Goodbye September

September was a good, busy month for us. Colten and I went to New York for Labor Day weekend with Val, B, GP, and my mom & dad. We had a wonderful time visiting with my dad's family. They were in LOVE with Brooklyn, Colten, and Gavin. The youngest few in their families are 15 years old, so babies are very fascinating to them :) Unfortunately, the drive home was pure terror. 12 hours long due to traffic & stopping to eat/nurse/use the bathroom.. and Brooklyn and Colten cried at least half of the time. I thought I might die on that drive.. if I didn't kill one of the babies first. Yikes.

Yay, daddy is home!! Andrew had TWO trade shows this month, along with a few other work meetings on top of his normal, super busy work schedule. We missed having him around.. I know we only have one baby, but being alone is the worst. I get nervous when Andrew is gone & lock me and Colten in our bedroom at night so no one can kill us. I'm a little crazy, I know...

                                                                        



 Colty and I go to the park at least 3 days a week while babysitting.. sometimes we go five days!! It's 100 times easier to watch 2 children for a long period of time if we get out of the house and hit up the playground. We have 2 really nice playgrounds within a half a mile of our house, so we're really lucky. Colten actually enjoys the swing now which is cute!

We finally got most of our place painted, and it's 90% decorated. We haven't painted Colten's room yet, but we did get his crib put together. This was his first (and last) night in the crib. Ha! He sleeps in a nap nanny & loves it, so for now I'm sticking to that. He still sleeps terribly at night for a 4 month old. A great night is when he only wakes up twice.. it never gets better than that. Sometimes, he's still up 5 times. He wants to eat, and I am not all about that. So, last night we tried rice cereal for the first time. He loved that stuff and was really good at swallowing it, but he had an absolutely terrible nights sleep. Praying tonight is better!

Yes, he is on the counter in a bumbo seat.. don't judge :P I didn't leave his side, so he was safe!

 Aside from the last 3 days (he got his immunizations on thursday) and from the 4 days after I ate an entire container of Ben & Jerry's (C has a milk allergy/sensitivity.. I don't eat any dairy.. other than that blessed day), Colten is such a joy. He laughs and laughs and laughs all the time. We love every bit of our 17 lb boy :) Woot woot, my birthday month is here!! Time to celebrate!

PS- I STILL WANT ANOTHER BABY. (pretty please, babe???)

PPS- Can you believe I actually went to the beach at 41 weeks?!?! I was a massive whale!!! Hahaha!

Baby hungry..?

Recently, I have been feeling a bit baby hungry. Colten is almost 4 months old & I LOVE this age. I love the giggles, raspberries, and constant talking. I keep thinking that he needs a little sister.. I mean, if I got pregnant now he'd be WALKING already when baby #2 comes along! Andrew is trying to keep my sane & reminds me often of how much I hated being pregnant (& how terrible it was having a cray cray wife :P). He definitely is right about that one.. maybe I can wait... 9 more months?

Watching a little Nemo with Juliet :)

Colten and I did another overnight at Juliet's house last weekend. We had a great time! We went to 2 parks, watched some Nemo, went for a nice walk, and played lots with Juliet's Finding Nemo toys. The weather was perfect & both kids were great :)

Here are a few pictures from yesterday morning. When Colten wakes up around 7am, I feed him in bed and he usually falls back asleep for 2-3 hours in our bed. Yesterday he decided it was much more fun to stare at and talk to daddy. He was babbling loudly for at least 20 minutes before Andrew noticed. Colten even whacked him in the face a few times, and Andrew slept through it :P I love my boys.. even though one wakes me up a ton at night & the other just sleeps right through it <3

3 months

Our big boy is 3 months old!! This last month has definitely been my favorite yet. Colten is ticklish. He laughs alllll the time. He coos when he wakes up (or screams, lol), and then he smiles at me when I go to get him after he's awake. He rarely screams in the car anymore. Hallelujah!! He chews on his hands constantly. He loves the stroller. He LOVES the swing. He falls asleep on his own at night. He's the bomb baby. He does still get up A LOT at night. He usually eats twice & falls back asleep on his own once or twice. Thankfully, he goes to bed at 8 and isn't up for good until at least 9.. so I get to sleep in the days we're not getting up early to babysit.

His head is so hard to hold up in his bouncer! He's still a bit too small for it, but he still enjoys it.

We took him to the park and put him in the swing for the first time. He didn't care much about it.. but look how little it makes him look!! He is far from little, however. A week before he turned 3 months, he weighed 15 lbs 11 ozs (95%) and was 24.75 inches long(85%)! He's biiiiig... and adorable :)

Val and I took Gavin Parker, Brooklyn, Gavin Dominic (we actually met another Gavin when we were there :)), and Colten to the Salisbury Zoo last week. The zoo is small, but it has an awesome park outside of it. G & G played well together & had a lot of fun. It was a nice day trip out of the house.

Colten loves water! We have spent many hours at the pool this summer while babysitting Gavin & Colten really enjoys being in the pool. He also loves bath time & doesn't mind the rain. That reminds me of 2 nights ago. I decided to go for a walk with Colten even though the sky was grey in the distance. There's ALWAYS a thunderstorm warning in the evenings during the summer, so I figured it was another fluke. Well, when we were 1/2 mile away it began to POUR. And I mean poor. I started to run, but my shorts were so wet that they started falling down. I stepped in puddles deeper than my ankles. I was laughing as we passed many people out on their porches watching the intense downpour. Colten smiled the whole way home... and when I went to take him out of his stroller once we were on the porch, he started laughing. It was a very fun experience ;) Thankfully, Colty didn't mind..

Brooklyn at 5 months & Colty at 3 :)

Photoshoot & 2 months

These are our VERY favorites from Colten's photoshoot with Jenna Walcott last month. He was a pretty cranky, wiggly baby, but Jenna managed to capture our sweet boy, regardless. I love them. I love him.

I'm so glad we will have these pictures to display in our home forever :)

This is Colten at 2 months! He is a BIG, alert boy. He loves:
-Ceiling fans
-Chewing on his fist
-The Swing
-Trying new food (cotton candy, bbq sauce, etc. {haha})
-Cooing and making sounds
-Playing with his tongue
-Having his feet played with
-Dancing & singing songs

Colten is such a sweet boy. We are on the go a lot, and he handles it very well... except for being in the car. Our car rides are filled with lots of screaming, binky shoving, and then finally with sleep. Hoping he grows out of that soon :)

Family

I really don't have words to describe how amazingly special our beach reunions are every 2 years. We have been blessed with the best family in the entire world. These pictures can only show you pieces of our happy week, but they give you an idea of how much fun we have when all 41 of us are together.

Aren't they beautiful?

<3