The past (almost) 5 months...

Hey everyone! 

Yeah, yeah, yeah... we're still alive.  In fact, we're doing fabulously (thanks for asking)!  The world of not-blogging is an ugly slippery slope, I tell you.  First you skip a week... then you skip two weeks... and the next thing you know, you're catching up on five months of craziness.  Guilty!  I have a TON of pictures I need to post, but I'll get to those later.  For now, I really just want to write an update before yet another month passes by without a single blog entry.

Here are some fun things that we've been up to lately.  I'm sure I'll forget important things, but forgive me :)

December:

• Spencer, Colton and I flew out to DC to spend Christmas with my whole family.
• Colt turned 4 months and learned how to grab things with his hand (especially his toes).
• Colt's first (2) airplane rides!  They went off without a hitch.
• I enjoyed my last little bits of school/work-free life post baby.

Yes, he's actually sleeping like this.  As soon as Colton discovered his toes, we could never keep him away from them.  Even in his sleep.



January:

• I started my internship at Vineyard Elementary (and became besties with my supervisor.  Seriously.  I love her).
• Spencer managed to go to school AND work 40+ hours a week.  He's so wonderful.
• I worked as a TA for Dr. Brinton's intro to CommD course.  No one ever came to office hours.  EVER.  So Colton and I watched Community, Parks & Recreation, and Baby Einstein on the big projector screen.
•  I made some interesting new year's resolutions.  I always make a TON so this year, to make them a little more manageable, I started with one and I've added a new one every month.  At the end of April, I'm still going strong :)  In January, I gave up carbonated beverages and now... they don't ever tempt me anymore!
• Colton started eating solid foods.  Rice cereal was a "meh" at first, but we soon discovered his love of sweet potatoes and carrots and rice cereal was put on the back burner.

Colton eating prunes.  He has to eat them regularly to stay... well... regular.  Unfortunately, it took us this first exposure to learn that clothes should NEVER be worn while eating prunes.  He now eats prunes in only his diaper... and that outfit will never be the same.

February:

• I turned 26.  Yeah.  No big deal :)
• Spencer's family was in town for Chase and Emily's wedding.  It was beautiful!
• We went on Colton's first road trip (to Sammamish) for Chase's wedding reception and flew back afterwards.  I got to share a twin-sized bottom bunk with a 5 1/2 month old and a long-arm quilting machine (not recommended).
• Colton turned 6 months old (crazy, right?) and decided that rice cereal wasn't so bad.
• Colton started crawling.

This is Colton during our 13 hour road trip.  He was AWESOME.

This is Colton during my office hours a few days after he started crawling.  He's obviously thrilled about his new mobility.

March:

• I took the Praxis and had to wait until April to find out my score (see April).
• Colton turned 7 months old and learned to pull himself up into standing!  His crib is now on the lowest setting to thward his efforts at escaping his bed and destroying his mobile (p.s... he got the mobile.  It's no longer with us).
• Mom and dad came for General Conference!  We got to spend some quality time with them and the rest of the fam-damily
• Tuck came and stayed with us for about 5 days.  I still miss her.

Colton loved Tuck.  Especially her face.

Again, we're at office hours.  Colton loved pulling himself up to standing and drumming on all the chairs.

April:

• I found out that I passed the Praxis! (Nay... I KILLED the Praxis).
• I finished my internship at Vineyard and have MAJORLY missed my kids and Dorthy (aforementioned awesome supervisor) ever since.
• Spencer had to up his hours to about 65+ a week because his co-worker was... ehem... dismissed.
• Spencer joined a gym and I lost like 7 pounds Kinect-ing it up every day.
• Colton's first Easter!  He even did an Easter egg hung for yogurt bites and pretty much tried to eat the plastic eggs and grass.  Needless to say, it was adorable.
• I kicked some major thesis butt.  I'm going to own that thing by August.
• Colton is 8 months and continues to amaze us.  He's let go of things while standing a couple of times and I'm terrified that he'll be walking in no time.
• I got a job!  I'll be a speech-language pathologist for Nebo School District starting in the Fall.  I'll work part-time so I can still take care of Colton and Spencer can take a full load of classes.  I am so excited I could just pee!

