A few signs

We have been working with Cole on a little sign language. So many of my friends have done it and I always thought it was so cool! We started trying a few words out and it's amazing how quickly they pick it up.
Some of the words he can sign are:
More
Water
Banana
All Done

The video shows him doing a couple of the signs, except I do have to warn you, that the sign for "more" isn't really accurate....he tries, but he doesn't quite have it down yet. But, at least I know what he means. :)
Andy, our sitter, also taught him a new word today....."Yee ha". Except, Cole says it more like "Yee Yee ha ha". Anyhow, Andy was pretty impressed.

(make sure you pause the music on the side)


Tomorrow is my last day of school....PRAISE THE LORD! I swear this year was never going to end. After my long dreaded day tomorrow, we have so much to look forward to this summer. Cole and I start Kindermusik on Friday and will be doing that every Friday when we are in town. Then on Thursday afternoons, we go to My Gym, and also swim lessons Monday-Thursday. I know the swim lessons seem like a lot, but each day is only about 15 minutes. I can't wait to see how he does because right now he's not a huge fan of the swimming pool.
We also are going to Colorado for 10 days, Minnesota and Wisconsin. We sure will have a busy summer, but I'm so looking forward to it all!

Crazy weekend

Saturday afternoon, Nick and I headed out with Ryan and Casey to Bub's annual crawfish boil. I think, by far, Bub makes the best crawfish and we all leave there with our mouths on FIRE!!
We were lucky that Dennis and Tracy came up and watched both Cole and Lexie. We knew they would have their hands full, but knew they would have a great time!
On our way to Ft. Worth....Casey is excited to eat crawfish!

Buuuuttt....not as excited as me!

I think I made it about 5 minutes before I had stuff spilled all down the front of my top. If anyone knows me, I am not the most graceful person and I seem to always end up with some of my meal on my shirt.

Here is a picture of Bub with Ryan and Casey. He is the great cook! Literally, the first batch of crawfish was so hot, that some of the most veteran crawfish eaters couldn't stand some of it.
My sweet husband Nick already has some big lips, and I swear after he walked away from the table, they were even more swollen from how spicy they were...haha!

Me and Ryan

Ryan and Nick....already on round 2

Nice Ryan...but sick at the same time :)

As the night went on....things got a little silly :)

Me and the hubs, I think his cheeks were full of food in this picture :)

And....on to round 3. Yeah, we were there for several hours

And this is how Nick felt after round 3. I don't think he moved from his chair for an hour because he was so full.

We really had a great night and it was nice to get out without the kiddos, as much as we missed them.

Sunday, Nick and I took Cole to the pool. He still isn't too crazy about being in the water but I'm hoping that he gets used to it as he starts swim lessons in a couple weeks. He didn't last very long till he was telling us "all done". As we were getting everything packed up, he was standing next to a lawn chair and fell and hit his eye right on the chair. He didn't cry too terribly bad, but when we got home we noticed he had a nice little shiner. We tried putting ice on it, but he wanted nothing to do with that. He was tired and hungry and sitting still so we could put ice on his face...yeah right!
Needless to say, he took a 3 hour nap and woke up in a great mood

These pictures aren't the greatest because they were taken with my phone, but you can still see the red on the side and some under the eye. Poor guy!

This is about to be a crazy week for me, but THANK GOD it is my last week of school. Like I've said before, it's super depressing because our school district is literally the only district in session this week. Grrrr. Tomorrow I got to Six Flags with the seniors for senior day and on top of being with about 420 teenagers, it's going to be about 100 degrees. Usually I so look forward to Six Flags, but not in this heat! Then we have the end of the year stuff to deal with, and then next weekend we have company coming in town for our annual crawfish boil. Of course Bub is coming to cook for us so it will be gooood! Looking forward to some good times with great friends and family!

Our Daily Ritual

Our good friends The Hollers have lived next door to us since we have been in our house and they have become some of our best friends! I can't tell you how nice it is to have great friends live right next door, especially when you need a couple eggs, need a good movie to watch, or just want some company. There was even one time we came home to our family room completely rearranged. Yeah, they are funny like that. They have a 3 year old daughter named Lexie that Cole absolutely adores!!! Lately, he will randomly say "Leti" because he wants to go see Lexie. Or, I will say to him, "Cole, you want to go see Lexie?" and he will run straight to the door. So cute! Most afternoons when I get home from school, we will go outside to play and this is what typically happens on a daily basis....

Cole walks over to their front door. He looks in the window and then will start knocking on the window.

If they don't answer right away, he'll go for the doorknob
If they don't come after that, then he will go for the doorbell

And...he usually can't quite reach, so he'll look to me for some help.

