO excited!!! I think we finished around 10:00am and Cole immediately wanted to take a nap (even though it was 2 hours before his naptime). He would take his stool to the light switch and turn the light off, crawl into bed, cover himself up and say "night night mama, night night dad".

 

He played in his bed all morning, climbing in and out, putting his monkeys "night night", so we knew he was pretty excited about the whole experience.

Finally it came time for the actual nap time and Nick and I were glued to the video monitor!! We layed him in bed and he never got out once. He played for awhile, but nothing was different than if he was in the crib. We were pretty excited! Since Saturday, he has not gotten out of bed once and sleeps through the night entirely. Even when he does wake up, he sits there and won't get out of bed till we come get him. Good Job Cole!!!

Later that afternoon, we took Cole to get his first hair salon haircut. My mom has been cutting his hair since he was itty bitty, he probably had 10+ haircuts but he was in desperate need of a cut and my mom may not be able to come to his birthday so we decided to just take him somewhere. We have a kids salon pretty close to our house and it was super cute! He got to sit in the car and at first he didn't know what to think. He looked at us with these sad puppy dog eyes, quiverying lip and we almost lost him to a major breakdown but then he realized the kid next to him was playing mario kart and that kept his attention the rest of the time.

Can you see the lip sticking out, ready to lose it????

Here is the final product and I think it turned out pretty good! However, I'm not gonna lie, I think my mom does a little better job! :) Plus, she's free!!!

Cole got a balloon and a sucker and was pretty proud of himself, so it was worth the adventure I guess.

 

The rest of the weekend was spent purging our house and attic. We had no more room in our attic for anything, so Nick brought everything down and we threw away a TON of stuff. Now we have more room for more junk to go in the attic, ha!

Sad things and New things

Sad things: When your little kiddo gets their first ever flu bug!!!!

Sunday afternoon I was bragging to my girlfriends that Cole had never once had a temperature (not even from shots) or thrown up (and anyone that knows me knows that God is looking out for me because that will be ONE BAD DAY! Literally, throw up is my biggest fear EVER!)

Monday I didn't have school because of MLK day so I had plans on hanging out with Cole, going to Allen to look at some wallets, maybe going to the park because it hasn't been too cold.....but after a couple hours of cuddling in bed, I realized that maybe something isn't right. Cole never wants to stay in bed that long. So, I took his temp and it was 100. Since we just don't get this kind of sickness in our house (there I go bragging again) I just flat out didn't know what to do with a toddler with a temperature. So...I texted our wonderful babysitter because she knows everything and she told me what to do and what to look out for.

We couldn't tell if maybe he was getting his 2 yr molars or he truly had a little bug, sometimes the symptoms are all the same! We pretty much laid in bed all day, watched movies, yes Mary Poppins was on the list and by Monday late afternoon, he temp got to 102 so I gave him more tylenol, luke warm bath and by the time he went to bed I think he was fever-free. We checked him a couple times before we went to bed and still a-ok. Yay!!!

Tuesday morning I knew all was ok in our little world when 5:00am rolled around and I hear from the monitor..."MA!!!!" (like, in that total disrespectful tone, ha) Yes, my little guy was completely fine the next day, praise the Lord!!!

He still stayed home because he has to be fever-free for 24 hours but he's back at Jennifers today and acting his normal self. I'm SO glad that it didn't turn into a true flu bug because selfishly I was a little concerned about myself because flu+pregnant chick=no bueno!!!

New Things.....AKA, Terrifying things: Cole graduating to a toddler bed.

See this picture????

Hi Roxy!!!!!

Yep, that is the conversion set for Cole's crib. I'm pretty nervous about the whole transition because you hear horror stories from friends but then you also hear how it was the easiest thing ever. My whole deal is, is that it took Cole a year to sleep through the night and I just wanted to enjoy one full year of good sleep till we made the transition. So....we are here, ready for the move.

We decided we are going to do it this weekend. Set it up Saturday morning, "attempt" to get him to take a nap in it Saturday afternoon and see how it goes from there.

I think the only thing we will have to take out of his room is his book shelf because even though it's super heavy and sturdy, it's still long and tall and I wouldn't want him to climb on it and it come down on him. Eventually all the furniture in his room will be in the new baby's room anyway so we are just moving the book shelf out sooner.

Then, after he's used to the toddler bed for a couple months, we thought we would transition him into his official big boy bed which will be a queen bed. ha!!!! I can't wait to see him roll around in a big queen bed! The reason we are putting him in a queen is because my family comes to visit a lot and we have to keep a guest room.

I will definitely have updates from this weekend, oh gosh I hope it goes smoothly!

