The Boys

I am in love with these two pictures of Jackson and Colin. There could not be two more adorable cousins! I caught these pictures with my mom's camera and finally got them downloaded...these are from our June blueberry trip. I adore the action shot most of all! Hysterical!! How much fun will it be when they are grown men to look at that picture!? Such precious little boys.





This one is Colin having a snack at my parents kitchen table. I absolutely adore the look on his face. I can't believe this big boy is the little baby that I gave birth to almost two years ago. His birthday is in one week. Unbelievable!

The Best Six Years

Today is my sixth wedding anniversary. How on earth it has been six years is beyond me. It seems like just yesterday that we were running around Las Vegas in our wedding finery. We have had a quiet and uneventful day...my sister is going to babysit for us tomorrow so that we can have our official date. Today we woke up and treated ourselves to take-out Mexican breakfast (our favorite!) and then went to order Colin's birthday cake for next weekend. We stopped for ice cream cones and lunch (in that order) and managed to make it home in time for Colin's nap. This evening we took Colin to McDonald's for dinner and playtime. Quite a night on the town, eh? This is our kind of day, though, and it was wonderful to have Jer off work and all of us hanging out together as a family. There is nothing more that I need in the world. This is my random ode to us at six years:

Jeremy is my very best friend in the whole world and the most wonderful husband ever. I literally cannot picture my life without him. We have long since entered the stage of our lives where we complete each others sentences and know what the other is thinking across a room with just a glance. We have the same ridiculous sense of humor and make each other laugh all the time. We love to cozy up in our bed after Colin goes to sleep and watch our endlessly recorded hours of crime shows on the DVR. Every night, Jer makes himself a large glass of ice water and every night I drink half of it to take a pill and every night we laugh over it. He texts me every day when he gets in his car to tell me he is coming home and that always makes me smile, even after all these years. Yesterday, he told me my eyes looked pretty. He gets on to me for not taking my vitamins and being too tan. We make utterly inappropriate jokes to each other all the time. We lay in Colin's bed together every night to read stories. He changes the oil in our cars and fixes everything that is broken. He is great at assembly and even enjoys putting stuff together. We sleep with a silly dog in between us and usually a shaggy cat at our feet. We argue in bed over who gets "sticks", which are Enzo's long pointy legs, and who gets "smooth", which is his soft fuzzy back. I usually win and Jer gets poked by dog legs all night. :-) He looks handsome beyond words all the time and nobody looks better in a crisp white polo and tie than Jeremy. The bathroom always smells deliciously like his cologne after he leaves for work and I always take a deep breath of it when I pass through to get dressed. He is still my prince charming. I love him SO! Here are some favorite shots of us from six years ago:

Kissing in the limo after the wedding! We are officially newlyweds! I was bursting with joy when this picture was taken.

Jer and I during our engagement dinner outside Philly. Jer's parents took this shot...we look so young and happy in this picture. This will always be one of my favorite memories.
Sitting right seat with Jer prior to take-off. Trust me, the professionals took over and I watched movies in the back. I love nothing more than flying around with Jer and watching him at work. He is such an amazing pilot. We had just gotten engaged.

Really, how could you not post this one?! Me, in my bride shirt, ordering pancakes with a burger and onion rings. This was the late night after our arrival in Vegas. We had to get our licenses and it was like 2:00am to us because we were from the east coast. I remember that I was dying of starvation and this is what I ordered back at the hotel. Love it!

Lounging at the pool in Vegas, the day after the wedding. Happy!!

As we speak, Jer is putting new strings on his guitar with the hopes of learning some Laurie Berkner Band songs for Colin. I don't know how successful this endeavor is going to be because neither one of us can sing. Hopefully the little man will just enjoy hearing the songs, even if they are not properly sung. ;-) If you would like to see pictures from the wedding, I posted last year about the actual event and attached some great shots of wedding bliss. Take a peek if you feel like joining me on memory lane. Heck, I can't believe it has been a YEAR since I wrote that post! Crazy! Happy Anniversary, sweet husband!!

5th Anniversary Post: One Year Ago Today!

Colin at 23 Months Old and Counting!

It seems to me that Colin is changing by leaps and bounds every single day. Things are happening so fast that I have started a little note pad of things he does so that I can remember them for long enough to write them on the blog. The difference between 18 months and 24 months is so huge! In January, I was nervous that Colin would be a mute. He was still such a baby then. That seems like a fuzzy distant memory now. The past three months in particular have been insanity with how much he has grown in every way! I am going to add a few bullets here for memory's sake.

*Colin talks up a storm now and a lot is understandable. He does not just say words, he has conversations with you and says sentences to me like, "Mom! Put Arf food up!" (Enzo is still "Arf") and "Mom! Dats good juice!". He starts out all sentences with a very emphatic "Mom!" which makes me smile every single time.

