"Ma Ma Ma Ma"

Collin said "Mama" a long time ago and I was so excited, but he only said it when he was crying. And then after about two weeks of doing that, he just stopped. It has been about four months and I have not heard the sound MaMa, until this past Monday.

On Monday we went to take his 1 year photos at Sears and the whole time he said MaMaMaMaMa. I couldn't believe it. I asked the girls at Daycare and they said he said it all day long.. WHOO HOO... But now... He really knows to relate the word Mama with Me and Dada with Josh. Too Cute. So tonight I was in our bedroom and he was in his room and he started saying MaMa and crawled all the way down the hall saying MaMa MaMa MaMa and it got louder and louder and louder. Oh my goodness. Then he saw me and was so excited. I love it, it made me cry. Happy Tears.

Collin is also cutting two more teeth. One on the top and one on the bottom, that will make 7 teeth so far. And watch out because if he bites you it HURTS.. He has been running fever the past two days with these two teeth, can't wait until they are all the way in.

Only 9 more days and he will be one year old. We are in full swing, planning his birthday party. Elmo and Seaseme Street Friends. I cannot wait to see him dive in and eat his cake. He has had cake before and loved it, so I am hoping when he sees his own cake he will love it just as much.

This year has flown by. It is amazing to watch your little baby grow up into a toddler. Every minute they are learning something new. It is so hard not to miss something. I am very blessed to have gotten to spend time with him at home until he was 9 months old. Those are moments I will never forget. I love my little man, he is growing up too fast.

11 months.. time to catch up!

I say this over and over again, I really do wish I was better at this. But finding time to do anything is hard to do... But enough complaining lets get started....

It has been two months since the last time I was able to blog. And of course so much has happened it seems like I would have to write a book to tell you all about it.

But here are some highlights.

To start, I left off with Collin was going to go to his first day of Daycare.....

OH DAYCARE..... Collin does not mind going, sometimes he cries when we leave or drop him off but sometimes he can not wait until we put him down and he wants to go play with the other kids. So there are a lot of pros and cons to daycare.

Here are a couple. PROS...
1. They are always open, I never have to worry if they will be able to watch him. Plus they are open from 6am to 6pm so that really helps a lot with the two of us going to work and working odd hours some days.
2. He loves playing with the other kids, I really believe that he has learned so many new things just from watching the others play.
3. I trust his teachers, they always give me a report of how he does each day.
 - CONS... which are starting to out weigh the pros... but everyone keeps telling me hang in there it will get better....
1. HE WILL NOT SLEEP. poor baby,  it has been two months and he will not take naps at day care. I get his report each day and some days there are no naps at all and some days he sleeps maybe 30 mins or maybe an hour. So by the time he gets home he is so tired. I have asked if there is anything we can do, but not really, they have to keep all the lights on for all the other babies in the room and it can be noisy since the other babies my cry or laugh and Collin does not get any rest... (But the days we are at home, he take 2, 2 hour naps, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.)
2. Of the 9 weeks that he has been there, I would say we have been 20 days sick at home. He has caught every sickness known.. it seems. tummy virus, colds, pneumonia, upper respiratory infection, other virus. We have been to the doctor more in the past two months, than his whole life.. ERRRR. I just really want my baby to feel better and be happy.

So that is my saga of Daycare so far, we are going to keep at it for the time being, I just hope his immune system can keep up.

Now for the fun exciting things he has been up to.. The baby that makes me smile every day...

Collin is growing up into such a little man. He has such a funny personality that is forever changing.
He laughs and smiles at things he things are funny, he growls when he is frustrated, he screams when he is mad, SCREAMS loud if he is not getting his way. (Yes my child can throw a big temper tantrum at the age of 11 months....) My parents say he is very dramatic just like his mommy.. HA HA! He coos when his does not feel good and loves to cuddle. And the only words (sounds) he says is, ba ba and da da.

He is eating table food now, every once in a while we are still giving his Gerber baby food, but mostly table food. Loves, fish sticks and chicken nuggets with ketchup. mac and cheese, peas, green beans, pork and beans, and a all time favorite is any Mexican restaurant with beans and rice. OH My.

He is still having 4 to 5 bottles a day that are 4 oz each. Mostly to get him to sleep. Throughout the rest of the day he has juice and water out of sippy cups. Starting Monday we are going to go to half formula and half whole milk. I have let him drink milk from my cup and he loves it, so I don't think this is going to be a hard transition for him.

In the past two months he has become an expert crawler to a couch and table walker, to now we are pushing all the walking toys. He can even walk with me, as long as he can hold on to one of my fingers. I have a feeling very soon he will be cruising on his own.