And, one more cute picture of Roxy from this morning. Poor puppies don't get on the blog anymore! Benson was still snuggled in bed when I took this so he missed out on the action....isn't she the cutest dog ever!!! :)

Seasons of Change?????

This week in Dallas was COLD!!! We actually got quite a bit of snow and some schools were canceled on Monday. Luckily our district did not cancel classes because we had final exams and that would have just been annoying to make up.
We had temperatures in the 20's and here in Texas that is super cold b/c of the humidity. There was one morning we were driving into school and they said the windchill was 7!!! Brrrr!!!
I took these pictures of Cole one morning this week and I was just so jealous because he was all snuggled in there, drinking some milk and staying warm. I wish we could have lounged there all day! When Cole wakes up he always hangs out in our bed while we finish getting ready and he always looks so cozy!

 

Yesterday I had a meeting with a lady so while I was gone Nick and Cole were left to play at our house. We have never introduced Cole to the Wii before but I knew it was bound to happen. I've said it before that I really don't like to watch a lot of television and I really don't want my kids to be video gamers but this was pretty funny and I figure the Wii can't be as bad as some video games.

This video was from this morning....Nick taught him how to do the sword fighting, it's pretty hilarious!

So onto some change in our lives....like I said yesterday I had a meeting with a lady about a possible changes in my career :) To start out, Nick and I have really been discussing my plans for next school year. As everyone knows, I absolutely LOVE my job!!! It is absolutely the best job for a mom, especially being able to work part time. I love my school, administration and I've been there for 7 years and am kinda free to do as I please in my classroom. I've always wanted to teach at a school closer to home but am so afraid to switch schools because I have it so good at Hebron!
However, with us having baby #2, it really just wouldn't make sense for me to work part time because I'd pretty much be working to pay for childcare. Plus, Jennifer wouldn't be able to take on the baby because she already will have 2 babies next year. Ugh, and any other place would not be able to accommodate part time or give us such a great price. So, our choice was for me to either work full time or not at all. First off, I don't even know if the full time would even be available for me next year but I also didn't think I could be home full time with kids. I so admire those women that can stay at home and can entertain their children all day....God did not make me that way, ha! I have to have something that is "mine" and I really want to contribute financially. BUT, we had tentatively decided that I would try staying home next year and just try it out. If I hated it, I can always go back to teaching. So, for the past couple weeks I've been stressing about finding a Mother's Day Out program for Cole because I have to keep him in some sort of program or we both will go crazy and he absolutely loves being around kids. I've also been looking at other Mom's groups, Bible studies that I could get involved with to keep myself busy and sane. We did find a great MDO program at Chuck Swindoll's church (yay) and I can also get involved in a mom's bible study so I was super excited about that.
You may remember that this past summer, Cole took some swim lessons teaching survival skills. It is a very intense program and I absolutely loved it! So this past week I get an email from the lady that heads it up. After chatting with her this past summer she knew I was a part time teacher, swimmer and had lifeguard experience. She asked if I could meet up with her to discuss me possibly training with her and me taking on some of her clients. This was a huge change but absolutely something I would love to eventually do. It's the type of thing that once I get trained I could do this anywhere, even outside of Texas.
Unfortunately she would need me the most during May, June and July. Well, with baby #2 due mid-may that obviously won't work. So, we decided that this summer she would try to get me trained and then starting next school year I could take on a few students and then hit it hard with her the following summer! This is not all definite but I'm super excited about it but just trying to figure out all the logistics is a little hard.....like who will watch the baby those couple hours this summer when I'm training, etc. We have to get stuff like that figured out but Nick and I both think that this is something that would be really good for me!
Whew....I kept saying last year that I had hit that 6-year post college "I need a change" stage and now I'm getting it!!! I will keep you posted but we first have to get through May and getting a healthy baby born :)

Definitely Nick's child!

This is pretty much a daily occurrence in our house. I'm not sure if he really is interested in potty training or if he's just being a typical toddler.....
But this is how the story goes
I find a USED diaper on the floor of the office, usually with some pants close by

 

I then go out to the family room to find this....

 

Except he always tries to take his top off through the neck, and yes stretches it out, grrrr!!!

 

He finally gets his clothes off completely then runs to the bathroom saying, "potty potty".

 

Obviously I won't put pictures of him in the bathroom, because what kind of mother puts discriminating pictures of their child online? Sheesh! :)

But....he sits on the potty (still has never done anything ON the potty) then gets off, flushes and goes on with what he was doing before.

 

In this case, he returns to his favorite movie right now...Mary Poppins.

