poppy.

my dad was in town for a few days and cole is obsessed with his poppy.  his favorite thing to do is to pull things out of his front pocket (which is where he keeps his pens and pieces of note paper...and other things that he puts in there for cole!)

cole loves his poppy!

little chinese man.

last year my parents went to china and bought cole a couple of chinese outfits.  they were too big at the time but we pulled one out and put one on cole.  

 cole liked being chinese

 but he wanted to come back to america after a while. 

random.

so here is an old photo that i found as i was going through my 10 billions pictures on my computer desperately looking for the one i needed.  this was taken about 3 years ago i think.  

this is my brother and our dog oreo, who died a year and a half ago.  oreo was a party animal.   no pun intended.  oh, wait.  yes it was. 

wacoans.

for christmas, cole got a waco shirt.  he wanted to represent. 

 and seeing as my brother is a former wacoan, he got a matching shirt.  

handsome boys. 

15 month pictures.

my baby....

is now a boy.  :)  :(

drama.

so i realized that i have not yet told you about the drama we had at the wedding last week.  we had arrived at the reception and cole was hungry since it was way later than he normally ate, so i put him in his little booster seat and started feeding him a piece of bread and some string cheese.  it was SO loud in the room with all the music and people and we were busy chatting with people around the table and people coming up so i was definitely not paying too close attention to what cole was doing because he was just happy and eating.  


i look down and cole looks up at me smiling.  i notice a little something in his nose.  it looked like a booger, but whiter.  see where this is going?  cole had stuck a piece of string cheese up right nostril.  seriously?  here?  at the wedding reception that had barely begun and we were starving?  so, we were faced with a dilemma.  do we try to get it out here or go home to get the aspirator or worse yet, go to the emergency room?  we did not want to go anywhere.  i already said we were staving.  selfish, i know.  but i must admit that i have had to get boogers out of cole's nose before with my finger.  gross?  so be it.  i thought i could get the cheese out of there too.  because the texture is probably close to the same.  still gross?  i know.  it comes with the parental territory.  so, i tried.  i failed.  the cheese was too big (we did not know it at the time though) and i could not get it.  in fact, the cheese succeeded in going up further.  applause to the mother and her brilliant plan. 


fortunately, at that moment, i saw dr. cutbirth.  he is my dentist but is also a world renown oral surgeon.  dentists go to med school don't they?  maybe a version of med school?  i am not really sure.  something to look up later on.  anyways, i digress.  so i explained to dr. cutbirth what had just happened and told him he was our only hope before going to the emergency room or something.  i have no idea what the lasting complications of having cheese stuck up your nose would be but what if he snorted really hard and it went up even further?  but dr. cutbirth quickly pulled out a toothpick from his pocket (thank you Lord for texas men and their need to always carry toothpicks around with them) and he told me to hold cole's arms and torso still.  was he serious?  he leaned cole's head back and held it tight and he took that toothpick and slowly pulled the cheese out of his nose while cole was screaming bloody murder the whole time (although no one could hear it because it was that loud).  note:  i would NEVER have allowed anyone else to do this but since he is a surgeon, i trusted him completely. the cheese was over 1/2 an inch long.  


lessons learned?
- always carry a toothpick
- do not give cole string cheese that i have strung; instead cut it into pieces too large for the nostril
- always watch your kid while they are eating
- know a good surgeon

goofy kid.

snow days.

we had real snow in waco last week.  we had two inches of snow, which is more snow that i have ever seen in texas.  snow was taken.  then he was unsure.  and then he was done.  

we enjoyed the snow for about 7 minutes.  

but it was pretty! 

fun facts.

we went to cole's 15 month appointment last week so here are a few fun facts:

he is 22 lbs 4 oz

he is 30 inches tall

he is in the 25th percentile in weight, height, and head circumference 

he is still a little guy!!!

he also has started saying the word "ball" this week and

he has started blowing spit bubbles on purpose (i am so proud!)

here he was on our snow day preparing to go outside. 

s.t.u.d.
ladies, contain yourselves while looking at this physique. 

mischief maker.

so last week, chewy jumped the fence to have another adventure.  we have tried everything we can to "chewy-proof" our yard.  all of our success have failed thus far.  so, every once in a while (meaning about once a month), chewy escapes for a neighborhood adventure.  on tuesday, the day we had some ice, he jumped the fence and came back about an hour later.  limping.  with blood on his nose.  upon closer inspection, i found that as he re-entered our yard over the fence, he slipped (probably due to the ice), and caught his leg on the fence.  the gash on his groin area was large (almost 30 stitches worth!) and he then he fell on his face in the landing (hence the bloody nose).  

it is bad when you call the vet and the conversation goes like this:

"animal hospital?"

"is dr. raferty in because i need to bring in chewy campbell"

"yes he is brenner, bring him on in, we'll move you up to the front of the line. what is it this time?"

i am not kidding you.  so here is our poor, pathetic dog after he came home from the vet.  

at least he has another bandana for his collection.

wedding.

here are a couple of pictures from the wedding.  we did not get a lot of photos and my camera was set to the wrong setting for most of it so i'm a little disappointed.  i had to lighten them so they are not that great.  but at least they captured a few memories.

Dancin' Fool.

last night, brenner's cousin bill got married to mallory.  and while the wedding and reception were amazing, and one of the most fun we have been to, it was cole who 

stole the show with his dancing. 

 here is a little clip.  

funny guy.

my little guy is 15 months old today.

cole is a total goofball if i have not made that clear already

he cracks me up daily.

and i love him.  

more than anything.

a few fun things that cole is doing right now:

-blowing kisses

-signing "more", "please", "all done", and "milk"

-whistling

-using his fork and spoon when eating

-putting his socks on (well, trying to!)