Update time!!

Where to begin? Cole is now 21 months old. My baby is almost 2. Where did time go? A concern I had been having was Cole's verbal skills. He has awesome motor skills, but by 19 months he still really had no words. The typical mama, dada, dog, duck....ya know. Well, within the last month his vocabulary has exploded. They say boys talk later, and I guess that's true for Cole. His favorite thing to say right now is " WOOOOOOWE" (he somehow adds an "e" to the end). Why you ask? Well, the kid is fascinated with Christmas lights and decorations. It's seriously so stinking cute. When we first put up our decorations, he would walk around to everything and say " woooooowe, woooooowe, wooooowe." I love it. We will be driving down the road and every house that has lights he points at while saying "oh woooowe" over and over. He calls his binki baa baa, yeah he still loves his binki. He tries to repeat everything we say. We have been practicing counting and when we get to 5 he always claps. The other day I was getting him into the car and he wanted a snack. I told him "Cole, you need to wait 1 minute" and he goes "oooonnnnneeee." Ha. I couldn't help but laugh.

He is awesome at puzzles and putting shapes into the shape toys. He LOVES crafts. Doesn't really matter what it is, he likes it. His favorite is finger painting. If he sees the finger paints, he goes crazy! Only problem with this, is he gets VERY upset when it's time to put crafts away. He also loves helping us do the dishes. It's so funny when he "washes" Eva's bottles. He knows exactly what to do. Cracks me up. I have a video of it I will post sometime.

On to Eva. Baby girl is already 3.5 months old! WOW! She is starting to get this cute personality. Girlfriend can talk!! She is a jabber jaws. She just goes on and on and on. I love listening to her. Sometimes she gets going for so long and hard her eyes just water. She is a very determined little girl. She holds her head up great! She loves tummy time and is super close to rolling over. When we put her in her swing in her room, we always come in to find her leaned over to the side. She tries to sit up and flops over, but can't get herself back up. She just looks at you like " a little help please." When she is in her car seat I can see her in the mirror trying to sit up. She lifts her head up and down and finally gives up. Too funny.

She is definitely a mama's girl:/ If anyone is holding her and she hears me, she cries until I hold her. I went to the movie a few weeks ago with some friends and I guess Eva cried for 1.5 hours. Luckily Cole was in bed. I felt awful, but I need to keep doing it I guess. I don't want it to get to the point where I can't do anything because she will cry if I'm not there. BUT, on a plus side....her acid reflux seems to be under control (ha, I know that has nothing to do with her separation anxiety from me). She is happy a majority of the time, when I have her:)

So far she sleeps so good. She has gone as long as sleeping from 9pm-8:15 one night. A majority of the time she is sleeping from 8:30-around 7:30 (or earlier if she hears Cole being loud) up only once to eat at night. I can handle that. She is a huge cat napper. She usually only lasts staying awake about an hour to an hour and a half and naps for about 45 min-an hour. I'm letting her determine her sleep schedule. I was such a by the book napper for Cole. I kept him up for 2 hours and made him nap no matter how hard he fought it. Which leads to Cole's sleeping....

I'm at a loss on Cole's sleep. He will go periods of time where he sleeps from 7:30pm-6/6:30am. I would love for him to do that every night, but my almost 2 year old is still not consistently sleeping through the night. Everyone says he needs to cry it out without me going in. That would not fly with my very strong willed child. He would end up climbing out  or puking. Let me tell you how I know this. Last Sunday night his monitor stopped working in the middle of the night. It's done this before but we usually catch it before he wakes up. Not this time. I woke up to hear this screaming in the distance. It took me a minute to realize it was Cole and his monitor had shut off (I've since called graco and am getting a refund, so recommend your monitor. I don't have a video one, but am open to different options I guess). I went running in. I had no clue  how long he had been crying but by the time I got in there he was shaking and gagging and screaming, I had to bring him to bed with me. He was petrified to go back into his room. At nap the next day, he screamed for an hour. Not a "get me out of here" scream. It was a "I'm terrified to be in my crib" cry. I went in in intervals, even took him out and changed his sheets thinking that might help for some reason. He wouldn't even lay down. I finally got him up and called the dr. I thought maybe he might have an ear infection.

