Some loving on Cole

It was a week ago today that I took a day trip to downtown Seattle with my sisters and their babies. 

Grandma Yvonne, Uncle Craig, Uncle Brandon and Uncle Ben decided to make a day trip too!! They drove 4 hours there and back to come meet up with us there in Seattle. It was Uncle Craig's 23rd birthday and these uncles were dying to meet their one and only nephew for the very first time!!

I'll probably never forget the first time they met Cole at the ferry station there in Seattle. It was very sweet :) You can just feel the love that they have for him! And I'm SO grateful that he will always have such wonderful grandparents and uncles!

Seriously you guys, you're the best!

We can't wait to see you again!!

Sending messages through the baby

I think I've mentioned before that I talk like a baby to Cole big time. I just can't help it. I recently heard a video recording of what I sound like when I'm talking to him and yikes; I sound like a crazy mom. But he seems to like it so I can't say I'll stop.

Also, I've noticed that a lot of times when I'm talking to Cole like a baby, what I'm really doing is just sending messages to Steve through him.

For example:

"Ohhh! You have a dirty diaper!! Maybe daddy will change it for you!!"

"You're so sleepy!! Maybe daddy will put you to bed!!"

"Oh my goodness! What is that music daddy's listening to?!"

"What is daddy wearing?!!"

(all said in my highest pitch baby voice of course)

Do any of you other moms do this? I can't be the only one!

And here's a picture of me in action, talking like a baby to a baby:

This is me talking to baby Annabelle.

All I can say is that it works, everyone!! Believe it or not, I get those babies to smile for me!

Did you see this?

There were a lot of photo shoots while I was with my sisters. Seriously, a LOT!

Here's a beautiful picture of Cole and of Annabelle that Marie took:

So cute, right?!? I got them from here.

I can't wait to see more!!!!

Three nieces and a nephew

I love these kiddos. And I miss them already! :(

Bella. My, she's grown up so much since I last saw her!

And Cole loved her! He lit up every time she came around :)

Liam. This kid was dying to get his picture taken with me. 

He's grown up so much too! It was so cute to see him interact with all the babies; he LOVED them!

Juliette. Sweet sweet baby girl. This is by far the best picture I've ever gotten with her.

And...

Annabelle! She's so snuggly!! And she has the cutest smile.

Hopefully I will see them all again in August. Pretty please?!

Although I miss my sisters and my nieces and nephew, it's still good to be home with Steve. Cole lit up when he saw his daddy again, which melted my heart :)

Anyway, today we're going to a wedding. Hopefully there will be dancing so Steve and I can dance the night away!!! (doubt it) And then we'll have to figure out something fun for Memorial Day. Any ideas?

And, once I figure out how to convert my RAW pics to JPEG, I will post some pictures of Cole meeting his uncles for the first time. So sweet!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Surprise!!!!

I'm in Seattle with my sisters!

My dad got me a flight so that I could spend this week with my sisters and their babies and it's been so much fun! I don't want to leave tomorrow :( Emma didn't know that I was coming so I got to surprise her! It was SOOO cute, she started crying; she was so happy to see us!

And here are a BUNCH of pictures of the trip so far. We got to see Grandma Yvonne and Cole got to meet  his uncles for the first time when we went downtown Seattle on Tuesday. It was so sweet. I'll post pictures of that later :)

Don't I have the cutest sisters? :)

5 things I love about my baby boy

Cole is 5 months today!!!

So, here are 5 things that I love about him:

1. I love his smile :) Who doesn't love it when babies smile?!

2. Cole still sleeps in bed with us, like, ALL the time. I love how when he wakes us before us, he'll start slapping his daddy on the face until he wakes up. He just wants to play!

3. I love how he sleeps with his arms/backs of his hands over his eyes. He nurses this way too. I think it's adorable.

4. When he gets REALLY tired, he suddenly thinks everything is funny and will have little laugh attacks. Sometimes all you have to do is look at him and he will laugh!

5. I love his deep blue eyes :) He got those from me ;)

We love you, Cole! You bring so much joy to our lives :)

And today we're excited to have Grandpa Brent come visit us! yay! 

The history of my cameras

When my good sister Marie, the photographer, came to visit me in January, she brought her old camera with her. It was slightly broken but fixing it would cost much less than getting a new one which is why she brought it for me! So, this week, it finally got fixed and now I have visions of me taking beautiful pictures of my baby boy with my fancy new camera!! (In fact, the pictures from a couple posts ago were with the new camera! I just didn't want to bring too much attention to it since I don't really know what I'm doing. But I guess I just did.) 

Now that I have a new camera, I'm reminded of all the cameras I've had in the past. And what came of them.

Camera # 1:
The first one was when I was 12. At Girls Camp. I was so excited to be at Girls Camp for my very first time! I had my camera with my roll of film and its own little camera bag and I took tons of pictures of all the new friends I was making. I couldn't wait to get the film developed! Near the end of the week, we went on a hike up a big mountain. At the top, there was this railing that I leaned over to look down the mountain we'd just climbed...and before I knew it, I saw my camera tumble down the slope. Tumble....Tumble....Tumble....plummet....to who knows where.........................
I'd left the camera bag open without realizing it and the camera slipped out. My precious pictures! I still wonder what they would have looked like. That camera was gone forever.