*He only calls me "Mom". I have never referred to myself that way, in fact I have always said Mama. Jer calls me Mom and Colin picked that up and has stuck with it. It makes him seem like such a big boy!

*He tells me to "get up" and "watch shows". I will lay in bed with him for a few minutes in the morning as he wakes up and when he is ready, he leans all the way into my face and says, "Mom, GET UP, peas!" At night if I try to put him to bed too early, he will run back to the couch, turn on the TV, and announce, "Mom! Dad! Watch shows!".

*Starting last weekend, he covers his face when any stranger says hello to him and announces, "No, no! I SHY!". This is crazy adorable and I am going to try to get it on film. When he meets new people, he always tucks his head and acts bashful and I would sometimes say that he is acting shy. He picked it up, obviously, and now makes a huge production out of it. I have pointed out to him that announcing you are shy means that you are not, in all actuality, shy.

*He now walks backwards around the house. Last night he grabbed my hand and said, "hey mom! backwards!" and made me do it with him. I have no idea where this one came from, but it is pretty adorable.

*He yells, "READY, SET GO!!" and takes off running. He starts running when he says set....which cracks me up. I also don't know where he picked this up...probably one of his shows.

*He finally said "Mert"!! My sister was thrilled beyond belief when he said it over the weekend. He now walks around the house pointing her out by name in pictures. It kind of takes the fun out of our ongoing family joke with Meredith. ;-)

There are more, but I will end this post for the time being. I leave you with a video from dinner tonight. I made corn on the cob and cut Colin's off for him. He was not pleased about that and grabbed my ear off the plate. I did not think for a second that he would eat it off the cob, but just watch and see. He just gets more adorable by the day.

Fourth of July Weekend in Pictures

There were so many wonderful moments from our weekend caught on my camera! Our whole family had the most wonderful time! The photo above was taken at my parents curb. My dad had flags lining the whole house. It looked beautiful and Colin loved it! Below is the mess of iced brownie at Mom Mom and Pop Pop's house. He started his holiday off with a bang!

My beautiful twin sisters at Jackson's birthday and 4th of July bash. Meredith (left) is 7 months pregnant. So technically this picture is of Alieson, Mert AND Pryce. :-)

The BEST NEPHEW OF ALL TIME, Jackson. He had a great time at his big party!

Colin being all-American with his hot dog!

Colin taking charge at my dad's office. I love this picture more than any I have taken in a long time. My dad has been in this particular office for...I don't know...25 years? I used to show up there several times a week after school to ask for $20. :-) It is like a second home to me and seeing Colin in that seat smiling like that is so precious. Look at that grin!

Colin answering Duke's phone. He has wonderful leadership skills.

Colin and Mama enjoy the pool.

Duke and Colin share some ice cream. This was pretty much the highlight of BOTH their afternoons. Colin adores his Duke...he has been saying, "MOM! DUKE'S HOUSE!!" ever since we got home.

Hanging out with the best husband and daddy in the whole world!

Colin fresh and ready to go on the 4th! Such a dapper little man!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

I am writing tonight from the living room of my parents house...worn out and a little sunburned, but happy as can be. We have had such a special 4th of July this year and I wanted to be sure to post on the actual day, even though the pictures will have to wait until we get home. I have a LOT of good ones to share, but left our USB cable at home. We came to my hometown to celebrate Jackson's 4th birthday...we thought it was pretty cool to celebrate his "4th on the 4th". :-) His actual birthday was Wednesday and his party was today. Meredith and Cory threw a big bash at their pool and clubhouse and Colin had an absolute blast. There was lots to eat, lots of cake, and lots of swimming. Jer and Cory spent the entire time in the pool throwing Colin and Jackson all over the place, which was both adorable and scary at the same time. ;-) Meredith looked entirely too skinny for a woman who is 7 months pregnant and even wore a bikini. She is that woman who manages to look like a super model with a basketball belly. My sisters are really too much at times. :-) We had so much fun at the party and finally had to drag Colin home for a nap close to 3pm. This was WAY past his nap time and he fell asleep before I could get him all the way in the bed! It was crazy and wonderful. I guess the key is to spend hours in the pool getting thrown all over creation by your dads. We all took a rest and then regrouped for a quick dinner at Spring Creek. We decided at the very last minute to try to take Colin for fireworks and ended up watching a wonderful display right here at my parents house!!! WHO KNEW?! The country club not far from our neighborhood was putting on a show and we watched it from down the street. I still can't believe we were trying to find out where to go and it was right here all along! The show was great and Colin thought it was AMAZING. It was his very first fireworks display and he stopped what he was doing to watch, point, ohhh and ahhh, and make sure we were all watching too. It was precious. After a quick bath, Colin is now snugly sleeping and we are joining him! We are totally exhausted, but what a wonderful 4th! Our whole family together in one spot just celebrating! As it should be!! :-) Happy Birthday, America!!

