Here we go again...

We are moving!

Long story short:  Garet is transferring to the council in Greensboro, N.C.
Was that short enough for ya?  =)

A few weeks ago when we went to Charlotte, we were also checking out the Greensboro area (it is about 2 hours away... so we are a little closer to family too!  yay!)  We liked the area and can definitely see ourselves there long term.  Then on May 17, Garet went for a formal interview and signed the contract. 

We are really excited for this new adventure - but it is sad to say good-bye to the friends we have made here.  Garet starts there on July 2, so this will be a crazy, busy month for us!

Muddy...

Today we got LOTS and LOTS of rain from the tropical storm.  It was pouring down rain all morning and early afternoon!  When Colin woke up from his nap, it finally cleared up and was beautiful outside!  But...

... it left the back part of our backyard SUPER muddy!  We went out to play in his watertable, and then he took off into the back of the yard.  I didn't think much of it, then walked out there and saw this:

Can you see him stepping right into the puddle?! 

Obviously I went and grabbed my camera!  I figured what the heck!  Get muddy!  Have fun!  And boy did he!  He actually just stomped and jumped into all the mud puddles, and he did splash around with his hands, but he really didn't get mud on his shirt or shorts!  Surprisingly.

Suzi was more of a mess than Colin!  Check out those back legs!
Colin had so much fun!  I finally got him to go back to the watertable to rinse off =)

Orlando, FL...

Garet and I dropped Colin and Suzi off with my parents and headed on vacation!  We went to Orlando, FL and stayed in a nice hotel at SeaWorld!  As soon as we got there we changed into our bathing suits and headed to one of the three pools! 

Later that night we walked around the hotel and found shuffleboard... which I kicked butt in by the way...  (to be fair, we played later in the week and Garet won....)

 I was the black, Garet was the yellow.  =)

We just ate at the restaurant at the hotel that night.  This is us on our balcony:

 We went to SeaWorld for a day, and had a blast!!  We got to see them feeding the dolphins - and we got to touch them!  There was a viewing area under the water that we could see them too:

 We rode all the roller coasters - which were awesome!  I hadn't ridden a roller coaster in a long time, so I really was scared!  Our favorite was Manta, you basically were sitting facing outward... so when you went up the big hills, all you saw was the world around you!  It was so crazy! 
We went to Shamu's show - and it was so good!  We definitely got wet! 

There was also a shark restaurant that we ate lunch at.  It was like you were sitting inside a huge aquarium - there were fish and sharks swimming all around you!

This was a trip to celebrate our anniversary that is coming up (June 3!) so we went to a nice dinner to celebrate 6 years of a wonderful marriage!

Downtown Disney was awesome!  There are tons of stores and food - the Lego store was amazing!  This dragon/snake/whatever was made from legos!  Crazy!

 We had perfect weather!  And took a couple breaks at different restaurants to grab some drinks, and cool off! 

Dinner was at Planet Hollywood - there was soooo much to look at!  It was hard to focus on anything because there was so much!  Then we had dessert at a Ghirardelli place... can you say YUM?!

We hit the pool almost everyday.  It was great to relax and read a book by the pool!  We definitely used this vacation to sit back, relax, reconnect, and just enjoy being together!  One night we went to Universal CitiWalk.

It was fun - after dinner (at Hard Rock Cafe), there was a DJ that was giving instructions on dancing to different popular songs.  We joined in, of course, and it was so neat to see all the different people that were dancing!  Young, old, male, female... I mean you name it we saw them out there dancing!  =)  It was really neat.   Garet said it reminded him of being in a flash mob!  We were all doing the same dance in the middle of CitiWalk. 

We had a great time!  But like any vacation, it is nice to be home.  And VERY nice to see Colin again!!!  Oh I missed that kid so bad! 

Garet and I had a great, much needed, vacation! 

Fun times...

Eric (my brother), his wife Kailey and their sweet baby girl Morgan came for a visit!!  Colin had fun showing his cousin all of his toys!

Morgan is almost exactly a year younger than Colin!  It is so crazy to think that in a year Morgan will be running around like Colin!  But it's even more crazy to think that a year ago, Colin was Morgan's size!!

It was so great to hang out with my brother and his family!!  We went outside and Colin got to show off his wagon!  He had so much fun pulling Morgan around in it!

He wouldn't let anyone else do it - it had to be him! 
They both got in (for about 2 minutes)... and I guess there was something pretty interesting on the floor of the wagon that got their attention!

This is so boy/girl... Morgan doesn't like grass or anything like that touching her... and Colin goes and grabs handfuls of pine needles, dirt, sticks, leaves... and puts them in the wagon.  And Morgan would pick up her feet so they didn't touch.  So funny!

Sweet girl!

Then we moved on to basketball.  Eric had to show off his skills first...

 And then Colin took over!  We put his hat on, which he normally throws off but for some reason he wanted it on the whole time he was throwing the ball!  Here is the first attempt...

Almost every other time he threw the ball, his hat would fall off.  So he would take it to Uncle Eric to put it back on him =)

Then Colin got his groove and was making the basket a LOT!  I was so proud!  I actually got the perfect shot of it going in!  YAY COLIN!

When he would get a basket we would all cheer... so he would start clapping for himself too!

We also took the kids to the park at our church.  Colin loves to close the shutters on this little house, then go inside and pop out... This is him popping out!

Morgan loves to swing, so while she was swinging Colin got in too...

They had a blast!  See Morgan's tongue?  Kailey thinks she just discovered it - she kept sticking it out =)
Colin then moved on to the slide, which for some reason he seemed hesitant to go down.  He would sit at the top for awhile...

