A *long* list of all the things I cannot eat.

I figured out that Cole is allergic to dairy. And by allergic I mean that he gets a horrible rash all over his face when I eat dairy.

This means no more:

ice cream (I miss Ben and Jerry so much)

milkshakes

cheese on my pizza

cheese on my spaghetti

parmesan on my spaghetti

cheese on any kind of pasta

cheese on my tacos

cheese on my enchiladas

cheese in my sandwich

sour cream on my tacos

sour cream on anything

cream of chicken and mushroom soup that I cook everything with!!!

CHEESEburgers

yogurt

smoothies :(

cheesecake

you get the idea

and so many more things.

I'm pretty sure that the love for my child was the one and ONLY thing that could make me give all this up. That, and I want my baby to look goood :) I went off dairy and then slightly back on it and there's no mistake. His rash flares up even if I eat the smallest amount of dairy.

I've also given up chocolate since about week 2 of Cole's life. It gives him gas, poor thing, and it's one of the few things that makes him cry. So really, there was no going back to it.

Now let's think for a minute of all the desserts out there that don't have chocolate or dairy in them.

..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
I only thought of peanut butter cookies and cinnamon rolls. Please, Cole, do not be allergic to peanuts!!

I'm asking everyone to please be on the lookout for recipes that are dairy and chocolate free. I know Emma already is for me :)

AND, I've mentioned before that Steve is allergic to eggs. So we don't eat much of those either.

(In fact, when baking, I substitute ground flax for eggs and it works great!)

So I was thinking, I might as well be VEGAN!!! All {"all"} I would have to do is cut meat out of my diet and I'd practically be there.

I'm not seriously thinking about this, just a little bitter that I can't eat so many of my favorite foods. It's probably punishment for eating chocolate like crazy when I was pregnant with Cole. (I went through a whole canister of hot cocoa mix all by myself.) And then after he was born I found out I couldn't eat chocolate anymore so I compensated with Ben&Jerry's Peanut Brittle and Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream and apparently I went over board :(

This is just my long way of saying, baby boy, I love you SOO MUCH! :)

A year ago today

A year ago today...

*I got a call from Marie telling me this sweet baby girl was born:

Happy Birthday, Juliette :)

A year ago today...

*I didn't know I was pregnant (barely pregnant).

*I presented my thesis in the Linguistics 490 symposium and I was SOOOO nervous!

*I lived in Provo, Utah.

*I was not yet a college graduate.

*I still had a job.

*I didn't know that in a year from then I would have a 3 month old baby (who is the cutest thing EVER!:)

*I didn't know I would like being a mom so much.

*....I didn't know I would talk like a baby so much...

*and I didn't know I would like Texas so much :)

My my, how my life has changed in the past year.

Rockstar!

This rockstar is sick today :(

He got his first cold, poor thing.

I really don't think he wanted his picture taken, but I just had to since his Grandma Lisa got him this fleece suit and it randomly cooled down in Texas yesterday. So I put him in his rockstar sleeper since the next time it will be cold enough to wear it, he'll surely be grown out of it by then. Obviously I needed to document one of the few times he'll be able to wear it.

It's getting harder and harder to get Cole to smile for the camera. I'm not sure why. But it was especially hard on his sick day today. All he's done today is sleep, sleep and more sleep. He just doesn't feel good.

But finally he looked up at his daddy and thought he'd give him a little smile:

What a sweetheart.

Hopefully he'll feel better tomorrow.

ps, did you notice, he's kind of sitting up? :)

Baby Boy on his Blessing Day

Last week Cole was blessed and it was very special! I will never forget it :)

Cole was asleep when Steve took him up to get blessed. But Grandpa Brent said that after the prayer was said, and when everyone opened their eyes, Cole was looking up into his daddy's eyes, as if he knew exactly what had just happened!

Steve said that Cole was never so calm before.

Cole is already a very calm baby, but when Steve brought him back to me I noticed a difference too. He was just so peaceful. It was definitely a different feeling. It lasted for quite a while afterwards. And it was very special to me. I have no doubt that Cole understood how special his blessing was. Or at least that he could feel a difference. It was just so sweet!

I'm grateful that my dad, aka Grandpa Tracy, could be there. And that Grandpa Brent and Grandma Yvonne could be there too! I just wish my mom could have been there too!

And thank you to Bekah and Jordan for taking the time to come too! You guys are great friends :)

ps, my mom made (she crocheted!!) Cole's little blessing outfit! And Gran Yvonne also crocheted!! that beautiful blanket with the blue ribbon. I plan to do a little photo shoot of Cole in his outfit with that blanket as the background. I just need to find a time to do it. When Cole isn't sleeping. Or eating. Or when he doesn't need a bath. Just know that close-ups are coming!!

Way to go Steve-O

Steve got a scholarship!!!

He got the "President for a Day" scholarship which means he'll get to switch places with President Mancini for an entire day! (Including President Mancini's car, apparently. I don't know what kind of car it is, but let's just say it's pretty cool!)

The school put on a luncheon so all the scholarship recipients could meet all the scholarship donors. 

They kind of made a big deal out of it, I thought.

Fancy lunch. I even got my own name tag and assigned seat and everything.

Just chillin'

Sorry babe, your eyes are closed. It's the only shot I got. It's kind of hard to take a picture while bouncing your baby in your lap! You still look cute though :)

The scholarship was only for $1500. (I say only because once we get out of school, it won't really be a drop in the bucket compared to how much we'll owe, not because I'm ungrateful...)

