What a wonderful Christmas!

We spent Christmas Eve with Kyle's family at MeMe and Grandpa's. After a great dinner, Rachel and Julia had several Christmas games planned and we sang Christmas carols. It was so fun spending the evening with family.

We went to Nana's that evening and spent the night. Kyle and I were up until midnight making sure Santa had everything taken care of. :) Cole slept great...until 7:30...big improvement from last Christmas at Nana's. Nana made a big breakfast and we all opened our gifts. Cole bounced from toy to toy and had a great time.

Next stop was Ft. Smith to see my dad, Grandma Wanda, Aunt Jeannie, Uncle Ed, Uncle Bob, Michelle, Brandon, and Caroline. We enjoyed a great lunch and visited with everyone. We were home early enough to relax and enjoy a lazy evening.

All in all, we were spoiled with gifts and I had to put up Christmas decorations the next day to make room for all of Cole's new toys!

First trip to the ER!!!

I knew it would happen...I just didn't think it would happen today! Dinner was almost ready and I was in the kitchen. Kyle and Cole were chasing each other around the house. There were a bunch of pillows on the floor in our bedroom that Cole likes to jump into. He ran and jumped into them but went too far and hit a chest causing a gash under his right eye. I heard the thump followed by the scream and ran to see what happened. It was bleeding pretty bad and looked pretty deep. Kyle has seen his fair share of cuts over the years and he thought it was borderline needing stitches so we decided to take him in just in case. We got to the ER around 6:20. I had already made Cole's plate for dinner so I just put a lid on it and brought it with us. Quick thinking huh?! So glad I did because we didn't get home until after 9:00. Cole was wild in the waiting room and in the ER room. He was laughing, running, playing, etc. Thank goodness we still had our "busy bag" in the car from church that had crayons, books, crackers, etc. Cole did very well. He would point to his face and say "hurt" but then would run and try to climb on the waiting room chair or would push the Doctor's swivel chair all over the room. The worst part was when the doctor took off the bandaid that we had put on him.

I'm, of course, worried about scarring. It's on my precious boy's face! I didn't feel much better when the nurse said that "boy's like their battle wounds..." I thought, "this boy's mama doesn't!" Anyway, the doctor came in and thought that it would do just fine with sterile strips and that scarring wouldn't be any less with stitches so we got two sterile strips, a teddy bear and a sticker and were ready to come home. Cole went straight down to sleep. He had a big day!

Ironically, our good friends Meredith and Bo, were also at the ER. They had to take their almost 6 week old baby girl. She had been really congested and they decided to take her in because she was wheezing. Bless her little heart! She has been diagnosed with RSV...They are keeping her overnight and we'll know more tomorrow. Hang in there Meredith and Bo! We'll say a little prayer for you tonight! I know that Conlee will be just fine.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Crawford came over on Friday to exchange Christmas gifts. The boys had a great time. We also "decorated" sugar cookies. You can tell the boys enjoyed that part too! Cole is a big fan of icing :) I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year! Can't believe it is in 4 days!

The Garmon's invited us to have brunch with Santa Clause at the Country Club today. We hadn't taken Cole to the mall yet to see Santa so I thought that this would be a perfect "test." We've talked a lot about Santa, we've read books, when he sees a Santa, he says Ho Ho Ho, we talked about sitting in Santa's lap, telling him what you want for Christmas, etc. I really thought he'd be fine. When we walked in, Cole waved to Santa. When we walked closer to Santa and asked if he wanted to sit in his lap, he said No, No...So we went to eat and thought we'd catch him before we left. Crawford had already sat in Santa's lap and told him he wanted a choo choo so on the way out, we had Crawford sit in his lap to see if Cole would join in. No such luck...we won't be going to the Mall this year!

Candy House

Cole loves being outside. Since it has been so cold, we've been trying to find other things to keep us busy inside. This weekend we made a gingerbread house. Cole really concentrated at first putting the m&ms on the roof. He got a little icing on his finger and held it out like he wanted it wiped off. I told him to taste it...well, it was all downhill from there. The next thing I knew, he was shoving m&ms in his mouth and had red and green drool dripping down his chin. We had a good time. Several times today, I caught him climbing into the chair to steal an m&m off the house!

Uncle Trey is Home!

Trey got transferred from California to work in the Bentonville office for 7 or 8 months. We are so glad to have him home even if it is for a short time. Cole is enjoying getting to spend time with "T". We are working on Uncle Trey. The way Cole is repeating everything you say, it won't be long before he says it too!

