colin's birthday parts 1 and 2

These are a little late, but you know what they say about things that are late—they're still good, right? Colin got to open some presents on his birthday, thanks to his Nana. He liked to look at the card before he opened the present. 

He made quite a haul, pulling in a BYU bear, 2 trucks, and a Mickey Mouse ring stacker. 

We went to visit my aunt Terrie at the nursing home, and Colin spent most of his time pushing her walker around. It was hard to tear him away when we had to go. 

Nate had Friday off and took some time to mow the lawn. One of the neighbor kids came over to play with Colin, and when I told her he was sleeping she decided to follow Nate around instead. 

Colin spent an evening playing with his cousin Donovan who was in town. They had lots of fun playing with their granny. 

I love the way he looks in those pjs.

This is out of order, but I'm not going to fix it. This is Colin after he enjoyed his birthday cupcake. He was a huge happy mess. He's recently started putting both hands on his head when he's being silly, and I'm not sure where he picked that up. Also, I forgot to mention that I made awesome monkey cupcakes in lieu of a regular birthday cake. They were a hit with the kids. The adults, if they liked them, did not express as much appreciation.

Here are the rest of the birthday bash pictures. Our family and a couple of friends came over to celebrate the birth of our son and of the USA. We had a good time barbecuing in the sweltering backyard and hanging out. Nate and Donovan helped Colin open his presents. I think Donovan liked being the big cousin who got to help. 

Colin got a new blanket from his Nana with his name on it.

He also got plenty of new cars with wheels—wheels are his favorite.

I told my brother Grant that Colin would like any toy that he could push, that made noise, or that had wheels. Grant was super awesome and found something that did all three. Colin loves it.

This is Colin right as he started eating his birthday cupcake.  

And here's an after picture.

Donovan wanted to be messy too. This is the only picture I got with the two of them in it.

I printed out a 5X7 of Colin from each month of his life and hung them on the railing. I don't think that anyone else cared, but it was important to me.

This is the super riding, pushing, sound-making toy from Grant and Kelli. Colin also loved his monkey elephant music ball thingy from Caleb and Heather. And the little people carport deal-io from his Iowa relatives. In fact, he loved all his toys, so thanks everyone! 

12 month stats

Colin had to go to the doctor and get shots on his birthday. Poor boy. But he did get a sucker from the nurse, and since it was his birthday I let him eat it. He enjoyed the stick almost as much as the candy on the end. Here are his official measurements, although I'm not sure they are entirely accurate. 

Height: 31 1/2 inches—92%

Weight: 21 pounds—23% (He was 22 pounds a week ago on the same scale. They had him stand on the big scale and he kind of pulled himself up.)

Head Circumference: 19 inches—92%

Some of Colin's unofficial stats are that he can walk, he can sign about 7 words, he loves to imitate any sound he hears, he can go to bed all by himself (most nights), he makes animals sounds (when he wants to—not on command), and he loves to give hugs and kisses and bonks.

And here are my 18 week stats for those who care.

Weight: gained 1 pound so far (I won't tell you where I started.)

Baby's Heart Beat: strong

Ultrasound: scheduled for July 17th, unfortunately. Dr Porter said it wouldn't be a problem if I went in a few days early so I could share the news with my Iowa family, but apparently the radiologist refuses to see you even 1 day before you are officially 20 weeks. Grrr. So now I'll have to wait. It wouldn't be so annoying if my dear husband would agree to discuss baby names before we knew the gender, but he won't. 

That's all for now. Maybe I'll post pictures later.

happy happy birthday, colin, dear

Today is Colin's first birthday! Huzzah! We're celebrating by playing in the pool in the backyard and eating his favorite foods (i.e. fruit). We're not having an actual "party" until the 4th of July, but I don't think Colin will mind. He's enjoyed having "Happy Birthday" sung to him many times so far today. He's also enjoyed a trip to Reams. The grocery store is one of his favorite places. After we're done with all of our funtivities I'll have some pictures to post, but until then, please to be enjoying this little gem from one year ago today.

Yes, this picture is a little goofy looking. I didn't have a lot of photo options from the night he was born. I suppose I could have cheated and posted a picture from June 30, but that wouldn't have been from a year ago today, so it wouldn't have worked.

fathers day, etc

Colin is learning to eat with a spoon and fork. I figured it was about time I let him. He does pretty well, but sometimes I'm not as patient as I could be. He gets really excited when it's time to eat. Here are some pictures from his first attempt. 

While hanging out at Granny's house one day we put a beautiful headband on Colin.

Doesn't he make a pretty girl?

We've had some crazy thunderstorms here the past few weeks. Colin loves standing at the back door and watching the rain splash. He also likes playing in the curtains. 