... then sometimes he and Daddy would have a little pep talk...

... then he would slowly go down, and flip onto his tummy...

silly boy!

We had a GREAT time hanging out!  I am so glad we were able to visit!

This week...

Most weeks start off with me thinking, "what in the world are we going to do all week?"  Then by Friday I think, "wow, we stayed so busy, how did it get to be Friday already?!"

What better way to wake up from a nap than to wake up to the garbage truck?!?!
Colin LOVES "ducks" (trucks) and just watches with an open mouth as they drive by.  I caught Garet with him watching the garbage get picked up on Tuesday =)

Then I turned around and caught my sweet girl enjoying the peaceful house while the boys were outside:

We filled most of our mid-mornings playing in the water before lunchtime.  As you can see I didn't fill it up very much - I honestly didn't feel like having a soaked boy - but he had just as much fun with it! 

At least this way he got to get a little bit wet, but not totally drenched!  It was nice to be able to sit and prop my feet up outside while he splashed and splashed! 
I love this sweet boy so much!

When I was in the kitchen one day I heard Colin in the living room saying, "Hello"... "blah blah blah blah"  (your guess is as good as mine as to what he said)... "buh bye".  And when I walked in he had his [pretend] cell phone to his ear!  He was just chatting away!  It was adorable! 

Then another day when I was in the kitchen (are you seeing a trend here?), I heard the t.v. turn on... I walked into the living room and here was Colin:

The little stinker found the remote and turned it on!  I had no idea he knew how to do that.  We really don't watch much t.v.  (Aside from the Today Show and Ellen, of course)  Colin won't sit still long enough to watch anything anyway! 

I am realizing more and more that I am very OCD about things... like Colin will dump out his whole box of toys and as soon as he has lost interest and run away I will pick them all back up and put them away.  Then 5 minutes later he will dump them out again.  I will put them away.  Over. and. Over.  I can't help it.  He has these blocks that came in a flat container that is outlined where the blocks go... I HAVE to put the blocks back in the correct outlined place.  If one is missing I will search high and low until I find it.  Just ask Garet.  I have issues.
So... with crafts I have a hard time just letting Colin have markers/crayons/paint (oh man the paint...) because I don't want it all over everything.  I have a rule that when he is drawing he has to sit at his desk.  If he gets up to run around he has to leave the markers/crayons/pens whatever with me.  Is that crazy?  I really can't help it - hope I'm not stunting his imagination!  =)
This Crayola "marker" that I found is perfect because it ONLY marks on this special paper.  So it eases my mind a bit when he is drawing

We have also been using a new cup.  Colin mainly drinks out of the little straw cups that won't leak when it is thrown all over the place.  This one will leak... and he has to tilt his head back to drink out of it.  It is like a plain cup except it has a little sippy.  He is doing awesome with it. 

This morning, Garet got Colin up from bed and brought him downstairs.  He went ahead and dressed him!  That is always interesting =)  Today was red, white, and blue overalls that were big on him, so the shorts came down past his knees... they actually came to the top of his cowboy boots.  That's right, he already had on shoes boots.  And under the overalls was a red polo t-shirt that was huge on him!  It was interesting  goofy looking perfect!

After breakfast, Colin had to read up on the latest happenings in my Parents magazine.

I changed him.  Not because I didn't like the outfit, but because it was too big for him.
And snapped a picture of my sweet babies

Tonight, we went out to dinner... got home... I bathed Colin and put him to bed... Garet mowed the grass... and now it is only 8:00 and we can CHILL on the couch =)  Perfect Friday night!

Height board...

I have been wanting a way to measure Colin's height, but I hadn't found anything that I loved... so I decided to make one!  I wanted something simple - especially if we have more kids, I didn't want it personalized.  I like being able to compare everyone's height on one board.  I wanted it moble... we are renting this house, so we won't live here forever, so I wanted to be able to take it with us.  I wanted it sturdy - not just a sheet of paper...  So, here is what I made:

I love it!  It was pretty simple... a board, sanding, paint, and for the letters I printed off 2 - 6 from the printer in a font I liked, then put the paper on the board where I wanted the number, traced the letters (on the paper) with a ball point pen, the pen made an indention on the board, then I just painted inside the indention. Make sense?

Then I started putting Colin's stats on it...

I will put Garet and my height's on it too... which is one reason I went up to 6'3"  (G is a little over 6').  I still love to look back on ours as kids (it is hanging on the inside of a closet at my parents house)... it is covered with mine and Eric's heights - in fact I added Colin's to it a couple months ago =)

Outside and water fun...

Have I mentioned that Colin loves being outside?  Have I mentioned that he loves any kind of ball?  Have I mentioned that he loves the water and getting dirty?

I'm pretty sure it's come up before...

So we went outside with a basketball, and Colin prepared to throw it...

... and there it goes!

 This was sooooo much fun!  Sweet boy got so dirty!  He would let the ball hit him right in the face!  Then we heard Daddy come outside!!  That is what this sweet smile was...

It was a little cloudy, but not raining and it was hot, so we decided to [finally!] get out Colin's water table!

 To say he loved it is an understatement!  He had such a great time!  And got soaked! =)  Suzi was outside playing with her ball and needed a drink of water...

Sweet girl still loves playing with her ball outside!   (yep we need to cut our grass... hey we haven't been here and it has been wet outside, don't judge)

Garet was able to take a break from work to come join in on the fun!  By the end of playing with this, there was hardly any water left, and all the toys were thrown out!

It was a lot of fun - so much fun that I had to wake Colin up from his nap after lunch!   I think he would have slept all afternoon!