It is then a fight to get his clothes back on, he would just prefer to stay naked but our carpets don't like little boy dribbles. :)
How much do you think Cole is going to hate me when he's a teenager?

The last few presents.....

Since we were in Colorado for Christmas, we decided to have our Seeman gift opening on January 1st. Nick's parents cooked a yummy crab and steak dinner for us and we also enjoyed watching everyone....well, mostly Cole open gifts.
Cole's first gift he opened was from Uncle Blake and Aunt Emily. He is obsessed with Elmo right now so they got him this hockey pockey Elmo that sings and dances and it's pretty hilarious! He think he tried to take it to bed with him that night but it's not the type of Elmo that you want to sleep with :)

 

Blake opening some gifts....nice bow Blake! :)

 

Nick has been talking about getting Cole a basketball hoop for the longest time so we finally got him one for Christmas. When Nick was talking about it I thought it was just going to be this small hoop that he can use now. Well....it's anything but small!!! As you can see in the picture.

 

Another big hit was Cole's first instrument set. Granddad and Gigi got this for him because he LOVES music and dancing. It has a drum, trumpet, tambourine and a couple other things. Cole loved carrying around the drum around his neck while playing the trumpet. He's talented! :)

 

He also got some of my favorite Hanna Anderson pajamas!!! Best pajamas ever!!!

 

Granddad and Gigi got him this really cool Christmas book where you can record your voice reading the book. Granddad reads him the story of The Night Before Christmas. How cool is that?

 

And of course Toy Story 3

We had a great time spending the evening with Nick's family. It's always hard with a toddler who goes to bed at 8:00 to spend TOO much time with them, so we decided to just let Cole fall asleep on Granddad and Gigi's bed. Usually Cole insists on being in his bed or some bed for that matter, but Granddad can get that kid to sleep in a matter of minutes so he laid him on their bed and he looked so cute on their big king-sized bed. Guess he better get used to it because come March/April, he's going to be sleeping in a queen sized bed!!!

Funny story....Cole's favorite thing to sleep with since he was pretty little is this monkey. He never took to a paci or blanket but definitely took to these monkey's. Now, these monkey's are exactly the same thing, identical! However, he took to one more than the other. If you will notice exhibit on the left, monkey A....look at that poor monkey's hands. All shriveled and deformed, that is because Cole would suck and bite on the hands. Monkey B is what the monkey is supposed to look like. Normally we wouldn't have a problem with this hand-sucking thing but if you got within a few yards of this monkey, you could smell the nastiness that it gave off. I would wash that monkey a couple times a week but it will constantly smell, mostly because he'd drink his milk at night, then stick the hands in his mouth...sick!!!

 

While Nick and I were out for our anniversary and Nick's parents stayed with him, Gigi snuck stinky-hand monkey in his closet and he hasn't asked for it since!!! Halleluia!!

He still sleeps with normal-hand monkey but doesn't chew on it like he did the other one. Let's hope it stays that way!

21 Weeks

21 Weeks!!!

 

Pregnancy Highlights:

(I know, how can someone be this big already and only be half-way!?!)

How far along: 21 weeks

Size of baby: Baby S is the length of a carrot, about 11 inches long and almost 1lb

Total weight gain/loss: Gained 8lbs...oops, guess the holidays treated me well!

Maternity clothes: Pretty much all my clothes are maternity. I'm still wearing a lot of regular shirts if they are long enough. I'm LOVING dresses this time around!

Gender: Not sure. We could have found out and it was SO hard because it was right there, but we are excited for the surprise.

Movements: I'm feeling lots of pokes and nudges. I think I'm about to the point where someone on the outside could feel them.

Sleep: Sleeping much better than 1st trimester!!!! I wake up every 4 or so hours to readjust.

What I miss: Sleeping on my stomach and.....beer!!!! Crazy I know. With Cole I never even desired a drink but sometimes a cold beer sounds SOOOOO good!

Cravings: Nothing as crazy as my 1st trimester. Still liking a lot of fish (once a week), AND, some exciting news....I ate a hamburger yesterday!!!! Normally any kind of meat is repulsive to me when I'm pregnant but it sounded and tasted so good yesterday and today I'm wanting another one. Maybe my food aversions are diminishing.

Symptoms: Up until a couple days ago, food was still extremely gross to me, but the last couple days I've been able to pretty much eat anything, yay!!! The bad taste in my mouth is WAY better and I really have no complaints other than that. Feeling SO much better.

Best moment of the week: Finally seeing our baby on the sonogram and knowing he/she is completely healthy and one week ahead of schedule.

