Dear Colin,

Happy 9 Month Birthday.
These "I am" pictures are getting increasingly more difficult to take as you don't like to sit still anymore. Only a couple more months little one. I had wanted to carry these monthly letters to you past the 1 year mark but each month has been harder for me to write. How many times I can say the same thing? How many times can I write that time is flying by more quickly than I want it to? How many times can I write how much you've changed my life or how much I love that you are my son? I know it becomes redundant but as I reflect on each month, those are the first things that pop into my head. I can't begin to express with words how you have blessed my life. Daily your sweet face reminds me of how lucky I am to be your mom.
You have learned there is more to life than the floor and you can reach part of that life yourself. Last month, you realized you could pull yourself up on furniture. This month, you realized you could move around it. You need to pull yourself on everything and have no desire to play with any toys lately. You just want to stand, walk, sit down, pull yourself back up, walk, sit down. You get the idea :) You love to make laps in your crib and learned the terrible habit of biting the sides. Mommy tells you all the time "No biting Colin" and each time, you stop, pick your head up, look me in the eye, usually give me a sweet smile, and then chop back down. Daddy said maybe we should spray it with Bitter Apple Spray (http://www.bitterapple.com/) but Momma said no ... for now :) (Don't worry Mom, it could be worse. I could have put up the changing table picture!)

You grew 3 new teeth this month, Colin. Perhaps the worst thing about your teeth is that they decided to sprout at the same time. While I'm sure it wasn't all puppy dogs and rainbows for you, it wasn't the easiest time for Daddy and I either. It's not like you really need those extra teeth. You were doing just fine before. Why grow more teeth when all that does is create more things to clean? You already have armpits, earlobes, and fingernails that have to be cleaned, why add anything else? Take my advice: keep it simple. You'll thank me later.
Here is a quick run down of a few other things you've learned this month. You can wave 'buh bye' now. It started with just mimicking it when others did it. Now you can wave when you hear the words 'buh bye." You will play peak-a-boo yourself now. You will pull your blankie over your face and slowly pull it down. Your eyes twinkle with pride when I excitedly proclaim "PEAK-A-BOO." The best thing you learned this month was the art of kissing. And while at times, it's extremely wet and you use too much tongue, there is no sweeter feeling than when you grab my face with both hands, pull in close, and kiss my face. Colin, mom not hopes you continue this level of enthusiasm throughout your whole life but also for those big sloppy kisses minus the tongue.

With all my love,
Mommy

Last year as Mike and I drove to my parents house to see the boys in their Halloween costumes, we discussed how Halloween would never be the same again. What a true statement!

Colin and I left the house around 4ish in full costume to go see Daddy at work. Nick and Cara thought he was the cutest thing in the world and Colin totally hammed it up with them. It was too funny.

From there, we drove to show Colin off at a few different places. He did a great job especially considering he barely napped today. He took a short 20 minute-ish nap in the car but quickly woke up when he heard Ethan and Micah's voices. He had such a great time that he didn't go to bed tonight until after 10pm!!

We took a billion pictures - shocker I know - but we uploaded them, I realized I have very few good ones. Here are a few decent ones.

our little monkey sitting by his pumpkin.

playing in the leaves.

Mickey Mouse, Monkey, and Miquel Cabera

Although you can't see Ethan's face in this picture, I love how they are looking at each other. I can see it beautifully in my mind. They adore each other.

Sweet faced Micah. He loved the fact that he was Mickey Mouse and that Colin had a banana in his pocket. He face here is so precious.

Lastly, Colin crawling off hoping to find someone nice enough to get him out of this huge crazy outfit ...

Colin has alot of cute Halloween things to wear (outfits and costumes), so I thought I'd post a few pictures of him.

This is the Halloween costume we chose NOT to have him wear. I think it's a frog. Online it said a dinosaur and when I put it on him this morning, Micah called him a dinosaur. It's your call on what it actually is.

Although it isn't the greatest picture of him, it shows off his top teeth pretty good. He has 4 top teeth now but you can only see 3. He's also sporting one of Aunt Merridith's Halloween shirts. (Told you Merr that it fit! Believe me now? :) )

As I have probably mentioned a bunch of times, Colin is on the move. He pulls himself up on everything - literally everything - and he likes to cruise around along everything he stands on. We tried taping him walking around his crib. Of course, one of the videos he is moving around alot but doesn't talk because he had his pipey in his mouth. The second video he is more talkative but doesn't really walk. The solution of what video to post? Just post both :) The adorable outfit is from Aunt Missy and Uncle Marky.





