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!

YUM...bananas!

Yummy, I love bananas. However.....
I prefer to feed myself thank you very much!
I think I will see how much I can get into my mouth before mommy takes it away.

11 months!

Only one more month until he is no longer a baby, well not really but for some reason when I think of him turning 1 I assume that means he will be a boy and no longer a baby! Colt is doing great, he loves to explore, eat bugs, play in the dirt, give Byson lots of love, eat with his fingers (he has still not figured out the silverware thing), be tickled on his feet and under his chin, take a bath, go on runs with mom and dad (especially when they end with play time at the park) and of course eat whatever we are eating! He is not real fond of green beans (even the real ones!), walking (he hates it when I try and work with him on it), going to bed (especially when we have been doing something fun and then we just stop and tell him its bedtime) and lately he has been getting frustrated when I try and do something for him, he just wants to do it himself! He is very aware of everything around him, he loves to just sit and listen to people or watch and listen to animals or whatever may be going on around him. He loves to point to whatever it is he wants, likes to wave hi and bye, claps his hands when we play patty cake, and loves to bang on windows over and over again! His favorite word is still dog, which he proceeds to say everytime Byson or the big dogs are around. He also says: dad, mama,ball, hi, hello (my dad taught him hello, everytime my dad puts the phone to his ear and says hello, Colt will put his hand to his ear and say "hewwo") and today I showed him a cow and said "cow says mooo" he goes "moo moo." Of course if the average person heard him talking they would probably have no clue what he is saying, except for the word dog, that is very clear! He is also developing quite the little personality. It is so fun to watch his personality start to come out, he knows when he is in trouble from the sound of our voice and he looks at us like he is thinking "uh oh I am in trouble but maybe I can still try and get away with it." The first time I hit him on the finger for doing something after I had told him no, he looked at me like I was the most awful person on the earth:) Overall he is doing great, we are having so much fun watching him grow and learn new things.

Fun at the park

We got up early this morning, Colt does not sleep much past 6:30 these days. Once the light comes in he is ready to get up, he would be ready at 5:30 if I would go and get him but he is really good about hanging out in his crib for awhile and he will usually fall back asleep. Anyway, we went on a run and then stopped by the park on the way home.
Its been awhile since I have gotten some close up pictures of him, looking at these makes me realize how big he is getting. He looks more and more like a boy and less like a baby......
in fact I am trying to decide who he looks like now.....mom or dad???
He loves playing on the slides and.....
climbing up the stairs!!

Can you say CRAZY!!

I think this picture does a pretty good job of saying it best, we are all pretty tired around here. Its been awhile since I posted and we have had some interesting things happen in our house (or should I say happen to Dave). We were in Tri-Cities last Friday and Saturday for the regional track meet that I was coaching at. We decided to just stay the night at his parents on Friday night so I would not have to drive back and forth. The weather was 100 degrees and so hot! Dave brought Colt to the track meet for a little while on Friday night but it was still so hot, we kept dropping ice water on his head and he would smile. The poor little guy was literally panting it was so hot, he is like Dave a lot in that way. I have to be careful what I put him to bed in because he will be sweating sometimes when I come and get him in the morning and this is after I have put like 3 layers on myself and bundled up under the covers all night just to sleep well. Dave likes a very cold house, he sleeps with the window open in winter! Anyway, saturday morning Dave got up and decided to go on a early morning bike ride. He went on about a 20 mile ride and when he got back to his parents I noticed him holding his arm funny. I asked him what happened and he said he had fallen right after he had left the house, his chain had come off on his bike while going up a hill and he had not been able to get his foot out of the clips in time so he had put his hand down to stop his fall, however he then proceeded to pick himself back up, get back on the bike and ride for 20 miles!! MEN!!! As he was dropping me off at the track meet I told him to just go to the ER and get his arm looked at. I get a call 6 hours later that he has a broken radius and he needs to see an orthapedic surgeon! To make a long story short, we got him into the doctor on Thursday and he said no surgery but it will probably take 3-6 weeks to heal. Until then he is supposed to take it easy (which he is not, in fact right now he is laying tile at the church....the guy can hardly move his arm and he's going to try and lay tile!!) Also, his arm is swollen and bruised from his elbow on up! Besides Dave's arm he also got surgery on his mouth this week, many of you know the story about his brother knocking out his front teeth when they were wrestling about 10 years ago. Well last summer the tooth they replaced it with finally gave out so for the past 10 months they have been getting his mouth prepared to have a bridge put in. On Wednesday, Dave spent 6 hours in the dentist chair and I must say he has a much better looking smile now:) Dave will be so thrilled to see that I just wrote an entire essay on him on the blog!

Other than that I think things are going to start slowing down a little bit! I am done with track and only have 3 more weeks until school is out for summer. This is the time of year when its hard being a teacher because the kids start to get antsy and its so hard to keep them motivated..not that I can blame them. We have a lot of fun things planned for summer and I am sure it will fly by! Speaking of slowing down...Colt is definitely not slowing down, in fact he is becoming much busier!! There is nothing that he can't figure out a way to get into to, in fact he is getting to the point where he is tall enough to grab stuff off counters, end tables and the kitchen table! The only way I even get to blog is if I put him in his high chair and feed him, right now he is eating grapes and an english muffin for breakfast:) I am going to try to post some pictures very soon!

Squating

Colt has gotten pretty good at standing on his own. When I try and coax him to walk towards me without holding on to something he immediately assumes the squating position and then falls to his hands and crawls as fast as he can......
...oh well he will figure out the walking on his own time:) In the mean time he looks so cute squating like this!