playground fun

This week Jamie and I took the kids to the playground to play. And these boys are too cute not to put pictures up. Colin loved having Benjamin follow him everywhere. Colin taught him how to climb the slide the wrong way. Only poor Benjamin couldn't get enough traction to really climb it himself. And thats not the only bad habit he taught Benjamin - he also taught him today what fun it is to jump on the bed. Lets hope Jamie lets us keep playing with them :) These boys are so cute and its so fun to watch them start to interact and play together. Colin loves having someone younger looking up to him.

me like worms

This weekend we built Brent's raised garden bed. Colin thinks its amazing and had so much fun helping dig up the dirt and get it ready. Along the way he found lots of nice squirmy worms. I was in the kitchen cleaning up lunch and turned around just in time to see Colin run in, open the freezer and try to stuff a handful of worms into the freezer to keep for later! Anyone want to come over for lunch? Just kidding. I found his bug home that Jeff and Kerri brought for him and we filled it up with dirt and it has tons of worms in it. So there are no worms in the house. He loves these worms and walks up and says "hi worms how you doing?" In fact today we were on a bike ride and he had to stop and get off his bike because he saw a worm on the pavement. It was squished and dead and he didn't understand why he couldn't take it home with the other worms. Colin cried the whole way home. "me sad for worm. Make happy in my home. Mommy worm waiting for baby worm. No squished. Worm fine" its hard to explain that the worm isn't ever going to move again to an almost 3 year old. But Brent's garden is finished and already has snow peas planted. Yum!Brent and Colin also planted a really pretty climbing vine I got to put next to our patio. Its suppossed to get pretty tall so will hopefully provide some some shade for us in the afternoons. I still have to mulch and have some other flowers to plant around it but that might have to wait for next weekend.

yard sales, blog books, firemen and new faucets

First because many of you have asked - I made my blog book through blurb.com. Great site. And very easy to work with. I made one for my brother and sister-in-law and also one for us. I was going to make them another one for Christmas this year but blurb stopped using blogger and there was such an outrage that they brought it back. SO excited about that. I thought it turned out very well and can't wait to work on my new one. The quality is great and the price isn't bad either. Much cheaper than scrapbooking. Now though I'm wondering - do I order two books for both boys since this is how I'm scrapbooking or just let them fight over which ones they want when they get older. Any suggestions?

In other news its now yard sale time. I have been to two really great ones. The first one I went to I got this ugly green sandbox :) We weren't going to get one for Colin since we live so close to the beach and go a lot in the summer. He just loves to dig in the sand there but after seeing our holes he made in our yard I was very excited to find this one really cheap. It rained and filled with water so Colin put on his swim suit and played in it. The he got wet and that brought a discussion on how we don't go naked outside since you turn around and this is what you sometimes see....

But now the sandbox is filled with sand and Colin is in it almost every day. And don't you just love our weeds instead of grass in those pictures. We're working on that and have big plans for our yard this summer. We want to put in a fence but just ordered new windows so the fence might have to wait a little bit. But brents garden is already started as we have lots of seeds started and hundreds of plants coming up already. This weekend we hope to get his garden laid out and raised beds started.... we will have to see if that all happens.

Colin is obsessed with firemen. He is a fireman every day all day now and really gets into it. Here he is looking at the map I made for him that shows where the fire is. He will answer the phone, look at the map, get his fire hat, coat, and boots on and then go fight the fire. Only he has gotten it into his head that he needs a REAL BIG fire truck. One you can drive on the street. I got a small garden hose out and attached it to his red car (one of those flinstones cars) for him to get in and drive all over the yard and driveway. I thought it was perfect only its not a real fire truck and his car can't be a fire truck - silly mommy. So all week I've heard him answer his phone. Say oh no fire. Have to save the people. Then get hat, coat, boots on and race to the front door. then sadly turn to me and go "mommy can't save the people - no have real fire truck and people are down the street" Even pretending or walking down the street doesn't work for him. But its OVER AND OVER. Phone rings, gets gear on, runs to the front door, then tells me he can't save the people. Poor people. Then a few minutes later he does the same thing again. I try not to laugh and think he's pretty smart. He thinks if he does this long enough i might feel sorry for the poor people in the fire down the street and go get him a real big fire truck. We're going to have to be on our toes for this one as he gets older!