I took him to the dr and his ears were fine, but he is cutting all 4 molars. She said to let him cry and not go in. I just can't do that. When we told him it was time for bed, he started getting really scared and crying. He cried/whimpered all through bath and getting ready for bed. When I brought him into his room to rock and pray with him, he threw up all over me. He had that much anxiety about going to bed that he threw up. I knew I needed to put him in his crib after we cleaned up because if I didn't we'd be doing the same thing every night. He only cried for a little bit, but was up quite a bit. I went in as soon as I heard him so he knew I could hear him. It took all week to get to where he didn't freak out when we told him it was time to go night night. I felt awful for him. We even showed  him how his monitor was working and what not:( He slept through the night on Thurs and Fri but was up for 2 hours in the middle of the night sat. I ended up having to bring him to bed with me. I know most of you will say, just let him cry. But after seeing how he reacted to me not coming in when his monitor broke, I really can't do it. I'm praying he starts sleeping good on his own. I don't run in when he cries, but I do eventually go in. I must say, for as little sleep as he gets he has so much energy:) Wish I could have some of it:)

Cole is starting to interact with Eva a little more and I am loving it. When we are reading to them at night he will sometimes reach over and hold her hand or foot and then get so excited with himself. She loves to just watch him. She could lay and watch him all day I think. When Cole gets excited and laugh, Eva gets a smile on her face. The other night when I was getting Cole ready for bed, Jared had to set Eva on the bed next to us. Cole crawled over to her and just leaned over her, looking at her. They stared at each other for a minute, then Cole just started giggling. Melts my heart. He was making her laugh last night. He would hide behind her play mat while it was flipped up on it's side. I would throw a little pillow at it and it would crack him up and every time he laughed, Eva would.

Here's a few pics of what we've been up to.

Thanksgiving 2011

Cutting down the tree (we left Eva with Grandma)

Decorating the tree

I'll have to post all the pics in this series of trying to get a picture of the two of them together:)

Playing in the bathroom

Play group at the rec center

Oh yeah, I have a blog:)

I know I keep saying this, but things really have been crazy. I'm still around, just trying to keep the kids happy and busy. I have lots of updates and pictures. I promise one day this week I will have a nice long post or 2 with lots of updated pictures of Cole and Eva. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Stationery card

Our Family Name Christmas Card

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View the entire collection of cards.

Christmas pics

So, it took me two tries but I think I finally got some good pictures of the kids for our Christmas cards. I'm so excited that I won 25 shutterfly cards from Kelly's blog. Thanks again... you should check out her blog. It's amazing and her little guy is too cute!! Anyways, Cole is not the easiest kid to photograph and I've worked with a lot of kids (mind you I worked at good ol Olan Mills in college). He's so darn cute, but won't stay still for me to take his picture for anything. I even brought out skittles to bribe him. Nothing worked, but I do believe I got a few on the go pictures of him. He also would not take a picture with Eva. He has started not wanting to be near her for very long. The newness has definitely worn off. Only way I got him to "pose" with her was to lay them down and let him kick the photo paper one day, and Jared stood above him playing with a hat the next day. Oi! Doesn't he know how much I love to take his picture:)

Now the hard part...picking which ones to use for the Christmas cards:/

Toddler are so much fun!!

Yes, toddlers also have those lovely fits that your entire neighborhood can hear, but they are still so much fun!! I think Cole is going to be a class clown. He cracks me up! He knows what makes us laugh and keeps doing it. He is very into shaking his booty and dancing to any music that comes on. For example, we were at the zoo a few weeks ago and out of no where Cole stopped walking and started dancing in the middle of the walk way. We then realized there was music playing in the background...from somewhere! I never would have noticed it. Everyone walking by was cracking up.

I love watching him because the smallest things bring him joy. I wish we all could still be like that. All we have to do is get down like we are going to crawl and he squeal with delight and runs around. He thinks we are going to chase him around the house and "scare" him. We hide behind a corner and when he comes around it he screams and laughs hysterically and falls into our arms. I love these little moments.

Jared has taught him how to chest bump and raise his arms for a touchdown for football. So the other day when his friends were over, he thought he would go around and chest bump all the kids. They are all older and just kind of looked at him like "what are you doing?" but then caught on. So they had a chest bump party.

A new thing that he has started makes it so hard to get mad at him! When I catch him doing something he shouldn't, like taking ALL the books off his bookshelf and I say his name in a stern voice he grabs a book and pulls it over his face. Kinda like, if you can't see me I can't get in trouble. If he doesn't have a book, he pulls his hands over his eyes with this huge grin. It takes everything not to laugh at him. It is hilarious!!

His laugh and smile is so contagious. When Eva hears his silly noises and laughs, it makes her smile and coo. I love watching them interact. It's not much because Cole is still kind of leery of her. Last night melted my heart, though. We were in the middle of reading books to Cole before bed and Eva happened to be awake and with us....and in a good mood. As I was reading, I noticed him watching Eva. Then he reached over to touch her arm then held her hand. I melted inside!! It only last a minute, but he was so proud of himself and Eva just got a big smile on her face! I can't wait until they are older and I get to watch them play with each other and interact more. I know there will be plenty of fights, but watching your children love each other is amazing.

So while there are definitely challenges to toddler-hood, there is such joy!!

No more pics, Ma!!

