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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??