18 and 19 months - "Faces of February"

The "I just woke up/bed head" face.

The "Look of Concentration" face

The "It's Hard Being a Rockstar" face.

The "Too Cool for School" Face

The "I love Elmo on TV, but up close he's a little scary" face

The, "angelic, did I just make a mess" face. We received this wonderful stool from Aunt Paige and Uncle Doug for Christmas. It's called a Kitchen Helper and Colton has really enjoyed being able to "help" Mommy cook.

Can't see his sweet face here, but I thought this was a cute pic. Colton LOVES his Little People and Animals. We play with them almost everyday.

Colton also loves our shoes and pretty much everyone's shoes. Dad's shoes are a little too hard to walk in right now, so Mommy's will have to do. Pretty cute!

This age is so much fun. Here are some of the things I want to remember about 19 months:

• Repeats everything we say!
• Starting to understand joking.
• Loves to wrestle with Daddy. And I mean this kid can wrestle. Please do not show him any type of professional wrestling on tv. We don't know where he learned his moves, but it's a little scary.
• Such a big helper. Knows how to pick up his toys and can throw his diapers away in the trash. He also can water the flowers all by himself. One evening his daddy and him were playing toys. I called them in for dinner and Jack came right away. However; Colton stayed behind and picked up all his toys before coming to dinner! I hope this trait sticks around forever!
• Adds an e to some of his words: "sun-e" instead of sun.
• Reminds us to pray before dinner. Sometimes we pray twice because he will stop us in the middle of dinner and say "Pway?" How can we resist? Starting to put his hands together and bow his head.
• LOVES his little "an-mals". He can identify a giraffe, lion, zebra, gorilla, hippo, snake, puppy, cat, bear, fish, horse, penguin, frog, cow and a few others. He can say most of them but we're still working on the sounds. Most everything says "roar" or "moo".
• Becoming a very good eater. However; I'm afraid we've created a monster with ranch dip. Our dr. told us to add butter or dip with everything since he needed to gain a little more weight. Now, Colton can barely have a meal without "dup" as he calls it.
• Oh, and the reason his shirt is off in several of these pictures is that he insists on not wearing a bib at meals lately. Thus, we end up shirtless!

We love you little man!

My Little Valentine

Happy Valentine's Everyone!

I've been informed that the grandparents are getting a bit anxious for more pictures on the blog so here are a few recent ones! Also, here's just a little bit of what we've been up to lately and why I haven't been a better blogger:

• Our house is officially on the market. We are hoping to move a little closer in to the city and our church, jobs and friends. We haven't started looking for a house yet since we want to see if we can actually sell our house. Prayers are welcome!
• My 1 year old camera will only take video not pictures :( I finally dug out my old digital camera and have been making do with that.
• Facebook (enough said)...
• Showers, showers and more showers to plan and host for sweet friends.

This is the only pic I got of Colton in his Valentine's shirt. This is at his school with one of his sweet afternoon teachers, Jessica. They got to meet "Charlie" the duck after their Valentine's party. Colton was very excited to see a real duck! I mean really excited. I thought he was going to hyperventilate. Of course I didn't have my camera when they first brought out the duck so I missed that precious moment - but it was so cute!

Colton - 1 year ago today...

Mommy and her lil' Valentine at the park! And yes, that's a lollipop in his hands. He stole it from me and I never got it back.

I don't know what this expression means - but I love it!

Colton loves to play peek-a-boo and cracks up because he thinks we can't see him when he covers his eyes.

The park pictures were taken by our friend and now realtor, Kate. She's done a great job helping us get our house ready!

IT'S A....

Boy! Colton is going to have a little brother! We are thrilled and so thankful for another healthy little boy. Everything looks good so far. He is 12 oz and about 8.5 inches. They are sticking with June 21st as a due date so I am about 20 weeks this week. He has been kicking up a storm so I know he's anxious to get out and play with Colton! I've been telling Colton about the baby in my tummy but he just kind of looks at me funny right now. He'll figure it out soon enough! In the meantime I bought him a little baby doll for him to practice being gentle with. He's been very loving and likes to share his pacifiers with it.

I tried to get Colton saying "Brother" on video, but he only says it off-camera! Colton is also saying "Hallelujah", "Mess" and "Sorry" these days. Usually the sorry follows the mess!

I'll try to get a few sonogram pictures and belly pictures posted soon. For now, enjoy a few pictures of the big brother!

A rare look at the parents of Colton.

Colton sitting at his "big boy" table.

He has a special affinity for our vacuum cleaner (only when its off, though).

Today is also special because it's Grandma and Grandad's anniversary. Here's Colton a year ago and...

here he is today! It took a while because I had to chase him around and get the camera back but once I offered him the baby for the camera he was ready to cooperate! Hope your day was really special Grandma and Grandad! We love you!

What's your vote???

Today's the day we find out if Colton will have a brother or sister! I am so excited to see our little miracle again on the sonogram - It's been 12 weeks since we've seen him/her.



Just for fun, I thought I'd post a little poll to see if what my blogging friends think? We have the sono at 3 pm so I'll post tonight what we found out! The poll is over to the right...

17 Months and Holding...

Colton is a week away from being 18 months so I thought I better write a few memories from his 17th month before it gets away from me! Colton continues to bring us SO much joy and is a flurry of activity from morning til night. Here he is standing in his new playroom! Papaw helped us build these nifty shelves from IKEA last week! Thanks, Papaw! Mommy likes it because everything finally has a place! We'll see how long it stays organized, but so far so good!

