Rembember When?

I was looking threw pictures tonight and found this one. I was about 8 months pregnant. We took a road trip to see a friend in Arkansas. This is a picture of me walking and stretching my legs. The doctor allowed me to go on the trip if we promised to stop every few hours so I could get out and keep the blood circulating. I felt like we were stopping to walk the dog....but the dog was me. I think I even remember Chris whistling at me to come back like you would a dog.

You can say it because I know you are thinking it, "Wow, she is about to fall over because she is so big and about to pop". I am sure there were a few people thinking the same thing when they saw me walking around at the many rest stops we took on the trip.

Collin loves to be outside. When he gets home at night now, he prefers to stay outside to play with a ball, bat, toys or anything he can find just so he can be outside. Sometimes, we do have time to stay out for a little while but, most of the time, he arrives home in time for dinner. His hunger pains don't stand a chance to his desire to be outside though. Most of the time, one of us has to eventually pick him up and take him inside. He is made and crying most of the time while we do this. Distractions don't typically help either. Guess it's time to start thinking about moving so we can have a backyard for him to play in.

Daddy's Glasses

The picture on the left was taken when Collin was just a few days old. The one on the right was taken within the last week. He has changed a little huh?

I say who drives the cart!

Collin continues his two-year-old stubbornness even in the grocery store. He has become particular about who pushes the cart in the grocery store. When daddy and I went on Saturday, Collin did NOT want Daddy to push the cart and was not happy until I did. He even tried peeling Daddy's hands off the bar of the cart to let him know what he wanted. We blew it off as him just exhibiting his 'twoness" and wanting his Mommy. Then, Sunday, when he, Mimi, Pappy and Grandma Filla went to the grocery store (Mimi and Pappy kept him for the night so mommy and daddy could go out on a date), he insisted that Grandma Filla push the cart. That was shocking to most of us since we would have thought he would want Mimi to push the cart. Nope, he clearly wanted Grandma. She LOVED this chance to spend time with him. She called me this morning and told me all about it and how much she loves Collin being around her.

More lake time..

The sun does not set here until around 10:30pm during the summer and rises at 5am so there is PLENTY of daylight. We took advantage of this last night after dinner and went to the lake again so Collin could get some play time in before coming back to our place to relax. He really liked playing in the sand but especially liked sitting in the water and filling up his bucket. When he first went into the water, he would run in and then run back out just to the shore to watch the water roll up upon the sand. This sometimes made bubbles which he thought was fun. We stayed for about an hour. Collin, of course, was not ready to leave.

Where is Collin?

Collin loves to play hide and seek (and I do too!). He did not forget this during our trip. This afternoon while daddy was napping, I hide and he tried to find me. I enjoyed hiding in a spot were I could see his face when he walked into the room and scanned it looking for me. As soon as he saw me, he face would light up and he started running towards my direction. I wanted to stop thinking he was getting bored but he let me know that I was wrong because he pulled me back to the spot where I was last hiding and pointed at it, then ran off to where he waited before for me to hide.

Later, we were resting and watching some TV while daddy was napping. He played with the doors at the bottom of the entertainment center and decided to put a blanket behind the doors. Next I knew, he was crawling into the space to get the blanket and then came back out. He did this a few times....and even the next day.

Best Buddies

Collin is getting used to seeing his buddies during our vacation. When we get in the car or put him in the stroller, he typically says one of three words: water, Saige (she is 20 mths old) or Ethan (8 years old). These are our friend's kids that we went on vacation with. Collin and Saige are fun to watch play with each other. Just like buddies, they do get jealous of what the other one is playing with and fight to take it away from one another. Sippie cups are not excluded from this list. If either one is thirsty, the go for the other one's sippie cup. Two of every toy does not matter because either Saige or Collin will want to play with the other person's toy. They end up compromising or finding something else to play with....and remain buddies at the end of the day.

Bear!

After a long walk yesterday morning, Collin and I stopped in at the lobby to pick daddy up. I took him out of his stroller so he could walk around while we waited for daddy to finish. He stayed close to daddy until he spotted the pond near the front door. Why was he insterested? Water!!!! Duh...He did not care about making a wish. He just wanted to stick his hand in the water.

To distract him, I thought we would walk around a bit to see what else we could find. He yelled out "Bear!" and ran to this wooden bear by the front door. It was too cute because Collin ran over to it and grabbed the bear's hand. He looked up at the bear when he would not move as Collin was trying to direct him to do so.