More pictures tomorrow and hopefully if I have time (realistically I probably won't though) I will write his 9 (*GASP*) month birthday post tomorrow.

I'm on a blogging roll. Here are two funny videos.

Background on the first video. Mike was out helping Brandon move, so it was just me and little man. He was playing in his exersaucer and he was shaking his head 'no' at me. I, therefore, started shaking my head 'no' at him which for some reason he found really stinkin funny. He would laugh so hard each time I did it. I went to grab the camera to show Mike and like usual, he stopped. The video starts off a little slow (and shaking since I was shaking my head at him) but there's a great part about 45 seconds into the video. It's total Colin lately.

The second video is the new trick Mike taught him while I was at work and the grocery store. While it's incredibly funny to me, it also scares the pants off of me. You'll notice my stern mom voice in there (I don't know when I got that voice!). I'm hoping it's a one day trick as it worries me that he will do it on everything he stands on.

So I was naughty and went shopping on Sunday. In my defense, I thought I had another pack of diapers in the basement and when I went to grab them since I only had 2 upstairs, I only found wipes. To CVS I went.

Now compared to other bargain coupon shoppers, this may not been a fantastic trip but I haven't had the time, knowledge, or heads up lately to find the good deals. I'm pretty proud of what I got especially since I could of got it cheaper with more items had I spent more time thinking it through.

While I spent $21 and some change, I still have $10 in extra care bucks to use later. Essentially I spent less than $12 and got the following:

2 plastic pumpkins
1 bag of candy corn
1 bag of candy pumpkins
1 Two-Pack box of Clear Care Solution
2 packs of diapers
1 package of Q-Tips
1 box of Gerber Graduate Whole Wheat crackers
1 container of Gerber baby food

Not too shabby. I'll be stopping by later this week to buy a few other freebies.

**EDIT: I forgot to mention, I'll get another $2 back on a rebate for the diapers. We are now down to less than $10. Yippee!!**

A few people have suggested giving it a few days and see if I still feel compelled to post the entry, so I think I'll give it a try. Although I know my feelings aren't going to change but I'll wait anyway.

So instead I'll post a few pictures of little man. Unfortunately, we didn't go to the zoo but we had some fun at the park.
"Hey Mom!! Let's go!!!"

"I can scream all I want out here!"

"You can do this too, Dad?"

"Mommy, think you could put down the camera so Daddy and I can just play on the slide?"

I wrote a blog posting very different from the usual postings but I am afraid to post it. It is something that has been on my mind for months now but I've always been too chickenshit to actually type it out. You would never guess by my lack of comments but I have quite a few followers on this blog and I'm not sure if the world wants to hear what is going on in my head and my heart. Truthfully, I don't want to hear what is going on in my head. Most people don't need to know these thoughts, feelings, frustrations, hurts but it's my damn blog. I can write whatever I want to write, right? I shouldn't give a shit what people think of me but you should know me better than that. I do care and that in there lies part of my problem. I care too much about what others think of me.

So while I spent almost 2 hours crying while typing out a long-ish blog all in vagueness and a very detailed email to my bestie, I'm still not any closer to knowing whether or not I should post the entry.

I've fought writing this numerous times. I can't count how many times I can remember standing in the shower feeling the burning hot water pour down my skin while the words just surge through my mind. Everything comes out exactly how I want - rather how I need to say them. As I step out into the cold air, I come to my senses knowing that the words won't help and will probably only cause problems, drama, and unwanted conversations. People who know me well know I'm a people pleaser and totally non-confrontational. I don't have the guts to confront people, I don't have the courage to tell people how left out I feel, but mostly I don't have the strength to tell people how hurt I am. Instead of saying things that really need to be said or issues that need to be addressed, I keep everything bottled up.