And here are Brent and Colin installing a new faucet for our kitchen sink. Its so pretty and doesn't drip like our old yucky one. Colin used his new "bob the builder" tools that he got at a yard sale we went to with Jamie, Benjamin, and vera the baby that Jamie babysits. I got to see first hand what its like to go out in public with an active little boy and a baby! This yard sale we had to wait an hour to get in the door - anything you could possibly imagine for kids was there. I told Colin he could pick out a toy and he picked bob tools. It was perfect since he used them to help daddy this weekend and he sang the bob theme song over and over "working together to get the job done"

I want a pet

I know two posts in one day but Brent is outside with Colin and I'm going to start working on my blog book soon so I figured I'd get another entry in for this book. For the past few weeks Colin has been asking for a pet. And not just any pet - a pet rooster. Named Joey. And the reason - so the rooster will cockadoodle-doo and wake him up when the sun comes up. Colin has been sleeping a little later since the time change and it really bothers him that he's not up with the sun. We love it - he doesn't. Thus a rooster will solve his problem. Anyone know where we can get a stuffed rooster that crows for Colin's' birthday?

3 months left

As I was looking at the calender this week I realized that we only have 3 months left before our baby comes if the doctors have their way. Where has the time gone? Its going by so fast all of a sudden. My doctor has told me that they will induce me early if everything with the baby is fine or do a csection because of my labor with Colin. And labor with Colin wasn't bad at all in the beginning. When I went in for my checkup a week before his due date they realized he was getting really big and wanted to induce that night but there were no hospital beds (something about it being a full moon...) so they scheduled me to be induced Friday morning at 7am. Instead they stripped my membranes to get labor started and it worked. Thursday morning I started having contractions. We were in staff meeting and I didn't tell anyone because I wanted to pick my bible study girls for the next year:) By the time they got close together and very painful they stopped for a few hours. Then that night they started full force and what does Brent do - he goes out to cut the grass!!! It took an hour on that yard but he didn't want to leave it until we got back. Meanwhile I was so ready to go to the hospital :) And labor progressed pretty easily at the hospital. It was a lot more enjoyable than I thought and I wont go into all the details but he was born at 7:17am Friday morning. At 7am my doctor walked into my room and laughed that she didnt need to induce me. Also the head of labor and delivery stopped by since she came on at 7am and she stayed with me too. Thank goodness and shows how God was watching over us because as soon as he was born I was rushed to the OR to get tons of stitches. And being first time parents and not knowing anything Brent and I thought it was all normal. ha! I had two doctors working on me and I don't know how many nurses. One stayed by my head and just kept praying for me and talking to me. What a blessing she was. The whole time they kept commenting on how I was smiling so much! I was just so excited to see my baby. So three hours later I was wheeled back and could hold and just stare at my baby. And besides having a hard time walking for a while I healed pretty fast. So because of all of that my doctors now are worried about me going through labor again and making sure that doesn't happen. Which is good. They are going to try to avoid a csection since that is surgery but they wont know that until I guess i start going through labor. So I'm trying not to get my hopes up that this baby will be here early but if all goes like its seems he will be here in about 3 months. And I'm not scared about labor this time because God's hand was clearly on Colin and I last time and it really wasn't until my doctors now (I'm starting to see all the doctors in the practice now in case they are on call when I go to the hospital) seem to keep telling me that my labor wasn't normal that we have realized it wasn't. Ignorance is bliss sometimes :)

Colin keeps talking to the baby and loves feeling the baby kick. The other day we were standing in line somewhere and there was a father with his little girl and baby and the baby kept smiling at Colin and Colin's response to them was "my baby's coming out soon!" He can't wait so hopefully he'll keep loving the baby when he does come out.