When I was home over Christmas my mom came back from her hair appointment and told me about this chiropractor/acupuncturist that her hair lady has been going to and she deals a lot with prenatal stuff. I was very reluctant to go at first because what was I going to say? "Uh yeah, I'm pregnant and I don't feel good and I hate food". Yeah that's like ALL pregnant women, I can just suck it up and deal for the next 4 months. BUT, my mom insisted, she even made the appointment for me! So, I went and was very pleased that I did!!! The chiropractor was pregnant herself so we were able to talk a lot about that and she understood my complaints. She said my food aversions and bad taste in my mouth were a lack of vitamins. I have been taking prenatal vitamins but she got me on some Metagenics and they make me feel amazing, so much more energy AND the taste in my mouth is pretty much gone. She also said I need to be drinking way more water or drinks with electrolytes.
Then, she did some acupuncture on me (my first time) and it was awesome! I totally loved it! She said that if you continue with acupuncture it's shown to cut off hours of labor/delivery, heck yeah! It didn't hurt at all, except one that she put in my hand. I made her take it out it hurt so bad.
She gave me the name of some chiro/acupuncturists in my area that I'm going to check out and hopefully start that up soon. I guess mom was right, mom's are so smart sometimes :) I just assumed that I'd have to feel like this the rest of the pregnancy but there is a lot women can do to help the symptoms! I'm so excited! :)

New Years....oh how our lives have changed!!!

First off....I have been WAY behind on blogging!!! With being out of town and being on the go since we got home, this is the first chance I've had to sit down at the computer. There are a few blog posts updating our past couple weeks.

New Years!!!!
It's amazing how your life changes when you have kids! Normally our New Years is spent like most people...staying out late, spending time with friends and family. This year was a little different. There were a lot of us parents that wanted to get together but all of us have little ones. So, Beau and Stacey were nice enough to host a get together. Everyone there had a child under 2 so it was pretty crazy for awhile, but so funny at the same time! I think everyone had a great time and we even tried to get some pictures of the kiddos together......
First, here are all the parents trying to get their kid to smile, it sure took a lot of work!!

Here is what the pictures looked like. Yeah, pretty impossible to get 4 kids smiling or even looking at the camera for that matter! Sadly, our 5th little guy Grayson had already fallen asleep and was in bed. Maybe we can Photoshop him into some of the pictures. :)
Also, I only had my phone so the pictures aren't good at all!!
Here's 3 out of the 4 kids: Emerson, Piper and Cole

 

Alright!!! All 4 of them...haha!!!

Emerson, Piper, Cole and Liam

 

We sure had a great time but unfortunately we are paying for keeping Cole out late last night. As usual he woke up at his normal time so he's been a total delight to be around this morning! (sarcasm) This is one of those days when we look forward to naptime!

Hope everyone had an awesome New Years!!

Our Anniversary

December 30th, Nick and I celebrated our 5th anniversary. Having our anniversary right in the middle of Christmas and New Years has made it hard to ever do much for our past anniversaries. Typically we are surrounded by family or out of state. This year we finally were able to do something special, just the two of us.

Nick's parents were nice enough to watch Cole for us so we could enjoy a night out.
Our day started out with our big 20 week sonogram for baby #2. Normally our doctor would have let us do this sono a week or so earlier because normally parents are so anxious to find out the gender, but since we weren't finding out, we just decided to wait till 20 weeks. Normally Nick doesn't come to my appointments but he likes to come for sonograms. This sonogram is always cool because the baby actually looks like a baby and not a blueberry.
The baby looks totally healthy and perfect and apparently very active. It's looking like I'm measuring at 21 weeks, a week ahead of schedule, but that's pretty normal. Baby was about in the 90th percentile so if he/she takes after big brother Cole, we won't be too surprised :)
It was SO hard not finding out what the gender was, I mean, it was right there and so easy to find out. Our sono technician even made us plug our ears because she types some things on the machine and she didn't want us to hear if it was three or four letters. Ha!
We got a lot of great pictures, but here is one of my favorites....cute profile!!!

 

After my doctors appointment, we went to do a little shopping. I can't even remember the last time Nick and I have been at the mall at the same time!! It was kind of fun and we got a lot accomplished!

Then, we drove to downtown Dallas and checked into a really cool hotel. We got ready and went to dinner at Steele. It is a yummy sushi restaurant but of course I stuck to my california rolls. It still was very good and we had a great time. We then went back to the hotel and hung out at the lounge in the hotel. It's a really cool bar called The Library and it made me feel like I was in the game of Clue :) We had dessert, listened to music and enjoyed eachothers company.
The next morning we had breakfast then headed back home....it was a perfect night alone with my hunny bunny :)

Colorado

The three of us flew to Colorado for a week trip to spend Christmas with my family. We were so looking forward to having some snow and taking the kids sledding. Well, we missed out on the snow and I'm pretty sure they got dumped on the day after we left...yep, great timing!
As usual, our trip went too fast be we sure had great times and made some fun memories.
Our trip started off with Cole and Cameron browsing around the house seeing what they can get into. Cameron is at such a funny age, always following Cole around, he's pretty sweet to her though so it was pretty fun to watch.

