babbling boy

Colin has turned into quite the talker. He now says dada sometimes when he sees Brent. (of course mama is also his favorite word) He has perfected what we call his "pteradactyl scream." Whenever he gets really excited his does his little yell over and over while flapping his arms. Its very entertaining. Today he did it to everyone we passed while grocery shopping. He also says other unidentifiable words that we wish we could understand because they are repeated several times a day.

They say only parents can understand what their kids are saying, well we don't fall into that category yet! It's only a matter of time! ha

a winter wonderland

Old man winter has finally hit Morgantown. I think it is still snowing as I write this. We woke up Sunday to go to church and had a couple inches of snow on the ground and being from Virginia where everything shuts down with a dusting, we decided to stay home. Everyone else we knew drove to church. I guess we'll have to learn to drive in the snow. Later that afternoon we took Colin outside. The poor boy had at least 4 layers of clothes on and could barely move. (remember the kid in A Christmas Story whose arms just sayed up- that was Colin) He wasn't sure about all the snow and plopped right down in it at first but his favorite thing was to eat the snow. I'm sure its just a matter of time before he learns to love it!


Another great(scary)scene from A Christmas story is when that one boy gets his tongue stuck on the pole! OUCH!!!!! That will NEVER be Colin. HA

Go Back to Sleep!

So here is a short story but a sweet one. The other night I was heading to bed from putting Colin back to sleep (yes, a theme that doesn't seem to be going away). I slowly get back in bed when Abigail rolls over on her back. She says in a low voice, "Colin is spitting all over me!" I then sit up a little bit awaiting another great one-liner from a sleep deprived mom. "Wipe his mouth, WIPE HIS MOUTH!" I begin to laugh under my breath wondering how to respond. Now minutes after responding to her, I just lay there trying to think of what I "should" have said to her. Basically I said what any good natured husband would say. "Okay sweetie, now go back to bed." But what I "could" have said would have been something like, "oh my gosh there's spit EVERYWHERE! Babe, get out of bed, we're all soaking wet. What are we going to do!" haha

But alas, I was not thinking when I replied to her, and the funny story ends there when it could have been even better.

My new friends

I caught this picture the other day as Colin was discussing something very important to his new friends Bambi and Dumbo. (which Bambi is a very sad movie for children to watch. I think we may have to hold off on that movie until he's 18!) But I wish we knew what he was telling them. He now has long conversations with us which usually consists of grunts, squeals and mama and dadadadad mixed in between. His new thing is to go mummmm when he eats.... only when he likes the food. If he doesnt he will whine and complain really loud to show he doesn't like the food. Meal times can be very entertaining at our house now.

Colins other favorite!

We didnt forget Colin's other favorite aunt... Here he is with Aunt Angela and AJ... he's a little blury since he always gets really excited when he see's dogs. Colin keeps asking for Aunt Angela and Uncle Opie to come visit Morgantown, and to bring that dog of theirs!

Sista-s and Colin

This is just such a sweet little pic. I know, i'm becoming a sentimental in my old.. uh ummm young age, but isn't this a great pic of Colin surrounded by him mom and 2 favorite aunties!!!!!!!

growing up so fast!

Now that Colin has mastered crawling, he is working on standing and loves to pull up on things. Our favorite is when he crawls to you and pulls up on your leg! Of course usually its to be picked up and with a face as cute as his its hard not to.

Tonight he was standing and holding onto my shoulders when he let go as if to balance himself...only he promptly fell down. (good thing diapers add lots of padding) His friend Mackenzie was learning to balance herself and walk this week and we think he's trying to catch up to her. We're not sure we're ready for him to walk but its fun to see him try to figure it out. Crawling is old news to him now - he wants to move onto bigger and better things, which usually ends in falling down!

Colins first christmas

It's been a while since we've made a post. The holiday season does that to a family. Even though things get busy, we hope everyone was able to be thankful for the blessings that they have, and to remember the birth of Christ and how he entered into this world as a baby in a manger.


Here we are at Abigail's parents house celebrating Colin's first Christmas. As you can see in the later pictures, Colin was loving the fact that there was a tree full of presents JUST FOR HIM! It didn't matter who's name was on the box, he just figured he'd open them all.





