Happy Birthday Collin!

Collin is 1 today!! It has been quite a year- starting with his birth coming 6 weeks early, a 2 and a half week stay in the hospital, major reflux/spitting up issues- and the fun stuff too: snuggly newborn stage, cute first smiles, watching him roll all over (which neither of his brothers did so it was exciting!), his very unique grunty laugh, army style crawling, lots of kisses and snuggles. Collin is a very fun baby. He loves to be with us wherever we are in the house and if we sit on the floor he immediately crawls over to crawl on us or pull up on us. He loves his big brothers and always smiles at them. He's a bit shy with strangers and will bury his head on my shoulder after giving them a shy smile. His smile and face lights up the room and makes us so happy. He's very persistent- he'll keep trying and trying to get something or go somewhere that he wants. We are so happy that after his rocky start he is healthy and hitting all his developmental milestones on time. He is a joy and a great addition to our family. We love you Collin!

Here are a few pictures from his first year:

Transformations

From baby:

To little boy:

Isn't it amazing how a haircut can make babies look so much older?? Collin was perfect at his haircut today. He didn't cry, fuss or even wiggle too much. He just sat there staring at himself in the mirror. Who can blame him- I love to stare at that adorable face too!

From fun loving boys:

To scary batman and spider face boys:

We went to kids eat free night at Denny's and they had a face painter. They were so excited and Grant even held very still for her. Childhood is so much fun!

Cousins

My sister and I are the oldest grandkids on both sides of our family, so we didn't have cousins our age. We were great babysitters for all our younger cousins, but we didn't have any our own age to play with. I'm so glad that my kids have cousins their age to play with. We were excited when we heard that Urban was coming to visit for the weekend and made plans to have him come stay with us on Friday. He and Scotty get along so well and had a blast playing all day. He was also able to sleep over and that was really fun too. We went to the park and met up with some more cousins- Brock, Brady and Logan and everyone had a great time.

They are digging for buried treasure in our neighbor's yard and claim they found some!

Here's Brock trying very hard to get his message out!

Urban, Brady and Scotty rolling down the hill. I remember doing that- do you?

This particular park is near Urban's old house so we call it "Urban's park" and Scotty will also add "The one with the steering wheels."

Getting ready to settle down and watch a movie. They rearranged most of the big items in the playroom to make a racetrack and to have stations where they would get their power. I love their imaginations! We were very surprised that Urban went to sleep around 9pm and slept all night until 7am (he's normally a night owl) and Scotty was still up at 9:30pm saying he couldn't sleep and then he came up at midnight and got into his own bed (he normally sleeps from 7pm-7am). They spent the next day playing at Grandma Geri's and helping to work on the kitchen remodel. It was so fun to have Urban back and Scotty and I can't wait for our visit to Colorado in April.

Comfort

Do you have a favorite piece of clothing? I do. It's a blue fleece shirt, and if you know me well you know the shirt I am referring to. I bought it so long ago I can't even remember when I got it. It fits me perfectly and I love it. I have tried to buy more that were similar but they just didn't fit the same. After I had been wearing it for a few years I decided it was time to retire it to a house only shirt and I think I have worn it most cold weather days since then. When it is summer and too hot to wear it I get so sad. It's my comfort and I just feel happy when I put it on. Pair it with some comfy pj pants and I'm all set. It has been funny to see my babies react when I'm wearing a different shirt. They are so interested and enthralled by something new and Grant was even scared one time and wouldn't touch me! It has been with me through lots of fun and exciting things through the years:

2004 - Before we had kids we took a trip up the Oregon coast for our 4th anniversary. The first documented appearance of the shirt was our 3rd anniversary trip in 2003 to Ohio, but that was before we went digital so I only have a print and no scanner to put it on here.

2005- Scotty's first Christmas.

2006- Brushing Scotty's cute little teeth for the first time.

2007- Grant's first Christmas.

2008- Feeding Grant rice cereal for the first time.

2009- Snuggling with a newborn Collin on Easter.

2010- I take it with me when I go on trips, like this recent Girl's trip.

It celebrates birthdays with me.

And it is with me when I comfort my kids.

I love this shirt. I hope it can stay with me for years to come!

Time...please slow down!

We have always tried hard not to wish our boy's life away and enjoy each moment with them. There are some moments when we think ahead with a little bit of longing- like when we're in the midst of tons of tantrums, or in sleep deprived hazes, but mostly we love each day and stage with our boys. But there are some moments when it becomes really clear to me how much I'm going to miss these early days. The other day I had changed Grant's diaper and he had been crying and protesting it. After we were done he crawled over and snuggled in my lap and then Collin crawled over, pulled up on me and was patting my back. As I sat there with my two boys I thought ahead to times when they will be too big to snuggle on my lap and might be too cool to spend a lot of time with their Mom. It makes me sad to think about it, but it also helps me to relish the little moments that I have right now. I love being a Mom. I feel so honored to have been given the opportunity to raise my boys. I make so many mistakes and have so much to learn, but they have unconditional love and endless amounts of forgiveness for me. They teach me so much. These early days can be exhausting and hard, but I'm really, really going to miss them and think back on them with fondness.

