who pushes who?

Its much easier to be the one pushing. Colin now thinks that this red car is mine while he is in his other car and its so hard for me to push myself around while holding onto the steering wheel like Colin wants and honking the horn at the appropriate times. He is becoming quite the backseat driver as he loves to look at the stoplights and tell me what color they are. Red = GOP with arms extended in front of him (which mean stop), yellow = slow down, and green (or as he says geeen) = go go go! One day I made a right hand turn on a red and he was so upset because I was supposed to stop. With his love of cars and trucks its a good thing he's learning the rules of the road early.

Little builders

Today Colin and I took a break from unpacking and went the the Virginia beach aquarium. I had never been but had seen an advertisement for an exhibit they have called Little Builders. It was a dream come true for colin. He got to wear a hard hat and orange vest and then move cranes around and play with trucks. He figured out how to move the crane pretty fast. You have to use your arms and use those levers to move the crane up and down but then you use your feet on these bicycle pedals to move the crane around in circles. (A 9 year old couldn't figure it out - but Colin could) We didn't get to see much of the museum as he stayed in with the trucks all morning. It was really fun and Colin absolutely loved it.

such a boy!

Lately every time Colin poops in his diaper, the only way you can get him to agree to change it is if you say "lets go see how big it is" and you have to made a big deal about it being HUGE! He loves it and gets so proud.

colin stories

So pictures will come and more updates on the house. We just bought our couch today which will come friday and then pretty much we're living out of boxes still. Poor colin loves order and everything in its place so its driving him crazy but each day we get a little more settled. We have met most of the people on our street and aparently Ed the guy who met us first has told everyone about us, where we're from, what we do... etc. pretty much going door to door telling people what he knows about the new neighbors. Its interesting living on a street where most people have been there for at least 30 years and seem to have taken it upon themselves to watch over us "young folk". There is a couple next door who just moved in a year ago and they are our age so thats been fun. It is feeling a little more like home only Colin still corrects me about going "to the house" not home. He used to cry in the mornings asking me to take him home - with bapa and ma-ma and nana but that has stopped this week.

Colin has been doing some really funny things lately. First he goes around telling me "dada mess" since Brent went up in the attic and fell through the ceiling. Good thing he was ok and it was over the garage. But it did make a huge mess. He also has a few new words he likes to use. "next" is one. He learned that at the pool since he was "next" to go up the ladder. Since then his trucks are next, the man (his little lego people) are next to drive the truck. Dada is next to play. This particular game was to run and jump on some pillows after dinner. Only dada was always Next. so brent had to keep running and jumping on the pillows with a full stomach. Poor dada! colin thought it was the best game ever. He also likes the word "nice". we cut the grass and he told me "mama - nice" while pointing to the freshly mowed lawn. He was also praying last night at bedtime (he LOVES to pray over his meals which means only he and GOd know what he's saying. It is not uncommon to have him pray and tell us "people" to close our eyes and let him pray several times during the meal) but last night he wanted to pray at bedtime. So he prays for at least a good 5 minutes. Its mostly babbling but i could make out "house". 'ba-pache" (his name for trucks) and then all of a sudden he prays for "foot - NICE" he thanked God for nice feet. haha! I have also discovered how to make him use the potty - FROZEN dark chocolate peanut m&m's. He didnt want to go for about a month now but since we moved its a new novelty I guess. But everytime the freezer is open he runs to the potty so he can get his two (Doo as he says) m&M's. We'll see if this time it works. There are more funny stories but for now we are off to bed. But before we do we'll make sure to thank God for our nice feet!