It was very fun having a 7 month old for Christmas. Colin LOVED our tree as well as his grandparents tree, and kept crawling over to it trying to eat it. He learned to use the presents to catapult himself up to reach the ornaments he wasn't allowed to touch (aparently all the shiny ornaments are breakable). He also learned to open presents that his aunt Sarah wrapped (Sarah doesn't put tape on the boxes) And I didnt teach him to do it - contrary to popular belief within the family. He had a great time crawling up the stairs at his grandparents house and met his first dog, AJ. He was very interested in figuring out what a dog is, but when he snuck up on AJ while sleeping, he promtly got bit! It didn't stop him from chasing after the poor dog all week. They are going to be great friends though, that is, if the dog has any hair left after putting up with Colin grabbing at him all the time.

Here he is next to a Christmas tree that we have no problem pulling on, down, or throwing across the room. As a matter of fact, he even chews on it. No pine needles to worry about, so that is just fine! Don't worry Angela, it will remain in great condition for years to come!

Lots of love to give!

So along with crawling comes wrestling! Colin loves to crawl all over us (although we probablly enjoy it more) and then give us kisses. It can be mistaken as a "bite" but we like to think of it as a sign of affection. He enjoyes kissing his mom and also likes to grab anything in sight. Often it happens to be our nose or hair or face!

Colin also has begun to pull himself up. We often find him pulled up standing when we go into his room to see why he's awake! Abigail taught him to "climb up" her stomach all the way to her shoulders. Then he gets this big grin on his face as he makes it to the top. Yes, pride starts at a young age! We'll let him enjoy this one!


Another thing he enjoys is watching "Baby Einstein." It's amazing because it doesn't matter how much he's crying, or how happy and entertained he is, once we pop it in, he stops whatever he is doing and just sits there. We love the way he rests his little head on his shoulders and just sits there is awe.

Coming before we know it

In a short 16 years this will come all too soon....

Since Colin has been crawling lately, we figured he has earned the right to start "driving!" So we plopped him in the drivers seat and told him he could drive to the farm for Thanksgiving. He took us up on that offer and grabbed the wheel. We didn't get very far as he couldn't quite figure out that keys were needed to get the engine started. So his dad ending up taking over the rest of the way!

The rest of our holidays was extremely relaxing. Being out at a 300 acre farm for a few days and being able to hike in the woods is what Abigail and I really enjoy. We had relatives come and visit too which is always fun. Here is a pic of everyone getting "creative" with the natural landscape of a farm!

But the highlight of Thanksgiving was meal time. Not only because its the best meal of the year, but also because it brought some great laughs. For one, we introduced Colin to bananas. We just squished one and gave it to him. Oh man, the facial expressions were priceless. It was as if he was sucking on a lemon (which I will have to try one day soon when Abigail is not looking) Also, watching Colin try to steal food from Howard was so funny, as they would both exchange glances.


Finally, a few other benchmarks: His first tooth is almost in now. It has broken through, but is not very big yet. A final thing to mention is that he has started saying, "moma." I still think its because he naturally makes that noise when he strains, but Abigail would like to think otherwise. I'll just let her believe it as it brings her much joy!

all i want for christmas....

Over Thanksgiving break while we were at my grandparents house, we took Colin to see Santa Clause. He was at Southern States in Louisa, VA and had stationed himself among the aisles of farming equipment. Santa was really nice and great with the kids. He kept going down the line greeting all the kids every few minutes saying, "No one should have to wait for Santa!" And the best part was we were able to just go and use our own camera to take pictures. (we could've bought professional portraits but our camera worked just fine!) The funny thing was there were more dogs than children getting their picture taken with Santa.

our beautiful family

The Day Is HERE!!!!!

So Colin is ready to rock and roll. I mean, ready to put a peddle to the metal. I mean, he has begun CRAWLING!!! Well, not a full-fledged super speed crawl, but he has now somewhat mastered moving his legs forward, then moving his hands, and then proceeding to flop on his face. Now although it takes him a while to move from point A to point B, he can move directionally! I was eating my dinner tonight and put a plate of food (a little motivation) about 4 feet in front of him, he stopped doing what he was doing, and then begun to do the "flop-a-move" as I just decided to call it! Once he got to the food however, we didn't know what to do because he isn't old enough to eat it. So his reward was to suck on a noodle for a little bit!

We know the fact that he will be moving at a much faster rate (ok, he had NO RATE a few weeks ago) is both a good and bad thing. In a week or two he'll be moving all over the place in the blink of an eye. We are very excited he is developing so well, but now we have to make sure everything is "baby proofed" and we can't let our eyes off him for a second. He'll either A. have some random thing he just found in his mouth, or B. be crawling towards some dangerous area, or C. be up to no good and outta sight!