Minnesota - First few days

Miss us? Think I would not be able to post for a week? hehehe I found a way. We are having a great time in Minnesota so far. Collin is loving it because he has gotten in the water every day. Our first night was spent in the best hotel EVER that was out in the boonies. The place had a free indoor water park. I saw it online and thought it would be fun for Collin to play in a little after traveling for over 6 hours that day. I had no idea how much of a good idea this was going to be. Daddy even had a great time....so much so that we asked for a later check out the next day so we could go again in the morning before we left for Pelican Lake....our ultimate destination. Here are a few pictures of the park.

















We have been at the lake two days and Collin has helped mommy and daddy play water volleyball in the indoor pool, played in the sand and lake and went for a walk/run with mommy both mornings. The water is still his favorite. I have enjoyed the morning walks but have found that I need to be strategic about the route I take. If there is any sight of the water, Collin will talk about it until we stop to look at it. I am not stupid though. If we stop, he will want in and I am not ready for that battle in the morning. He did finally get in the lake today that he has seen for the last two days. At first, he was content to play in the sand until he saw Saige playing in the lake water with her daddy (our friends, the Jureks, are here too which is why we are here in the first place). He ran as best as he could in the sand over to the water and stood at the edge to watch Saige play. He then tried it himself. He enjoyed grabbing a fist of mud out of the water and then dumping it back in. He did this again and again until Saige started splashing so he joined in.

Little Gym Birthday Party

Collin went to Melia's birthday party (she is 2)today at Little Gym. Some of the equipment is similar to Gymboree but a lot of it is different. It was set up like a gym with uneven bars...

balance beam (in the background...Collin did not like it)

big, bouncy balls

bouncy floor (air

......and PIZZA!!

He sweet-talked one of the employees to giving him a balloon on the way out. Here is what he looked like most of the way home. He blew on the balloon and made other noises with it most of the way to our next stop. I know he had a great time because we can hear him through the monitor snoring right now. It's the loudest he has ever been.

Wait until tomorrow, he will be REALLY tired. We leave at 5am for vacation for the week. Talk to you next week....unless there is Internet where we are going.

Where is the laundry basket?

Daddy was watching TV this morning and heard Collin in the kitchen. Here is what he saw....guess he wanted more water. He probably wanted to wash his hands because he LOVES to do this....really just likes pushing his hands in the water. Guess I will have to keep an eye on the laundry basket from now on.

Jumping Bean

After naps, Collin regularly shows us that he is well rested by jumping up and down in his crib while he waits for one of us to get him out. Here he is after a 3 hour nap showing how he usually throws everything out of his crib letting us know he is ready to get out. Yep, he regularly has 3 hours afternoon naps. He is in for a surprise when he starts school in two weeks because they are only going to allow an hour nap after lunch. That boy is going to be TIRED especially his first week of school.

Gymboree Fun

Tonight after work, Collin and I met Audrey and her daddy at Gymboree to play for almost 2 hours. Audrey is 11 months old and not walking yet. That did not stop her from having fun and exploring the new toys. Collin helped her by bringing her balls. He soon got tired of this and went climbing on the nearest set of stairs. Once there, he climbed up so fast I could hardly believe it. He then walked across a plank with no fear and sat down to slide down the slide. That's where he stopped. Slides still make him nervous. I helped him down by holding his hand. Later that night, I watched him slide down the same slide by himself with no fear. That's my boy!

Tuesdays With Daddy

As you can see we joined some friends at the local waterpark in the neighborhood. Alex, Ellie and Collin all had a great time. I found it interesting that they all wanted to plug the hole that the water was coming out of. Collin sat with his finger in one hole for about 5 minutes and when other kids came around he schewed them off.

Collin loves the water so much that when we got home this after noon he went swimmin again and Ella came over and joined him in the pool. So Ashley, Collin, Mommy, and Ella all jumped into the pool and went swimmin. The other neighbor came home and Collin enjoyed trying to splash her in her work attire. Pictures to come later.

Daddy had a pool installed in the front yard at the House

After all of the blowing up we did, it was nice to jump in the pool with the boy. Man does he love water and when it is pipin hot like it was today, the water felt great.

He had so much fun in the water so tomorrow Collin and I are meeting some friends at a local water park.

You should see his face, he loves the water.

The diaper on the other hand hated the water.

Family Reunion - It's all about the WATER!!!

Collin got to meet most of his 1st and 2nd cousins at my family reunion Saturday. There were 62 people there to hug and kiss on Collin. He did like all of the attention but was mainly focused on the water. There was:

1. water in the dog bowl that he had to splash on people that walked by

2. water in the pool that he wanted in really bad but the bigger kids were in there playing catch

3. water coming out the water hose to fill over 400 water balloons for the fight that was to take place that afternoon between the cousins

4. water from the water cooler that Collin learned to work by watching people use it

5. water down his shirt from drinking out of a water bottle and a paper cup that he filled using the water cooler

6. water coming out of the sink for him to wash his hands....which he wanted to do all day long

I could have used THREE change of clothes at the end of the day. At least I brought one change of clothes and a second pair of shoes or Collin would have been wet and cold on the way home.