uncle opie

This is a picture Colin drew of Pee-ta-pe,his Uncle Opie. I think he did a great job - the blue circle is his head and the orange lines are his arms. It even has glitter on it :) The purple and green dots are his eyes and mouth - Colin thought he'd make a "dilly" (which in colinese means silly) picture of his uncle. We may get around to mailing it to James but for now its hanging on his new art wall pictured below. Its been done for a while now I just keep forgetting to take pictures. I got so many ideas from everyone and have places all over the house where they will eventually show up (thanks and stay tuned to see your ideas on our walls!) But I went with the wire since when I went to order the magnet strips from Ikea it cost more to ship than to buy. So we'll just wait until we make a trip to Northern Va. I'm so proud since the curtain wire hangers were more than I was willing to spend, I went to Lowes and had wire cut to size and found the clips - total was $5. Its fun for Colin to hang his art work and also fun for us to look at. He is also proud of the fact he helped paint.

Here is a picture of Colin's bed. I made the bedspread and Colin from time to time ask me "you make this for me?" and love the fact that I say yes every time. It actually turned out much better than I thought. Its such a great bed for him - has huge drawers underneath. He doesn't really need the safety gate on his bed anymore but he stashes his flashlight and other toys between his bed and the white gate so he wont let us take it off. I should put more pictures of his room up too. He has such a large room which is great but to give you an idea - his bed is on one wall and his art wall is on the opposite wall. So uncle opie I hope you enjoy your portrait :)

weekend fun

We had a busy but fun filled weekend. Saturday was such a nice day we went to the Virginia Zoo in the morning. We decided to get the family pass so we can go as many times as we want and can also bring guests. Colin loved it and the best part for him was riding the train. The conductor was nice and came and talked to all the kids and even took this picture of us. We only made it to half the park that day. Colin was really interested in all the signs talking about the different animals. He's going to be one of those people who have to read everything when we go to museums! What a smart guy. We enjoyed it and can't wait to go back. They have story hour Tuesdays where they read books and bring an animal in for the kids so we might go soon. Its nice to live so close. Brent laughs that the minute we pulled up in the parking lot it was car after car getting their strollers out. Then while Brent went to watch George Mason play in their tournament game with some friends, my parents came over for dinner. Colin had a blast and loved the fact that they brought their glider for the baby's room (even though he has a rocking chair in his room)I was able to get a good picture of my mom and Colin reading his "new" books. (we went to our neighbors yard sale earlier in the day and got a bunch of fun books for Colin)

Sunday we went to Benjamin's 1st birthday party. Hard to believe he is one. The Burley's loaned Colin Tony's old truck which Colin calls his crane and had to put it to work. Although I'm pretty sure Benjamin will be wanting it soon :) Its so great since Colin loves to dig in the backyard and has his spot right now where he digs all the time. We're thinking a sandbox for his birthday might be a good idea :)

prayer request

This is NOT Colin but Eli, a friends little boy who is very sick. He is 4 and what started as an ear infection a little over a week ago ended up as a blood clot and also a sever infection. His family lives in Hungry and he has been in ICU there all week. His mom, Julie, went to college with Brent. He has had surgery to remove an infected bone I think in his ear and they are still trying to reduce the blood clot. He has thrombosis (I think thats how you spell it) Please pray for this little guy as he doesn't understand what is happening to him and is very scared. Also pray for his parents as they haven't sleep in over a week and are just emotionally drained. It also doesn't look like he will get out anytime soon from the hospital. Here is a link to their website so you can read more about Eli and be up to date on their prayer requests. http://www.zachandjules.blogspot.com/

70s one day... snow the next

This past weekend it went from being in the 70s Friday to snowing Monday. And this weekend we're hoping for 60s. We love this weather. On Friday Colin went outside first thing to play with his trucks and stayed out all day. And yes in his pj's. He LOVES wearing pjs all day every day. It embarrasses his father but I just have to laugh and take pictures to remind him later :)Then it rained all weekend and turned to snow Sunday night. This is all we got. Colin was so excited and took his bucket outside to gather enough snow to make a snowman and when he couldn't get any he promptly went back inside. Poor kid just wanted to make a snowman. Then today (Tuesday) I had to go to Newport News to stop by Bead Retreat so we went over to my grandparents house in Yorktown since they got more snow. It was amazing. Just across the water they got at least an inch. Colin was so excited and we built a small snowman and its baby.Then when we were all done this is what happened to the snowmen. Job well done!