My favorite things...

Just thought I'd share with you some of the things that Cole does that make Kyle and I smile and laugh every day:

1. Anytime we are playing a game, reading books, hanging Christmas tree ornaments, stacking blocks, etc, Cole always wants ONE MORE...He holds his pointer finger up to his lips like you would if you were saying "shhhh...." and instead he says, "one mo, one mo." Love it

2. Cole laughs at himself...If he falls down, bumps his head, trips over a toy, whatever it is as long as he is not really hurt, he will pop up and laugh at himself. He usually will hit himself on the head again with his hand and say "boing!" and just giggle.

3. When Cole gives kisses, he has to give them on the lips! It's really funny. If you try to turn your head so that he gives you kisses on the cheek, he will turn his head and keep trying until he hits your lips.

4. When we give Cole a bath, you can say "it's time to wash your bottom" and he will stick his little bottom in the air so that you can wash it. Kyle told me about this one and I didn't believe it until last night. It is hilarious! I was trying so hard not to laugh.

All for now...I know there are more so I'll post them as I remember.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! We have so much to be thankful for...I'm so thankful for my wonderful husband and precious little boy, our good health, our families, our friends, our jobs, and everything in between! Have a wonderful day!

Paci Boot Camp - Over?

We are shocked. Cole slept through the first night without any pacis perfectly. Last night he went down with no problems and slept for 12 hours...no paci. This from the kid that just three days ago would wake up in the middle of the night looking for his paci! I can't believe it was that easy to get rid of it! I guess he was just ready!

Paci Boot Camp

It's time. Cole is almost 2 and still sleeps with a pacifier. After he turned 1, we limited it to the crib only. That was an easy transition so I'm hoping this one will be too. We tried to clipping the tip of them off a few months ago but that never worked and we gave up.

Since I'm off work all week, we've decided that this is the week to get rid of it! We are assuming that he'll be up all night...(Kyle is out at the camp tonight...how did he manage that one!) A friend of mine just had a baby so today after I picked up Cole from school, we went to see baby Conlee and give her all of Cole's pacies. We've been talking about it for several days now so he knew it was coming. Usually when we would talk about it, he would just smile shyly and say a real soft "nooooo."

Cole did great! He handed off the pacies like a champ!

7:28 p.m. - Put Cole to bed...he said "uh oh, uh oh" several times and was looking around for his pacies...

7:30 p.m. - Screaming "mama, mama"

7:45 p.m. - Still screaming "mama, mama...uh oh, uh oh"

7:46 p.m. - Went back in his room and reminded him that we gave the pacies to a baby...we chatted for a minute and then I put him back down.

7:50 p.m. - Screaming

7:55 p.m. - STILL Screaming (what have I done! Pacies aren't that bad...right? I mean, I've never seen a 5 year old with a paci...)

8:03 p.m. - Silence...no way!

8:21 p.m - Still silence! Whew! That wasn't bad at all! I'll let you know how the night goes! :)

To grandmother's house we go!

Today Cole and I went to Ft. Smith to visit my Grandma Wanda. We had lunch at Marketplace, went shopping and visited my grandfather's memorial at First Tee. We had a great day! Thank you Grandma for lunch and for Cole's precious sweater and jacket. When we were done eating, Cole pushed his plate aside and said "Bye." When we got up, he held his hand out for Grandma to hold it. This is what I saw walking behind them...isn't it sweet!

"Gow's" memorial at First Tee

Jack!

Cole got bit at school today on his cheek. When I picked him up, I had to sign the incident report that explains what happened. Apparently, another child was going to hug Cole and decided to bite him instead! When Cole and I were walking to the car, I asked him who bit him...he didn't say anything for a few seconds and then he said, "Jack." I was shocked! He's big enough now to tell me who bit him!!

Hot Hot Hot

Well, Cole and I had a little excitement tonight. Kyle was hunting but was planning to be home later this evening. I decided to make this Chicken, Spinach, Artichoke Casserole dish that I've been wanting to try as well as some asparagus and rolls. I had it all in the oven and started smelling smoke. At first I peeped in the oven and noticed that something had fallen to the bottom and was smoking a little bit. Next thing I know, there is a FIRE inside my oven! Cole must have heard the panic in my voice because he immediately wanted to be held and started saying Hot Hot Hot...I wasn't sure what to do so I called my mom. She told me to throw flour on it to smother it...I set the phone on the counter, put her on speaker phone and got the flour all while Cole is clinging tightly onto my hip. I was afraid to open the oven so I asked my mom again if she was sure that I needed to open the oven. She said yes and so I set Cole on top of the table in the kitchen. I barely opened the oven and tried to throw flour on it but I didn't get it in there very far. At that point the kitchen was getting VERY smokey so I grabbed Cole and Caesar, went outside and called 911.

