18 Months

Colin turned 18 months this month!  He is becoming such a big boy and we love seeing him trying to keep up with his big sis. And he does a pretty good job!

At his check up he weighed 28 lbs ( 95%) and has already gained a 1 lb since!  He is one sturdy guy! His height was 33 3/4" (65%).  He is wearing 2T for tops and barely into 18m bottoms.

Little boys, little boys!  First I will say this boy is so super snuggly.  He still loves to just hug me and lay his head on my shoulder anytime of day.  He loves to give nice big kisses on the lips or just blow kisses as he heads up to bed.  His sweetness just eats me up!

Secondly, I will say he loves to run and play chase, he loves to throw anything and everything and will nose dive off the couch or the big kid slide at the park.  This boy keeps us moving!  He is constantly moving from toy to toy and loves to show them off.  If a grandparent comes by he has to show them something and then gestures for them to play with them.  His newest and favorite thing is Mega blocks.  He will sit forever stacking these mega legos.  He likes them tall and skinny and get frustrated when he can't reach any higher.  And of course loves when they come crashing down.

He has probably a good 10 words that I can understand.  And seems to be coming out with new ones every other day.  He is excellent at communicating with sign language or gestures.  And he is huge on imitating. He loves to copy anything Whitney is doing.  Often competing for attention by "talking" louder than her.  It is pretty funny.

He loves to eat and loves anything savory.  He loves any meat or fish and loves to snack on olives, sunflower seeds and his new favorite is pickles!  Still can't get a strawberry in him!

Potty training.  It is going.  Of course I had high hopes he would be out of diapers like Whitney at 18 months but we are not there yet.  I still am very happy with his progress.  The first few months he was amazing and barely had any dirty diapers.  Then the middle of summer we went on trip after trip and it really threw him off.  I would say we are on a plateau right now.  He goes on the potty easily 5x a day and still has some dirty diapers.  I am not putting a time frame on it (ok yes, hopefully before his baby sister arrives) I am just going to keep doing what we are doing because it is working!

He is still taking two naps.  I keep analyzing whether I should drop it but have realized with some feedback from others, if it isn't a problem why change it!  Plus, after I drop Whitney off at school and put him down,  I get to squeeze in a short workout and a shower.  So, we are keeping two naps until he shows me otherwise!

I am excited to see what  the next few months bring.  I feel 18 months is the start of lots of big changes and so many exciting things! Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the last month.

He loves sitting with his hands behind his back.  Has even started walking like this.  So cute!

Move and Groove class

 Loves a trip to the farm!

Loves to help!

Only more pink to come...!

My favorite!

I love my  Big Sis!

The Best News of the Summer

In June we found out the most exciting news of the summer. That we were expecting another baby!

 We are over the moon about being blessed with another baby but of course with that comes a lot of fear.  When we lost Christine our lives were never the same.   Being pregnant is one of my most favorite things in the world.  But each day is scary.  Each moment you have doubts that you will really bring another baby home.   But as the weeks went on we continued to get news that this baby looked healthy and perfect in every way.  Relief definitely settled in and the craziness of every day life has kept most worry at bay. So we continue to look forward and have faith that in February our family will welcome a new little baby.

Probably all of you reading this already know the gender of our baby but I thought I would go into a little bit of detail.  With each pregnancy we have done something special.  With Whitney we waited until her birth day to find out what we were having.  I absolutely loved this and highly recommend it to everyone!  And no it wasn't hard to wait, it was so exciting!  When I was pregnant with Colin we decided to find out because we needed this pregnancy to feel different.  Stressful cannot even begin to describe how his pregnancy felt.  For this exciting news, with a lot of logistics,  we opened a box to find two tiny blue shoes.  Being able to connect with him during the rest of the pregnancy really helped us.

So with this pregnancy we of course wanted to do something fun.  I had seen on Pinterest couples finding out the gender by having pink or blue balloons fly out of a box.  I knew this is what I wanted to do, but mainly for the kids.  Ok, for Whitney, Colin has no idea what is going on!  At the sonogram we had the sono tech circle the gender and put it in an envelope.  She also included some gender proving photos.  Tim and I left the appointment and I looked to my right and saw a courtyard.  I coudn't wait a moment longer.  We stepped out there and sat on a bench and after taking a deep breath opened the envelope.  A first glance at the picture and both of us uncertain since we had never really seen the gender revealing parts before.  But our thoughts were confirmed as we saw a circle around GIRL!!

We were ecstatic about this news for many reasons.  One, Whitney has been hoping for a sister.  Two, I had been having strong feelings from the beginning that it was a girl.  I definitely wouldn't have been disappointed if it were a boy, it just would have been a bummer if my instinct was off.  I had never had such a strong feeling about a pregnancy.  And lastly, Colin is my little Prince.  As a newborn, Prince was a name I started calling him.  Out of nowhere, I really didn't intentionally call him that.  But I soon learned it was because he was my little Prince who came and saved me.  Though my heart will always have that piece missing,  Colin came a long and finished putting the pieces back together.  Each of my children have a very special place in my heart but I just knew Colin was my special baby boy.

