1st haircut

Today I gave Brent a haircut and against my protests, my mom and brent talked me into cutting off Colin's baby curls as well. They were getting long and most of the time stuck out but the back of his hair would curl up so nice. I called them curls - brent called it his rat-tail or mullet. In his before picture brent made the curls stick out a little more than they normally did! I have loved his little curls all year and now they are gone!!!! (well not really gone - i kept his curls for his scrapbook - he might not appreciate it but I will) It only took a few snips and as you can see it wasn't too exciting for Colin as he ditched the cookie I gave him and clung to my mom. He now looks like such a little boy with his hair cut. But at least brent can't tease him about being a girl anymore.

egg soup pictures

egg soup anyone?

What do you do with the plastic easter eggs now that the candy has been eaten and easter is over? Make egg soup of course! Colin has been pretending to make egg soup the past few days. At first all the eggs went into his dump truck and then he would make his truck noises and then dump them out - then he decided to become a chef and make egg soup with them and feed the whole family. He was stirring the eggs into his little toy cups but then I got a mixing bowl down and a spatula and he had a great time one morning making me huge pots of soup and then feeding me the soup. It was YUMMY every time. Everyone should try it. Haha Well one afternoon I was on the computer and Colin went to get his eggs (from the other room) and make some soup for me. (he goes slurp slurp slurp when he wants to do this game) Well the phone rang and it was my sister Mary so I went to go answer it. In that SHORT time span Colin had taken his mixing bowl with the plastic eggs in them, dragged a chair from the kitchen over to the stove, climbed the chair, put the mixing bowl on the burner and was reaching to the knobs trying to turn on the stove!!!!!! I guess he thought if the soup tasted that good cold, imagine what it would taste like hot. Good thing I caught him. Nothing gets by him and he does help make dinner a lot. And he did watch the food network with Brent the night before. But scary!

Who Me?

Notice the new boots. We had to retire his old boots as they have cracked and defeat the purpose of running through puddles when it rains. But he LOVES his boots and wears them when its not raining. I think because he can put them on himself. So we had to get new ones. But his new boots are giraffes and the bottoms are their faces and Colin has pretended to feed his giraffe boots. So cute!

helicopter easter egg drop!

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen! We just got back from church and an amazing easter egg drop. Thats right. A helicopter easter egg drop. Our church likes to think outside the box and what better way to draw a crowd than to drop easter eggs from a helicopter. There were 20,000 easter eggs and it seemed like there were 20,000 people there. (probably not that many but it sure seemed like it. It was very exciting to see so many people at church) Colin loved the helicopter at first but then got scared when they told everyone to go get the eggs - thats when the chaos started. They had designated areas for each age group but some people didn't know that I'm sure or there are some VERY BIG 2 year olds :) Colin picked a few eggs and put them in his basket and then we tried to go find more and get to the big piles of eggs but couldn't get around people as most people in his age group (birth to 2) were taking pictures and trying to get their kids to pick up eggs (and the VERY BIG 2 year olds were going crazy and running everywhere). SO we left the egg hunt and went to look at our eggs. The eggs were more interesting when Colin discovered candy inside them and as we were stuck in the parking garage for a while we sat on the grass and enjoyed our candy. He is now sleeping - amazing since he ate a lot of sugar this morning and when he wakes up we are off to my grandparents for some yummy easter dinner.

Our pastor gave an illustration of giving up our firstborn for someone else and I know I couldn't let Colin die in someone's place. It puts a whole new perspective for us when we look at our little boy. Thank you Lord for loving us that much. Happy Easter!

poor boy

Last night Colin started having green stuff oozing from his eyes and we were afraid of pink eye - and after a LONG night for all of us we went to the doctor this morning and thankfully its not pink eye but a really bad sinus infection. The doctor made looking in his ears a little game and Colin just put his finger in my ears and pretending to look in them and he thinks its really funny. He has stuff now oozing from everywhere! Gross but the funny part is his balance. Since he has a lot of fluid in his ears his balance is a little off. He was running around the house this morning and would all of a sudden fall over. He did this several times. It doesn't faze him but hopefully he will be feeling better soon. Its hard seeing him so sick and not himself. We want him energetic and like the bottom picture soon. (he has also been milking the not feeling very good as he got a cookie after the doctors visit and just woke up from a nap and wanted chocolate milk! haha he's a fast learner!)

notice a theme?