house not home

Well we are all moved in - although I think it will take us a long time to unpack. Colin loves his room and spends a lot of time playing in it. When people came last night to help unload the truck he yelled "everybody - room" and ran back to show them HIS room. it was really cute. Its slightly bigger than our room (and yes Brent measured!) Perfect for a little boy to run around. It was a busy weekend. On Saturday my mom, Sarah, Colin and I came down and painted the kitchen and Colin's bedroom. Colin was a great help as he painted both my legs blue and for some reason it hasn't scrubbed off very well as I still have blue paint on my legs 4 days later. And then on Sunday my parents, Mary, Brent and I brought most of our stuff from my parents house and then got our beds, table and couch out of storage. What a huge help. And poor Mary got into an accident on the bridge/tunnel on the way home. So scary but at least she was ok only her truck is totaled. Sorry mary! Then some friends helped us get the rest of our stuff last night (and most of it is in the garage right now) Colin started having nightmares around Thursday night and then every night and nap time until we moved in on Sunday. But since we moved in and started sleeping here those have stopped thankfully. Poor guy is so confused. He keeps asking me when are we going to go home. This is our house - not our home. Our home is with grandma and grandpa he keeps saying. He has also told me every time we eat where everyone in the family is going to sit around our table. Its definitely a lot different with just the three of us now. Colin misses everyone - especially after his nap when he and I used to start waiting for everyone to come home. Colin would wait for my dad to come home and then play a chasing/teasing game over his blankie. And then my mom would come home and then Brent. Now its just Brent! But it is nice having Brent home more in the mornings and evenings now that he doesn't have to do that long drive. We are enjoying our house. The neighborhood is great and fun to walk around. Colin and I walked to the lake and two different playgrounds yesterday and then went to the pool. We have had numerous neighbors stop to introduce themselves and tell us about the neighborhood. We've even gotten a plate of homemade cookies. It took us two years in west Virginia to meet most of our neighbors. I think most of the street was washing cars this weekend or doing yard work to get a look at the new neighbors. We will post pictures soon once we get our camera working (I've dropped it too many times) and also once we get some of the boxes out of the way :)

Today is the day

Today is the day we close on our house. We have a walk through at 11 and then sign the mountain of paper work at 12. More pictures to come!

Colin's second haircut

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Colin was getting a little rats nest in the back of his curly hair so this past weekend we tried to trim his curls. It wasn't an easy task but it did turn out well. I don't have any pictures of what his hair looked like at the end but he is very cute and looks a lot older. But I didn't cut all his curls off as his hair somehow curls up more now. I'm always scared each time I cut his baby curls (and granted he has only had 2 very minimal hair cuts) but I think for now his hair will have some curl in it which I hope never changes.

Oh and ba-pa took these pictures. Squinty face has a name - aka grandpa. But he has now been named ba-pa! Almost as cute as squinty face

High!

my boy is growing up

This past Friday I took Colin in for his 2 year check up. He barely gained any weight this year and weighs 26lbs (just barely) and is just shy of 36inches. Which is pretty amazing since at 8 weeks he weighted 12lbs. So he is extremely tall for his age but very skinny. He is not even in the 25% for weight and over the 75% for height. Which means the basketball scholarship is looking great right now! he loves to go "plain" which means no shirt - or no shoes. "Colin do you want to put your shoes on?" "no PLAIN" so getting dressed is interesting sometimes. He also started calling me mom - MOM. I figured mama would lead into mommy and then when he got too cool to call me mommy it would turn into mom - maybe in 5th or 6th grade maybe. But nope he's already started calling me mom. Its sad watching him grow up. But fun at the same time too. yesterday we made a fort out of the couch cushions and played it in forever. We also just got back from Busch Gardens. He kept asking about the train so he slept until 8am - AMAZING since this is the kid who wakes up at 5 or 6 most mornings. So to celebrate and also get more time in at Busch we went this morning. Along with everyone else it seemed. It took us forever to get into the park but once we were there we didn't have to wait long on the kid rides. He's getting so big too since at the beginning of the summer he didn't want to ride any of the kiddie rides. Today he rode a few. And so proud of himself. Some of them I could ride with him but he really liked riding the ones by himself. ME is what he kept saying telling me he wanted to ride some by himself. We rode the train but they stopped halfway and said it would be delayed for them to get some emergency vehicles into the park so we got off and rode the skyride instead. Here is Colin riding the bug ride and the picture below is on the skyride. He is now sleeping and I think I'm going to go nap too. Its much easier to go to Busch Gardens with Brent with us. Hopefully next time he can come too! Colin already picked where he wanted Dada (Brents still dada - no fair!) to sit on the skyride.

4th of July weekend

This past weekend we went to the farm for our long 4th of July weekend. Brent, Colin and I drove up Thursday afternoon and here is a picture of Brent relaxing under the shade. Sarah joined us Friday and our friend Regis (or re re as Colin calls him) came up Saturday. (my grandparents were there the whole time too) Colin loved watching the parade. Its a small town so it was mostly firetrucks and tractors. What more could a little boy ask for. He also got candy when they threw some out and thought that was pretty cool. Colin ran around everywhere and spent Monday when we got back just lying around. His little legs were so tired! He loved picking the blueberries and sitting on all the tractors. Sarah and Colin have a new game where they run around aimlessly with their hands in the air screaming and they got Regis to do it too. I have some great videos of that!

