Thanks to a snow day...

Thanks to a snow day...I'm finally updating my blog! Considering my last post covered pumpkin carving and Halloween, we've been busy so once again, I'll just share the highlights (mostly photos too).

We headed off to Kraynak's to see the Christmas display toward the end of November. Last year we missed out because we went too close to Christmas and the line was wrapped around the outside of the building. We learned our lesson and went in November and right when they opened too. Colten loved the displays. He spotted Frosty first thing (and actually pulled him out of the display - luckily it wasn't too busy so no one saw : > ) I wish we had taken the video camera because he couldn't stop pointing and oooing at every display. The photos don't do justice to how much he enjoyed it.




The next weekend, we headed to the mall for our holiday photos, and we decided to visit Santa too since once again it wasn't busy. (Can you tell I'm not one for crowds - unless it's Black Friday of course!) Colten loves all of the Santas around the house but I wondered how he would do with the real Santa. Luckily, he was so excited to sit on his lap :> The Cruz's met us at the mall that day too so Kayleigh visited Santa too and then...Colten and Kayleigh had their first kiss! Too cute!



Even though we had been preparing for Christmas already, we had yet to celebrate Thanksgiving. As usual, my mom did an amazing job in the kitchen. Everything was so delicious! And Colten had a blast playing with Uncle Mike and having a very serious discussion about pies with Aunt Tunny : >

Since Thanksgiving was officially over, we started decorating. Here's Colten helping Daddy with the tree and putting the angel on the manger. (Thanks again Aunt Joyce and Uncle Frank!) I wasn't going to put my nativity scene up this year because I was afraid that the figures might break if Colten accidentally dropped them on the hard wood floors. Luckily the Melniks came to our rescue and found a LittlePeople nativity set for us : > I love it just as much if not more than Colten! I have to say that Colten is so great with the decorations though. He loves to look at the ornaments on the tree, but he knows that he can only take two off - a dog that looks like Lady and a "popcorn" ball.

The following weekend, we had lunch with Santa after church. I can't say how much Tom and I love these family moments. Colten has brightened our world more than I can ever express.

And this past weekend, I had a Christmas lunch for some of Tom's side of the family. It was so great to spend time with everyone; usually our busy lives and different schedules prevent us from all being together. Colten had so much fun playing with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa. He loved vacuuming with Great Grandma the most ;> And of course, Colten was so excited for his Toy Story cars and figure (thanks Aunt Amanda and Uncle Marc!) and for his John Deer play set (thanks Papa!) Colten loves his tractors!

I would love to say that I will update my blog again before Christmas, but I know that's impossible for me. So I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2011! May the spirit of the season carry us all through the next year! Lots of love!

I can't keep up...

I think this has been the longest gap in my posts since I started blogging; I just can't keep up with anything including cleaning my house, grading papers, decorating for the holidays - you name it and I'm behind. I can only imagine what life will be like if we ever are successful in having a baby #2. So once again, here is a recap of the past 6 weeks or so...

We carved pumpkins for the first time and made it family affair with the Cruz's. We had so much fun, and the pumpkins turned out so well! Way to go Tom and Vic! Even the kids got involved; Kayleigh tried eating the pumpkin and Colten loved scooping out the insides : > I hope you can make out the carving Tom did on the one I posted. It's supposed to be profiles of me and Colten when he was a little baby. And I have to add that Tom did not follow a pattern either - he is so talented!


The next day, Tom, Colten, and I headed to my diabetes walk. And a huge THANK YOU to everyone who supported me this year; once again everyone was way too generous, but I really appreciate both the monetary donations and the everyday words of encouragement. It was a beautiful day for the walk too! In other diabetes news, I just started using a sensor that reads my glucose levels every five minutes and sends them directly to my pump. Aside from being another device that I have to inject and wear in my stomach, I am excited that it will help me further control my diabetes, especially if we get pregnant again. The sensor will allow me to keep better track of my numbers to ensure both my health and the baby's.

