4 months

Dear Colin,

You turned four months yesterday and I can't believe how fast the time has gone. You are a big boy at 16 pounds and 11 ounces. You are also 26 inches long. That is over two pounds and one inch bigger than your sister at that age. Speaking of your sister you LOVE to watch and smile at her. If she walks by your bouncy seat or swing you get a huge smile on your face and will just watch her. In fact you smile a lot at almost anyone who will pay attention to you. You also laugh and your laugh is so cute. It makes me laugh every time which then makes you laugh harder.

In the last month you were baptized and learned to roll. You still don't roll over very often but you can roll from your back to your tummy.

At night you usually get up once around 1:30 and then again about 4:30 and then for the day between 6 and 7. Your bed time is at 7 each night and so you go from a little before 7 to 1:30 without eating. This is a great stretch but since I don't go to bed until about 10 most nights I don't get to enjoy a long stretch of sleep.

You do have your moments though of being very impatient and when you cry your face turns bright red and you scream very loud until you are picked up and then in an instant you stop crying and enjoy life again.

Colin you have brought so much joy to our lives. I can't imagine my life without you in it now.

I love you big boy and can't wait to see the changing you make in the next month.

Love,

Mommy

Success

What is Success? I think each person defines it as something different. When I was in high school and then in college I defined success in my head as being a full time teacher and mother. With every job I had and every class I took I thought, "I can't wait until I'm a teacher". Then I became that teacher after two years of struggling to get a job and being a teacher's aide. I was a teacher for three years in my own classroom. Many many nights I would come home very stressed and feeling very unsuccessful. In my last year of teaching I came home in tears more days than not and was not sure what to do, but never thought twice about giving up teaching.

Over the summer I knew I had to do something different and after two different people asked me about running my own day care I finally said yes. When I started I had no idea if I would even be able to get any kids to watch. I was not willing to pay the hundreds of dollars to run an ad in the newspaper.

I started out small with just one kid, and before long I had three. I now have 12 kids( 2 of them my own) in my daycare and I love it. I have a full time helper and we get a long great. We also have a good group of kids. We have our hard kids and parents that we don't always see eye to eye with but it is amazing. We celebrate when I kid takes his first steps or when one starts crawling or rolling over. We clap and cheer and yell for the other to come watch.

My phone also hasn't stopped ringing I am constantly getting phone calls from other people interested in the day care because they have heard about it from one of the parents of a kid that is already enrolled.

I may not be making as much money as I was teaching, and I may have furniture that has more stains on it that you can count, but if you would has me if I am successful; I would have to say YES now more than ever.

Colin's Baptism

On Sunday we had Colin's Baptism. He was wonderful. We had over 20 people there to watch him be baptized and then came back to our house for a celebration.

Every time we hold one of these events it reminds me how awesome our friends and family are. They are always there through the good and bad and ready for a shoulder to cry on no matter what kind of tears they are.

Colin did great for the baptism he watched and listened to the pastor talk. When it was time for the water over his head he laid there nicely and didn't even fuss when water ran down his face. The only time he started to pout was when the pastor took him to show to the congregation, but when he made the sad face everyone went "ohhh" and the pastor walked him back over to me and his face was once again happy.

What adds to this story is that before hand we talked about if we wanted Alyssa up there or not with us. I decided that it was important to have her up there. So soon after we went up there and the pastor started Alyssa says "potty". Now we had tried to have her go potty about 3 times before church and she refused. Both Chris and I look at each other and know that we can't leave. So we keep picking her up knowing(hoping) that she wouldn't pee in our arms. Every time she wiggled down she would spread her legs and so Chris would pick her back up. She made it through the baptism and then Chris ran her to the bathroom.

The other good story that came out of this was that it was a nice spring day out so many people were outside enjoying the deck and the nice breeze when a big gust came up and took the umbrella right out of the table almost crashing it though the kitchen window.

Good things happening

Good things are happening in our lives right now. Colin was baptized this weekend. That deserves its own post hopefully soon. I'm getting new carpet Saturday, and I'm going to get my licenses for the day care by the end of the month.

My goal is to upload pictures tomorrow and then get a few blogs written soon after that. Kids are doing great, my life is really good right now.

Blogging

I have been such a bad blogger. My goal was to blog at least once a week this year. Well that was going really well at first and then I got a phone that gets the internet. Since I have gotten the phone I rarely turn on my computer for any length of time.

I have many pictures to upload and things that I could write about but since I'm not on my computer I don't do it.

The big story today is that on Saturday it was warm and in the high 50's. We went to the park and a nice long walk. Today it is snowing and we will have close to four inches by the time the snow stops. Come on spring you need to get here.

Alyssa is doing fairly well in her big girl bed still not sleeping all night in her bed she either gets up and sleeps on the floor or we have to put her back in her bed.

Colin gets up 1 to 2 times to eat at night. And then sometimes another 3 to 4 times to have the pacifier replaced. That is much better than his sister at that age. He is getting super big and enjoys smiling and laughing at everything.

Okay my goal is to be a better blogger. Lets see how long that lasts.

3 months

Dear Colin,

You are three months old now. I can't believe how big you are getting. You are wearing 3-6 month clothes and have been for a few weeks. You weigh almost 15 lbs and are very long.

You love to smile and laugh. We don't get the full laugh very often but when we do it is awesome! When your sister walks by you get an even bigger smile on your face and stare at her. You also love bath time. You can be crying your head off but as soon as we put you in the bath and start pouring water over you, you are are smiles. When we take you out of the water you start to cry again.

You are very close to rolling over, but have not done it yet. You love to see what is going on everywhere and so you spend a lot of time in your bouncy or the exersaucer so that you can see what is going on.

We have started a bed time routine with you. You get to eat while your sister is getting her breathing treatment then you get wrapped up and put down about the same time as your sister. You then usually sleep until about midnight or 1 when you wake up to eat and go straight back to sleep. Then you are up again about 3-4 to eat again and right back to sleep. You are up for the day about 5:30 or a little after most days. I don't mind too much because it gives us some time with you before your sister gets up.

I am so very grateful that I get to spend all day with you and I can't be happier with my job.

Colin you are growing so fast, and while I'm excited to see what you become and how you grow please don't grow up too fast.

Love,

Mommy