Two firetrucks, a police car and half of my neighbors showed up...My mom came over too. Talk about embarrassing! Cole and I stood outside until they got it all aired out. Nothing was damaged...they even manage to save my dinner! The firemen took everything out of the oven and put it in the fridge before they did anything. They were so nice and told me that I did the right thing by throwing flour on it and getting out of the house...They did have one more question...I had a fire extinguisher that I grabbed out of the closet but was afraid to open the oven again. The extinguisher was on the table so they asked if I tried to use it...When I said no, they said, "oh were you afraid you'd ruin your dinner?" Ahhh! Before they left they gave Cole a little Tigger stuffed animal. Cole was a little hesitant to come back inside and he kept saying Hot Hot Hot when we were in the kitchen, but luckily everybody and everything was okay.

Milestones

Two random Cole milestones from last week...

Tuesday night he pottied in his new potty just before he got in the bath. We are very far from potty training but he's loving playing with the potty.

Saturday Cole started saying his name. We never could get him to say "Cole" before and randomly on Saturday he said it. It sounded more like Tole...When you point to a picture of him and say "who is that" he will point to himself and say "Tole"

Mexican Night!

I am always so surprised at how much Cole likes to eat. Kyle picked him up from school today and I met them for dinner at a local mexican restaurant. After Cole finished off almost a whole small cheese dip by himself, he then clean his plate of beans, rice and a chicken quesadilla. Nothing was on the floor or in his lap...amazing...I know that one day this will probably change so I wanted to capture this memory...by the way, the thing next to his left eye is a sticker from school...

Fall Carnival

We had a Fall Carnival at my office Friday night. They had a bunch of carnival games set up, pony rides, a bounce house, face painting, etc. Kyle was hunting so Cole and I went. He fell asleep in the car on the way there and slept on my shoulder while I walked around for at least 20 minutes. My arm was about to fall off! When he woke up, he wasn't very interested in the games...he was hungry. They had hot dogs and these things called "Walking Tacos." It was such a great idea! They took an individual size bag of nacho doritos, cut the side off, crushed the chips, added taco meat, cheese, lettuce, etc and wala...you have a taco in a dorito bag...

Happy Halloween!

So I gave up on Elmo and found this adorable Razorback football player costume complete with shoulder pads! It was perfect!

We started at about 4:00. For some reason he did NOT want to put the shoulder pads on so 20 minutes of misery with a time out in between, he finally let me put them on him. We went to my office to visit a few of my co-workers first. Then we drove through Chick-fil-a for a kids meal and went on to So Inviting to trick or treat with Nana. Of course, Caesar went with us, but I didn't do so great with his costume this year. With Cole's last minute costume change, I was too busy trying to figure out what he was going to be. Caesar wore a t-shirt that said Happy Howl-Oween. :)

Next stop was to see Stephanie and RD...didn't get any pics there...then we went to Jim and Sue's house to see Meredith, Bo and Crawford. As soon as we pulled up and Cole knew that we were going to see Crawford, he started kicking and squealing with excitement. They immediately started acting SO silly and playing together.

We were on a tight schedule so when we had to leave, both boys got upset. We tried to get one picture of the boys with their daddy's but neither of them were very happy to be held. They wanted to be down running!

We stopped to see Kyle's great aunt and uncle and then we went on to see Meme and Grandpa.

After that we went to see Mike, Erin and the girls. It was THE place to be. They had set up a haunted house in their garage and the entire neighborhood was there. It was wild. Cole ran and threw the ball and ran and threw the ball...over and over. He was having SO much fun. At one point he tripped and fell and we all heard him hit his forehead on the concrete...ouch! I immediately picked him up expecting to see a big cut but it was just red and he whined for a second but was then ready to get down and play again. It had to have hurt!

Cole and Rachel

I didn't get a picture of Cole with Julia. She was a cute Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader.
We made it home and got Cole in bed around 9:30. So fun!