This drives me CRAZY when he unloads the bookshelf, but the look on his face when I catch him is priceless.

I found my old Elmo collection......

 

and Cole wanted in on the picture action.

I love this face. He makes it when he hears noises, like a dog or airplane, or when he is excited:)

Oh, as I was going through pics I completely forgot about this. Cole loves stickers. He puts them everywhere. I left the room for a minute to throw a diaper away and come back to find Eva with a few new stickers. He was so proud of himself. I couldn't help from laugh and of course take a picture. I didn't realize until I was looking through the camera the expression on her face. It says "What did my brother do to me?"

New page!!

If you look up at the top, I've started a new page of crafts. Not for me, but for toddlers.I got rid of my photo blog because....well I had 2 entries and wasn't keeping up with it and every pic I would have posted on that, I would have put here. I have been scouring pinterist and other sites, and going through old notebooks from when I worked at the school to come up with crafts and activities that Cole can do. I've been taking pictures of some of the new things we've been up to for the past month or 2. With Christmas and Thanksgiving coming up, we will be pretty busy:)

So check it out, follow me, and spread the word. I've already posted a few crafts we've done!! Feel free to give some ideas you are doing with your little ones as well! I'm always looking for new suggestions:)

PS- I'll be redoing my blog page....whenever I get a chance. I realized the other day my header left poor Eva out and is vintage Cole. If you have any suggestions on easy ways to make a cute one, let me know. The program I used for this one no longer works:(

2 months (and 8 days:/)

I'm a little late posting this, but at least I took the pic the day she turned 2 months!! I must say, I think I'm going to have a chatter box on my hands, which isn't surprising if you know me:) She coo's and "talks" so much. She giggles and smiles at everyone and everything....especially lights. She is officially out of 0-3 month clothes. I finally admitted it when I picked her up one morning and her snaps all came undone on her jammies:( I was in denial for long enough.

We had her 2 month appointment last Monday. I think I grow big babies. She is 13pds 1oz (94%) and off the charts for height at 24 1/4 in long! They even came in to measure her again because they were so surprised how long she was. Cole was the exact length at this age, but a little bigger at 14 pds 12oz. The dr bumped up her zantac to 3 times a day, but other then that she looked perfect. And talked my dr's ear off the whole time. It was really cute. The shots on the other hand were awful. I felt so bad for her. She cried hard for at least 10 minutes. Then passed out for 2 hours and by then my parents had come over to see the kids for trick or treat. Unfortunately I didn't even dress her for it. She woke up screaming, ate, then fell back asleep every time. Poor baby just didn't feel good. Luckily my mom stayed with her while we took Cole trick or treating.

2 month pic fail:)

Happy Halloween!!

Things have been crazy, but fun, lately because of Halloween. I love this time of year. The cooler weather, the beautiful change of the leaves, the smell....I could go on and on. We've been busy with Boo at the Zoo, Halloween parades, Trick or treat, and lots of crafts. I've been obsessed with Pinterist. If you don't know what it is, leave me a message and I will send you an invite and tell you all about it. I've been trying to get lots of craft and activities ready for this winter when I can't take Cole outside. This kid LOVES going outside. So we've started doing some of them on the rainy days and he loves it. I will post pics another day because I have enough pictures to show today:)

Cole loved trick or treat. We practiced all week saying "trick or treat." His sounded like "te te te" but hey, it is something. I would ask if he wanted to trick or treat and he would run and grab his bucket, bring it to me and say "te te te" and I'd give him a piece of candy corn:) He had so much fun. He knew exactly what to do. He'd run up to each house and try and grab candy from the bowl. Ok, so maybe that's not what he should do, but he had the right idea. We went with out good friends/neighbors. Cole and Stella were just too cute! At one point they were even holding hands and going up the sidewalk. So so so sweet.

Cousins:)

So I'm kind of going backwards here. Cole really enjoyed the process of pumpkin carving last year. He laughed so hard when we were cutting it. It was hilarious. This year, not so much. He liked it, but liked piling anything he could get a hold of into the pumpkin insides:) We even got Eva in on the action.

But before we even carved pumpkins Stella, our neighbor/Cole's bff, came over and they painted pumpkins. It's a tradition we started last year. This year definitely went over better then last year when Cole was 7 months and Stella had just turned a year old.

And last weekend our neighborhood had a Halloween parade. It was fun!! We went around the neighborhood and then the adults stood in a line in the green space while the kids "trick or treated." This was when I realized I needed to work with Cole on understanding TOT:) He did not like waiting in line to get candy...candy he didn't really get to eat any of. We gave him some, but this kid has so much energy, sugar is the last thing he needs. But, he sure did love his skittles. I was able to get some cute pictures while he sat and ate them. And Eva was precious as a little chick.

Phew, that was a lot of cuteness....no??