learning

This little boy is learning so much so fast. I thought I'd make a list of all the new things he's doing lately:

*He wants to walk so bad. He just doesn't have the balance yet. But one of his favorite things to do right now is have me walk him around the living room while he kicks his ball around. I think we might have a future soccer player on our hands!! (anything except wrestling ;)

*Whenever I'm changing his diaper or getting him dressed, he just "reads" himself a book. He'll lay there and turn the pages and act like he's reading. I love his jibberish.

*I'm trying to teach him "please" (I'll work on "thank-you" later). He can't say it yet, but I think he's starting to get the concept. Whenever he calls out for something he wants, which is normally food, I tell him "Can you say 'please'?" He'll smile at me and nod his head. It's so cute, I think he's starting to get it :)

*His new favorite word is "tick tock" but it sounds more like "tih toh." At first we thought it was his version of saying "clock." But as time has gone on we're realizing that anything round, up high, and yes, all clocks are what he calls "tih toh" haha.

*If you ask him where his belly button is he will point to it. So cute :)

*He will not drink water out of anything and it's driving me CRAZY! I need help with this!! How am I ever supposed to even think about weaning him?!

*He climbs underneath our bar stools and uses them as a jungle gym haha.

*We're weaning him from his pacifier. DunDunDun! So now he only has it during naps and at night. It was actually really easy to just take it away from him during the day. A LOT easier than I expected. It's been over a week already. Today was the first day where he wanted it even though he wasn't going to bed. He tried to climb into his crib to get it and it broke my heart. But we couldn't give it to him. And this morning he slept in til 10 am (amazing!!) and I went in to get him but I could tell that he was still tired. When I picked him up, I told him to spit his pacifier out which he did, but then he wanted it right back. I just put him back in his crib and he happily sat there for another half hour just sucking his pacifier and reading a book. Once the half hour was up, he cried out for me and spit his pacifier right out! He was ready to get up haha. That kid knows what he wants :)

Anyway, on Wednesday this week it was a beautiful day, like 80 degrees kind of beautiful so Cole and I spent a good portion of it walking around outside. First we walked to the library; on the way Cole got to crawl around in the grass, playing in the dirt and watching planes fly by. At the library he enjoyed pulling almost every book off of the shelves (!!) reading a few and playing with the baby puzzles. And then on our way home, he got to play at the park! It's kind of impossible to get pictures of him at the park at this age (when it's just me anyway) because I have to help him on everything, but this was the first time that I could tell that he really enjoyed being at the park and sliding down the slides! When I put him back in his stroller to go he threw a fit!

So there you have a nice long update on little munchkin man!

for sale: Canon Rebel Xsi: SOLD

I'm selling my camera! This Rebel Xsi has been very good to me but I'm ready to upgrade now. You can see pictures I've taken with this camera and lens on my photography blog here. 

price: $325 sold!

(add $10 if needs to be shipped in the US)

contents:

EOS Rebel Xsi camera body

EF-S 80-200 mm zoom lens f/4.5

Wide camera strap

battery charger

2 battery packs LP-E5

video cable

software CD-ROM

instruction manual

I'll be listing it on Craigslist and ebay too. It's priced to sell! I just thought I'd list it here first in case any of my friends wanted to buy it :)

email me! allred.lauren {at} gmail {dot} com

ducks and dandelions

Cole is obsessed with both. And those little round poky things that fall from the trees. I have no idea what they are! But what you can't see in the pictures above is that when he tried to put them in his mouth, I sternly told him "no!" and he cried so hard, like I had hurt his feelings. I probably did but I thought it better than for him to accidentally swallow one of those things. yikes :/

And we saw probably no less than 20 ducks. The two pictured above were the only ones, though, that decided to cross the path after we had walked past. They got so close to us; I was surprised they weren't more scared of us! Every time Cole saw a duck he would make some animal noise. It's the same noise he makes no matter what kind of animal he sees haha. And it kind of sounds like a dog barking. hehe

On our walk yesterday, a family walked by and saw me taking pictures of Cole and so the mom offered to take our family picture and so I said Why not?! :) I thought it was super nice of her.

In other news, Cole has given me a black eye by chucking my brick of a phone right in my face the other day. So I look like Quasimoto and I'm actually surprised you can't tell in the family picture of us. Maybe I'll take a close-up picture of it and share it on here. And tell the story of how bad it hurt and how hard I cried and how Cole just laughed because he thought I was playing around. Wait, that is the whole story haha :) And now I have a black eye, something I've never had before.

One more thing: I had a girls night last night and got to go see the movie "The Vow" which I loved and thought was so cute :) I was probably most excited since I hadn't been to a movie since before Cole was born. Crazy!

Happy weekend to everyone! It just a rainy, quiet day over here!

sunset

We took a walk at sunset yesterday and it was a perfectly beautiful evening! As I suspected, this spot that I walk by every time I go to the trails by our house is perfect for silhouette pictures at sunset. So, we had fun with the silhouettes :)

As we walked and as I took pictures, Steve talked to me about what he learned in school today: that there are two types of exercise; the walking kind and the running kind. 

