Cole Henry: 15 Months!

Our little massive man continues to grow and entertain.  I can't believe he is 15 months old! He is weighing in at 25 lbs (80th percentile), his height is 33 inches (98th percentile) and his head is still massive and in the 90th percentile.  Whew! What a growing boy. 

These last three months are overwhelming with change and growth.  Cole is talking constantly, in a mystery language.  He shakes and nods and gestures to no end. Words we can understand/interpret include: banana (nani), doggie, mommy, daddy, no way!!, uh oh, mooooo, a dang good fire truck siren, hot-t-t (toward coffee or fireplace, not at pretty ladies), and help please (happ peee).

We look at every airplane, bird, motorcycle, truck, school bus, construction site and animal. Cole is obsessed with the moon, Swiffer, baseball bats, lawn mowers, playing basketball and watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. 

Giraffe picture days may be long gone...

He loves to walk (started taking steps at 13 months and full speed ahead at 14 months), especially in the street. He loves to show off his muscles, point to a few body parts, be chased and tickled.  He actually enjoys brushing his teeth thanks to this ridiculous song. And after many long months of fighting bedtime, the sweet kid points to his crib when it's time for bed. (Thank you LORD!)

Giving kisses and hugs are new and so precious, throwing tantrums are also new and less precious, but he bounces back pretty quickly. We love this stage and are so thankful for our Cole Henry!

 

  

 

 

 

 

Ten on Tuesday

 
We walk everywhere now and in every form. Cole loves pushing shopping carts more and more, and sitting in them less and less.  We were letting Tom pick out wood for a project, so I let the kid do whatever would keep him happy. 
 

 

I left my wallet at home and didn't realize it until checking out at HEB.  This is our second trip back.  Trying to keep it interesting.

 

We watched my parents' dog for a week while they were at the beach.  Cole was IN HEAVEN. 

 

 

Meal time continues to be hilarious.  Look at this kid.

 

 

Last year's hat is a bit snug, but still my favorite and takes a little more effort to pull off.  Score.

 

 

Playing at La Cantera with some mama friends. Cole looks like he is 6 years old.

 

  

House projects continue!! We painted Cole's room (finally) "Silver Marlin." The Cole Henry sign is made by Aunt Jean.  Also the owl mobile.  Love having her in the family!!!

 

 

Project Floating Shelves... coming soon!!!!!

 
 
 
 

Blog Facelift!

My free blog template expired...so I had to go (free) shopping for a new look.  Unfortunately, the free templates out there didn't grab my attention, so I went with a free background + banner.  I am pleased!! It was quite a headache, but now I feel like a pro after changing several things until it looked just right. 

Here are some of the tricks I learned...

I found my freebies here. They have a ton of great stuff!

Their instructions are pretty simple, but I kept ignoring the part about setting your blogger template to "Simple." That is key! The background didn't show up until I changed the template.

The banner (our title) opens as an image, so I just pasted it into Word and added text boxes to add the title.  I had to do this several times to increase the size and length until it fit just right in the blog. To place it in the blog template, I used the free software Snipping Tool (already installed on Windows 8) to screen capture the image with the words, and saved that image as a jpeg. Then I just uploaded that image "instead of title" for our blog!

The "Simple" template doesn't allow for you to change the text font, size or color.  You have to go through the html settings, which I will eventually do using this tutorial. I took two computer programming courses in college, but yikes.  I forgot everything, we didn't learn anything like this, and it definitely looks like a foreign language.

I also customized the template to increase the width of the posts.  I really like to place pictures next to each other, and the original settings aren't wide enough.

Bonus: The instagram feed is a free widget that you can get here.

Let me know if you need help!

Halloween 2013

We had a great time around here for Halloween.  Any excuse to see Cole in costume... he was precious!! Truckin' around with his dino tail and his neon green tennis shoes.  It was hilarious.  We were SHOCKED that he kept the hoodie on the entire time.  We just sat in the drive way and handed out candy.  We wanted to meet some more neighbors and watch all the kiddies.  It was so fun!

We also carved and painted pumpkins the night before.  Cole was not impressed with finger painting.  There were tears.

PS.  My free blog template ends on Nov. 7.  And I am NOT paying $15 to keep it! So who knows what it will look like after that, and when I will get a chance to look around for another free template. 

 

 

Cole's First Pumpkin Patch

These 30 minutes were super sweet.  Cole is in love with pumpkins, so he was definitely in his happy place at the pumpkin patch just down the road from our church. Enjoy!

 

 

 

Goober found the wheelbarrow and fell in love.

 

 

13.1 for Nate!

On Saturday, 31 people joined together to help bring sweet Nate home from Bulgaria.  We raised over $2800 to help Clay and Jenny adopt their son and ran a crud load of miles in the process...!! Totally worth it.  The Chosen Marathon and Half Marathon gives 100% of the proceeds to adopting families. And you get to pick what family you are donating too.  It was SO fun seeing almost our whole life group at 6 am ready to run for a long, long time.  All for the same purpose. 

I decided to run without headphones so I could attempt to pray for Clay and Jenny's growing family.  It was a sweet time and I even met a few adopting ladies on the route.  One was expecting to pay $35,000 to bring their daughter home from Ethiopia and was two years into the process.  Adoption is definitely not for the weary or the faint of heart. It is for sure the heart of the Lord though.  He provides.  The money.  The patience.  The selfless and redeeming love of welcoming a stranger into the home.

 

1229 calories burned?! The madness! I made up for it real quick with two orders of chicken minis, Las Palapas for dinner and lots and lots of snacking that day, and the next.

Whitney's toenails are literally falling off.  That's dedication. I told her to take a picture to show Nate on his 13th birthday.

 

 The race was in New Braunfels.  IT WAS GORGEOUS! What a great distraction.  The hills were pretty fierce though.  My quads are still hating them.

 

Almost 200 miles trained for this race.  Whew! I am so thankful to be a part of this adoption and I can't wait to meet that precious Nate.

 

Ten on Tuesday

New plan! Now that Cole isn't in the monthly updating range, the poor ol' blog is getting a little dusty and a little rusty.  I am going to try to post 10 pictures/fun things that we (mostly Cole, let's be honest) have been up to on Tuesdays.  Yes, today is Thursday.  But it doesn't sound very catchy.  Please no bets on how quickly I will forget to keep up on this. 

Here goes.

My jogging buddy is always in charge of opening and closing the garage.  He loves it.  He is also in charge of finding the moon, birds, airplanes and dump trucks.  Always an adventure and makes the miles go by way faster!

Working on the fundamentals.  This kid loves playgrounds, balls and the great outdoors.

Ha!!! I mean, poor Cole. He is walking all over, but sometimes you just gotta take a good fall.

I had an A&M shirt on too...



Someone left this awesome sword and shield on our front porch.

Cole being spoiled by some of my youth group girlies.

Cole is now able to turn the fireplace on.  Goodie.

We went out on a date last weekend! So fun! Captain Philips was INTENSE.

My fall wreath! Not bad for a retired math teacher, huh??

Isn't this the cutest thing EVER?

He really has to get a good angle before he can find his belly button. Be careful, because he will lift up your shirt to see yours.

Master Climber.  Jammies too small.

Did you know that ducks eat MumMums? They do.

We had a good laugh at the petting zoo in my parents' neighborhood. I do not like goats eating out of my hand and Cole did not like watching.

I did it! It was 14 pictures though. So I think this is my commitment to post more often, not call it anything catchy and stay alive in the blogging world.