The last doctors visit we went to he was 23 lbs and 30 inches long.. 90% for his age.. We are going to have one tall young man. He is wearing 12 to 18 month clothing and size 3 diapers. No shoes yet still bare feet, but we did by him so really cool Nikes last week.

His grandma and grandpa came down from Oklahoma to see him 2 weeks ago and we had a great visit. We went to Texas State Aquarium and Collin loved seeing the fish.

The first week of October we are flying to Oklahoma so that Collin can see the rest of his family and meet all of his cousins. This will be Collin's first time to fly too, this mommy is a little nervous.

Collin will be 1 year old in 20 days.. He gets to have 2 birthday parties, one here at home and one in Oklahoma... Oh what am I to do with all these toys....?????    :-)

9 Months and not slowing down....

SLOW DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That seems to be all that I say now days…

Well I want to rewind a little bit. To start this past month off, we had just started eating table food. And if I tried to get him to crawl or at least push himself up he would whine..  And he was not strong enough to pull himself up, nor had he ever tried.

NOW we are eating me out of house and home and he is crawling all over the place as fast as he can and he REALLY wants to walk but he cannot keep his balance.  AHHHHH!

It all really started when we went on our family vacation to Wimberley. About two days before we left Collin had attempted to scoot himself and pull his legs behind him, almost an Army crawl. But as soon as we got there it is like this place was magic or something. I put Collin down on the floor (which is concrete) and he just took off. He understood how to crawl. Then that night I put him down in the pack in play to go to sleep and when he woke up in the middle of the night for a bottle there he was standing up and holding on the side of the pack and play wanting to get out… CRAZY.  So from that week on it has been non stop. He is all over the house. He LOVES the dog’s water bowl. We get in a fight over this daily. There is something about water that he just loves, he lived in the river with us on vacation and now every day since we have been back he has been in his little pool, or the hot tub to swim or float in his floaty.

He has such a personality. He smiles really big at things that he likes. Anytime he sees ELMO, we get a big smile, it can be on you tube, a stuffed animal, a book. He flaps his arms up and down and smiles and laughs. Crazy kid. He also really recognizes people that he knows. My mom and dad, and my grandma Nana he really knows and will reach out for them. And even after spending a week with the rest of our LARGE family he knew the kids and would get excited to see them.

Now on the other side he is very stubborn, he ALWAYS wants what you have. Nothing can even compare to what you have. Food, Cell Phone, Laptop, a piece of paper.. ANYTHING, if you are holding it, he wants to hold it. And he will scream until he gets it.. oh my… oh my…

A little more on his daily routine,

-          Sleeping from 8pm to 6am waking up once still…..

-          Drinking 6 four ounce bottles.

-          Taking 2  - one and half hour naps

-          I give him a bottle and rock or bounce to put him to sleep, even for naps.

-          Eating anything in sight, loves the little puffs.

-          Wearing size 3 diapers and 12 month clothing.

-          He is also drinking from a sippy cup that has a straw.  (mostly water though, no juice)

We are going to his 9 month doctor appointment on the 16^th.  So we will see then how big he his, but he has grown so much. I wish he would put the brakes on he is growing up too fast.

In other news, I went back to work. It has been 2 weeks.  I work now for a local bank here in Victoria for the private banking department. It was a hard choice, but it was time for me to go back to work. We also had a babysitter lined up to take care of Collin, but that fell through, so he starts Daycare on Monday. I really hope this is an easy transition for both of us. It is going to be a big change.

Here are some photos of the last month.

Swimming in the hot tub in our backyard

With Mimi and Papa at Gruene Hall

Swimming in his little pool in the backyard

Holding and drinking his bottle all by himself.

Very excited Elmo is on the laptop while he is eating breakfast

Collin drooling while him and Papa try to pick up girls at Gruene Hall.. ha ha

Collin and his daddy - giving the surfer sign ... coool dude.

Me and my baby at Wimberley, his first time in the blanco river..

Collin and his two cousins... Lexi and Bryan

Me and my baby playing in the rapids at Wimberley

Swimming with the Family, dogs included in the river...

Way to cool, he had to wear my sunglasses to make sure he fit in with the rest of them.

This is how he took a bath each night on vacation, in the sink!

Wearing at Hat at the General Store

This picture was from our vacation too, at Cabela's in Buda TX

This is his 9 Month Photo, sitting up big and tall on his race car...

 Playing on his toy that I got him for his 9 month bday.

He has to have his own drink at any place we go to eat.. Drinking from a straw!