It's so cute to watch Cole get so excited when he finally sees Lexie, sometimes I think Cole would have made a better 2nd child because he LOVES playing with older children.

The only bad part about letting them play together, is when I have to tell Cole we have to go home so he can get ready for bed. He throws himself on the floor and cries like he's being tortured.

I'm not really sure what's going to happen when one of us decides to move :(

Jazzercize

This morning, Cole was in such a funny mood. He drank his milk, then walked right into our bathroom and wanted my pink headband on his head. So, I put it on......Then, he grabs a little remote for our ihome and puts it up to his ear like he's talking on the phone. He walked around our bathroom as if he was having a conversation with someone, just jabbering away. Quite funny! Seriously, who does this kid belong to?

He also found a new fun thing to do this morning. I'm not quite sure how his big head fit, but he likes to go behind our couch and squeeeeeze through. He did get stuck and Nick had to help him out, ha! And yes, I know his outfit is really styling, please don't everyone ask me for styling advice all at once!

Alright! I made it!

I think I have mentioned before about how Cole LOVES veggies! Every once in awhile, I'll try to give him something like pie, cookies, anything sweet....but he would way rather have a piece of spinach. This morning, I was eating my Life cereal and he had a couple bites, but then he saw me putting my salad together and fussed until I gave him some spinach leaves. Weirdo!

And yes...he looks like he's about to go to jazzercize class. Except, he may need some pants. :)

Water Weekend

This weekend was a much needed long weekend! The next couple weeks are about to get pretty crazy with the end of the year senior stuff so it was nice to just spend the weekend playing :)

Friday night, we met up with Nick's family and his Uncle Dennis to eat Hard 8 BBQ...yum! Cole is at that hard age where he does not want to sit in his high chair for more than 5 minutes. He wants to get down and explore. He is funny because he does this thing with his arms when he is "all done" and now he has learned to eat for about 2 seconds then throw his arms out and says "all done". Needless to say, we didn't stay at the restaurant too long.

We hung out at Nick's parents for awhile and decided to just put Cole to bed there since it was late. We had every intention of taking Cole home that night, but we decided to just let him stay the night since we had to go back to the Lewisville area first thing in the morning anyway. Plus, the grandparents were pretty excited to have a sleepover.

Saturday: Of course when you are able to sleep in a little bit, I can't and wake up at 7am. Oh well. We picked up Cole at the grandparents and then met up with the Fisher's for brunch. We had a great time with them and Cole had fun flirting with their cute girls :)

Later that afternoon we finally went back to Kiddie Korral and played in the water. I think Cole had fun, but we probably had more fun watching him.

Cole stole some kids bucket...ha!

He also made a few friends....either that or he wanted to steal his cup

Sunday: Nick golfed with his buddies Sunday morning so Cole and I spent the morning playing at the park. In the afternoon we went to the Flower's and had a BBQ and played in their pool. It was great catching up with friends and watching the kiddos play.

Here is Cole in his swim attire....I was determined to not let this kid get sunburned...ha!

Cole was not to sure about the water as he was digging his fingernails into my skin. :) He has not been in water since last summer so he was a little afraid at first. Whoever was holding him, he had a death-grip on them.

Here is Cole with Star :) She is 20 months old but Cole was still quite a bit bigger than her. She is such a sweet little girl!

Here is Fabi singing with the little kiddos....she's such a great mom!

Cole and I were even able to share some strawberry shortcake, of course he only wanted the strawberries and blueberries because my kid does not like anything unhealthy...ha!

Sunday: We mostly just hung out and played at the house Sunday. Nick blew up our little pool for the backyard and Cole had fun playing with that. Cole woke up on the wrong side of the bed Sunday....we were all playing in the family room and anytime Nick would come up to me and hug me, Cole would run over, and start fussing as if he was saying, "Get Off My Mom!!!" It was so funny because he would try to take Nick's hands off of me and get in the middle of us. Guess he was a little jealous. So after he went down for a LONG NEEDED nap, Nick and I got ready for our own BBQ. We swam at our neighborhood pool and then went back and had yummy food. We had a house-full but had a great time. Sorry, didn't take any pictures of Sunday.

It was a great weekend, now I just have to get through the next couple weeks of school and then it will be on to a great summer! Can't wait!

Our Gangsta

Thanks to my wonderful husband, he put together this great video of our little gangsta.....Cole. He LOVES music and we got him to "raise the roof" this morning.
If you are wondering what that giant thing is in our family room, Nick was blowing up the swimming pool. :)

(Oh, and don't forget to pause the music on the right side so you can hear the music to the video)
Enjoy!!!