Ok, so dry your eyes and enjoy our pictures :)

 Profile Pic

We have had so many sonograms over the years and never had a 4D one.  So, I decided to ask and she was happy to do it.  It was so cool to see the baby look so life like.  It is hard to see at first.  But if you look at the top picture you can see how her hand is in front of her face.  Then the bottom picture she moved it to the side and you can see her face better. 

Whitney was ready to pull the string and open that box!  However, Colin was not interested in what was going on and just wanted to go play in the yard.  I had to stay and get them started.

Whitney was ecstatic to see the pink balloons!!  

  FYI-stuff balloons in a box and they won't all come out.

Look hard and you will see 5 balloons flying away.  One flying solo with a message to our baby girl Christine. The other 4 Tim forgot to tape down for the kids to keep.  However, he pointed out the amazing symbolism.  One may fly alone, but all four are part of our family.

Disney- Day Four

After a late night we enjoyed sleeping in a bit this morning.  But we were eager to head out to our breakfast at Chef Mickey's.  This is located in the very familiar Contemporary Hotel.  The one that looks like a big triangle with the monorail going through it.   Tim and I both stayed here as kids!

It was a bit of a hike to get there.  First the shuttle from our Hotel to Epcot where we jumped on the monorail.  Then we had to switch trains before we finally arrived after almost an hour.  But it was well worth the wait.  

The excitement from Whitney was unstoppable.  She was squealing with delight as one by one Mickey and his friends made their rounds.  When Minnie came she was jumping out of her seat!  It was just way too cute.  Colin had a lot of fun here too.  He especially loved pulling on Pluto's whiskers!

After a good nap we headed back for our final night at Magic Kingdom.  

First up was the Winnie the Pooh ride.

Carousel

One more ride on Small World then over to Belle's Enchanted storybook time.  Here we got to go into Belle's palace and participate in a play.  Whitney got selected to play Mrs. Potts but as soon as she found out that meant "performing" in front of people she quickly handed off her role!  Funny, the exact thing her theatre major mom would have done at that age!

After dinner we split up and Whitney and I waited in line for about 45 minutes to meet Tinkerbell and Tim and Colin went on the People Mover ride.  We had been so spoiled with not having to wait in line that Whitney and I were a bit antsy.  But it was fun to spend some time with just my girl.  Again, she wasn't a huge fan of the real life fairies in the moment but was estatic aftewards.  

Here is a picture of a professional picture off of the computer.  Because I just can't spend $16 a photo.

It was approaching 8pm and luckily the parade is a bit earlier on Sundays.  After tracking down the boys we enjoyed seeing the parade.  

We then decided to take one more ride on Dumbo before the big firework display.  As we headed back to the castle I saw the hundreds of people waiting to watch the fireworks and Whitney in the stroller covering her ears in fear that the fireworks would blast at any moment.  We decided to make a dash for the shuttle bus and skip out on the madness that was soon to follow.  We hopped on the bus with one other family just like ours and enjoyed the (quiet) fireworks on the ride home.  

Trip was perfect and amazing in every way.  We can't wait to go back!

Disney- Day Three

Back to the Magic Kingdom.  And boy was it a magical today.  We arrived at the park around 8:30am for our 9am reservation at Cindrella's palace.  If you have a reservation they let you into the park early (they open at 9am).  It was so peaceful that time in the morning.

 While Colin got a little catnap in the stroller we took some pictures in front of the castle and stopped by a princess shop.  Many other little girls had gone to the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique to get a new dress and made over into a princess.  Personally, I think the bun I put in Whitney's hair looked much prettier than the slicked back, pageant style hair that had a odd hair piece attached based on which princess they chose.  Definitely glad we saved our money on that one.

Inside the palace we got in line for a pictures with Cinderella.  Then went upstairs for a delicious breakfast.  Here we met 5 more princesses.  Whitney enjoyed this setting much better.  The princess would approach our table and we would get an autograph and picture.  She was very excited to meet Ariel who is her favorite.

Here is a picture of the professional picture that came with our breakfast.  We are all sweaty and tired because we had to go back at the end of our day and redo it because they lost ours.  They made us a ton a copies and also an extra fast pass for the inconvenience.  

Why hello Aurora!

I love this one.

Next we went to meet the Main Man.  We had a fast pass for this and were able to walk right into the room ahead of all these people camped out outside!

Colin stole Mickey's heart by giving him a big kiss on the nose!

Then we hopped on the railroad that takes you around the park.  A nice break from all the walking!

Then a day full of rides.  Two we had fast passes for, the others we pretty much walked on!

New Little Mermaid Ride

Dumbo

Teacups

 Next time little man!

Other rides not shown are Peter Pan and the Raceway.  An action packed day!  Time for a nap!

That night we headed over to Downtown Disney.  Here we picked up some personalized Mickey ears.  Then we had a special treat of meeting up with my college roomate and another close friend from college and NYC.  They both live in the Orlando area.  It was so fun to catch up with them! Hard to believe it has been 10 years!  Here Whitney also got her first jumbo lollipop.  She worked on this for a good week!