 

My mom also got in some bedtime cuddle time in before the kiddos had to retire to their beds. This is a whole lot of love right here!!!

 

This picture cracked me up. Cole slept really well while we were there, probably because there was so much activity and it wore him out. He's even using one of his monkey's as a pillow :)

Christmas Eve: Our whole family went to Christmas Eve service together at my parents church and then we came back to my parents house for dinner and presents. That is sort of our family tradition to open presents on Christmas Eve, then do Santa presents Christmas morning.
Here is our family of 3....well, 3.2 right now, ha! Next year it will be a family of 4!!!! Yikes!

After dinner and pictures the kiddos got their Christmas jammies on and we started opening presents. Cole was super excited!!! This year was so fun to watch him experience Christmas because he was actually into opening presents and understood the concept of that better than last.

Cole got so many fun presents, but here are just a couple that he got. Cousin Cameron got Cole this cute Cousin frame with the two of them in it. So precious!!!

 

Uncle Ryan and Aunt Rachel got him this awesome "packpack". He absolutely loves wearing backpacks and now he has one of his own that actually fits him. It even has his name on it :)

He wears it all the time now!!!

 

Cole also was a big help with helping everyone else with their presents...haha!! Nick and I got Cameron this fun walking toy and of course Cole had to help her check it out.

 

Cole and Cameron both got some books and this picture is just way too cute, both of them looking at books.

 

Again, Cole had to help break everyone's presents in....Cole got into a wrestling match with Uncle Ross' new yoga mat, crazy kid.

 

More helping out with opening others gifts :)

 

Christmas Morning: As I said before, we always have our stockings and santa presents to open on Christmas morning.

 

He loved pulling out all his goodies from his stocking. He got some fun things like a giant bouncy ball (that later TSA took away from us at airport security, jerks!), Veggie Tales and Elmo DVD's, tractors, etc. He loved it all!!!

After all our busy gift-opening activities, Cole decided to take a little swim in my parents big tub. He thought it was pretty cool! I think he stayed in it for about an hour and it took some negotiating to get him out!

 

Of course silly dad had to give him a mohawk......doesn't he kinda resemble a certain Denver Nuggets basketball player??? Just add a few tats on his arms and we have Birdman! :)

 

The morning after Christmas, my dad was determined to take Cole sledding, but again, they had zero snow. We decided to head up towards Estes Park because they had a designated sledding hill in Rocky Mountain National Forest. Sure enough they had plenty of snow!!! Luckily we were able to borrow some snow clothes from a friend, I won't show you the pink snow boots he had on though, ha!

Mom and Uncle Ross pulling Cole up the hill

Mom pulling Cole down the hill

 

We had a great time up in Estes. Of course I wasn't able to do any sledding, I had to stay at the bottom of the hill and just take pictures. Even the big guys were able to go down the hill a few times so I think everyone had a great time. I swear my parents have the energy of 20 year olds because I think my dad went up that hill with Cole about 15 times, I was worn out just watching him, ha!

We also were able to spend some time with some other relatives on my mom's side. My cousin Nichole has a little boy named Brady and they love spending time with eachother.

 

My cousin Christopher and his wife Ammone also flew in from California and it was so great seeing them. Christopher is so awesome with little kids, he's going to be such a great dad some day!!!

I was holding baby Kinsley and Cameron decided she wanted in on the action too...ha! I just love these girls, so much fun!!

 

My cousin Christopher brought his fun helicopter and the little boys got the biggest kick out of watching that thing fly. They would just hoot and holler when it would go up.

 

They even got in a little hug while watching the helicopter :)

 

Sadly, our trip came to an end after many activities and fun times. It's always sad leaving Colorado but it was kind of nice to be back home. This also was our very last trip of Cole flying for free (sad, not b/c he's getting so big but for our budget....ugh). We are definitely ready for him to have his own seat but our checkbooks aren't ready to have to pay for 3 flights!!! Luckily on our way back to TX, Cole slept the entire way!!! He fell asleep at takeoff and didn't wake up till we landed. I actually was able to do some reading so it was delightful!!!

However, poor Nick had to hold him the entire time because with my belly getting bigger, it's hard for us to be comfortable :)