"happy, mom's day!" -- colton

Mother's Day weekend started for us on Friday night. Billy took Colton out to run some errands before sundown, and they came back with flowers, a balloon, cake, and a card. Colton came running into the back room where I was working, and said, "Happy Mom's Day!" That was really the best gift I could've received. The cake was delicious! It was very fudgey ... I'm not a big cake fan, but this was made perfectly.

Billy wanted to get a picture of Colton wishing me a Happy Mother's Day ... Colton had a hard time cooperating. He did not want to hold the sign! :) Billy really wanted him to ... which led to the crying pictures. I think they are so cute! What a big boo-hoo he has!




On Sabbath, we went to church and then came home to relax in the pool. It was wonderful! It was a beautiful Sabbath day, and the quiet neighborhood made for a very relaxing Sabbath. We went for a walk on Saturday night. On Sunday morning, Colton and Billy took me out for a Mother's Day brunch at First Watch. I love that place! We both wanted a little taste of sweet and a little taste of savory, so Billy got the blueberry pancakes while I got a veggie omelet with potatoes. They were both delicious! Colton enjoyed them, too. The blueberry pancakes were HUGE! We did not finish them, but we did enjoy them ... a lot!
The omelet was so fresh ... and it wasn't drenched in cheese, so it seemed less filling.
We had a great time at First Watch, and the wait wasn't really that bad, either. Only 30 minutes ... on Mother's Day! I think it's usually around 30 minutes to get in on a Sunday anyway, so they were really moving people in and out. They also had a sweet treat for all of the moms ... a free box of chocolates. Mmmmm ....

We all accidentally wore white shirts to brunch, so we thought it would be fun to take some pictures in the backyard. Most of them did not turn out, but some of them weren't too bad! I may even frame some of them.


There are a couple of good family photos here. We just need a better, quicker camera. Ours is a good camera ... but it has such delay! We miss so many great shots of Colton, because it pauses before it shoots ... and he's moved by then! Oh, well.

Yesterday afternoon, we spent more time in the pool ... I have been so thankful for this pool! It is the perfect way to relax and cool off when pregnancy is overheating me! Billy has also really been enjoying some pool floaties that I bought at Costco. He can read a magazine and eat a snack or drink a cool drink while he floats. He made sure to let me know that he enjoyed doing that this weekend, too!

Then Colton helped us clean up in the yard ... pick up leaves ... water plants ... play in the dirt. Here's what he looked like upon coming back inside in the evening.
Look at that grimy face!!! He had a bath right away, because his hands were even worse!

Today, I decided to cut his hair! I know ... it has probably needed it for a long time. But don't worry ... I didn't cut his curls! I just had to get rid of those bangs. His hair was constantly in his eyes ... and the bangs were so uneven and scraggly. I cut the front, so that it is up out of his face. The top and back are still as redneck as ever. He is rockin' the curly mullet, and I like it! It was hard enough for me to get rid of the bangs, and I was so frustrated with them! I did save them ... some mangy, scraggly hairs in a baggy ... marked "first haircut". I'm sure he'll cherish that as much as I do. Ha, ha! I tried to get him to say "cheese" and look at the camera for a picture, but at this age, he just says, "NO!" and runs away. So, most of my pictures are of him on the run.




Billy's parents come to visit us today. They will be here for a week. It will be nice to have them here to see Colton and to hang out. I think they will be amazed at how much he's changed since Christmas! He's such a talker now. He has really grown into a little man.

I had another doctor's appointment today. Dr. Sweet said that the 20 week sonogram looked great! He said all is normal and all of my blood tests have come back perfect. He measured my tummy, and said that I was right on--which is a relief, because 4 weeks ago, I was measuring ahead of schedule ... so I feel good to be on schedule again. Sissy Wally's heartbeat is 148, so she is good, too. I have to go in a little early for my next appointment, because I will be traveling the entire month of June. The next appointment will be the glucose testing. I'm feeling pretty good about that ... I had no issues with Colton, and so far this pregnancy has been going very well. I guess I will see him again in about 3 weeks ... just before our vacation begins--of which, I am very excited!