Tornado

When I was little, my nickname was Tornado. There was one time that my mom came up to my room to help me clean it and about 2 hours later, my grandpa came up to my room and said, "have you even done anything"? For some reason, I had to have every toy and piece of clothing on the floor, even if I didn't want to use or wear it. I was notorious for just dropping things on the floor as I went from one thing to another. Even when I came home from college, my mom just dreaded it because she would say "the tornado is home". She would always ask me why I had to have all my clothes on the floor when I could put them nicely in my dresser. I'm not really sure why I insisted on having everything out...hmmm.

Now that I'm an adult and have my own things that I have paid for, I've gotten way better at clutter. In fact, I HATE clutter. Unfortunetely, my dogs and Cole did not get my new found hate of clutter.

My dogs have always insisted on going to the toy box and not being satisfied till every toy was on the floor. Benson always wants whats on the bottom so we have to get out every toy.

Cole....he is the same...we have to get out every toy, every crayon, every card from the deck and throw it all over the room.

Example 1...and this happened in about 1 minute from walking in the house

"What mom?"

I thought I would get a close-up picture of his nice war wound on the top of his nose. Andy and Teresa aren't real sure how he got it. They said he didn't cry or anything, just came in from outside and had a big scratch. Since it's right in the middle of his face, we've really been trying to keep neosporin on it so it doesn't scar. A few months ago when he slipped in the bathtup, he got a nice scar under his chin and I'm afraid there will be a permanent mark. So we are trying to not let that happen to his face.

Cole even insists on climbing up on the chair and making a mess up there. He had to pull every single flashcard out and throw them.

I have been searching for some "water shoes" for Cole for the summer. We have several pairs of crocs, but for some reason he always trips when he wears them (shoot, I trip when I wear crocs). Andy and Teresa have banned crocs because all the kids fall when wearing them so we wanted to get him some tennis shoe-type shoes that could get wet. I was so excited when I found these shoes at Lands End! They have them in all different colors and I think they are just adorable. I also can't believe that I got Cole a size 7!!! These shoes will be great when we go on our vacations this summer.

So excited about a 3-day weekend, it's been a long time since we had a break. I'm getting so annoyed with all my teacher friends that are out of school already or only have one more week! I hate you all! :) ha! This year just needs to end...for many reasons. I'm so excited to have the summer here, play with Cole, hang out with friends by the pool and not think about Hebron or school.

We have a fun weekend planned....spending time with relatives, friends and lots of pool time! Who knows, maybe Nick and I will go on a date or something :)

Sprinkler Fun

Where are these two cute boys headed???

Our sitters told us about this fun park down the street from us that has a great little water park and water fun for the kids. If you know Dallas, you know that right around this time of year, it is almost unbearable to be outside in the middle of the day and the only way to stay optimistic about this heat is to go to pools, water parks, and play in sprinklers. :)

We headed to Kiddie Korral to experience this new park, unfortunetely, the actual water part doesn't open till next weekend, but while we were there we took advantage of the great playground and had fun just walking around.

This playground was perfect for Cole, perfect size for him. Oh, and as you can see, he has his swim suit on ready for some water action....bummer that the water park wasn't working yet!
He had so much fun playing at this new park. We are lucky in that we have some awesome parks so close to our house, so of course we are excited to find even more!
These horses were pretty crazy! You can see the coil at the bottom and when Nick was on them, he could get the tail of the horse all the way on the ground. I'm not sure who had more fun with these...Nick or Cole. I think Cole and I had a lot of fun just watching Nick play on the horses!
Cole wanted to give it a try, but he kept hitting his mouth on the back of the horses head so he didn't stay on for too long.
Again....Nick playing around

Cole and I finally got a picture together :)

Since we were all a little disappointed that the water wasn't on at the park, I had the idea to get a sprinkler head and then we could see if Cole would enjoy playing in the backyard with the sprinkler. We hooked up the sprinkler thinking Cole would just run away from it, but looking at this following picture.....do you think he had fun!?!

He would get up super close to it, but then run away flapping his arms and giggling.

I don't think Nick or I have ever laughed so hard

What was especially funny was after we decided to go back inside, of course we stripped him naked out in the backyard so we didn't drag grass into the house. We always joke about hosing him off after meals because he gets so dirty, but we literally did that this time. ha! I'm sure our neighbors would have gotten a kick out of looking out their window, seeing a naked baby run around the yard with 2 parents chasing after him and then using the hose to clean him off. Nice!

Here is a video of Cole running through the sprinkler

(Make sure you pause the music on the right side of the blog so you can hear the sound from the video)