Colt's 1st Birthday Party

A couple kids in my mom's 4th grade classroom made this poster for Colt's first birthday. They knew how much he loves dogs because my mom is always telling her kids about Colt so they painted a big dog for him, they were trying to make her look like my parents dog Jordan.
We had the party out at my mom and dad's place because its a lot bigger and they have a huge yard with lots of shade trees (not that it mattered because it was cloudy and raining a little bit!!). When we first got there Colt got his first present, a maraca. My mom had made a bunch of maracas for all the little cousins to take home with them. Colt's was blue with dog prints on it.
Dave and Amy decorated Colt's cake and I baked the cupcakes. We made him a turtle cake and....
.....a centipede cake. It has exactly 100 legs too!
My grandma came to Walla Walla for a couple weeks so she was able to be here for Colt's birthday too!!
We barbecued hamburgers, had 3 different salads and punch to eat. All of my sisters came and there kids and my good friend Audra stopped by. Her and Brent are leaving for Europe for the summer so it was nice of them to stop by on there way out of town!
Dave's family came as well and we all ate lunch on the back lawn at my parents house. It had stopped raining by this time so we were able to enjoy the outdoors without the rain or heat! It was kind of cool out which was nice. Colt had a hotdog and pasta salad, he loved it!
The girls all wanted to try out the hammock. Colt was swinging too but he was a little overwhelmed by all the girls so we had to take him off.

Colt's twin cousins Reese and Perry and the proud grandparents.
Popyee and Memah (Dave's parents) got Colt a little kangaroo climber that has a slide on it to play on, however he was much more entertained by the box!
We headed inside after presents and sang Colt happy birthday and let him have his cupcake. He was kind of apprehensive about digging into it, probably because of all the people watching him!
My sisters Amy and Ann got Colt a bubble blowing machine so we went back outside and the kids loved playing and running through all the bubbles. Colt was swinging his arms and going crazy and my dad would walk around with him on his shoulders. It was pretty cute!
Colt had a great day and had no meltdowns!! I was a little nervous he would be overwhelmed or tired but he had so much fun with his baby cousins (Camryn, Reese and Perry) and his older cousins (Madelyn and Lucy). He got some really nice gifts and lots of trucks to play with. Thank you to all of our family for coming it was so much fun to hang out and celebrate this special little boy! By the end of the day I was more exhausted than Colt, my eyes were so heavy and I just wanted to sleep. Its a lot of work putting on a birthday party, even if he is only 1 but it was well worth it.

Birthday Party Today!!

We are having Colt's birthday party today. I had these announcements/invitations made up for his party. We are just having a family party but with the size of both Dave and my family now its going to be quite a few people! I will post pictures of his party later.

Portland

We spent the last couple days in Portland. Dave qualified for a business trip so we got to stay at the Marriot on the water in Portland and have some fun. Dave's parents also went on the trip, while Dave and his dad went to meetings Julie, Colt and I got to have some fun! The first night we went to dinner and then took a walk along the water.
Colt wanted to see what his dad was looking at but he couldn't quite understand how to look inside.
Mike, Julie and Me on the waterfront.
Family picture!!
Giving Popyee a BIG KISS!!
Colt's awesome grandparents. They love him so much!!

Kisses from Memah and Popyee.
We walked down closer to the water, we did not have any bread to give the ducks so Dave put a leaf in Colt's shoe and the duck came right up and grabbed it off his shoe. Colt jumped when the duck grabbed it and then he laughed. It was cute!
Just checking things out.
On Thursday when the guys were in meetings Julie and I met up with a friend who has two young girls at a park in Vancouver. Colt loved the park, this is the only picture I took because I spent most the time running around with Colt going down slides and swinging on monkey bars:)
Thursday night we went out with a group of people to dinner on the waterfront. Colt is getting so big, he likes to walk with us and hold our hands now. It is so funny to see him become a little person now. We got rid of the bottle during this trip too. I ran out of liners (I prefer to use the liners because it means all I have to do is wash the nipples) I was going to run to the store and get some before the trip and Dave told me not to bother with it and just give him his milk in sippy cups. So we took no bottle with us on the trip to Portland and he did great, he drinks all his milk from sippy cups now. Just another sign that he is turning into a toddler

Swimming!

It was warm today and Audra called and invited us swimming. Madelyn is here for the week visiting by herself so we spent the day together.
It was Colt's first time ever swimming. He seemed to really like it.
He only wanted me to hold him but as long as I was holding him he was happy to be in the water.
We are going to take parent-child swim lessons coming up here in a couple weeks so it should be fun. I am loving being off of work, I don't think I have ever looked forward to it as much as I did this year (well except maybe last year when I was pregnant:)). We get up early, play hard all day and go to bed late (well Colt goes to bed early). I feel just as tired now as I did when I was working but I am having so much more fun now too so I am not complaining about it! I am so lucky to have a job where I have the opportunity to spend an entire two months just enjoying being a mom and not worrying about work.

Dworshak Reservoir Camping Trip

School got out last Thursday and Friday morning we loaded the truck and left for a camping trip at Dworshak Reservoir in Idaho. It was supposed to be a 2.5 hour drive....
........ but we got lost (I printed off the wrong directions and Dave was nice enough to just laugh about it) and it ended up being a lot longer!