a new way to sleep

Colton's new bed arrived yesterday. I am pretty excited! I put it together right away while Daddy and Colton were off running a few errands. It was incredibly easy to assemble! I was very happy for that, since I had to have my Dad on Skype the last time I tried assembling his first crib. It looks great in his room, and he had a very successful night's sleep last night in it. Doesn't it look great?However, after his nap this afternoon, I saw something on the side of the rail. Upon closer investigation, I realized he BIT his crib! Not even 24 hours of this crib being in his room, and there are teeth marks on it already!
I have to say that I expected this ... just not so quickly! I am going to have to get or make a cover for the rails, until he's out of this "let's bite everything" phase. Well, I can't say he bites everything ... I guess just the crib. He doesn't really bite his toys anymore ... or people at all. Sometimes his toys, I suppose. Anyway, I will have to cover it, so it doesn't get all messed up.

Today, in honor of Mother's Day (weekend), I decided to make something for Sabbath dinner that my Mom used to make when I was little. We had cream cheese patties with mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, and salad. It was delicious! It just hit the spot. I guess I was pretty hungry, because my plan was to take a picture of the finished product--but I forgot! So, here's me making the patties. Yum, yum! For dessert, we had blueberries from the backyard with pound cake, vanilla ice cream, and homemade whipped cream! It was incredible. Our blueberries are so delicious! Colton loves them, too. He always picks them off of the bush when we're outside. He's just like his Daddy when it comes to berries! He loves them!

I got an early Mother's Day present from Colton (and Billy). Some beautiful flowers and a balloon! Colton came running in with the balloon saying, "Happy Mom's Day! I love you!" That was the best gift of all!
I feel very lucky to have such a wonderful son ... and a fabulous husband. Aren't they cute playing on the couch?
Like I said, best gift of all.

I am now 21 weeks along. Here's my belly picture. It's coming along ... nicely, I guess. I wore a non-maternity dress to church today ... that felt nice. But the past two weeks before this one, I wore maternity dresses, so I have been enjoying the comfort of maternity clothes. I guess it's nice to have more options right now ... because soon, all I will have is maternity. Boo.

I'll leave you with a cute picture of Colton playing with his toys. I love this guy and his cute smiles!

"hello there, neighbor!"

Last night, Colton found an old friend of mine. In the garage, it looks like we have a child held captive, but alas, it's just the doll I grew up with ... Neighbor Amber. My parents bought me Amber when I was 3, I think. They asked me what I would like to name her. I said, "Neighbor!" My Mom helped me decide that Amber would be a better name for Neighbor. So, Amber was my little friend for many years. Then she became my guinea pig, as I washed and cut her hair. Since my Jr. High years, she has lived in various storage units, basements, and garages. I admit, if you step back to the street and look into our garage, it looks like we have punished a small child by standing her amongst the boxes in the garage. Colton discovered her last night, and he was thrilled to have a friend! He gave her kisses and knocked her over several times--since she is so light, one brush and she crashes to the ground. I'm glad to see Colton likes her. Though I know he will grow weary of her quickly, I imagine Sissy Wally will be thrilled to have Amber as a playmate ... much like I did nearly 27 years ago. Meeting Amber ...
Going in for the kiss ...
BIG smooch!

As I made dinner last night, I needed to grab some olive oil to coat the pan for my stir fry. I grabbed the oil, and it slipped right out of my hand and hit the floor. Here's the mess that grew and grew as the oil spread across my kitchen floor ... under the fridge ... under the oven. I had to move everything to clean it all up! It was a mess!

Today, I got into the refinishing spirit. I went into the garage and took out a chair my parents refinished for me when I was little. It's a had a little accident since then. When we moved into this house, I put a garbage bag with "empty" paint cans, paint rags, and a little bit of trash. Anyway, it leaked onto the chair in the garage. I didn't realize it ... we didn't live in the house yet. We were still painting and had a few weeks to move in. Once we did move in, I saw what had happened. Over the course of the month, the bagged leaked and maggots were all over the chair! I was SO grossed out. I moved the chair down to the trash for the garbage man to pick up. Billy saw it out by the road, and he asked me why I was throwing it away. I told him what happened, and he convinced me that I might be really upset if I got rid of the chair. I moved it back into the garage after I sprayed it with the hose. Now that I am having a little girl, I'm so thankful that I kept that old chair of mine. I am going to refinish it for her. I went into the garage today, and I took all of the furniture pins (I guess that's what you call them) out and ripped off the old cushion. I also found that my Mom was very good with the staple gun. I pulled out a million staples, and I'm not quite done with that either! I am looking forward to finding some fabric that I really like to put on this chair. I'm not necessarily going to match her crib bedding ... since that won't last forever, but I hope this chair will. It's already gone at least 30 years ... who knows who had this chair before me (I do know that it was blue). Here's the chair before, and I wish I had a really nice picture of the chair ... you know, before I ruined it!