Colin has started lining up his toys - and not all of his toys but its not unusual to walk into a room and find something like these pictures. And he is very specific which ones belong in the group or not. For instance his red shovels can't be in the same group as his other shovels. Its cute but should I be worried?And Colin knows his colors! he's a genius I keep saying. But he walked by me yesterday with a blue toy and points to it and said blue, a brown bracelet I had and said brown....We read books about colors and are always matching colors together - but I thought it would be a while before he was saying them. He's growing up.

Snowshoe

This past weekend Brent and I left Colin and went on his company ski trip. It was the first time I had left Colin for a night - let alone a whole day! Aunt Angela came and watched him until my parents got home from work and from what I hear he had a great time with everyone. (except he did give AJ - James and Angela's dog - a concussion with his drum sticks but AJ is doing well now from what I hear) We didn't get to Snowshoe until 11pm and had to go on these awful windy back roads in the fog. There were times I didn't think we were going to make it and we couldn't pull over or turn around as we were on narrow windy mountain roads. But we eventually made it. I dont think I've ever been so scared. And then I had the whole weekend to worry about getting off the mountain! ha! Before we went I had dreams of just sleeping a TON since I haven't slept for 2 years - Colin is getting better and sleeping through the night more consistently but a whole weekend to sleep late and not worry about getting up with him was something I was looking forward to. Unfortunately that didn't happen. I developed a cold during the weekend which kept me from sleeping very well and I guess my body is so used to getting up around 6 that it doesn't know how to sleep in anymore so I didn't get the sleep I wanted. Brent on the other hand can sleep anywhere for as long as he wants.... not fair. But other than that it was a great weekend. Brent and I had a fun time skiing together.
It was the first time we had skied together and Brent is very good. He doesn't think so but he kept flying down the mountains and I was the slow one snowplowing my way down the slope. It was very foggy, windy, and sleeting/snowing half the time we were skiing and I was so afraid I'd fall and break something because of all the ice patches. But neither of us fell! I did get stuck on the ski lift and had to get them to stop it to let me off - sad to say that isn't the first time I have gotten stuck. We did love the fact that we could go into our lodge after skiing instead of having to drive home. That was wonderful and if we go skiing in the future i think we'll definitely do that. I got to know some of the people Brent works with better and also got to hang out with their wives. A very fun group of people to be around the more we get to know them. The sun came out Sunday morning so we were able to get off the mountain. We even stopped by our home in WV to clean and do some yard work so hopefully someone will buy our cute house this weekend! We had a great weekend but I was very glad to get back to our sweet little boy.

Chocolate Milk

Last weekend we went over to my grandparents house to help with yard work and also to visit. Colin discovered a new treat - Chocolate milk!!! My grandma made him some chocolate milk and then made it even better by putting ice cream in it. Colin LOVED it. He has had chocolate milk before but never this good, especially since my grandma put TONS of chocolate in it. Yesterday I went over to their house with Colin (my grandparents are on a cruise and yes they forgot to take Colin and I.... maybe next time) but we went to go clean out their fridge for them. As I'm getting things out of the fridge Colin starts lifting something really heavy out of the fridge (heavy for him) and gets very excited. He then brings me the Hershey syrup and wanted me to make chocolate milk. So I did and even put the ice cream in it. And it was just as good the second time around.

nana

Colin's aunt Mary came home this weekend and Colin had a great time playing with "Nana" as he calls her. She thinks its a grandma's name but Colin lovingly calls her Nana (since she would chase him around going "nana nana nana") and has since wandered around looking for nana.

Birthday present

Last week I celebrated my 28th birthday and here is Colin helping my mom make me brownies. Colin was so excited to eat the brownies the next day that he woke up at 4am on my birthday but I got to sleep in while Brent got up with him. What a great gift! but Colin was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for me when I woke up and dragged me running into the kitchen where they had balloons and especially a Thomas birthday balloon! Colin was so excited. I think he thought the Thomas balloon was for him not FROM him.

proof

Since we posted that Colin learned how to crawl out of his crib it seemed like he didn't want to anymore. So we put away the bed railing and decided not to convert his crib into a toddler bed yet since the crib contained him (at least for the moment) But this week he has decided instead to climb out at any possible moment. He likes to play in his crib with all his stuffed animals - mostly his aunt Mary's animals but he calls them his "ahlo ahlo's". And if he notices one missing now he just swings down off the crib and goes and gets it. He used to ask me to go get the missing animal. He also wakes up now and just climbs out instead of calling for mama......so the toddler bed might be coming out this weekend. We are having a hard time figuring out how to keep him in his room since the door sometimes doesn't catch the latch, and if he can swing over his crib like this, think of what he does to a smaller gate! It is keeping me up at night worried about him wandering down the stairs but we've made sure to really close the door and have one of those safety door knob things that are usually more trouble than they are worth. It seems to help (although our smart boy has figured out those too - at least a few times and I heard him yesterday morning going "uh-oh" since he was half asleep and couldn't remember his trick to it I guess since he couldn't get the door opened)

