New Tricks

Kole seems to be getting bigger and bigger each week and doing new "tricks" all the time as well. He's not crawling yet, but he did find a good way to get his toys that are out of reach. He has figured out that if he pulls on the blanket that he's sitting or laying on, his toys come closer to him. He'll never crawl after his toys at that rate. He makes a new clicking noise with his tongue, like a "cluck". He thinks that's pretty fun. He also learned how to clap last weekend and thinks that's pretty fun also. He claps when he's really excited about something. We started showing him the baby "puffs" (like baby finger food, really it's a glorified Cheerio that's flavored) and he's not quite sure about them. He makes funny faces when he eats them. He won't feed it to himself but does like to push them around on his high chair tray and will pick some up in the palm of his hand and sometimes even with his forefinger and thumb. When he has them in his palm it's a given that Jersey will make her way over to Kole. He will then reach out to her with his hand waiting for a kiss and Jersey will then lick the puffs out of his hand. Of course he thinks this is hilarious. Jersey has also planted herself close to Kole's high chair while he's eating just in case something might drop, like a puff or Cheerio. She's such a "scrapper"----she eats Kole's "droppings" and is always sneaking scraps out of the trash. Corn salad has been tasty lately and a little bit of pizza crust today. It's as if we don't feed her or something.... : )

Here are a couple of videos of Kole to keep you going for a few weeks. I have to send my laptop computer to the Dell Hospital for 3-5 weeks and won't be able to post videos until it comes back. I'll do my best to post pics though from our Mac.

Playing in bouncer




Ready for the beach!!

Being nosey...



Kole Clapping



Look Who's Talking



I'm so excited!!!

Laughing at the dog...again.

New Friends

Kole and I have been spending some time with Tina's boys the past few days while she "recovers". Tina had a minor accident and ended up blowing out her knee. Poor thing has had a very hard time getting around the past week along with being in a good amount of pain and today was surgery day. Tina is doing good and trying to get comfortable at home tonight for some rest.

Kole thinks her boys, Easton (5 1/2) and Cade (almost 3), are the best thing that's ever happened to him. He loves watching them play and interacting with eachother and THRIVES on the attention they give him. The also think Kole is pretty cool; they like to check on "baby Kole" while he's napping and like it when he grabs on to them when they get close. We've been playing outside with sidewalk chalk, scooters, and on the swingset. Cade has been pretty fascinated with the toys I've been bringing over for Kole to play with and pretty much had been carrying several of them around with him almost all day today. Easton liked getting pictures taken of him but Cade and Kole....not so much..... The boys have been behaving for me as I've instituted the rule "there is no fighting on my watch" :) What good listeners!!! I'm happy to help out and Kole and I are looking forward to seeing the boys again (probably) next week.

Weekend Fun

We were in Bay City over the weekend and had a nice time relaxing and celebrating the graduations of Laura and Melissa. Mary Rose and I went garage sale-ing on Saturday morning in a light drizzle but found some good deals despite the slight sogginess. Seth and Carey took off in the afternoon to scout out some fishing spots while we did some visiting with Nana and Joanne & Jen Gorney. Steaks was dinner for us and a delicious bottle for Kole. He got his bath in the sink and had some fun splashing in the water with his new boat. We went to church on Sunday and Kole was an angel during the service. Lunch with the whole family in the afternoon along with some visiting time as well. Papa Snoop took out the baby car and gave Kole a fun ride until he bonked his head/face on the hood of the car while it was up. Someone mentioned that the car needed airbags!
It was a very nice weekend!!
*side note* I have been having lots of fun playing with a cool website that edits and modifies uploaded photos. Check it out! (Thanks to Jessica :)



Kole and his daddy "wrestling"



cousins at church



Awww...a nice family photo outside church

A "discreet" bathtub shot of Kole (at home)

Cruisin'!!!

fun in the tub---I mean sink

Playing (at home)

New Look

Check out this fun site to change the look of your blog. Lots of cute layouts to give your blog a new look.

Kole's Vacation

What I forgot was that Kole had his own vacation, away from Mommy and Daddy while we were in Hawaii that is. He had lots of different babysitters and had a blast all week. He played and played and played with Nana and Papa Snoop, then Nanny and Papa Tom, cousin Sarah, then Auntie Rachel and finally Grammy (with Auntie Rae babysitting for Grammy on Saturday afternoon). I made up some shirts for Kole to wear while he was being watched by his sitters and he seemed to like them. He went for walks with Sarah and Auntie Rae and played outside a bit on the clear days. We came home to a bigger looking baby who had a couple of new tricks!! He had a great time on his own vacation!