This is the pulling out of the furniture pins process. It was tough! They were really stuck in there.

All I have left now is the cushion! Easy, right? Not so much, thanks to the staples. Finished with the demo ... well, most of the staples are out! I'm excited to see what it will turn out to look like!

So, I love this cream called "Arnica"! It's for bumps, bruises, scrapes, and I use it for bug bites. Colton was running to go out to the backyard with me this morning. We had just put on his shoes, and he was headed to the back door when ... BAM! He tripped, and his face smashed into the tile floor. Luckily, he just bumped his forehead, but he was pretty upset. After he calmed down, I put Arnica on the bump, and it's nowhere to be seen! It really helps keep the bumps and bruises from lingering around. Have I mentioned I hate tile floor with kids around!?!

Well, here comes Colton with book number 4. I have stopped three times to read to him. I guess I should probably sign-off.

pete and repeat

It's so funny to sit here and listen to Colton play with his talking toys. He used to just push the buttons and move on. Now, he pushes the buttons and repeats everything he hears. "Triangle", "Bottle", "Up", "Goodbye", "Doorbell", "Let's Explore", "Let's Go Home" ... I didn't even realize that this toy made half of those sounds, but now that I hear Colton's mynah bird impression, I see that these are good learning toys. I should've known this was coming ... he mimics Billy and me all of the time. This morning when he laid down for his nap he said, "Night, night, Peanut!" It's funny what things he retains.

Yesterday, I tackled the job of cleaning up the garage. Now, it may not look like I have done much, but you should've seen it before I started. Not to mention, you have to remember that it is a regular garage/a storage unit. Eventually, I am going to have to move the things out of the guest room closet into the garage. Billy is not looking forward to adding more things to our garage storage.




We also picked some of our first ripe raspberries yesterday. Here's one of them. It was super tart ... so I'm not sure it was really quite ripe, yet. Billy can't help himself.


I have decided I have taken on too many projects. I want to do all of them, but I added to my list last night while I was looking for things to decorate Sissy Wally's room. I realized that half of the things I want to buy, I can make. I will probably wait to take on these projects until after my June road trip, but once I start, I will have a lot to do.

Well, I better get the stir-fry we're having for dinner finished. Billy just came home!

off-schedule kind of week

With Colton battling this crazy cough and runny nose, he's been extra sleepy during the day. Today, he took a four-hour nap! I couldn't believe it! I went into this room several times. Usually, the sound of the door wakes him up. This time ... it didn't matter what I did. I called his name, "Colton, Colton ... it's time to get up!" Nothing. I rubbed his back. Nothing. I stood there and stared at him. Nothing. I said, "Do you want to get up and have lunch, Colton?" Still nothing. He opened his eyes once ... I thought he was awake, but then he just rolled over and kept on sleeping. One time, he pulled his favorite blue blanket up over his eyes--no doubt to shut out my chatter. I guess his body just needed that time sleeping. He is in a better mood this afternoon. He's even happily munching on his late lunch.

Yesterday, we had nachos, in honor of Cinco-de-mayo which is on Thursday. We will have haystacks on Friday, so I didn't want to do two days in a row of Mexican food ... mostly because I'm getting a Mexican food diversion again. But the nachos were tasty!

Billy came home last night from work with two trucks for Colton from a co-worker. It was a very nice gift! Colton loves trucks, so we added them to his collection. How funny is it that he has every size of the blue tow truck!?! :) Here are his Tonka trucks all lined up (minus one that Billy gave to a little boy in the Philippines).