Here he is swinging his legs over and in a few seconds - before you can usually blink - he is like this

Whooo....whoooo

So one of Colin's favorite things right now is trains. Many mornings Colin will ask for his "woo woo" (aka Thomas the train) video to watch as he's waking up. When we heard about this yearly train show that goes on in Hampton, we knew right away that Colin wouldn't want to miss it. It was pretty amazing with tons of model trains set up. Hours and lots of money went into these collections that we certainly enjoyed looking at. Colin loved it when the trains went into a tunnel and then came back out. We have since made makeshift tunnels out of pillows for his trains to go in and out.

As a kid growing up, I had always thought having a train set would be so much fun. Especially being able to put it up around a Christmas tree. So for me this was a fun idea too. We heard there was a big train kids could ride, as well as hundreds of Thomas trains that kids could play with. What a deal! So we spent a few hours there and of course Colin loved it. He was probably overwhelmed by all the trains, but at least it kept his attention! He got to pull the whistle in a little train setup, as well as push buttons to make another train go forwards and backwards. It was really cool. Colin was too small the ride the kiddie train but there was an area where he could play with over 100 Thomas trains. He would put all the trains back on the track that other kids derailed. There was a common "Thomas the train" theme to most of the toys there, so we hoped Colin didn't feel left out as almost every other kid there had a Thomas shirt on! So we bought him a Thomas whistle which he proudly blew.... and blew..... and blew.. on the ride home. It was perfect - combines his love for music and trains all in one! He's building up his lungs each time he makes it whistles and he's so proud of himself. Its also much quieter than his cymbals which the whole family enjoys.

Green and Gold!

So I know its a week late, but better than never! Last weekend was a very proud moment for this GMU Grad. Seven of us made the trek (okay only 3 of you really had to travel) to Norfolk to experience the great George Mason basketball team play ODU. Now, the overall outcome was very dissapointing as GMU lost (they haven't beaten ODU at the T.E.D since '04), but I couldn't have been prouder to be part of a school that really treats their alumni well.

For $10 a person we got a ticket in club seating (face value $13) with about 40 other GMU fans, and a all-u-can-eat (that phrase invokes much joy to my heart) food bar with chicken fingers, hotdogs, and chips. Also all the soda you want. Then at half time they had 3 drawings to win a few t-shirts and an autographed jersey by the head coach! We also were given a 2008 GMU calendar, a GMU alumni pen, and a alumni car sticker! So the $10 we paid per person wasn't even as much as the face value of the ticket seats we had! Unbelievable.... I might even give to the alumni association after being treated like that! Maybe thats what they were thinking... ha

So Mason's two top players played very well, but the rest of the team didn't. They ended up loosing by like 13, but Regis and I were keeping score of another statistic in which GMU won hands down. GMU had 5 dunks to ODU's ZERO!!!!! YEA!!! It's the small victories that count in life.The rest of the weekend was a blast as well as we walked around VA Beach and ended up at an unforgetable mexican restaurant that i'm sure we'll all talk about for years to come.

dah-ta dah-ta da ta da-ta da

As you know, Colin loves marching bands and even leads his own. He loves to march around the house with some sort of stick and go "dah-ta dah-ta da ta da-ta da" He is always the band director as he has his stick out in front and moves it like they do in parades. He watches marching bands on the computer and memorizes all their moves. He makes everyone follow after him but his favorite thing is to march outside. Outside there are millions of sticks he can use and he is even allowed to drum the sticks on just about everything. He will even stop halfway, raise his stick in the air and yell "Rahrah" and then change directions. Only everyone else marching with him has to do the same. And everyone who comes over and goes outside with him is asked to march around. He is also very specific on which end of the stick you hold and always shows me the correct way to hold my stick of the day. (I love the picture above showing his little mohawk. He had rather crazy hair this day. Someone asked me the other day if I cut his hair like that! haha nope but its so cute in the humidity it curls up into the cutest curls right into a perfect little mohawk)

Guess what I can do!