Since my sister is in Fiji for the summer, Colin and I went downstairs and raided her bedroom. We found this huge bear. Colin loves it. He likes to give it hugs and kisses. 

Awww.

And now Fathers Day. Granny made the boys special bow ties out of M&Ms. She was taking a picture at the same time—that's why no one is looking at me. Colin was jealous.

After dinner the boys set up a regulation horseshoe pit and took turns hurling large pieces of metal at each other. Scott was not the best. 

Caleb put up a good fight, but he couldn't keep up either.

Sam probably had the best form, but not the best score.

My awesome husband was the ultimate champion. (At least I assume he was; I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the score.) Looking good baby!

The kids played on the lawn while the dads played horseshoes. 

This is the present all us kids put together for Papa for Fathers Day. There are two versions on here because that's how I printed it and I didn't want to re-export a new image. Deal with it.

And here is Colin this morning. He drools a lot.

I tried to get a video of Colin walking to show how good he's getting, but he didn't feel like cooperating. Just know that he really is awesome. He spent all 3 hours of church doing laps in the halls. Yay for Colin!

fathers day preview

So, I'm really proud of this, and Nate doesn't read our blog, so I'm going to just post it now. These are the pictures I took of Colin for Nate's fathers day present. These three turned out okay out of the 200 or so that I took. I was really happy when I decided to try sitting him in front of our yucky old shed. It kind of matched his outfit. Are you as impressed with me as I am? 

Stay tuned for Grandpa's present later this week...

not a whole lot...

Not too many pictures to post this week. I did take a ton of pictures, but they're not really blog quality. I've been working on some Fathers Day projects, so I've been taking a lot of pictures for those, but most of the pictures haven't worked out. Here are the few random pictures of Colin that do make the blog cut:

Colin smiling in his pajamas

Colin's name (finally) hung up on his wall

Colin playing with the newly baby-proofed bathroom cabinets

Colin loving his blanket (and drinking a bottle)

Colin cooperating during a photo shoot

That's it. I'll try to be more productive this week so the blog can be more interesting.

Boo yah! I'm an athlete!

So, not to brag or anything, but I totally dominated the Art City Days Family Fun Run 5K yesterday. Yeah, I walked it, but what of it? I finished, and that's what I set out to do. My time was 53 minutes. I nailed it. And I totally wasted my slowpoke friends who came in like 30 seconds behind me. We had a great time visiting and getting some exercise, and afterward we came back to my house and had a delicious fattening breakfast. I didn't find out until later that we missed the giveaways after the race. Apparently Nestle gives away a ridiculous amount of awesome prizes, and we left before any of that started. Oh well. Maybe next year. Here are some pictures of Colin's first 5K.

Here we are just before the start of the race. Bekah's children are being neglected off on the left side. Stacey is taking the picture.

Since we were kind of toward the back of the pack we had a nice view of everyone going up the hill. This was the best picture I could get without stopping.

There are my cute friends; Stacey kindly pushing my cute baby.

Colin was a champ the whole time. He didn't fuss or whine. He just laughed, and kicked his feet, and tried to talk to the other people. 

Winner!

Here we are after the race. Some of the children were overly ready to be done, but not mine! (Because he was a champ, remember?)

Earlier in the week Colin and I went over to Bekah's house to play. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds for a few minutes, so we pulled out Kaitlynn's new slip 'n slide. Kaitlynn and Colin were all about it, but Jack was a little wary. I hadn't brought Colin's swim stuff (because the weather didn't look like it was going to cooperate) so he had to just hang out in a swim diaper.

It was cute to watch Colin and Kaitlynn play together. She's really nice to him.

Colin was content to sit and splash in the sprinklers. He was so chill it was kind of unnerving.

Kaitlynn loved her present. She ran and ran and ran and ran...

Jack preferred to sit with his mom and observe.

Adorable.

Jack did find an apple and happily pranced around with it for the rest of the afternoon.

The other day I was eating a snack while Colin was taking a nap. He woke up before I was ready for him, and I forgot to move my bowl of ranch dressing. Colin snatched it up and devoured it. Apparently he likes ranch dressing. I can't blame him; it was the good stuff from BYU. I tried to take the bowl away from him, and he would have none of it.

He was completely unrepentant.

Colin wanted to send some kisses to his Granny who is still far far away in Iowa with her other grandchildren. He misses her. Thankfully she'll be home this week!

Here's a video from when Colin played with his cousins in the pool a while ago. I forgot to post it back when it was relevant. 

That's all for now. Hopefully Colin and I will make it out to the funtivities at Art City Days this week and will have fun things to share in our next post.