Here is Collin is "helping" fill the water balloons. He did not help much because he wanted the water hose all to himself. He was soaked after this mainly because the hose had holes near the nozzle so it was spraying him the entire time he was holding it.

After lunch, some of the kids and even adults got the water guns out and shot each other with them. I did not mind since it helped me cool down on a 103 degree day. Even the little guys got involved. Here is Collin and Evan shooting each other. Collin watched other people use the ice cold water from the ice chest, so he dipped his gun in too and could not figure out why the water would not shoot out of it. He did not realize that they were opening the gun to allowing the water to get in. It was fun watching him try to figure it out.

This caused him to work up an appetite and eat someone else's dessert that was sitting unattended on the table near the edge. Instead of reprimanding him, I let him do it since the owner had abandoned it and....more importantly....there was no way I could get to him in time before he stuck a big piece of cake in his mouth. What was even more funny to me was the icing that he did not lick off his lips. If I had not seen him do it, I would have figured out he at something because he left the evidence on his lips.

It was time for the water balloon fight and Collin wanted to be included really bad. Uncle Paul held him so Collin would not run into the middle of the fight and get run over. He will be old enough next year to join the 6 years and younger fight.

We had a great time. Collin was asleep before we got on the main road.

Park in the Morning?

Daddy is the best!!! After breakfast (which I was not interested in - who wants pears again?), he surprised me by going to Starbucks and the park before meeting Mimi for the day. Can you believe it? The park!!!! My favorite this morning was the swing. I was not ready to get out when Daddy said it was time to leave. I was mad for a moment...but still love him for making my morning so much fun.

Off to see Mimi now, hang out in the A/C (hahaha for those of you that know Mimi's house) during the day and then swim in her pool when the sun is not shining on it to make it so hot.
My life is so hard.....

Chuck E Cheese Rocks

CHUCK E CHEESE ROCKS.

Collin got Pizza, and watch a show and then play on some fun rides. Oh yeah did you see Collin drinks great from a Straw out his own Juice Box.

At the end of the day Collin and I spent about an hour in our driveway playing Ball. I think Collin will make a great running back some day. He will hold onto a ball longer than you can imagine. He also has good ball protection skills. Then he rides his bike for about 15 minutes, I am teaching him Left and Right, I will pull the handle bar to the left and say left then I pull the handlebar to the right and say right. I have been doing this for a few days now and he is starting to get it. Last night I would say right and he turned right, and the same with the left. Now all I have to do is teach him straight so that we do not ride in circles for 15 minutes. Figure 8's gets dizzy.

Get Down!

Besides "I love you" and "thank you", Collin said his first set of words yesterday. Not once, but twice, he said "get down" when he wanted to get down from the bed and then later that day when he wanted to get down from the high chair. Tonight, I told him to go up the stairs so he could start getting ready for bed. He was walking up the stairs and using the hand rail when he turned around, looked at me and said "get down" as he pointed down the stairs.

Kid's Day in the Park

This morning, we met one of Collin's friends, Melia at the Kid's Day in the park. There were LOTS of freebies for the kids, animals to pet, ice cream and bouncing equipment. Collin got to check out several animals. The first picture, Collin was not so sure he liked the lizard. It was crawling around in the cage and doing nothing scary...but it was scary enough for Collin because he started to cry and walked away. We walked around some more until he saw the bouncing gym thing. He made a bee line down the hill to were it was. At least it was in the shade or it would have been WAY too hot for him to jump in.

At first, he watched the older kids jump like he has before when he has gotten into one of these. He then started to walk and jump himself. He jumped, fell, got back up, jumped and crawled around for at least 20 - 25 minutes. His little cheeks were red. I kept asking him to get out and finally had to crawl in there myself and "extract" him. He, of course, was not happy. I knew he was tired, hot and probably needed some water. I bought some Italian ice and shared it with him. I purposely got the blue raspberry which colored both of our lips. He thought that was funny. After resting for a little while in the shade of daddy's bike shop tent, he got up and ran off to the next blow up gym. This one was fun because it had a basketball hoop on each end. It was for older kids and Collin was not happy about it.

I knew it was time for lunch and we needed to get in the A/C. We left the park and met Melia and her mom at Mission Burrito because there is a sandbox there for the kids to play in. They had a great time. Collin mainly played with the trucks in between throwing sand on himself and the other kids in the sandbox. He was having so much fun that he did not want to stop and eat. It's going to be one of those days.

It was time for the second extraction of the day since I knew Collin needed a nap....but not before a shower since he was sticky, stinky, sweating and sandy. Sounds like a boy, right?