uh-oh!

Ok, I lied about the hiatus.. So over Christmas, Colin started saying uh-oh! and I just caught it on camera..

Let me tell you how fitting it is that this is his first word.

the reaction "no" gets in our house*

We're on break, so the blog is too. Christmas pictures will show up when I have the energy. It might be awhile. To tide the grandparents over, here's a short video of Colin's reaction to us telling him "no no."

*This is one reaction. You wouldn't be entertained by the other one. Unless you like face-down tantrums.

**Yes, that is the diaper pail he is chewing on. It's a miracle we don't all have dysentery in this house.

14 months! (almost)

Since I no longer have to wrangle Colin down for his monthly pictures, I realized I've slacked on the monthly updates. It's getting hard to keep track of his milestones - it seems like he learns something new every day.


He's starting to really walk well. I'm not sure when we can officially say he's "walking." By far, his preferred mode of transport is still crawling. But, he can take more steps than I can count on his own... often halfway across a room. He also walks very well just holding on to someone's hand. He's a very physical little boy. His new favorite thing is crawling up on the windowseat or the couch on his own, and then crawling/rolling back off of it (usually over the arms of the couch), again all on his own. Sometimes he falls, but he just laughs and keeps going. And he loves throwing things. He has quite a pitching arm. His favorite game is throwing sippy cups or food and watching us pick them up. Not my favorite game.


He loves "hiding" from us and playing peekaboo, and he's really gotten into copying us finally, which is funny. He claps at everything. He loves "answering" his play phone or our real phone (holding it up to his ear and raising his eyebrows like it is SO interesting). He still isn't saying anything we can understand beyond mama and dada (and honestly, he calls everything dada), but he knows lots of words, and will "find" his duck or dog if you ask him where it is. He also makes this hilarious mouth-smacking noise any time he hears the word "milk." He is a little milkaholic!


He transitioned into his toddler room at school in "record time." So now he eats lunch at a table and naps on a little cot like a big boy. That room has a structured curriculum and they do lots more activities than the baby room did, and I think he's enjoying having more going on during the day.


We're still stuck at three teeth, but I think the other top one is coming in. We know the time is coming soon to be rid of the pacifier, but when he's teething it is the only thing that keeps him happy. That one is more a test of our patience than his though.


Here's some random pics that have nothing to do with milestones, I just kept forgetting to share them. Mohawk man:

Please give me a haircut people!

And Sunday he was cracking himself up by picking up my (empty) coffee cup and pretending to drink out of it. Not sure why that was so funny to him... I wish I could have gotten a picture of his huge smile every time he picked it up. Perhaps he notices Mom and Dad seem happier after they drink out of them.. hmmm.

He's a little ham, and is so smart. I can't wait for my family and friends to get to see our little toddler over Christmas!

we are only here to entertain him.

This is Colin's favorite new game.. playing catch with Dad from the upstairs balcony. As you can hear, he gets very excited to throw the ball down, but not so happy when it takes Dad awhile to get the ball back up to him. Also, as you can see, Colin officially has a baby mullet. We are aware of the problem. I just can't bring myself to cut his hair yet - although it's long, there isn't much of it. Poor little guy.

Since we're heading down to Edwardsville later this week, Mike and I opened our presents from each other a little early this weekend. Mike always outdoes me on presents. This year, he got me an awesome little Flip camera that I can use for catching short little moments on camera and then emailing or blogging quickly later. I love it! So, look forward to lots of short clips on here of Colin doing random Colin things.

lovely weather for a sled ride together

While wandering around at Menards on Saturday (we live a life of excitement here), we spotted some "toddler sleds" on a shelf .. so we picked one up for Colin. Mike took him out in the yard yesterday and Colin loved it!


(really, he did.. I just didn't get any pictures of him smiling)

Whee! Mike got quite a workout.

Here's a short video of the action.. I didn't get it on camera, but he was laughing every time Mike would pull him down the slope. Our neighbors stopped by and Colin got very loud about demanding another ride. I'm guessing we'll get a lot of use out of this thing... after it was too cold to stay outside, Mike gave Colin a few more rides around the living room, and he seemed to like that just as much :)

playing nicely

Colin and Ellie playing nicely on Saturday night ... though Ellie doesn't look quite as happy to share her toy as Colin was...

Colin was also up to taking 5 steps at a time on Saturday night - he must have wanted to show off for his lady-friend who is already foot-mobile!

beginning to look a lot like Christmas!*

It's 6 degrees this morning, snow on the ground, work is crazy stressful, and I've relapsed on my peppermint mocha addiction. This can mean only one thing - it's almost Christmas! We got our tree up last weekend. Colin was slightly more "helpful" than last year, when we decorated the tree with him sleeping in the baby sling on dad's chest.


He played happily with the lights for half an hour, mostly trying to eat them, until mean mom got worried about electrocution and lead poisoning and took them away...


Big boy and his Christmas tree! He hasn't even tried to knock it down yet, though we moved most of the fun stuff up to the top half of the tree.

This weekend we got our first real snowfall of the year - about 4 inches. Saturday we planned to take Colin out in it, but he woke up from his nap with a fever and was just a whimpering mess. So we spent the afternoon with him cuddling on my lap, watching Christmas movies while the snow fell. As much as I hate seeing him sick, it wasn't a bad way to spend the afternoon. We had to miss out on a playdate and our friends' christmas party, so we were bummed about that, but I was pretty worried about the little guy. Luckily the next morning his fever was down a little and he seemed to be feeling better. So we did get some play time in - he did surprisingly well in the snow, just didn't seem to care for the cold wind.



Pics of December so far are here: http://tinyurl.com/2a7a86w


Hopefully he's back to normal today. We attempted daycare today so fingers crossed I don't get "the call" to come retrieve him once his Motrin wears off... Have a great week and stay warm everyone.

*Is there any worse Christmas song out there? Not if you worked at Shop 'n Save during Christmas for four years. I can't hear that or "the most wonderful time of the year" without suffering extreme grocery store PTSD.