We try to cherish every new thing that Colin does, realizing that he is ever changing, and that one day he will no longer be a baby. The one thing we will never cherish is the lack of sleep!!!!! We long for the day to have him sleep through the night again!

look out world, here I come

Our world is about to change....Colin is very close to crawling. He gets up on all fours and has started to rock back and forth but doesnt know what to do after that. We are told that its only a matter of time before he starts moving everywhere.

He is getting so big and makes us laugh every day. Yesterday he discovered he could put both hands over his head and grab them so he entertained us doing that. He also loves to play the hand held "bop-it" game and every once and a while actually gets one right. His favorite food is sweet potatoes and does not like peas. If I give him peas in the morning he'll refuse to eat any solids the rest of the day. I can't even disquise them - he knows they are there...haha he is just like his daddy!

p.s. colin has started to say mama and dadda but we aren't sure he knows what he's saying. We're in a race to see which one can get him to say it first (and know what he's saying)

The great pumpkin

Last week Colin and I went to a pumpkin patch with some other moms and kids from church. I'm not really sure what Colin was thinking the whole day. He would not smile and just had a puzzled look on his face the whole time. He was facinated with the petting zoo and got very excited when he saw the chickens. And those were the ugliest animals there! It was hard trying to restrain him while he tried to reach for the chickens. He wasn't sure about the rest of the animals; and as you can see didnt think much of the pigs when they snorted. Almost as if he was saying What are those things?!?!

He is very proud of his pumpkin and loves to play with it.... or really just tries to eat it.

Bible study fun

This week for bible study I asked the girls to come dressed as their favorite bible verse. Can you guess which ones they were?

Balloon Fest!

So the long awaited Balloon Fest came and went. We were looking forward to it last year, but rain prevented the balloons from leaving the ground. This year we were determined that it wouldn't rain. Okay, we had little say in that, but it turned out great! We made sure Regis and Sarah came into town for it. They told us that if it rained they would never come back to Morgantown! We all enjoyed watching them bring out the balloons and start to inflate them. Even more amazing to see them all take off!




We actually had so much fun on Saturday afternoon, that we went back EARLY Sunday morning to see if we could catch some great photo opps. The balloons were inflated and in the air in less than 20 minutes, so you had to be quick with the camera.





Another highlight from the day was going up in a hot air balloon! Thats right, in two shifts we all went up in a hot air balloon for the first time. And it only cost $5! Of course you get what you pay for.... we jumped in, they shot hot air into the balloon, and then we lifted off! Bummer was, after getting about 40 feet up in the air, we felt a big tug and those darn ropes pulled us back down. Yea, we were in a tethered balloon so thats as high as it went! So we got our taste of riding in a hot air balloon. Everyone but Colin... as he was too little to take a ride and against his will, had to stay on the ground. One day little man!

Princess Snowbird Retreat

A few weekends ago we had mens and womens camping trips. It was a good way for the freshmen to really get connected, meet the upperclassmen and make friends. The girls went to a farm and roughed it out with no bathrooms - AND heard a few coyotes! Whereas the boys went to Sceneca Rocks and stayed at the "Princess Snowbird" campground with an indoor swimming pool nearby, plus hot showers and bathrooms. HAHA - It sounds like the guys were really the "girls" for the weekend!There were over 30 girls who went and about 24 guys. Pretty crazy that more girls wanted to go camping than guys! Dispite the rain, everyone had a great time and plenty of bonding took place.

And the little one said roll over...roll over

Colin is 5 months old today! Its so crazy how fast time flies and even to think about the tiny infant we brought home. Now Colin plays, giggles and talks all the time. Well we both try to get him to giggle - Brent is more successful than I am! He loves chewing on our faces or giving us kisses as I like to think about it but when he does it to Brent, his scruffy face tickles Colin and he laughs and laughs.... its just not the same when he does it to mommy (thank goodness!)



His new thing is rolling over in his crib - when he doesn't want to go to sleep and also when he's waking up from a nap. Lately we have to position him in the crib so he won't be able to roll over or he'll roll over and then whine until we go in and rescue him. I will admit that he's awfully cute with his head poking over the crib bumper with a helpless look on his face like what did I do and help me please. We feel like horrible parents sometimes though because we'll put him down to sleep and he'll babble and start to put himself to sleep - we leave and hear him babbling/whining for a few minutes and then usually he'll be asleep in about 10 minutes. Well a few times we've done that and 10 minutes go by and he's still complaining so we wait longer and then when we finally go in and check on him he's on his stomach (he had flipped over) so we put him back and within seconds he was sound asleep. So when we thought he had been complaining about going to sleep he was really crying out for help.

Little Howard

Colin and his great-grandpa have the same facial expression.