A week ago exactly Colin surprised us all with his amazing athletic abilities yet again. It was 6am and Brent had just left for work as I heard Colin waking up. A few minutes later he got quiet and I thought he put himself back to sleep only to have him WALK into my room. He had climbed out of his crib, opened his door and then my door, and walked right in with the proudest smile on his face. Now he sleeps at night with a sleeper blanket (its a blanket that we zip him up in so he stays nice and warm as he likes to kick all the blankets off); so I should really say he shuffled in (imagine Sweet Pea). I couldn't figure out how he did it but the next day after he woke up from his nap, he met me on the stairs after I heard him from downstairs! Very scary. He's fast. So I immediately put him back in and told him to show me how he did it. He listened and did it for me. I wish I had a camera to capture his face as he was incredibly proud of himself and his new found independence. He uses the headboard on either side since it is higher than the railings, almost jumps up and grabs it, then swings his whole body over the side of the crib railing and then flops down to the ground. Very strong for a little boy and very scary for his mommy. We were going to transition him into his toddler bed but waited a few days and he hasn't tried to climb out again. We are now ready as I went and bought bed railings so he won't fall out of the bed. He is a very active sleeper and doesn't stay in one place very long. We are trying not to make a big deal about it so he doesn't think this is something you do all the time. However, we would like to get a video of him flinging his little body over the side of the crib before we move him into his toddler bed!

What do you like?

This afternoon Colin and I were having a conversation about things we liked and I would ask him something and it would either be a yes or no. Then I asked him what Grandma liked and he said Grandpa! (well he didn't say it - he makes a "grandpa" face where he scrunches up his eyes and nose... its really funny and part of me hopes he doesn't outgrow it for a while. It is a little frustrating for him when he is trying to get grandpa's attention and he just makes his face which grandpa can't see sometimes!) But anyways Grandma likes Grandpa. True statement and very cute. SO then I asked him what did Grandpa like and Colin said Fish! haha Grandma likes Grandpa but Grandpa likes fish! He repeated it again for everyone at dinner :)

So cute. And to further brag on our little boy. He is a genius! I know most people say that about their kids but yesterday we were making brownies and I was putting the eggs in and counted 1...2... and before I could say three Colin says what sounds like teeee! (mommy translation = 3) Proof - Colin is a genius!

One more cute story - last night Colin got up at an insane hour - 3:30 - and I brought him in bed with us and he went right to sleep. After a while when I am about to take him back to his own bed, his arm shoots up and he yells BALL and pretends to bounce a basketball! The whole time sound asleep.

I think we can count on those scholarships - both for brains and his wonderful athleticism!

Winter wonderland

It finally snowed! Colin wasn't sure about it at first and kept going uh-oh when we made a snowman and then knocked it down. Apparently when I was Colin's age my parents bundled me and my sister up, took us outside and we cried the whole time. So the first night wasn't a surprise when Colin didn't really like the snow. But the next day he decided the snow was fun and even helped brent put the snowman back together! He didnt think the snowman needed a carrot nose and would eat all the carrots we brought out. Guess we shouldve given him lunch first. Colin ended up loving the snow and here are a few pictures of our snow adventures!

Our Little Man

Colin has developed a love for cereal. And not just any cereal - a mixture of Muselix and Granola. You have to mix them. He insists!! He usually has a few bowls by the time breakfast is over as he likes to share with grandma, mama and his own bowl. He starts with a bowl from mama, then grandma comes down and pours herself a bowl, then he wants his own and then finally dada comes and eats some too! I personally am getting a little tired of this combination. But not Colin! This results in some very interesting diaper changes a few hours later. But along with the cereal every morning he also likes to read the morning paper. He just looks at the pictures but he is such a genius we wouldn't be surprised if he is actually reading the stock reports for future use!

DADDY!

The other day my mom and I took Colin to the Mariners Museum. Its is a really cool museum and they just added a new wing dedicated to the Monitor. They even have actual pieces of the ship on display and a reproduction of the entire ship. It was amazing to walk out on it and realize how big it was. Colin of course found the only puddle and spent some time splashing away. We didn't get to read/watch much since Colin just wanted to see it all at a much faster pace. One day we're going to go back and read everything and watch all the movies. (the coolest ones were on the monitor - when it sank and also the Battle of the Ironclads! Definitely worth the money to go see!) But the funniest moment was when we passed this statue. There were so many all over the museum but Colin walked by, pointed to it and yelled "Dada!" and then kept walking. My mom and I burst out laughing and then on our way out Colin did it again and we just had to get a picture of "Dada." We aren't sure why but it apparently reminded Colin of Brent. So here's to Dada :)