Kayleigh turned one the following weekend so we headed to her party dressed as characters from Toy Story. Colten loves Buzz, so I bought that costume from the Disney Store and then Tom and I made our Jessie and Woody costumes. I am not very creative or handy, but if I do say so myself, I think they turned out really well. And the party was a blast! Here's a photo of the birthday girl dressed as Minnie Mouse with her beautiful mom (aka Snow White) and of course Colten and me too : >


Then for Halloween weekend, we headed to Columbus to visit Uncle Mike and to take Colten to Boo at the Zoo. We had so much fun seeing the animals, trick-or-treating at the various stations, playing, seeing shows, etc. But the highlight of the zoo was Colten's first pony ride! He loves animals but I wasn't sure how he would respond to riding one. Luckily he loved it! We also had his caricature drawn too. Here's a picture of it even though I couldn't get it to rotate. Later that day, we headed over to the Melnik's for a yummy dinner. Colten got to play with his older cousin Braden; I love watching them together! By the time we got home on Halloween, I was exhausted so we didn't take Colten trick-or-treating around the neighborhood; instead we just watched Daddy pass out candy. Next year, we will venture out for candy ourselves ; >
Here are some random pics too. In the first one, Colten trying to put a basket on Chase's head; Chase is so good with him : > And in the other one, Colten is wearing the lampshade from Uncle Mike's "One Night Stand" costume : >

I hope everyone has been doing well, and I will catch up reading blog updates soon too! Let the countdown to Black Friday begin!!

A New Update - Finally!

Sorry we've been MIA with updates and with reading everyone's blogs; I promise to catch up soon. Since school has started, I have been trying to find a new routine again and have been super busy and tired. I'm going to keep this as short as possible and will just touch on the highlights of the past two months or so.
We took Colten to his first football game this past Friday night. Since he usually goes to bed around 6:30 pm during the school year, this was a big night out for him. But he loved it, except for the first time Fitch scored. They had a packed house so the noise level was so intense. Colten didn't understand why everyone was yelling and he started to cry. But once he realized everything was okay and that everyone was happy, he was ready for more action : > The highlight of the game was meeting one of the mascots, Fredia Falcon. I have both of the mascots in class and told them to be on the lookout for us. I was a little worried that Colten might be afraid of them, but he wasn't! He couldn't get enough : > We left at the half to get Colten in bed at a decent hour, but the Falcons went on to win the game 24-21 and remain undefeated - Go Falcons!!!

On Saturday, we headed to White House Farm for fruit, cheeses, yummy treats, hayrides and more. Here are a few pics from the day.

Colten sitting on top of a huge pumpkin!Running around the pumpkin patch in search of pumpkins for all. Now we are ready for Halloween : >Colten loved this pumpkin decoration; he kept posing by it : >

Colten's first hayride...
with horses Ike (brown) and Carol (white).

In other news, Colten turned eighteen months old this past week (I can't believe it!), and he went for his well visit. He weighs 28 and 3/4 pounds (75%) and is 36 inches (I love saying 3ft or a whole yard stick : >) and is off the chart!
Even though I have skipped over so much since my last post, I'll just leave you with a few more pics. Enjoy!

Colten wearing Daddy's tie : >

Colten is obsessed with tractors so he loves when Daddy takes him for rides!

Colten learning to play t-ball - I never captured a photo of him swinging.

I hope everyone has a great week ahead!

Life is a Highway!

Since my last post was forever ago, obviously so much has happened - most of it fun, some of it not so much. For the sake of my time, I'll just give the highlights with as many pics as possible.

We had been enjoying summer with swim lessons and trips to the park and library until mid July when Colten got the flu. We were just pulling out of the driveway so I could go to the dentist when I heard a soft cough from Colten. I turned around to see bananas pouring out of him. I just stared at him in disbelief for a moment but Lady was quickly getting interested so I had to act fast. Luckily we were still in the driveway so I got Lady back in the house, and then it was back to Colten. I knew that I had to get him out of the car so I took a deep breath, put my hands in the puke and got him out so I could begin the clean-up process (and call my mom for help of course : > ). After this experience, I truly feel like a mom because I never would have even imagined myself doing anything like that before. Colten seemed to be better by the next day but then I got it, and of course Colten had it again the day after. But within a week, we were all healthy again and getting ready for our up-coming trip to South Carolina to visit Beth and Dave and to meet David!

Our trip was FABULOUS to say the least! It had been way too long since I had seen Beth so we were thrilled to spend time together and now with our boys too! David is absolutely amazing! He is so handsome and such a great baby! He trekked with us to the aquarium and to the beach, not to mention to the restaurants, and he was always in the best mood. I loved holding him, and Colten was really great with him too! I only wish we lived closer so Colten and David could play together as they grow (ok and so me and Beth could have our girl-time too!). We did so much and have so many stories but I'll just give you the highlights with photos. So here goes...My first time holding David; he is so precious!