Colin loves to "GuMP" = JUMP and here he is jumping with dada and re re

Here is my grandpa setting off firecrackers

"Colin, do you want to help Aunt Sarah pick some flowers?"
Yep!
"who do you want to give the flowers to?"
MAMA!!

Dangerous with the water guns!

Swinging with dada

Picking blueberries

We had such a great time as always at the farm. There really is nothing like relaxing away in the country. One of the highlights was enjoying the porches while it thunderstormed. For some reason whenever it rains at the farm.... it always thunders and lightenings. Nothing like it. A hike down to the creek and "old mill" is always a must as we "introduced" Regis to it as well. (Only sarah, brent and Regis... I stayed home with Colin)The name of the woods is poison ivy!!! ha We all got a little bit of that!

good news!

At Water Country

So right now when I got on the computer, Colin is sitting next to me pulling out the dvds, trying to look at them through my sunglasses (upside down) that he insists on wearing (yesterday I accidentally put his on so he now thinks he should wear mine) but he is going "think think think" to himself until he finds one he likes, talking to himself the whole time as if to convince himself what he wants to watch. Unfortunately for him its almost nap time so he wont get to watch any video right now... sorry kiddo!

But we have GREAT NEWS!!!!! we just bought a house. Well, nothing is finalized until the closing - July 24th - but its a cute little ranch house that is just perfect for us. It has a huge yard which is why we wanted it in the first place. Brent is already planning his huge garden for next year. Colin thinks its great because one of the rooms had a drum set and I'm sure when we move in he'll be disappointed the drum set is gone. He already says his room is the drums :) The neighborhood is great - that was also a huge selling point for the house (and also its on our low end of what we wanted to spend - even better!) I'm sure we'll put up more about the house but for now its off to put Colin down for a nap.

Yum Yum= Ice Cream. Whenever Colin asks for yum yum you know its for ice cream.... Pretty appropriate we think

SEASON'S PASS!

So this is a rare "Brent" post so I hope you enjoy. Abigail, Colin, and I are very excited this summer because Aunt Mary got us all season's passes to Busch Gardens/Water Country. We only live about 15 minutes from both so its a great thing to do on weekends, or even for a date night! We had a great time even though we rode ZERO roller coasters. Yes, it is a sad fact, but when you have a 2 year old with you its reality. It's okay cause we went to my favorite spot to eat, DA FESTHAUS (I took liberations with the spelling!) The chicken dinner with German potato salad is amazing.... I get it every time.

Anyways, Colin had a great time too. His favorite part was riding the train. We rode the train...once, twice, three times... okay four! He loved to hear the train noises, steer the pretend wheel, and pump his fist in the air. His other favorite part was running around the small water park they had in his diaper. For some reason he's into squeeling right now, so here I am following after my son as he turns a corner, racing by moms squeeling at the top of his lungs. Little to say there was much laughter from oncoming parents.


So we want to give a big thanks to Mary as we will be enjoying Busch Gardens many more times this summer.... and of course riding the train. The day ended with us riding the shuttle back to our car. It was about 3:30 and it was mostly older people and families with kids. The conductor in the back says on his microphone, "did everyone have a great time today?" There is mostly silence, then he says a second later, "everyone must be tired and ready to be home." I'm sitting there thinking, yes thats a true statement. A sure sign i'm getting old!

Here is my FAVORITE picture of the day. We were sitting on the benches waiting for the train, when all of the sudden it comes around the corner. As you can see Abigail is much more excited than Colin to see the train! She was fixing her hair and it all became one big motion!

Little Gymnast

Yesterday Colin and I had our last gymnastics class. We both had a lot of fun going each week. Colin started to really love it and was very good at almost everything. His favorite is the balance beam (he loves to do the flamingo pose and also somersaults on it) but he LOVED it when they brought out the tunnels for them to play in. It was a lot of fun and here are a few pictures of Colin doing some of the stunts he learned.

proud moment

This morning Colin PEED ON THE POTTY! (can you tell I'm very excited about it) We haven't made too much of an issue of potty training as we are looking to move sometime this summer. But we did buy a potty chair and Colin has maybe sat on it about 10 times in the past few weeks for a second or so. I wasn't pushing it but he went this morning. He is so proud of himself. Its really cute. I gave him a piece of chocolate and told him if he poops he gets two pieces. So he ran back to the potty chair and tried to poop. This might be easier than I thought. But he hasn't wanted to go since. So we will see. But I'm very proud of him. Colin and Brent love to watch Emeril each night.

beach bum

busy week

Colin and I have had a busy week. On Sunday we went to va beach to look at homes (we did put an offer on one but didn't get the house) and then we went to a cookout for James and Angela as they are leaving for CA in a few weeks. Colin LOVED AJ's pool (as he calls it). He wasn't sure at first but then once the dogs went swimming in the pool he thought it wasn't so bad. As you can see he really loved it. We're going to have to check out our neighborhood pool now that its open full time.

