The Santa Nightmare...er...Visit

Well, Colin hated his visit with Santa. The poor little guy was scared out of his mind. He was in good spirits and watched all the kids go ahead of him with no problems. He even closely watched the little girls that were directly in front of us and was still all smiles. They were really rushing everyone through, and I think if he could have looked him over for a second first, it might have gone at least a little better. However, it was a complete disaster. As soon as I sat Colin down, he started to cry. This shot was that first instant...it went downhill from there! I was shocked...I really thought he would go for it, since he is pretty laid back with new people and things. Oh well...it still makes a cute memory! Maybe he will like him more next year. :-)

Happy Wednesday!

As you can see from his grin, Colin loves nothing more than using our couch for a jungle gym. He is having a very good morning of climbing. We had a bitter cold front roll through, so I think we are going to venture out to the mall playland today to get some exercise and get out of the house. The cold front has also reminded me that I still don't have non-skid slippers for Colin. It is my mission to find some this week. I did find a couple of options online, but with Colin's odd shoe size, I am hesitant to buy any that I have not actually tried on. I keep thinking that I will find some, but I am close to giving up and buying the ones I found online. All the cute slippers at Wal-Mart and Target so far don't fit. He has very wide feet, which are so hard to buy cheap stuff for.

Some random Colin tidbits: We have a new nightly ritual here...every night after Colin's bath, he gets up on the couch between me and Jer and we all watch "Toot and Puddle". It is a new show on Disney that we all adore. Toot and Puddle are little pigs and they live in Pocket Hollow. They travel all over the world and we think it is a great show for Colin to watch. They are such sweet characters and each show teaches all kinds of things about the world. Anyway, I record it during the day and we all watch it as a family before Colin goes to bed. He is really sleepy and mellow at this point and snuggles right in between us with his head resting back on Jer. Enzo always lays on top of the couch between us and Ferris Mewler even joined us last night. This is easily my favorite moment of the day and I find myself looking forward to it as the afternoon wears on.

Colin seems to be transitioning slowly out of the extreme separation anxiety. He has moments where he won't let me cook dinner or other assorted things that take my attention, but it is getting a lot better. He is back to mostly solo play and does not seem to look for me nearly as often. Right now, for example, he is playing with Ferris Mewler in the extra bedroom with no regard to me being on the computer. There was a long stretch where that was unacceptable. :-)

Since we took the ornaments off the tree, Colin could care less about it. There are decorations on the very top, which looks ridiculous. Jer wanted to take the rest off, but I insisted we leave them on. The silliness makes a funny memory and I like seeing at least a couple of my beautiful ornaments.

We inherited a toddler table and four chairs from my parents last weekend. It used to be Jackson's, but he has grown out of using it. I had been looking for a set, but had not found one that fit my price range. This one is GREAT and Colin absolutely adores it. I was not sure what he would think, but it is without a doubt his new favorite thing. It is in the kitchen and he goes around sitting at each chair all the time. He puts Teddy in each chair, too. He gets his snacks on the table now and sits there like a little man eating, which is too sweet. He also stands on the chairs and tries to jump off, which is giving me heart palpitations.

We got Colin a toddler size recliner for Christmas, which is hiding in Jer's closet. It is so silly cute and I think he is going to love it, judging from his reaction to the table and chairs. It is all I can do not to give it to him now. :-)

More Wedding Weekend

Well, I only took two pictures with my camera during the entire wedding weekend. We were all so busy and I kept forgetting it! We took the above picture at my parents house after the wedding. We had to come home to get Colin to bed, hence the pj's and Jer missing his tie. Jer was such a trooper all weekend...he was Mr. Mom all the way. I was so busy with being the matron of honor and Jer had baby duty. He stayed home with the little man while we went over to the dinner afterwards. I really missed him, but it did feel good knowing that Colin was well taken care of during all the action. I had in my mind that Colin would have been able to stay awake long enough to at least have dinner with us at the reception and then Jer could have taken him home. That ended up not working...Colin was totally worn out from all the activity by the time we finished the wedding. Colin and Jer watched the wedding mostly from the church lobby and luckily Jer kept him busy and quiet during the ceremony. The rehearsal was the most fun for Colin...everyone was paying him plenty of attention (his favorite thing!) and he got to run wild around the entire church. I will remember him running up and down the pews at his Aunt Meredith's wedding forever. :-)

The wedding was absolutely stunning and Meredith wore my mother's wedding dress. My parents just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary two weeks ago and it was breathtaking to see Meredith in that dress. She looked EXACTLY like my mother...the mirror image of the wedding pictures that I have stared at my entire life. The church was decorated beautifully for Christmas and we had a backdrop of poinsettias and a cathedral ceiling sized Christmas tree decorated in all ivory and gold, which were the exact colors of the wedding. It was awesome. I could not imagine a more perfect weekend for our family!