Off to the aquarium...

Colten touched a snake!

And we toured the USS Yorktown. This was one of our favorite parts of the trip. Cotlen and Daddy especially loved looking at all of the planes. Unfortunately Colten lost his favorite Buzz hat here but I didn't realize it until the end of our trip. So after lots of phone calls from home and after two trips to the Yorktown by Beth, Colten's hat is now on his way back to Ohio!!! Thanks Beth! You are the best! Here's a picture of Daddy and Cotlen in front of the Yorktown (and note the Buzz hat).

And now off to the beach! Because of Beth and Dave, we were lucky enough to go to Kiawah Island for Colten's first beach experience. Thanks guys!
After a brief period of rain, during which I was certain our day was ruined, the day was beautiful. I love this picture of Colten standing amid his name that Daddy drew in the sand.Colten loves the water, but he wasn't too sure about the waves or the sand between his toes for that matter : > But as the day went on, he seemed to have more and more fun, even if he never really became a fan of those waves : >

Aunt Beth and Colten flying the kite they got Colten for his birthday!

The Krieg Family!David relaxing during his first trip to the beach : >

Just as we were packing up to leave, I noticed Colten's footprints in the sand - too perfect!

And speaking of footprints, I brought a sand footprint casting kit so we could have a keepsake of Cotlen and David's first trip to the beach. We decided that it would be easier to bring sand home with us and make the footprints later. Aside from the spilled sand in our car (that still raises Tom's blood pressure), it was a success - even if neither kid was too happy about making the impression. In the end, Beth and I have our boys' footprints forever!

Here's Tom with the final load of beach stuff from the car; he was determined not to make another trip! LOL! Check out the beach shoes, Krissy : >
And here are a couple pics of us and the kids.

There is so much more to say as we also visited Fort Sumter, the open market, lots of restaurants, etc., but if I want to get this posted some time before I go back to school, I better leave it here : >
I was sad to go, but we could not have asked for a better time! Our excitement continued as we reached our mid-way point in Virginia because Tom and I found a Hardee's and couldn't wait to have hot ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner. However, this excitement was short-lived because once we reached the hotel, Tom noticed that Colten felt warm, and then he wouldn't eat his dinner - a major red flag. So I grabbed the thermometer only to find that for some reason, it had switched to Celsius. Regardless, I knew that the reading wasn't good because it was flashing red. Thanks to the Cruz's, who did a quick over the phone conversion for me, I knew Colten had his first fever at 102.7. I was not ready for this and wanted to be home so badly, but we were 6 hours away. So after multiple calls to my mom, Krissy, Colten's doctor, and Candice and after lots of prayers and after very little sleep for me, we made it through the night and eventually home with Cotlen's fever holding steady around 101 until finally breaking on Saturday. So July was a month of fun times and mom firsts : >

We all had a week to recuperate before heading off to Columbus to visit Uncle Mike! And the fun continued at the Splash Pad and Dublin's annual Irish Festival. I have been so envious of Steph and Meg since their posts about spray parks and I really wanted to take Colten to one. As luck would have it, there is one right by my brother's house so we headed there early Saturday morning.

At first Colten was unsure so I had to run him through (but don't let me fool you, I loved every minute of it : > ). Slowly but surely, Colten started really having fun but Mike and I had to stay in too in order for Colten to explore the area; neither of us minded - if anything Colten was our good excuse to play without getting weird looks from the other people : >

There's a nice park play area next to the splash pad so we headed there to play and dry off next. Colten loves slides, and he also really enjoyed this bouncy plane.

After a quick change we were off to Dublin's Irish Festival, which happens to be the second largest in the world. The food was so delicious, and we were able to enjoy lots of the live music too.

After naps for everyone, we headed to the Ohio Deli so Tom could take on the Dagwood from Man v. Food. He had 30 minutes to eat 1 1b. of fries, and sandwich with 2 1/2 lbs of meat. Unfortunately, he wasn't successful but we had a fun time and yummy food - what more could you ask for : >

Thanks for a FUN weekend Uncle Mike! You spoiled us all as usual. We love you!

And thanks to everyone who read my super long update : > Enjoy the last few weeks of summer. I can't believe I'll be heading back to school again so soon; I think I'm going to cry even more this year when I leave Colten because we've had so much fun together.