Happy leap day

February has finished and it seems like fall still.  I don't know if the groundhog saw his shadow or not but there should be something about winter not starting.  Our biggest snowfall, which was only a couple inches, was around Halloween.  Maybe it's better that Colin's first winter wasn't a harsh one.

Colin has reached a few big milestones.  He now has his 2 lower teeth.  Taking a picture of them has proven difficult.  When a 'good' one was taken it was difficult to tell if you were looking at teeth.  Hopefully we'll be able to get something for the March album.  We're going to go ahead and call it crawling.  He can prop himself up on his knees and lunge forward.  It usually ends in a faceplant, but not always.  He can move forward, just not very well.  Hopefully the crawling video will be another great March addition.  He has also grown up and moved out.  He sleeps in his room now which he seems okay with.  Naps are no problem but he gets up every couple hours during the night.  He doesn't have his night feeding anymore but he is getting up more often than when he did.

He is definitely recognizing food we eat and that causes the mouth to go into "big-boy mouth" mode.  That is the mouth open as wide as possible and the tongue wiggling around in there.  Luckily he's not fussy when he can't have our food...yet.  He eats plenty of his food.  Sweet potatoes and apples are on the top of the list.

He is more interactive with his environment now.  Mommy's hair is probably at the top of the list but he'll grab for anything in passing.  We've dug into his toy box and he'll play with his toys for a while now.  That usually entails swinging them around until the fly off somewhere and, of course, eating them.  He also seems to enjoy music.  He'll go the the library sometimes to listen to Ms Melissa sing and sing along.  He'll sing along with the baby music or mommy/daddy music on the radio.  Music will often produce a smile.

I guess that is all for now.  Here's the Feb album.

Yea!! 6 Months Old

       So we think that Colin is undergoing training to be a cage fighter.  He spends most of his awake time going through a pretty rigorous workout of push-ups, crunches, pull-ups and rapid leg squats.  He also is working on his attacks with his arms.  We're surprised he hasn't left any black eyes or bruises on us from his vicious arm chops.  Needless to say, he is quite active.  He's still working on crawling and sitting up.  He can sit on his own if he's propped and can scoot backwards pretty good.  His push-up clears the floor all the way to his toes but he doesn't get his knees under him very often.  He rolls quite a bit too but not to move very far.
   After letting us know, at 10p, 10:30, 11, 11:30....(you get the idea), that he was big enough to move out on his own we finally moved the crib to his room.  He's been doing fine but hasn't been sleeping very well for about a week.  That could be teething or just some random baby reason....we only know that we don't sleep.
   He's been eating more real foods.  Apples can be added to the 'like' list and peas (just like his daddy) can be added to the 'gross' list.  He loves eating and taking sips of water.

     We are looking forward to him crawling and adding more sounds to his growing baby vocabulary.  February is a short month so the album of pictures for the month aren't too far off.

We're mobile..kinda

So Colin is able to move around just a bit.  At this point it's more slowly scooting backwards.  He can roll front to back and back to front fairly well.
The other reason for the title is that blogger gave us some options for mobile phone viewing too.  Hopefully that means you can view it on your smartphone too.

 Colin bouncing away

Colin has done pretty well this month.  He becoming more vocal and using new sounds all the time.  He's unfortunately discovered the very high pitch whine.  Most of the others are just adorable.  His mobility was mentioned above.  During the day Colin will usually cook or bake with daddy since it seems to occupy him pretty well.  He's eating some different foods now as well as drinking plenty of milk.  On the list of likes he has: two types of sweet potatoes and banana.  On the dislike or not care for list are: carrots, rice-cereal and avocado.  If those get mixed with one he does like though then it's devoured.  He loves eating foods and taking drips of water from a cup.  The 'present' he'll leave us in his diaper now is just impressive.  I guess that's to be expected when the diet starts to change.

Things have been going well overall.  Colin had to fight off another cold.  We haven't really had much snow.  Bunny and Hobie are still alive and kickin'.  Here are the pictures for Jan:

Missing Dec pics

A couple of pictures were left out of the December album.  Here those are:

Leaving milk and cookies for Santa.

Jumpy seat is pretty awesome

Out with 2011

Happy New Year everybody.  Colin went to his first New Year's party and he enjoyed it as long as he didn't interact with anyone else for more than 2 minutes.  He seems to be recognizing people aren't mommy and daddy... something to work on.  We are looking into 'mommy and me' swimming lessons and also a play group through the mommy group he sometimes goes to.  Hopefully he is able to get some social skills.  He wasn't happy at the last mommy group when another baby borrowed his toy.
Colin is able to do plenty now and the list keeps growing.  He'll reach out for either of us now which is very cute.  He will experiment with taking out the pacifier and putting it back in.  He's batting about .500 on that.  He's pretty good at pushup and crunches.  He'll roll from front to back but the other way we just need one more inch.  We blame the bulky diapers.  He's tried a few foods; rice cereal wasn't a big hit but banana and sweet potatoes were.  Peas and avocado are on deck.

Enjoy his December album:

Pre- Christmas post

Our diaper changes have become a bit of a wrestling match over control of mommy or daddy's arms.  He's grabby and will bring his legs up into a ball.  Needless to say, changing diapers has become a bit more challenging.  We will spend some time playing while we wait for a bit of certainty that Colin is done with that diaper.  We were able to capture a bit of squealing and laughs.  Getting his feet "eaten" is hilarious for him.

4 months old

Dear Santa,
       I feel I've been a good boy these past 4 months.  For my first Christmas I would like:

1. A fist to suck on, either attached to me or not
2. anything crinklely
3. to be turned upside down
4. Ceiling fans 
5. Those decorations I saw in the grocery store
6. Anything to make weird noises, mommy and daddy are doing okay for right now
7. my doggie Hobie
8. containers to store all my surplus drool
9. raspberries blown on my belly

and

Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass and this thing which tells time built right in to the stock!

Sincerly,
Colin

PS  I attached a photo to show off my cuteness.

November 2011

Another busy month.  After Colin turned 3 months he seemed to decide to do a few things.  He made his first laugh, he rolled over, and grabbed at toys and he figured out how to move his feet forward while standing.  He haven't been able to see the rolling or get laughs consistently but they happen.
We had some visitors this month.  The Cockrells came for a few days and we were able to see a bit of Boston but mostly just hang out which was nice.  Sean and Daniel came up for a week and although their sleep schedules were almost the opposite of ours we were able to spend some time together and have a belated Thanksgiving.
Now we are gearing up for Colin's first Christmas, he's not excited but we are.

If you click on the slideshow below you'll be able to see the captions for the pictures in Picasa.

Holiday traditions?

We're trying to come up with some ideas for annual Christmas gifts for Colin.
So far we've come up with:
Legos sets
Guinness book of world records
different collectors items
Year summary book

Got any other suggestions?

3 Months

Colin is now 3 months old.   He's been able to get up to 7 hours at night now, so that is nice.  We've had a pretty consistent week of Mr Furious around dinner time which is not so nice.  We are in the middle of a visit with the Cockrells so you'll have to wait until the end of the month for those adventure shots.  We did Christmas pics and hopefully we'll be motivated enough to send those out in a reasonable fashion.  We can always hope.  We are looking forward to some firsts soon like rolling over, laughing and Thanksgiving.