Camera # 2:
I was 16, on a trip with my family and my friend, LaDawn in southern Germany. We were out on a lake on a paddle boat having fun and being silly even though it was raining. We were snapping pictures left and right. Just being silly girls. And as we were finishing our little paddle boat adventure and getting out of the boat, I dropped that camera in the lake. It was ruined forever. I felt horrible. I think it was my mom's camera. Sorry mom :(

Camera # 3:
This one I bought on my own when I was in college. Just a simple digital camera from Target that I got for a good deal on Black Friday. Anyway, nothing exciting, I just accidentally touched the lens and it broke!! So lame! Eventually I sent it in to get it fixed. I finally got it back. And then I left it at college while I went home for the summer. And then I got it again when I came back. And THEN I lost it. At least it was digital and I got some pictures out of it.

Camera # 4:
I did pretty good with this one. Steve got it for the both of us and surprised me with it the day that we got engaged. awww. We had a streak where we didn't know that it was set on the fluorescent setting which was turning all of our pictures blue, but we eventually figured it out and it has served us well. We still have it. It's 2 years old now. I feel pretty good about that. In fact, I think I've gotten better with each camera scenario!

Which means that this camera right here is lucky Camera # 5!! I have high hopes for this one. It has a strap to go around my neck! Thank goodness! It better have a long long long life!

Now, I just need Marie to show me the ropes!!

The very first shots with the new camera:

Maybe not the best lighting, but a pretty location either way.

Oh, and a nice model too ;)

And sorry if the flower pictures are getting annoying. But it is the month of May after all. Don't worry, these flowers will all die within a month!

Tropical Feel and a Wednesday Wish

I found some orange/red flowers. I thought they had a tropical feel to them.

I love the way these look draped over the fence!

If only the Texas weather would stay like this, I could live here forever!

And wishing my Mom a Happy Birthday!! We are thinking of you and love you so much :)

Linking up with Brooke!

Close-ups of Cole with my new camera!

What can I say, I think he's pretty cute. 

And I know my family's been wanting to see some close-ups of this guy.

AND

He rolled over for the first time today!! I just don't have a picture of that. 

Believe me, he was all smiles when he rolled over :)

Lots of Turtles!

By our house there are these canals where we went walking on Thursday and they are FULL of these turtles! I couldn't believe how many there were! I know I shouldn't wish my baby to grow up faster, but I can't wait for him to actually understand what he's seeing and what we were trying to show him! Little boys love turtles, right?

Oh, and I thought the flowers growing along the way were beautiful too :) But what's new!

And I know I shared this on my facebook, but yesterday I got a comment on one of my posts from last year (almost exactly a year ago). A 4th grade teacher googled "clueless 4th graders" and this blog post of mine came up! Since Blogger was down a good chunk of Thursday and Friday, all the comments that anyone got on those days were deleted, but luckily facebook saved the comment that she left: 

"I'm a 4th grade teacher who just Googled "clueless 4th graders" because I had my millionth conversation with a couple of them this morning. So, so frustrating...Thank you for this post. It gives me hope. :-)"

It just made me laugh :) If you haven't already, you should go read my post!

Warning: Scandalous!

Ok, not really scandalous.

Just some pictures of my husband showing off his muscles. Seriously.

He started a new workout routine and he said that he needed some "before and after" pictures. These are the "before" pictures. Maybe I don't need to clarify that.

He also said to give a shout-out to his family up in Spokane:

Hey guys. When you see him this August, you're not even going to recognize him!

Haha. I think that's mainly a shout-out to his brothers. Because the rest of them probably don't really care. 

So, there will be "after" pictures coming in August! The pressure's ON, babe!

Ok, I guess that's enough scandalous-ness.

And by the way, my mom clarified that story that I told about her yesterday. So check out the comments from the previous post.

Mother's Day in Houston

Our friends Katie and Adam invited us to come to Houston with them over the weekend and on Saturday we drove down to Galveston and went to the beach!!! which I was pretty excited about. I hadn't been to the beach since...hmm, our honeymoon in San Diego? I can't remember.

Yep, we made that for the blog :) Seaweed, sea shells and our sandals.

Hot tubbing. I love it. 

We stayed with Adam's family there in Houston and went to church with them on Sunday. So hospitable! Thank you! At dinner, we went around the table and each person told one of their fondest memories of their mother in honor of Mother's Day. I wanted the share here what I shared with them. I don't know if this is my fondest memory but it's the first thing that came to my mind:

When I was 9 years old, we moved from California to Germany. My dad had to be in Germany before the rest of us and so my mom had to make the long flight by herself with her 6 children and she was pregnant with the 7th (my baby brother, Bryant!!). We all boarded the plane and I sat next to my mom. We were sitting in front of  two guys, they were probably in their mid twenties. PUNKS. They were punks. As my siblings and I situated ourselves in our seats and these guys realized that they were going to be sitting near so many kids for the entire flight, they started to complain. Loudly. I don't remember exactly what they said but I remember that it wasn't nice. They just kept complaining. It was so rude because we could hear them and we weren't even being bad kids! Not that I remember, anyway :) Finally, my mom turned around in her seat and sternly told these two guys that she didn't appreciate what they were saying and that she loved every single one of her children and that they were a huge blessing to her. Obviously I don't remember the exact words. But they apologized and there wasn't another word out of them for the rest of the flight. I just always remember that little incident and admire my mom for boldly sticking up for her children, even when it's uncomfortable. I hope that I would be the same if ever confronted with a similar situation. Thank you for your example and for your love, mom! I love you!