birthday celebration.

cole's birthday celebration was low key this year.

we had some family over for dinner and made it a causal affair.  i really am glad that i did not try to throw a party, it would have been too much with everything going on.  but we had fun today celebrating with cole.  i am a firm believer that you should be able to do pretty much whatever you want on your birthday.  within reason, of course.  and so that is kind of what we let cole do.  he got to pick whatever he wanted to eat and play/do whatever he wanted to.  therefore, our day was filled with strawberries, oranges, cupcakes, cheese puffs, french fries, elmo, trains, and driving.  these are some of cole's favorite things.  

he was able to blow out his candles by himself!

 enjoying his 2nd cupcake of the day.

 yum!

brenner's cousins bought cole a new basketball goal!

 aunt jenna and uncle adam got him elmo!

about 4 months ago i found cole a batman/superman cape.  he doesn't know who they are yet but he loved wearing it! 

 not as crazy about the eyemask

 waiting for the basketball hoop to be assembled.

 cole wanted to play with all of his new toys at once so he wore his cape while dunking elmo!

 uh-oh.

he still has some more presents in store, as we didn't open all of them at once.  

i also think a birthday celebration is spread out over the course of a week.  

the husband thinks this is a great idea for cole so he doesn't go into system overload with all the toys at once.  i have not sold him on the fact that mine also needs to continue for a whole week.  

i am working on it. 

11.1.11

today is my baby's 2nd birthday. 

i cannot believe that it was 2 years ago that i was in the hospital having this little munchkin.  

i cannot believe what a blessing these 2 years have been. 

here are a few of the many, many, MANY photos we have of this child. these are some of my favorites.

(be prepared for cuteness overload)

 this little guy truly is the best gift i have been given!

happy halloween!

happy halloween!
cole was a cowboy this year for halloween and we went to our church for the 
festival that they put on instead of trick or treating in the neighborhood.  
here is a picture i snapped with my phone before getting in the car.  

 and here are some  from my camera.

 here is a a picture of cole's favorite activity from the church- a large inflatable slide. 
to say he loved this was an understatement.  we had to pull him away from it crying.

and here is the video!

hope your halloween was just as fun!

an unusual day.

don't you love lazy saturday mornings where you don't have to be anywhere and you can just lounge around in your pajamas?  

we did that today.  starting at 5:30 am.  

not cool, kid. 

cole had a nightmare and woke up at this unnatural weekend hour. 

brenner was in houston yesterday and today for a conference on creationism

so i slept down in the guest room to be closer to cole.  after he woke up, 

i tried to get him to go back to sleep with me in the bed but after a very long hour of no one sleeping and lots wrangling, we got up.  

ugh.  

for this reason, cole took two naps today instead of the usual one but each time i put him down, he screamed and cried.  this NEVER happens in our house.  cole has always been a great sleeper

and he goes down to bed so easily, always has.  but i think maybe he missed brenner (he is very aware of when brenner is gone overnight) and was maybe scared of having another bad dream. 

all that to say, i got to hold my baby as he went to sleep twice today.  we both squished onto the couch in his room and i held him until he was out, which was not even 5 minutes.  

it really was such a sweet time.  for each nap i ended up just holding him for over 30 minutes.  

i mean, this kid never slows down, and really the only time he is still-ish is when we are reading books.

he gives lots of hugs and kisses but always on the go.  

i cherished those minutes holding him, knowing that they are so limited.

and i would have stayed there the whole time if my pregnant body would have stood it.

oh yeah, and cole also learned how to climb out of his crib today.  i am kind of surprised that it took him this long, but am very thankful too.  he did it at the beginning of his first nap when he was crying before i went in and held him.  and he tried to climb back in when i walked in the room.  

this better not become a regular thing. 

with brenner gone, i wanted to do something fun, so we went to a local CSA, the world hunger relief farm, where they were having their farm day today.  when we were going to do cole's birthday party today i was sad to miss this, but obviously things worked out.  and it wasn't as big as i thought so it was easy for us to get around and not too crowded.  

cole got to pet some animals and he really loved the goats.  he also liked the turkeys but

kept calling them flamingos, since they did not look like the turkey in our thanksgiving book.

they also had world map with containers of rice and beans as well as little wooden people.  

it was designed to be educational, but cole just liked to play and stack the container up to build towers.

it has been a long day and we are glad that brenner got home earlier than expected!