But really, even if the school hadn't made a big deal out of it, we still would have. Because that's $1500 we'll never have to pay back. YAY!

Special Weekend with Family :)

This past weekend has been eventful.

Cole got to meet his Grandpa Tracy for the very first time!

At first he didn't know what to think....

(I think this is the only picture I have of him crying. Sad!)

But then he got over it and did just fine.

In fact, he pretty much spent the entire weekend in Grandpa Tracy's lap:

So cute :)

When he wasn't being held by Grandpa Tracy, he got some lovin' from Gran Yvonne and Grandpa Brent.

They really are the sweetest grandparents :)

I'm sad that everyone's gone now :( We got some fun in though!

We went hiking,

went to dinner at Johnny Carino's and Costa Vida (my favorites!!),

played volleyball,

watched BYU basketball,

and gave baby boy loooots of attention :)

So, when will we all be together again?

Looks like it won't be until Christmas in Seattle. Long ways away, but I'm already excited :)

Musical genius!

How cute are my little brother and little sister?

Christian wrote this amazing song: (he's 17)

My older sister, Marie wrote these lyrics and my little sister Lissie put it to music: (she's 16)

They're little musical geniuses!

Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to post the video of me singing the song that I wrote Steve and sang to him at our wedding!!! maybe...

How to make sugar cookies healthier for you

I pretty much never do anything special for St. Patrick's Day. And this year won't be any different. But last year was a different story. Last year we did do something (kind of) special.
St. Patty's Day was coming up and I had just been given shamrock cookie cutters as a present. It was Sunday and we were going to some gathering later that evening and I thought it would be nice to make some shamrock sugar cookies with my new cookie cutters. So I made the cookies and looked up how to make homemade icing. Easy enough.
But then I realized we had no food coloring and it seemed weird to just leave the icing white. It needed to be green, of course. And since it was Sunday, we couldn't just go to the store and get some green dye. I googled how to make homemade green food coloring. Because everyone knows that google has the answers to everything. More than one result to my search told me to do the same thing: If anyone was ever wondering, all you have to do is boil some spinach leaves in water which turns the water green and then you add as much of the green spinach water as you want to your icing. Soooo easy. And we even had spinach leaves in our fridge!
Except, it didn't work. Spinach leaves don't exactly turn the water "Crayola" green when you boil it, if you know what I mean. It's more of a puke green than anything. But I did what I had to do and used it anyway and took shamrock cookies with spinach-flavored icing to the little gathering where they were happily eaten. Not by me or Steve though. We didn't touch them. There's something weird about eating a cookie you know has been flavored with spinach. Honestly, I can't believe we let other people eat them. But what you don't know can't hurt you, right?!

And sorry to disappoint, but no, there is no picture of these puke green shamrocks.

I guess I was kind of embarrassed about it at the time and wasn't all about telling the whole world about it like I am now, so I didn't take a picture. Darn it.

I don't know if this was that same night but if it wasn't, it's close to it. 

I feel like my face is saying "Don't ask me if I put spinach water on those cookies."

Because that's probably what I was thinking!

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Now go do something special!

Mr. Munchkin Man

This poor kid has a horrible rash on his face :(

You can kinda tell in this picture:

Poor thing. Don't worry, buddy, you're still super cute.

It's probably from his momma kissing his face all day.

And rubbing his cheeks up against mine!

But thanks to Cetaphil and new laundry detergent, it's finally starting to go away! yay!

Some More Wishes

ONE. I wish I had stuck to ballet when I was four (I only went once because I was such a scardy cat)

And then I could be a real dancer like my little sister, Lissie:

Actually, probably not because I just don't have the coordination.

Isn't she cute? :)

TWO. I wish that I could go see the Stonehenge so bad!

I've always wanted to go so when my friend Connie went, she sent me and my friend, Molly a postcard. This postcard was hung up on my pinboard for years!

THREE. I wish I could eat waffles and maple syrup every morning for breakfast. 

What am I saying, I kind of already fulfill this wish every morning. And they're soo good :)

I'm linking up with Brooke:

Link up too if you want!

Nicknames

Steve has a lot of nicknames for Cole. A lot!

There are the ones that make sense...

Colecito,

Colemeister,

Coleslaw (my least favorite),

Colio

The Colester

And then the ones that don't make as much sense...

Mr. Man

Jazzercize (???)

And the other night it was "Bunsen Burner."

So I was like, "Babe, Bunsen Burner?! Why?"

"Because he lights up my life."

Oh ok. I guess that's cute :)

sucking those fingers

Remember how I said that Cole sucks his top lip whenever his pacifier falls out? Well, he figured out a new trick and now he tries to stick his whole fist in his mouth when that pacifier falls out. He can only fit a few fingers in at a time though and he'll suck suck suck away :)

I woke up the other morning to find him sucking away on his thumb! I'm not sure I'm ready for a thumb sucker (even though it is really cute) but what can you do? Especially if he's doing it in his sleep.

I'm pretty sure this kid is going to be a lefty like his daddy. It's always that left hand he sticks in his mouth.

And these are his I-am-so-totally-fascinated-with-that-cell-phone looks.

I swear I take pictures of him all day with that thing.

(ps, Baby boy is 10 weeks already. crazy.)

And last day of this little photo challenge!

Day 30. a photo of you when you were happy

I look pretty happy in this picture, right? ;)