On A Sunny Sunday in May

Here are some pictures of Cole hanging out one weekend in May in our backyard. Yep, this is me trying to catch up on old news! :)

I love catching shots of him when he's not quite looking at the camera...

but every now and again you just gotta see that face...

Lake Harriet Train Ride

These are some pics from Father's Day when we went down to Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet to ride the train. It was Cole's first time (ours too now that I think about it) and he wanted to ride it again and again.




Cole paying the fare.

Anticipation builds.

And we're off! They were very excited - can you tell? :)

The train's an excellent place to get in touch with your contemplative side.

What'd I do? (Honestly neither of us remember now!)

Here's what the rest of the train's interior looks like!

Cole would've been content riding the train all day long but...

Time to go (for real this time!)

And a new Father's Day tradition was born...

What a Splash

Here are some photos from earlier this week of Cole enjoying the water or as he calls it (the) 'all wet'. The first shot is of him and his newest best bud. Some of his other new friends are in bottom shots (I'll include closer shots once I have their permission). I'm still planning on posting older shots from visits, 4th of July, and whatnot but sensed it was a good time to update the blog with something, anything. :) Enjoy!

Aw, Nuts!

Today Cole was tested for allergies of the nut variety. He tested positive for both tree nuts and peanuts (poor kid) but he was fantastic throughout the entire experience. He was really upset by the crying, wailing, and screaming we heard of other little kids through the paper thin walls of the examination room. He kept asking about the baby and wanted to sit in my lap whenever the crying/screaming got really loud. He's always hated to hear or see other kid's in pain and I know he would've liked to have been able to offer them comfort but still I was worried that all of what he'd heard prior to his own test would make it that much worse. Nope. He sat on my lap and only flinched a bit on the last two skin pricks. What's more, he only tried to scratch his itchy areas once. There was no crying, no fussing. Cole handled it so much better than I anticipated. To pass the time he liked cuddling and then he seemed to get used to the itching so he went back to the chalkboard (which is what he'd found irresistible when we were waiting for the testing to begin). It was Cole's first time with chalk, a chalkboard, and the eraser. It was pretty cool watching him figure it all out. He had not hesitation over the chalk and started doodling away, er, I mean, writing away (he was reciting letters as he 'wrote'). The eraser surprised him at first I guess he must've expected it to put more chalk on the board rather than take it all away. Once he figured out it's function he really enjoyed filling up the board with as many markings as possible and then he'd wipe it all away with the eraser with a 'bye bye' for each mark along the way. We brought George along for moral support and Cole really liked introducing George to the chalk, board, and eraser as well.

Other than that, Cole kept wanting to wash his hands so he could get soap out of the cool dispenser. After we'd done this a few times I told him we were all done so he gave George some more chalk, a squeeze of the soap, and of course that meant we had to then wash George's hands as well. He's nothing if not quick.

Anyway, Cole is doing fine. We've got tons of info. on how to deal with his allergies and a couple EpiPen's as well. Hope this finds all of you well, too!

86 and Counting

Cole has a new speech therapist now (the other one went into labor en route to our house a few weeks ago) and they have really hit it off. Today, he added three more words to his vocabulary (fish, bear, and turn - as in take). We've been keeping a running list for a while now and the boy is up to nearly 90 words - 86 and counting. He has another evaluation in two weeks and it will be fun to see how much he has improved. We're grateful for the extra help from his therapists but truth be told - he started chatting up a storm right around his birthday, (when school was out), which means most of this great progress has come from Mister Man himself. Way to be, baby!

Timberwolves!

Yesterday Scott won tickets to the last Timberwolves game. Yay! So the three of us ventured out for our first NBA game. I can't recall if I've been to one before - but it was definitely Scott's first and, of course, Cole's as well. Cole really enjoyed the first three quarters. He quickly settled in and clapped for every shot taken. It was super cute. When the music or lights would change his eyes would just grow big - he kept the rest of himself in his usual 'cool' mode. Even when they set off some loud fireworks type stuff he only reflected his startled response in his eyes. 'Cuz you know, he's a big kid and big kids don't flinch.

It happened to be Fan Appreciation night so we got lots of fun stuff. First, for being among the first 5,000 fans we got Al Jefferson piggie banks. Scott took one for his cubicle and Coley has adopted Al as a new friend. He even kissed 'Al's' head last night and told him goodnight before going upstairs to bed. He's still just as sweet as he was at six months old only now he's got the modeling and language skills to really send us to the moon. We also got to spin a prize wheel and both Mommy and Daddy landed on the 'choose any prize you want' but by the time we had our turn the really good stuff was gone. So, I took the beads (blue and then green ones with a pendant that reads, "Let's Build It!"), while Scott took the yearbook full of great pics and stats.

I made sure to get out all my photo happiness at the beginning of the game and I'll load those up later tonight (hopefully) so stay tuned for those. We would've love to have stayed for the rest of the game (the players were even going to throw autographed memorabilia into the stands afterwards), but Cole got a notion for motion and once Scott took him on one walk he wasn't real interested in sitting down again.

For those of you interested, we were playing Wisconsin, leading at first, fell behind and were still behind when we left. BUT, the Timberwolves pulled it out in overtime and won 110-101. Yay!

Happy Birthday, Scott

It's Scott's birthday! Hooray! Happy birthday to you...Happy birthday dear Sccooottttyyyy Happy birthday tooooooo YYYYYYYOOOOOUUUUUUU! Love you!

P.S. Um, Coley's got your card...