18(Really almost 19 months) Dear Colin

Dear Colin,
   You are a few days shy of turning 19 months. We were late with your shots and I was also late with your letter. Though in fairness I didn't get around to writing Alyssa's 18 month letter until almost 19 months as well.
    You are such a big boy now. You wear size 2t most of the time, though it is a little big on you. You now weigh 29 lbs and 4 ounces. You are 35 inches tall.
   You still love your mommy and have started to call for me at all times. It was super cute the first few days of you yelling "mama, mama" when you wanted something. Now I still enjoy hearing you call me but sometimes after you have called me for the 100th time that day it gets a little old.
  If you hear that someone in the house is going to leave you run to the shoe bucket to get their shoes and yours. You do not like to be left behind.
   You are great at feeding yourself and eat almost everything we eat. You are even getting better with a fork and spoon.

   You have actually been fairly healthy for the last few weeks. I think the combination of the singular, Zyrtec and breathing treatment steroids have helped keep your airways open and hopefully giving them time to get stronger. I hope that by giving them this time to be healthy and get stronger that when the winter hits you will be able to fight the colds off.
    You love your big sister and want to do everything that she is doing. It is a lot of fun to watch the two of you play. Your favorite thing to do is play with a ball. You will point out everything that looks like or could be a ball.
    Your words are coming more and more each day. You have a vocabulary of probably close to 30 words. Sometimes you just babble and expect us to respond. You are full of smiles and laughs for people you know. However if you don't know the person you are shy and won't talk or interact with them.

  You also have a temper. If you do not get your way or get mad about something your lip comes out and you will start will the small tears. After the pout and before the tears you come in search of me. You want me to hold you while you cry.
   Colin it has been so much fun watching you grow and your personality come out. I am excited to see you grow and hopefully become more healthy as you work your way to two.

I love you big boy!

Love,




Mommy

18 month stats a little late

Colin is 29 lbs 4 ounces
He's head is 50cm
and he is 35 inches tall.
I will write his letter later.

Vacation

We just got back from a week at the Lake of the Ozarks. It was a wonderful week.
We took boat rides twice a day, enjoyed many hours of swimming and playing by the lake. We also took two day trips. One to visit my Grandpa and another to Osage to go shopping.
There are many great memories that we made this past week. So many that it seems impossible to write them all down. So I'm just going to bullet point important things I don't want to forget.

• Colin learned how to swim on his own with just his life jacket holding him up. He learned this the second day there and enjoyed his freedom. He also liked to jump off the dock into the water.
• Alyssa is getting better everyday at diving. It was hard for her to dive with her life jacket but she tried everyday.
• Chris is great at driving the boat and really seemed to enjoy taking his family for boat rides. 
• Alyssa and Colin loved running circles around my grandpa's house. They spent close to an hour running circles and making my Grandpa and me smile.
• Alyssa picked the visit to Grandpa's to make family connections. During lunch with my grandpa she asks "Where is Great-Grandma?" I told her that she was in heaven and she asked "When can we go visit her?"
• Both kids did fantastic with the change in routine and all the outings we took. 

It was a great week and I am so glad that we were able to spend the week as a family reconnecting and having time away from reality.

My Knee

I had the surgery on Wednesday, today is Sunday, I'm starting to feel a little better.
Yesterday for most of the day I was truly regretting the surgery. I was in so much pain and when I walked the pain surged through my leg and into my back and my head giving me a headache every time I walked.
Today has been better. I was able to shower, go to church and get Colin's hair cut.
I'm super tired now and my knee is very swollen but not as much pain. I hope that each day gets better and better and by next weekend I'm back to normal.
 I love that I have a husband that has no problem stepping up and taking care of the kids and the house while I'm down. It makes the recovery process so much easier to know that the kids and house are being taken care of.

Alyssa's Eye

On Saturday night we decided to go out to dinner. While we were waiting for our food the kids started to get restless. So I decided to sing a song.
Alyssa did not like the song I picked out and threw her head back and then forward. On the motion forward she slammed her eye into the table. Chris picked her up and held her and we got the waitress to bring us some ice. By the time our food came I knew she was going to have a black eye.
This morning she got up and it looked pretty bad. The only time she has really complained about it, is when we ask her to do something. We asked her to pick up her toys and all of the sudden her eye hurts too bad to do it. It was time for bed and her eye hurt too bad to sleep.
  Hopefully I don't have to explain too many times tomorrow what happened to her eye.