"Cooking with Colton" - While I was on the phone with Jack one evening, Colton grabbed his dinner plate (he was all done, thankfully) and a few items out of the tupperware cabinet and begin mixing up his own concoction! He loves to help cook!

Reading in his new Elmo chair from Bunny. Yes he does sit every once in a while.

And I haven't forgotten about Christmas. Here's a little taste of what's to come!

Things I want to remember about this sweet age:

• Vocabulary is growing daily. He is beginning to repeat/mimic whatever we say. New words include: play, read, books, outSIDE!!!, no-no (usually pointing at an outlet or something else off-limits), Na, na, na (his idea of singing), wa-wa, Lovey, cook, eat, milk, MINE (thanks to Cousin Wilkin), hot, Elmo, car, truck, boo, bird, dog, cat, slide, ready....
• Wants any adults in the room to NOT sit on the couch. He will come pull on our pants legs and give us a little nudge until we get on the floor with him.
• LOVES his Daddy! Any sound that sounds remotely similar to the garage door will warrant a flurry of Daddy, Daddy, Daddy... All through the day, he asks about Daddy and has just now began saying "Wok" (work) because I have to keep telling him that's where daddy is and he will be home soon! It's so fun to watch his whole body smile when his daddy comes home!
• Continues to love playing with his toys. He really can play for quite a while independently and loves putting his little people/animals in and out of the school bus, airplane or Ark.
• Likes to lick the bubble wand instead of blow and wants to do it all by himself!
• Loves to brush his teeth. (His version is actually sucking all the toothpaste off the brush and then throwing it down on the ground, but I figure it's better than nothing!)
• Says "Baby" when he wants to watch Praise Baby - He still loves those videos! Only thing besides books and eating he will sit still for.
• Loves to throw everything! We're working on only throwing balls after mom got a busted lip from a close encounter with a block!
• Loves to be outside!
• Knows when his books are upside down.
• Loves wrestling with Daddy!

We love you little man! You are our sunshine!

This is Colton not 5 minutes after I took his temperature and it read 102.6!!! He has been sick with Strep since Monday but you wouldn't know it! He's the happiest sick kiddo I've ever seen. We like to call this the "Crazy Dance" in our house :) Enjoy!

Big News...

Colton has some big news to share with you! He's going to be a BIG BROTHER this June. I've been meaning to post this forever. I am 17 weeks along and feeling great! We are so excited about this baby. We'll find out what we're having at the end of this month. I can't wait. Colton says "Baby" all the time, but he really has no idea what's in store for him.

Here's a little video of our man reading books and talking. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Here's our picture with Santa. No tears or screaming so I would say it was a success! We waited over an hour to see St. Nick and Colton was so good while we waited. It helped that the mall had a fish tank, play area and balloon-making clown near the line area. Very smart thinking on their part! Have a very Merry Christmas!

Congrats Zach again!!!

What's better than a brother graduating from fire/rescue school? A brother getting engaged to the sweetest, loveliest girl ever!!!

Yes - just over a week ago - Zach and April got engaged! I'm so excited April will be joining our family! Way to go you two!

16 & 17 months

So I'm a little behind on Colton's updates... 16 months has passed us by and now our boy is 17 months old... Here is a glimpse into life with the C-man!

Voracious reader like his mommy and daddy! Colton insists on reading by himself on the couch and also insists on having ALL of his books nearby.
Where is Colton? All bundled up on a cold day. This picture happens to be in the kitchen. Colton loves sitting up on the kitchen counter while I'm cooking or doing anything in the kitchen.
Colton "sliding" to Daddy. Colton invented this game all by himself. He smashed a diaper box and started calling it a slide. I thought it was pretty ingenious!
Colton built this tower all by himself too. He's getting so big!

Here are a few other things to remember about this age:

• Can signal a touchdown with both hands in the air.
• Saying elmo (melmo), outSIDE, see (which we think means paci), more, eat, mama (now says this over and over until I do whatever he wants), lights, ball, car, truck and lots more I can't remember right now.
• Signing more, please, all done, no and eat. Working on thank you, yes and milk.
• Telling himself "Ready, set, go" and then takes off running across the house.
• Clapping for himself when he does a good job.
• Blowing kisses.
• Giving sweet kisses and hugs complete with sound effects! So cute! You have to be careful because a kiss can quickly turn dangerous with scratching and hair pulling.

We love this little boy so much! Thank you God for giving him to us to love and raise. Please guide us as we parent him.

Videos coming soon...

Congrats Zach!

Zach graduated this past Friday after a long and grueling few months of training. He's now an official firefighter/paramedic for the Dallas Fire & Rescue! Way to Go Zach! We are so proud of you!

Colton got some new shoes a while back from Cousin Wilkin. They finally fit Colton and he could not stop looking at them. He loved the sound they made on the tile floor and apparently they help him jump and dance really well!

Piano Playing Cousins...Take 2!

Finally had a blogging burst again. There are multiple posts because Picasa only lets me do 4 pics at a time - but it's super fast.

Enjoy!

Halloween Night...

After trick or treating - Mommy and one tired little monkey!

Three little pumpkins sitting on a couch.

Jazmin and Colton enjoying the night stroll. They got out at one house but weren't too thrilled so they stayed in the stroller the rest of the evening. The candy came to them however; and they had a good hold on their treat baskets.

Having a little sampling through the wrappers :)

The crew!

Hold Please...

Too cool for school!

I've GOT A PHONE CALL!!!

Playing with Bunny's cool red phone.

So many teeth in that little mouth!

I'm listening...go ahead.

Call me anytime!