Then on Tuesday Colin and I went with my grandma up to the farm. We got back last night. Colin is an outdoors kid and loved being outside. (which is why we need a decent yard for him to play around in). He picked raspberries and ate all of them so we couldn't bring any home. But we cut grass and worked in the garden. Colin also brought his lawnmower and cut grass along side of us. He started calling my grandma ooo-eeee (which i think we will encourage - haha its really cute - its a combination of Howard and Ethel but now its just for grandma) He loved playing with the trucks that used to be uncle jeff's and even got to see some trucks in person as our distant cousins are building a house on their farm down the road. Very exciting for Colin. Sarah came up for dinner one night so we had ooo-eee and ah ah (thats for aunt Sarah) just need a ting tang and a walla walla bing bang. haha! We love the farm and are going back for our long fourth of July weekend.

buying a house the second time....

The first time we bought a house we looked at it and fell in love with the house right away. We didn't really pay attention to the neighborhood or anything like that. And our house was nice... the neighborhood while safe needed some tlc. And also not one I could take colin for walks on as the streets were very narrow. This time around we are putting a lot more things into consideration. Which I guess is good but means that we still don't have a house. Brent and I have looked at I think 50 homes now in person and hundreds more online. Thank goodness for google maps because I can see the neighborhoods online and map out if we can go on bike rides or walks through the neighborhood - things like that. Colin makes things a little more difficult because we want a safe neighborhood for him to play in and also good schools in case where're still here in 3 years. It seems we can either get the house we really want with no yard or no privacy (you look into 6 other homes) or a nice yard but a smaller house than we want. We have passed up on two really nice homes. The first we almost put an offer and went back and walked the neighborhood but just didn't feel that was the house for us. The second house we put in a full price offer and asked them to pay half the closing costs and they didn't accept our offer and we didn't want to counter offer or want to accept their counter offer. The house was amazing but the yard tiny tiny. Both times the Lord has kept us from buying these homes and we dont regret it. We're just very tired of thinking about it and looking at homes. We know the Lord didn't make our house take a year to sell for us to get a house we're not in love with down here but we're getting tired of waiting. So hopefully we will find our house soon. I'm sure we're the pickiest buyers our agent is working with but he's very patient and is always ready to take us out.

A few days ago Colin and I were at the playground and he sat on the steps and wanted me to run through the playground and then go down the slide. I guess Momma makes a funny picture trying to slide down a slide meant for little kids. But I told him we had to go home in a few minutes and he told me "one more" while holding up 1 finger. I think I tell him that a lot because now he tells me "one more" if we are at the playground so he can go down the slide again, or "one more" cookie (his favorite), "one more" if he is throwing rocks in the river, "one more" drink or he uses it pretty much for everything. and he's so cute doing it I usually give in (except for the cookie part) and let him tell me one more a few times until we're done. I have to say "last one" now so he knows we're going home or doing something different. So anyways I said Ok and went down the slide one more time. Well, as I'm halfway down the slide I see him take off running in the opposite direction looking back at me and laughing all the way! And he's fast. He had it planned the whole time. I guess he figured it gave him a few more minutes at the playground. I caught up with him and he was still laughing at his "trick" the whole walk home.

Today we went on a walk to find trucks. Colin LOVES his trucks and gets so excited when he sees one in real life that we follow the garbage truck around every Thursday. We have to wait for him to come around and then we follow it around the block. But they are paving a road a few streets over and we have been going to check on the progress almost every day. Whatever they are doing it seems to take at least 20 trucks and at least 8 or 9 different types. We watched them for an hour today until Momma got hot :) Colin could've watched them all day. But there were some trucks parked on the side and Colin started yelling "man"... "Man"... "MAN!!!!" (louder each time) and tried to get the attention of the construction workers (which he calls man) and then very expressively pointed the the unused trucks. Most of the workers just waved back - not knowing what he was trying to get them to do. Which made Colin just try harder. It was really funny - a little embarrassing for me and frustrating for Colin since they didn't listen but toward the end one of the trucks were used so Colin was happy.