Clearly, he loves his auntie rae and no one is going to tell him different!

Oh, those Baby (Kole) Blues!!



Checking out his new fishbowl toy

Looking into things a bit further!

On a walk

Talking with mommy on the phone from Hawaii

Such a big-shot!

Learning goofy faces!

Our Trip to Hawaii

Oh, how I wish we were still on vacation! Our trip was so wonderful it's hard to describe. We did lots of activities, ate great food, soaked up the sun, met some nice people, and ate some more great food over our 8-ish days.

We arrived on Saturday around 3pm and were able to freshen up and head to our first dinner on the hotel property. We met some nice people and enjoyed the warm salty air while dining with the ocean in view. Seth and I had some good local beer that made some repeat appearances throughout the week, called Big Wave. We were up very early on Sunday due to the time change---6 hours earlier than home. Later that day, Seth played golf while I took in the ocean and sun. We snorkeled a bit just outside our hotel on a reef. Dinner at the hotel as a group. Monday was a day that we had no scheduled plans or activities. We borrowed one of the group rental cars and decided to take a drive into Kona, about 40 minutes away, with two other couples. Kona had lots of tourist type shops with lots of tourist type items. We didn't buy much but had some shave ice with some yummy tropical syrup (pretty much a GIANT fancy snow cone). We had dinner with a smaller group at a restaurant up in the mountains that was pretty good and ate a dessert that was divine!! Even Seth said it was good! Tuesday the whole group was up really early as we had an early flight over to Oahu to visit Pearl Harbor and Waikiki beach. The Pearl Harbor tour was very interesting and shopping in Waikiki was unsuccessful. We had dinner together and then an evening flight back to the Big Island and all headed to bed since it was a really long day. Wednesday we went zip-lining. Holy Cow was it FUN!!! This was by far my favorite thing. We spent all morning in the rainforest zipping through the trees while seeing some beautiful scenery. In order to get to our destination we had to take a Hummer on the most extreme two tracking trail I have ever seen!!! We were pretty dirty from the day so after a shower we headed to the beach. Seth and one of our new couple friends went snorkeling and I laid on the beach. We had a free night for dinner so we took our time making our way up from the beach. A nice dinner at the hotel. Thursday found us on a boat ride over to a reef for more snorkeling. I went in for a short time, like 20 minutes, but it just is not my thing. Seth LOVED it and was in the water almost the whole 2 hours. I went down the slide off the boat but got the worst case of water in my nose, so I decided to relax on the boat with my book. Thursday night we took a dinner cruise that had us watch the sun set. We got back pretty early so we found some people to hang out with and took over the game room area with beer and snacks. On Friday we took a helicopter ride after a short time on the beach and some more snorkeling (for Seth). This was a very pretty ride that had us see the coast, the green mountains, and the activity of the volcano. I had the best spot in the helicopter---right next to the pilot :) Friday night we had a luau on the hotel property at sunset. The food was diverse (I had an allergy attack that day so not much dinner for me) and had a hawaiian band playing during dinner. After that the dancers came on. This was VERY COOL!! The girls had pretty outfits and the guys had some good dance moves. There was one dancer who "ate" fire. He had batons of fire and was swinging them around and even put it in his mouth!! SO COOL!! We packed up on Friday night so we could spend as much time in the sun on Saturday as possible. We did just this, plus some snorkeling, and headed out for the airport at 3pm. Sad to see our beautiful hotel fade away but we were looking forward to seeing Kole when we got home. The time change was the strangest thing---we left Hawaii at 5pm on a 7 hour flight to Chicago but arrived the next day at 6am. Neither Seth nor I slept a wink on the way home so needless to say, Sunday was pretty hard to keep our eyes open all day. Even Monday, we took a couple of naps. But...SO worth it for a great vacation!!!! Kole missed us, but had some excellent babysitters to take care of him :)

Back to reality....:(

View from our balcony of the hotel

Our balcony view

The reef Seth liked to snorkel near


From the helicopter---lava flowing into ocean


Highest--400ft and Longest--1100 ft. zip line

Zipchick and Spaz---our names for Zipping

Waterfall view from ziplining

Seth zipping


Jenny zipping

Waterfall from zipline

Waterfall view from helicopter

Luau night

Yes, that is Seth on stage doing a hula dance





video of Seth zip lining

Fire dancer

Luau dancers