8 Months Old and some new news....

Collin turned 8 months old last week. He is turning into such a little stinker. I must admit that my child is very spoiled. I know its my fault but I could not help it. Being a stay at home mommy makes it too easy to spoil your little one.
We are really working hard on crawling. He is still not very happy with it at all, but we are making progress. He is now able to lift up his upper body and extend both of his arms to support his weight. The next challenge was to convince him he needed to lift his booty up and put his knees under him, this is tough. But we have gotten to the point where he now rocks back and forth. He is still very grumpy that I am trying to get him to try this a couple of times a day.
And then of course once he fusses too much or just out right cries, I give in, and pick him up or I put him in his walker and I get huge smiles and laughs... Its like he is laughing at me "ha ha ha.. I got my way" I just tell him, "just wait mister....your time is coming" We have these eye contact conversations all the time. I know.. crazy. But its the life at our house.
So he is IN LOVE with his walker. If I am walking with him across the house and he sees the walker, he gets all excited and cannot wait for me to put him in it, unfortunately the first thing he goes for the in the walker is the doggie water bowl, and sure enough about every other day it gets flipped over and I have to clean up all the water.

As you can tell our house in NEVER boring. We are always on the go and Collin keeps us very busy. I love every second of it. I am so happy every day that I have got to spend at home with him to watch him grown up.
Collin is still eating like a champ, we are trying more and more grown-up foods. Eggs are his favorite. I think he would be happy if he could eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We also introduced the sippy cup, but he would rather drink out of my glass, and he also knows how to suck out of straws. He can take big gulps from my sonic drink. This kid loves unsweet TEA.. I try juices, but unsweet tea or water is what he prefers. So I had to go out and get some decaf unsweet tea.

Sleeping is still a mountain we are trying to climb. Collin is still going to bed around 7:30pm but wakes up 1 to 2 times a night wanting a bottle. I just keep telling my self one day.. We will sleep through the night.

Collin now has two little teethies. But my poor baby is very unhappy when his is teething. I feel so bad for him. He has been running fever with this second tooth. I hope this doesn't happen with all the other teeth to come.

He is still babbling away but no real words other than Mama when he is crying. But his facial reactions to things are priceless. Sometimes I wish I could keep a video camera on him 24/7 it cracks me up. We are still in size three diapers, but we are almost ready to go to fours. He is getting so much bigger and Stronger each day.

In two weeks we are heading to Wimberely for our week long family vacation we take each year. It will be Collin's first trip. I hope he loves it as much as I do. I have been going there every year since I was a baby too, and I would not miss it for the world.

Here are some 8 Month Photos

My sweet baby boy, I love this photo, one of my favorites.

A happy 7 month old!

Summer time is right around the corner. And Collin is READY! but so am I.

I feel like every time I post on my blog, I always start out the same way. But its TRUE. Collin is growing up TOO fast. Somethings even change overnight.

Our little man is sitting all by himself, and if he does fall over, he is just as happy laying on his tummy or back. Just the other day he also had his first tooth come in. He cried most of the night, the night before and I didn't understand why. The next morning there was the little tooth. The reason for all the tears.

The past month has been a whirl-wind. We started April out with a fantastic Easter. He got a walker from the Easter bunny. Collin then learned how to scoot around in a walker super fast . Which now he is a pro at. He knows how to control the turns and can make his way all around the house. We also have a walker at his Nana's and this is a lot of fun for him.

We still are not getting any better at crawling but most mornings and after his naps I find him trying to pull himself up with the bars around his crib. He is getting very strong, I bet one day very soon I will walk in his room to find him standing because he was able to pull himself up.

He is still talking up a storm. He is able to say Mama and lots of other vowel sounds. Sometimes Josh and I think he is really saying sentences the way he mumbles all the sounds.

He had he 6 month doctor appointment back on April 16th. He weighs 19.11 lbs and was 26.75 inches long. Which now, I swear it seems he has already gained another pound and grew a couple of inches. Otherwise the doctor's appointment went great.

Collin is still in size 3 diapers but his favorite thing to wear is just a t-shirt, no shorts or onesies for this little one. :-) We are trying more table food with him. He is still eating Gerber baby food, but we have tried veggies and noddles too, so far and is loves them all.

Collin is having more and more nights where is sleeping through the night. It is still not 100% of the time but I love the moments we have at night, I get lots of big hugs.

The last thing that I wanted to make sure and post about was SWIMMING. Our little man loves WATER. We took him to his great Aunt's pool and he loved it. Plus we bought him a little pool for the backyard and he is a super happy baby any time he can splash. But just yesterday we decided to get the hot tub up and running. Well it is actually a cool tub, because we keep it at around 80 degrees. I was a little nervous at first with him but he loves it. Even today we got back in the hot tub and swam for about 30 mins. He was even upset when I told him we had to get out and I wrapped the towel around him. I think he would live in there if I let him.

Below are some pics from the past month.