Muffin Tin Monday

MTM theme this week is orange. We had fun eating and talking about orange food. When I told Scotty that carrots are good for our eyesight he informed me that he has Troodon eyes. He said "When Heavenly Father put me together he gave me Troodon eyes, not regular eyes like you."

We had Cheez Its, oranges, cheese train, orange bell pepper, orange ranch dressing and carrots.

Grant put some blue food coloring in his ranch when I turned my back so he had green ranch. Scotty, of course, wanted a different color so he mixed things up and ended up with gray. He was excited and said it tasted like gray!

Appetizing, huh?

Grant, of course, wouldn't have anything to do with the green ranch! He ate everything except the peppers and carrots and had seconds of oranges. Scotty only ate a few bites of cheese and a couple carrots. They are currently in different stages of eating so right now Grant eats way more than Scotty.

We ended the meal by pretending to shoot each other with stinky feet spray, stinky diaper spray and stinky toot spray. Gotta love boys!!!

Valentine's Day

My SIL sent me this link for these really cute valentine's and I decided to make them for my boys. We had made Scotty's rockets already, but I really love these and I plan on doing them another year. I, unfortunately, told Scotty we had a surprise for him and so he got really excited....but, paper hearts with M&M's inside did not live up to his expectations! He thought it was funny that the M&M's went flying when he ripped his open, but then he struggled with being disappointed. And then after that he kept saying he doesn't like Valentine's day. Sometimes I just can't win! Grant, of course, loved getting sweet treats. We put those Gerber puffs in Collin's and he absolutely LOVES them and he sat there shoving in handful after handful after we ripped his open.

Scotty drew us volcanoes! Mine was even heart shaped. With "lots and lots of lava"! Then he had us tell him all the letters to write a cute little message. Grant colored us a picture too that was adorable. Miles made a delicious, but very involved, chili for dinner. I saw it made on Cook's Country one day and thought it looked delicious and he was very nice to try it out for me.

We also took some little hearts and Miles, Scotty and I wrote on them things that we love about each family member. That was fun and I think it will be a fun Vday tradition. We like to keep things simple on Vday and be sure to express our love often to each other throughout the day.

I forgot to take pictures before we ripped them open, but here they are after the damage was done.

You can see the M&Ms and puffs all over the floor. They really flew when we ripped them!

Grant was sure to get every single one.

Collin kept showing them to Miles before he ate them. He's so cute!!

Heaven!!

I had to throw this one in because you can see his little tooth up there on top!

Here are our little love notes. We hope you had a good Valentine's Day too!

Planning ahead

Scotty is planning for the future:

Valentine's Day party

Scotty has his preschool Valentine's Day party today. I found this really cute vday craft here and I was excited to see a boyish valentine idea. Scotty loves rockets so he was excited to make them. It was fun to make these with him.

He put a foam letter sticker on each one for his own little embellishment.

He wanted to do his teacher's rockets in pink because they are girls!

And then he had to play with a rocket when we were done.

Muffin Tin Monday

There was no theme for MTM this week so we decided to do a cereal sampler. We currently have 10 different kinds of cereal open in our pantry. Miles and the kids think we should have more open and I think we should have less! I thought it would be fun to let the kids have a bunch of different kinds in their tins. And it was a good way to get them to try the Apple Jacks that they have refused to taste in the past.

We have Cocoa Krispies, Kix, Corn Pops, Cinnamon Life, Honey Nut Cheerios and Apple Jacks. We didn't have room for the Frosted Mini Wheats, Rice Krispies, Go Lean Crunch or the regular Cheerios. Don't you agree that it's a bit excessive to have this many open packages of cereal??? This was a great way of using them up though!

Grant is a goof! He wasn't thrilled about this when we gave it to him and we finally figured out that he was mad there wasn't a spot open to put his cup! But he eventually calmed down and ate the cereal.

Scotty, on the other hand, wasn't excited about it until we actually gave it to him, then he decided to mix the cereal and ate almost all of it. You just never know what these kids will think!

Stop by Muffin Tin Mom to see more MTM posts.

My little robots

Scotty made himself a robot mask and had me pin his magicians cape on backwards so he could be a robot. Then Grant wanted a robot mask too. They are the cutest robots ever!