Colton's obsessed with this window.  He now crawls up into his bumbo to look outside.  Oh, and he tries to tear the blinds of the walls.

We have a lot of fun!  I love my two boys :)

Well, I'm sure a lot more happened, but I'll probably remember all that at 3:00 this morning.  Anywho, we love you all!  Maybe next time I'll actually have pictures of all three of us.... maybe.

'Til next time...

Rocking and Rolling (Over)

So... Colton is amazing. He does tummy time multiple times every day and I never cease to be amazed by how strong he's getting. On Tuesday, Spencer and I set him on his stomach and Colton then proceeded to SCOOT across the floor! I mean, he's not "crawling" yet, but my three month old can scoot!

And so it begins.

The next day, I was trying to get Colton to scoot again so I could catch it on camera. While Colt was looking adorable and cooing at me a ton, I caught this picture of him blowing spit bubbles at me:

And then, he started rocking...

And rocking...

And then he ROLLED OVER!

Woohoo! I was so excited that I threw my phone and started squealing and clapping. I have no idea what Colton was thinking but apparently he thought I was hilarious because he stayed on his back and started giggling. I played with this cute face for the next half hour or so:

This is how Colton used to do during tummy time:

Then he got a little bit stronger:

And now he can do this for about 20 minutes:

I was doing laundry that day while Colton was watching Food Network. You like his jeans? What would you do if I told you they were actually jeggings? Well, they're sweatpants so I guess they're really jweats... hmmm. Anyways, I love his pants :)

Backtracking a bit, Thanksgiving has come and gone! Kent and DeRue came to town and the cooking insanity commenced! Brunch and dinner with all the Cornetts, Normans, and Walkers was really fun (and delicious) but holy heck, we were all EXHAUSTED afterwards. Colton has learned to stay asleep until at least 6:30 in the morning ever since. Even when he wakes up early in the morning we only have to feed him for a few minutes before he falls back asleep until 8:30 or so. He's turning out to be a dream baby, schedule-wise!

And this is the cute face I wake up to every morning:

Since Spencer and I will be in DC for Christmas this year, Kent and DeRue brought Christmas to us during Thanksgiving. The biggest present went to Colton! Here's a photo to help you size up how big this thing was:

Any guesses? Colton really liked staring at the wrapping paper and the ribbon... and sometimes at nothing at all:

I love him. SO much.

Well, the huge present turned out to be a baby bouncer! I can't wait until Colton's a little bigger so he can use it. Until then, I'll just hold him a lot:

Colton got another toy, too. I love it because it is occasionally the only thing that soothes his crying... and because it makes him get all googly-eyed:

See?

Last weekend we took family photos (which I'll have to post when they're available) and Colton and Rigby had their first pictures with Santa:

As you can see, Riggles loved every minute. Colton, on the other hand, loved chewing on his hands.

In fact, he loves chewing on everything. Here's a list of stuff I've caught him chewing on in the last two weeks:

• his hands
• our hands
• clothing (his and ours)
• pacifiers (duh)
• my hair
• his carseat
• burp clothes
• the carpet
• rattles
• our quilt
• bath towels and washclothes
• my neck... when we're snuggling

And we get a LOT of snuggling time:

I love my boys. And I love you all!

'Til next time...

Now you see it... Now you don't

MY HAIR, THAT IS!

This was earlier this afternoon:

You see all those nappy locks? I've been wanting to chop them off for ages. Now that Colton is finally on a good schedule (more on that later...) I had the time to go get it taken care of.

So THIS is going in the mail tomorrow for Locks of Love:

Because now my hair looks like THIS!

Here's a closeup:

I LOOOVE it. I haven't had it this short in a long time and I'm so glad I finally did it. I tried putting it back into a ponytail and... well... I can't. Not even a little nub. But that's okay! When it's this short it stays out of the way anyways.