Luckily, Colt slept through most of the trip and was a great traveler!
Aunt Katie was waiting for us and took care of Colt while we set up camp.
The weather was great but it cooled down a lot in the evenings so I made sure to bring Colt lots of warm clothes. We also took the dogs, Byson was a pretty happy dog being cuddled with his favorite people. Colt is trying to give him love, he likes to kiss him too but usually ends up with a mouth full of hair!
Hanging out by the campfire with all of Dave's uncles, aunts and cousins.
Checking out the 4-wheeler. It belongs to Dave's cousin Tim, Dave is sitting by Trey who is Tim's son. He was such a great kid and so good with Colt.
Dave, Katie and Tara (cousin) finishing breakfast. Dave did all the cooking all weekend long and it was delicious!! He brought the dutch oven and made the most amazing blueberry cobbler, buttermilk biscuits and a delicious breakfast.

We went on a long hike, we thought it would be pretty easy but it was a hike up a mountain. We were all sore the next day from all those hills but it was fun! The little guy is Tim and Karen's son Harrison who is just 2 weeks younger than Colt.
Colt enjoyed camping for the most part. It was a little frusterating for him because he really wanted to be expoloring but the ground was covered with rocks and pine needles so it was not the ideal place to crawl and when he would try and walk he would fall a lot.

Check out our tent behind Colt, my parents got it for Dave for his birthday this year and it was really nice!! Its going to get a lot of use these next couple years. Colt got really good at using whatever was around to help him walk around the campsite and Byson was always close by....
....he has become a master at the bear crawl now!!
Hanging out with Byson waiting for us to pack up and go home. We had such a great time and it was so fun to see all of Dave's extended family and hang out. The weather was great, the company even better!! This summer is starting out to be pretty fun!!

Weekend Activities

Well we had a busy weekend!! We started off the weekend EARLY. Colt was up at 6:00 on Saturday morning, so I put a sweatshirt on him, gave him a bottle and took him running with me. He was in the BEST mood. I love this picture of him.
Just goofing around.

He is so funny, I love his personality and he just cracks me up. He is getting so BIG! We finally moved his carseat forward facing because his feet were hitting the back of the seat and his knees were like up in his chin:) I had called the nurse just to make sure it was all right and she kind of acted like it was a stupid question, but I wanted to be sure it was all right since he was not quite one yet. Something else we have done early is transition him to whole milk. My doctor said I could go ahead and switch him to real milk around 11 months, so we did and he loves it. I think he likes it even better than the formula. He is down to only two bottles a day, one at night and one in the morning. A lot of days he will only drink one bottle in the evening, but most mornings I am too tired to go down and feed him breakfast and get him his sippy cup so I just give him the bottle so he can lay in bed with us a little longer:) The rest of the time he drinks out of sippy cups, once school gets out I am going to start weaning him off his morning bottle completely and by the end of summer I hope to be bottle free (if not sooner I am sick of washing bottles!!).
Silly Face!
Back to our weekend.........we hopped in the car Saturday mid-morning and drove to Tri-Cities.
Colt thought it was so fun playing in the back of Dave's truck while we loaded the car.
We went to Taylor's high school graduation and then back to Dave's parents place for a party. There was tons of food, games to play (ladder ball anyone??) and lots of people to visit with.
Colt did awesome, he did great during the graduation and he loved the party, he had only gotten an hour nap that day which is usually a bad deal for him but he was so good. He never cried or whined, he was so happy and loved being outside during the party and watching everyone. He eventually fell asleep on Papa Mike's lap around 8:30 that evening. We ended up staying the night at Kenzie and Andy's.
The next morning we decided to put the cousins in the bath together, they did not really know what to think of it. They just kind of looked at each other and then cried a lot. I had other pictures but there was a little too much nudity in them for me to post:) If Colt ever does read this I don't want him mad at me for posting naked pictures for everyone to see! We got home this evening and we are tired! It was a fun weekend but we did not get much sleep and its never relaxing when you have a little one to take care of but it is sooo worth it! I only have 3.5 days of school left, I am counting them down and really looking forward to summer.

Early Birthday Gift.

Dave and I got Colt a train set for his birthday. My mom and dad also ordered him the table that the train set goes on so he can stand and play with it. The train set came in the mail this week and Dave wanted to set it partially up so when he got home from work today he got it out for Colt to play with. This is really the first gift we have ever gotten Colt, we did not get him a Christmas present this past year because he was already so spoiled by everyone else and he did not really care one way or the other. We were not going to get him anything for his birthday either but Dave found this train set and thought it would be a great gift, especially as he gets older! Mama and Dada let me open my present early.
I went around the kitchen pushing the trains and saying "vroom vroom."
I was a huge help to Daddy, I wanted to help him set up my train set.
Hi Mommy!
This is just a very small part of the train set, daddy is going to set the entire thing up when we get the table it goes on. I had fun pushing the trains around the circular track though.

1 step, 2 step and....

maybe more to come tomorrow!! Colt took a couple steps tonight, he has been thinking very hard about taking steps for about a week now but he always chickens out and goes to his knees. Today he saw my mom and got excited and took 2 quick steps towards her, he was so excited he started grinning and waving his hands. Then my dad got him to take a couple more back to him. We'll see what happens in the next couple days......stay tuned!