what they dream

I have always wondered what Colin has been dreaming at times. He always used to smile and laugh in his sleep and now he mumbles things only his blankie can understand. There are still nights I can hear him laughing in his sleep. He also has nightmares too which is so sad as he can't separate reality with dreams. But last night Colin woke up whimpering so I went in, and got him back asleep and then went back to my bed only I could tell he was still upset and this time he woke up crying really hard. So back into his room. Usually he doesn't say what makes him so upset since he's half alseep most times. But this time he kept repeating "Me want green M&M's" and I said you can have green m&m's and he's still half asleep and yelled "momma said NO!!!! Me no want BLUE m&M's." And an hour and a half later I finally got him back asleep. I tried not to laugh when he kept repeating it and its honestly easier to get him back asleep when he has dreams about lions after him but not getting green m&m's is pretty awful :) For breakfast he got green m&m's with his cereal.

no privacy

We have made some progress on the potty training lately but really Colin just isn't interested. He knows exactly when he needs to go and tells me when he's peeing in his pullup, or diaper and big boy pants but unless he's really focused on it he just doesn't care. I guess for him there are better things to be doing and going potty slows him down. So I'm trying to be patient and we work every day on it. One of these days he'll just start going but until then he is in charge and he knows it. But since we've been working on it I have no privacy when I have to go to the bathroom. Here is a look into my day:

Me: Colin Do you have to go potty?
Colin: nope
Me: well I'm going to go potty (i go so much now with this baby bouncing on my bladder sometimes Colin rolls his eyes and gives me a look like really? Do you have to go again? you just went!)
Colin: Me come too - Me like to watch
Me: Ok but then you're next
Colin: oooo Momma - pee-peeing or poo-pooing? (to which i have to give an answer)
Colin dancing and yelling pee-peeing or poo-pooing or some song with those words he made up
Colin: don't forget to wipe
Colin: Let me see (when I'm all done he has to inspect the toilet)
Colin: Me flush - yea momma! Bye bye pee-pee
Me: Ok Colin now its your turn.
Colin: nope and runs into the other room to continue playing with what he was playing with before

haha sometimes I'd like my privacy but I just have to laugh during these times. Its especially funny to go into a public restroom and having him do the same thing and hear other women in the restroom giggling at our conversation.

flooding the sink

Last week I brought out Colin's water table and let him play in it since the weather was so nice. Today was cold and dreary so I wouldn't let Colin play with his water table. Instead I put a little water in the sink and let him float his boats and fish in there to play while I made dinner. Well I turned around and I saw the sink almost overflowing. (the first picture - the camera was right next to me so I was able to catch his expression when I noticed the flooding) So since he wasn't allowed to have any more water he decided to splash and make bubbles. (I hadn't told him not to splash - which resulted in the bottom picture when I felt some water hit me) Life is never boring here. He helped me mop the floor afterwards and that was almost as fun for him... I should just give him the mop next time.

Its a....

BOY! We found out today and are very excited. The noise level in our house has just increased. haha The baby had the hiccups which were cute to see on the ultrasound and Colin's favorite part was seeing the heart beat - "up down up down" as he kept calling it. Everything looked fine. And we were even able to get one of those 3D pictures and he had his hands around his face like he was praying. From what we can see he looks like he has the same nose as Colin. This baby boy LOVES to kick and is very active - almost more active than Colin which is amazing since even as a baby Colin never wanted to be still. And if he is MORE active than Colin we're in trouble! But the sweetest thing for me is that he kicks the most when Colin is cuddled up next to me talking. Almost like he knows his big brother is right there. Colin is still in love with the baby and loves to pretend his lego men are the baby and big brother and the big brother always has to find the baby. Although the other day Colin dragged me to his room and told me he had made me food in his play kitchen. He opened up the oven and there was my baby doll cooking and Colin told me to eat it. haha yuck and lets hope he doesn't try that with the real baby. But we are very excited about our new little boy and can't wait until he is born. Or as Colin tells him almost every day "baby come out and play now!"