Steve found a branch to do pull-ups on and then when Cole showed interest, he showed him how to do it too. haha I think Cole wants to be just like his daddy :)

And then on the way home, Cole watched as his dad threw rocks into the canal which made the ducks startle and fly two feet away to another cozy spot in the water. It probably wasn't very nice but it was entertaining to watch ;)

a perfectly relaxing Valentine's Day

strawberries

cinnamon rolls

pink

take-out

a new shirt for munchkin!

movie night

and lots of pictures :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

A beautiful Saturday

It was a successful Saturday :) I actually got up by 9 (!!) and by 10 I was out the door for a morning jog.

And it was absolutely freezing! There was a bitter wind and I hardly made it back alive ;) But it was such a beautiful day. 

After getting ready for the day, and Cole's morning nap, we took Steve to the temple and Cole and I had a little play date together. We found a cute little park nearby the temple where Cole could stretch his legs. I let him crawl around in the grass even if he tried putting every little thing in his mouth (like pieces of bark, leaves and seeds/nuts that had fallen from the trees.) We also found little wild flowers growing which made me SO excited for spring to get here! If you remember from last spring, Texas has the most amazing wild flowers :)

Later today I helped Steve study for all these tests he has coming up, but he still managed to play ball with Cole in the living room. The best sound in the world is hearing Cole squeal from having so much fun playing ball with his daddy :)

I love the weekends and I'm so glad we have another day of it tomorrow!

(I'm still catching up on my Feb photo a day thing but I added a few to this post:)

play date

The weather was perfect today for a walk on the trail out by our house! Jennifer and her son Tristan joined us and Cole and Tristan had a blast together playing with their toys, playing peek-a-boo underneath the bench and Tristan was teaching Cole how to walk!

These guys are the best of buds. Their birthdays are only a day apart. They finally got to see each other again after the craziness of the holidays. (And we're sad that they're moving away this summer :(

And that last picture? That's day 4 of the February photo a day thing I'm doing: "a stranger."

I guess this means I'm playing catch-up! Now, if I can only be awake enough by 10 am tomorrow to remember to take a picture. hehe

By the way, thanks for everyone's kind words about Cole's arm on Monday. He is perfectly fine! The minute it went back in place, it was as if it never happened. Crazy!

I just have to say

I love my husband!

What a crazy day it has been today. 

Early this afternoon, Cole was playing with his ball in the living room and he rolled it behind the TV stand. So he went in after it. I don't know how he squeezed himself back there, but I couldn't figure out how to squeeze him back out without him banging his head or getting his legs stuck. So, I lifted him by his arms up and over the TV. Which was a baaaaad idea. Because as I was lifting him over, I heard a big pop and Cole immediately started crying :(

I couldn't calm him down so I knew he was hurt. He's always been so tough, even when he gets hurt but I could tell this was different. I noticed that he wouldn't move his arm, and when he did he would cry out in pain. I thought for sure his shoulder was dislocated. Poor thing :( He just laid on the bed with his arm close to his body. With his other arm he would play with little toys I gave him. And every time his arm was touched or moved, he cried. Big tears, too :(

I called Steve. He didn't answer. He was at the school. He didn't answer for a WHOLE hour! After recruiting the help of my friend Bekah and 12 missed phone calls from me later, we were able to get a hold of him and he came immediately home. He took one look at it and knew that it wasn't his shoulder, it was his elbow that was dislocated. The radial head to be exact. 

We took him to the clinic at school but it was closed from 1-3. I called my friend whose husband is an orthopedic surgeon. He could help us but not until a bit later. (Thanks again for your help, Anna!) We didn't really want to take him to the ER because Cole is on Medicaid (since we are students swimming in loans) and we knew that if we took him to the ER we would just be sitting there for hours since it wasn't really an emergency and Cole wasn't dying. Plus it was a Monday. Aren't ER's worse on Mondays?!

So we took Cole home again where we would figure out a game plan. Steve kind of had an idea how to set it. So he pulled out his anatomy book, got on Youtube, watched a couple videos of doctors setting elbows on babies just as young as Cole. And then Steve just did it! He set Cole's elbow!

Of course Cole cried :( It hurts going back in just as much as it hurt coming out. And I cried too, like a baby. It's hard seeing your baby in pain. And it was all my fault :( But once it went back in, Cole could immediately move it! He crawled on it all afternoon and evening. And he even learned how to open the bottom drawer in the bathroom today. (Life as I know it is now OVER) And then Steve had to rush back to school so that he wouldn't miss another class.

This entire evening I've just been thinking about how amazing my husband is. He knows how to act in crazy situations. He'd never set an elbow before, but after seeing it done, he was confident that he could do it and so he did! And I was confident he could do it too. 

All I'm saying is, Steve is going to be one heck of a great chiropractor.

I am so proud of him :) And I am SO glad we didn't have to go to the hospital and that Cole is all better!

(a crazy day for this snot-nosed, puffy-eyed little boy. He went to bed at 5:30 since he didn't take his naps today and he might be down for the night!)

hands

This is probably my favorite shot that I got while taking Britt and Greg's maternity pictures last week. If you haven't already seen them, you can see them here.

This entire weekend so far I have been working on my business plan! I'm just about done!

I have new packaging, my pricing is all ironed out. I'll be talking about it more next week I think so stay tuned :)

Today's word: a stranger

tomorrow's word: 10 am

I will probably be posting both tomorrow!