Christmas Photos

I hope that everyone had a magical holiday season and that 2011 is bringing much happiness. I promise to catch up on everyone else's holidays soon but for now, here's our update.

This was Colten's first time making cookies. Grandma and Colten were cutting out a star-shaped sugar cookie, and then Grandpa and Colten were in charge of decorating them. Oops, Colten, maybe that's a bit too many red sprinkles : > Needless to say, Colten had so much fun with the dough, the sprinkles, and the flour!

Here is a photo of Colten playing with his remote control car from the Bleschner's - thanks guys! He loves it; it's just the right size and speed for him.

After our remote control car fun, we headed to Grandpa and Grandma's to exchange gifts on Christmas Eve day. Colten really got into Christmas this year; he wanted to open everything and in typical kid fashion, if it was clothes, he tossed them aside and quickly looked for the next present : > Strangely enough, he was very upset if there was wrapping paper on the floor, so all the paper from unwrapping went directly into a bag. However, once we were done, Colten decided that he wanted to play in the paper - here's a photo of him rolling around and laughing among all the paper. What a silly boy! And check out his new Nike's too (thanks Uncle Mike; that's his first pair!)
One of Colten's favorite gifts was this suitcase from Uncle Mike. Every time we visit Uncle Mike or every time Uncle Mike comes to town, Colten insists on pushing around his suitcase so Uncle Mike got Colten one of his own. And believe me, Colten loves it. We may be the only house where the suitcase is part of the play area : >

After opening lots of gifts and playing like crazy and after a much needed nap, we were off to mass - but not before a few more photos.

When we got back to Grandma and Grandpa's house, Colten jumped right back on Lucky, his new pony : >

I can't wait for the day that Colten wakes us up around 4am in hopes that he can go see if Santa came, but for this year, we started our celebration around 6:30am when Colten woke up. Tom and I had already exchanged so we could fully enjoy the magic of the morning with Colten. And it was everything we hoped it would be. Colten was so excited and overwhelmed by all of his new toys. I loved watching him dig in his stocking too.This how we found Colten in his crib when he woke up. He sure loves his pillow pet - thanks Carroll family!


Soon it was off to Grandma and Grandpa's for lunch with the family.

Colten and Aunt Joyce

Colten loving one of Liz's famous buckeyes!

Colten and Aunt Carol

And then we make our annual visit to Aunt Tunny's to end the night. Unfortunately I don't have any photos, but we loved visiting with everyone. We had to leave earlier than we would have liked because Colten had had enough excitement and SUGAR, to say the least. I thought we were headed for the 'terrible twos' for sure, but after cutting out all sugar again, I realized that his tantrums seemed to stem mostly from that. So hopefully we can keep those out-bursts at bay for a bit longer : >

And here's a photo of Colten playing with his music station from the Moss family - thanks so much! He loves playing 'songs' for us, and he really loves making noises into the microphone!

After all of the fun, I was feeling the anxiety of a house that looked more like a toy box explosion. So I headed to the store for some much needed organizational gear. Thankfully our living room does not resemble Toys R Us anymore : > I'll show photos of the new toy box that I am in love with soon, or as soon as I upload those pics to the computer (which in reality could be weeks from now.) But you get the idea : >

Lots of love to everyone!

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!