SLIDE POOL!

Jer is on vacation this week and we have been having a great time! Yesterday we packed in some bouncing at Boomerang's, lunch at Empress of China and a trip to the slide pool after dinner. I was bound and determined to get pictures of Colin coming down this slide...you have never seen a more excited boy! I managed to get a couple of cute ones, but it is really hard to take pictures of people flying down a water slide. Colin continues to have ZERO fear of water. The first time he went down, Jer arched his back and laid all the way down on the slide, thus turning it into a luge. They flew down the slide and both Jer and Colin went all the way under water at the end. I was certain Colin would come out screaming (it was rather scary to watch!) but he just wiped the water out of his eyes and yelled, "MORE!". How cute are these boys?!

Below are a couple of pictures from Boomerang's. The lighting in those bounce houses makes for bad quality pictures, but Colin is adorable none the less. He seems remarkably bigger this week to me...I think he may have hit a growth spurt. He seems slimmer and much taller at the moment. I can't wait for his two year appointment later this month for the official stats. Today has been fun, with the exception of the 100 degree heat. We bought Jackson's birthday present (he is FOUR YEARS OLD today! I love you, sweet nephew!) and had lunch at Five Guys Burgers. It was delicious and Colin loved it so much that he actually stayed in his seat and ate for longer than 30 seconds, which is a miracle. Anytime I finish a meal at the table in the restaurant is cause for celebration. This afternoon we are having a pre-4th of July swim and dinner at Jer's parents house and tomorrow we are heading to my parents for Jackson's party and 4th of July weekend. This is a very busy and happy week!

Chefs, Daydreams and Showers

I am not one to wax poetic about my cooking, but I am pretty sure that I made the best roasted chicken of all time tonight. It was lick your plate good. It was better than any that I have ever had in any restaurant. I mean this was SERIOUSLY good. I also made a salad that was to die for. Am I bragging? Yes. ;-) I never cooked before I stopped working and it has been my mission in life to become an excellent chef. I want Colin to love my cooking and I have been working pretty hard on this goal. I am dying to be the house that all of Colin's friends want to come to because I make the yummiest treats and have the most welcoming home. I have this image in my head...piles of cleats and gym bags cluttered at my back door, shouts and laughs filling the kitchen and a mess of boys clamouring to get second helpings during dinner at my house after the game. I know it is probably silly, but I picture things like that all the time. I love to imagine what it will be like to have a handsome young man living in my house and all the fun that will go along with it. ANYWAY, I made garlic lemon roasted chicken tonight and I am finally at the point that I can make changes to recipes and do my own thing. This turned out honestly beyond what I thought I could accomplish and it was so simple! I would have taken a picture, but we destroyed the bird before I remembered! If anyone is interested in the recipe, I will post it soon. Since I did my own thing, I want to make sure I remember exactly what I did before I share it. I don't want to miss a thing in translation because this baby was GOOD. ;-) I cook a LOT, but rarely feel the need to devote a whole blog post to it, so you know I am serious about this. haha!

In Colin news, we added something new to our nighttime ritual tonight! Jer takes a bath with Colin every night in our big tub; it is their "man time" together and Colin adores it. I lay his towel out on the bed and always scoop him out of the tub and take over for pajama duty. Jer will get dressed and join us in Colin's bed for family story time, which is basically Colin picking out what books he wants to read and who is going to read them and how many times. Tonight, Jer got out of the tub and jumped into the shower while I got Colin out of the tub. He asked Colin if he wanted to try the shower out. Colin was immediately all smiles and trying to climb out of the tub in record time. I stood him in front of the shower door and he first stuck a toe in, hesitated and then walked in to stand beside dad. I shut the shower door fully thinking that Colin would want to immediately get back out. He pressed his hands on the glass and I opened the door. Colin said, "NO MOM! CLOSE!". Well, then. I closed the door as directed and then stood back to watch. Colin loved the shower. We have a shower head that comes off the wall and Jer had it down at Colin's level. He was laughing and washing Jer and himself and jumping up and down. It was one of those adorable moments that you know you will always remember. As I suspected, he did not want the shower to end. We turned off the water and Jer stepped out, leaving Colin standing in the shower stall, holding the shower hose and marching around in the water remaining in the bottom. He started chanting, "MORE SHOWER!" and I told him that we used all the water and the shower had to go night night. He was none too pleased about it. I have the distinct impression that bath time is now going to require both a bath and a shower. Well after the bath, Colin ran back into our bathroom chanting, "MY SHOWER MY SHOWER!". I will now put in writing that my husband has created a monster. He started it. ;-)