I finally decided it had to go because THIS guy:

has decided that everything must be grabbed and then promptly put into his mouth. Including my hair. Scratch that... ESPECIALLY my hair. He also likes to spit up ALL the heck over my 'do.... so yeah... I was anxious to see it go.

Colton started drooling a lot the past week or so, which makes us a little nervous that he might be getting ready for some teeth soon (please, no... please, no...). He's not crying or fussing any more than usual, but he has started gnawing on everything in sight.

Exhibit A - munching on his own hands:

Exhibit B - munching on other peoples' hands:

He's getting a lot bigger and stronger, too! He's still owning his tummy time, but now he makes cute noises at us while he's doing it. Yesterday morning, he and Spencer were exchanging cute noises for about 10 minutes before Colton got a little too excited and started crying:

He can sit up for a second or two on his own:

And he's officially wearing 6-9 month clothing:

His schedule is a heck of a lot more regular right now. I feed him every four hours: 2:30, 6:30, 10:30, etc. We give him a bath every night at 10:00 and then after his feeding at 10:30 we start rocking him to sleep. He's been asleep by midnight for the past 2 weeks. Every day he starts to sleep a little longer before waking up to feed and this past week he didn't wake up until 8:30 in the morning for two days in a row! Seriously. I had to put my hand under his nose to make sure he was still breathing. Last night was a bit of a regression (i.e., he woke up at 2:30 and stayed up for 2 hours) but I'm willing to pretend it never happened if he'll just go back to sleeping until 8:30 from now on :) So we're all getting more sleep around here lately... which explains why we're really smiling in so many more of our pictures now!

Yep. I know. He's really cute:

See what I mean?

When Colton was first born, I could see a TON of Cornett features. Now that he's getting bigger, Spencer and his family are convinced that he's more Tucker than Cornett. DeRue sent us some of Spencer's baby pictures the other day because Spencer said he'd forgotten what he looked like as a baby. I still think my baby's pretty Cornett-ish:

Here's Colton:

Here's Spencer (in the middle):

Here are some other cute pictures of Spencer as a behbeh:

Check out my husband's chins! THAT'S where Colton gets it from!

All of Spencer's family is getting together for Thanksgiving on Thursday and we are SO EXCITED! I'm sure I'll have a lot more pictures to come afterwards. In the meantime... my friend posted this the other day and I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. I think any mom will appreciate the hilarity of this picture:

We love you all!

'Til next time...

10 Minutes in the Life of a 12 Week Old...

Life must be really hard for babies. I'll bet eating, growing, and pooping is exhausting (thus all the sleeping, right?). Two things are for sure: 1) babies sure do feel a LOT of different emotions in a very short period of time. 2) Babies are dang cute (and I may be a little partial, but I think mine's a total stud).

Here's a taste of what 10 minutes with Colton can be like:

2:30 - Colton wakes up from a nice nap in his swing:

2:31 - Colton looks around in a chill, relaxed state of restedness:

2:31 - Colton stares wondrously at the lighting fixture while enjoying his favorite pacifier:

2:32 - Colton realizes mom is looking at him and sends a few smiles and coos her way:

2:33 - Colton recognizes a funny rumbly in his tumbly:

2:33 - Colton grunts and grimaces trying to do a little you-know-what:

2:34 - When the grunting doesn't work, Colton resorts to his pufferfish mode to relieve himself of a significant amount of "pressure":

2:35 - Colton realizes that gas hurts and starts to get a little fussy:

2:35 - Colton's full-blown cry-fest has commenced:

2:36 - Mom finally puts down the camera and changes Colton's diaper (since he definitely pooped through his outfit). Colton looks at mom thinking, "Wait, you're going to put those cold wipes WHERE?!":

2:37 - Colton's all changed and starts to play with mom again:

2:38 - Colton is all giggles because mom makes weird noises/faces:

2:39 - Colton's thinking, "Okay, mom. First you were funny. Now you're just desperate.":

2:40 - Colton realizes the TV is far more interesting than mom:

2:40 - Here's proof that Colton just LOVES to watch "The Biggest Loser":

Tough life, right? Must be :)