Something has been off lately with me. Blame it on lack of sleep. Blame it on work really (!!) stressing me out. Blame it on a lot of things lately. All I know is I feel like I'm totally spinning my wheels; just going through the motions trying to make it to the next day, next week, next month. My dearest friend said it best a couple months ago on her blog: "Recently, I have been struggling with staying afloat mentally and emotionally. I hate to use a cliche, but my life over the past few weeks has felt very "sink or swim". I'm paddling as hard as I can to keep my head above water, but there's something that won't let me tread easily. I can't quite put my finger on it, but its there."

And I can't help but wonder if I didn't spend so much time trying to be perfect, the perfect mom, perfect wife, perfect employee, perfect boss, perfect everything, that maybe I wouldn't feel so drained. That maybe if I could let go of feeling like I need to be perfect, accepted, liked, or even cared about, that I would probably be a much happier person. The problem is I have NO clue how to do that. I do care what others think. I do want to feel included even in the small things. I do want you to care about, inquire, and talk to me, my husband, and especially my child as we are just as important as other people. I do want people to realize that I can only do so much. I can only handle so much at one time and I'm pretty much exceeding that limit especially at work. I want to stop caring that I feel you don't give two shits about my life. I want to be able to just let go of hurt feelings, lack of phone calls, messed up priorities, and unsettled grudges.

I wish I didn't feel the need to write this. I wish I felt better after typing this like I had hoped. Moreso, I wish I didn't NEED to have to write this.

Comment section is closed for this posting.

Long story short, Colin has two Halloween costumes which I know is totally crazy considering he can't even trick-or-treat. Momma got a little costume crazy one day and wah-la, he now has two costumes. Mike and I have been going back and forth on which costume we want him to wear and while we both definitely like one more than the other, we do like the other (non-refundable) one as well.

So we may have come up with a solution. Our local zoo is having a Zoo Boo day the next two weekends. We are thinking since it's my weekend off that we can put Colin in the other costume and we'll head to the zoo in the morning. He won't be able to enjoy the trick-or-treating aspect but he should have fun seeing all of the kids (he adores babies and kids lately) and seeing the animals. He'll then get usage and pictures of both costumes which will make me happy :)

The idea sounds good 'on paper' but we'll see if we can make it work. I have plans to go out apple picking with a few friends in the afternoon and then need to hurry home so Mike can help Brandon move. Hopefully we can fit in the late morning at the zoo. If so, the next entry should be full of cute lil boy in a cute lil Halloween costume.

PS - if you know the two choices don't say them here as it's still a secret at this time :)

Colin's vocabulary has grown tremendously in the past few weeks. He still babbles alot ("ummm hello mom. I am ONLY 8 months old!") but often there are distinct syllables. As I've mentioned before he says: ma, mama, da and dada. Mike and I have both (seperately) been noticing that Colin makes a specific noise lately after hearing one of of his toys "meow." We, of course, tried to get it on camera but he would only make it one time. You can hear it on the first video after the second time the toy says "black cat, can I pat?"


The second video is from this morning. I tried getting a video of him saying all of his words but no such luck. Forewarning: I sound TERRIBLE(!!) but it's early and I have a double ear infection.

One of the things I look forward to most each year is apple picking. Every year we go to the same place - a small family owned apple orchard about 25 minutes north of here which never seems to change. Each year there is the large "rocking" chair, pumpkin patch, fabulous apple cider, the corn maze, tractor rides, and the same wooden signs that you can put your face through. (Do those have a real name?)

Mike and I have been anxiously waiting for the apple picking season, so we can start Colin on this fun tradition. Shockingly we both had the day off, so with the sun shining and the weather a decent tempature, we headed on the familiar drive to the apple orchard.

We met my parents, Merridith and Ethan up there and had a great afternoon of apple picking, picture taking, and creating memories. Colin did a great job and seemed to have a great time riding the tractor, licking the apples, eating the grass and posing for pictures (some by other people even!).

We took over 100 pictures, so I had a hard time chosing just 50 for the slideshow. Here is a good mixture of our fun afternoon.

{Angela: Although Colin probably didn't eat enough apples for you and Michelle, he tried his best to lick them enough. I promise you that Ethan, however did eat enough for both of you! It wasn't the same without you. The chair missed you!

Missy: We wish you could have been there too!!! Just a couple more years until we can do these things together ... with little Lukey and Lily too :) }