A light dusting

Yesterday when Brent went to work (he leaves the house a little after 6am Monday mornings) he came back in to tell me we had gotten some snow. A light dusting. I'm not sure what the official measurements were but it was just a little snow. As soon as Colin woke up I had him dressed and outside within minutes so he could play in it before it all melted. He was so excited about the snow and ran around the back to make a snowman. (our front yard has a huge tree which caused NO snow to fall underneath it) But it was the crunchy snow so you couldn't even gather any of it up to make even the tiniest of snowman. Colin's response to not being able to make a snow man was"aww man - go back inside momma" The snow melted less than an hour later. It might be the only snow we get here but at least he got to see snow.

Our week in Pictures

Meal times are very entertaining when you get stories told like this
Monday it was in the 60s so we went outside to play in the afternoon. This is right before Colin made a huge mud puddle in the back yard to splash in. Messy but very fun to watch. We spent Monday morning playing with Jamie and Benjamin and that night Colin thanked Jesus for Benjamin, the baby, and cookies and dogs who eat cookies and lick his toes. (Jamie made cookies and her dogs liked the fact that Colin was willing to share) It was such a sweet prayer. A few days later it snowed. The flurries lasted about 15 minutes but we went outside anyways to play in it. Then came back in and I put rice into this pan and let Colin take his trucks and play in it. He loved it. And for those who remember his obsession with putting things in a lines... take a look at his trucks.Since the snow didn't last we made snowmen pictures later. This is Colin's version. He cut the hat, orange nose and cut the length of the scarf. And then glued all the pieces together. I think its wonderful! The next morning I decided to put shaving cream on the table and pretend that was snow (I would love snow once this year) and thought it would be fun. But look at his face. He complained that it was "TOO MESSY" and wouldn't do it. This after a few days ago of jumping in mud puddles. Oh well.Brent and Colin put on a play for me at the playground. Sunday after church we went to the beach as it got to be 75 degrees here. Its so nice to live so close. Colin played in the sand and on the playground they have right on the beach. He even shared his sand toys with everyone. He played so hard he was asleep 5 minutes after we got home. And this is a project yet to come. We spent Sunday afternoon working on his room. I got so many wonderful ideas from everyone on how to display Colin's artwork - so check back soon for the finished result. Its a work in progress but once its done I hope it looks as good as it does in my head. (just a hint - it involves the color GREEN which Colin is very proud of)

George Mason Basketball

We love the George Mason/ ODU game. We have gone the past two years and the alumni association is amazing. The GMU alum reserve box seats and not only give us tickets at a cheaper rate but they feed us some really yummy food. Good food, basketball, great seats - couldn't ask for anything better. Except for a better outcome. Each year our team loses but this year was so close. It came down to the last shot and was the most exciting basketball game I've ever been to. Poor Brent was so disappointed. Colin wasn't sure who to cheer for as we told him we were going to go see his "green team" that he watches at home and this week they wore yellow. oops... but he soon figured it out. But he also loved to cheer with the ODU fans too as it was most of the stadium. He thought it was great to yell and clap and jump up and down. Brent and Toby - they both went to GMU together and we're glad that Toby lives near us now!We took Colin with us and he had a great time. I think he might have eaten about 4 cookies that night :) but they were good. My sister Sarah came down for the game and made it even more fun. She took Colin down to see the ODU lion - or monarch i guess they call it. Colin used to be scared of lions. For the past few weeks he had been going to bed with flashlights so the lions don't bite him and even set out his stuffed animals as 'bait'. I have NO idea where this all came from but when he saw the lion at the game he was a little afraid and always had to know where it was. Then he saw other kids going up to the lion and wanted to go down and say hi. So his beloved Ant Ant took him down (we figured since Brent and I were wearing GMU gear she would have more of a chance at getting close to the ODU mascot) Colin was able to give the lion a high five and get his picture taken with Ant Ant. He later said to me "momma lions no bite - nice now" and has since stopped waking me up in the middle of the night clutching his flashlight in fear of the lion who would bite him. Thank you ant ant for helping him get over his fear. She also got him to go potty that whole day (we're on a potty strike at the moment) Anyone want to hire her? We had a great time and for all you GMU alum who are reading this please come visit next year - it just gets better every year!