I wanted to show you guys the fabric I found for Sissy Wally's quilt. I also found a pattern for a quilt that I am going to use. It's something about Shifting Squares. I love it!!!! I can't wait to get started on her quilt ... but I promised I would finish Colton's quilt first. I'm SO close to being done, so I better hurry! Because I can't wait to start on Sissy's.

a sunday in may

I'm pretty excited about this time of year. Last year, we planted two blueberry bushes. One died. But the other one is alive and thriving! These past couple of weeks, we have eaten about 2 pints of blueberries from our backyard ... and there are tons more waiting for us to enjoy! For breakfast on Sunday, we had fresh blueberry pancakes courtesy of our bush in the backyard. Don't they look delicious!?!

So, Colton's fever last week turned into a cold this week. Sunday morning, we went to play basketball at the park, and Colton brought out his deep chested cough. It has since also attacked his little nose which is a runny faucet. I feel badly for him when he gets choked up on his cough. I'm sure he'll get over it soon, but for now, it makes him a little whiny mess. I'll be happy when he starts feeling better again. Here are some pictures of our basketball morning at the park.





Billy worked very hard cleaning up our garage yesterday. I hate our garage. Our garage door is broken ... well, the spring that lets it go up and down is broken. Since we live in Florida, we don't have much storage in our house. No basement ... no crawl space ... and the attic is a million degrees and humidity laden--you don't want to keep too much up there. So, our garage is our basement, and that means it gets full of the things we want to store ... plus our garage items. Sometimes it gets out of hand messy ... but Billy worked on it yesterday, and it looks so much better! I am in charge of getting the rest of it cleaned up ... mostly the stuff I am storing in there ... Christmas decor, beach items, teaching materials, etc. We're hoping by the time we find someone to fix it for us, it will be clean and ready for summer work.

We finally met our neighbors yesterday! How funny is that!?! Nearly two years ago, a young couple (who was also pregnant with their first child--a boy) moved into the house kitty-corner to us. We wave to them all of the time, and I know they know our next door neighbors who have told us they are really nice. Their son just turned a year old today, and we finally met them and talked with them on Saturday night. She is a stay-at-home mom, too, and I think we're going to try to get our boys together to play during the week sometimes. It's sad that it took this long to meet them, but I'm glad we did. They are nice people.

We bought a 4-in-1 crib for Colton this weekend. It's perfect, and it can grow with him through the years. We got it on a really good deal. It was 1/2 price, and it included a mattress. I'm pretty excited about that! We did site-to-store purchase, so we didn't have to pay for shipping! Great idea! We should be able to pick it up as early as Friday. Then I can get on painting the other crib white and setting up portions of Sissy Wally's room. Tonight, we are going to make a list of things we need to get for Sissy Wally. This way when people ask us what we need, we will know ... and we can make a plan on when to purchase what items we are looking for. We will definitely need a double stroller. I found one I like on Amazon.com. It's the Kolcraft Contours Options Tandem Stroller in Ruby. I like it, because the seats sit so many ways. I can also take off the back seat and attach the car seat that we already have while Sissy Wally is so small that she can't sit in the regular seat.

I guess we are also looking for a chair. I want a rocker/glider, but Billy thinks we should just get a regular chair to go in Colton's room and move that rocker into Sissy Wally's room. The thing is that a regular chair is twice as expensive (for the cheapest chair) as the glider. I don't know what to do about that. I guess we will look around and see if we can find anything before we make a final decision on that. I'm liking this rocker/glider. (There are tons of regular chairs and gliding regular chairs that I like ... it's just they are a lot more money than this glider!) It's the Stork Craft Hoop Glider and Ottoman in white/beige. I can always add color with a pillow or a slip cover on the cushions. I just like how comfy it looks and clean.

Colton and I are going out to run errands today ... and with him being under the weather, I'm not super excited to have him sitting in a cart all afternoon, but groceries must be bought! I better grab some lunch for myself before the little man wakes up from his nap. I may let him sleep until he wakes up since he's feeling so badly. Maybe that will make for a chirpier attitude. I hope so! He's just like me when he's sick ... he just wants to whine about it and lay with his mommy.