birthdays, bikes, braids, baby boys...

so... as promised, i am posting photos of cole's birthday. late, yes, but still posting. (this is becoming the story of my bloglife: "better late than never".)

cole kind of saw the stash of balloons i'd gotten for his celebration, so we blew a few up in the afternoon, after madi and remington were down for their naps.

cole had grandma all to himself and he thought it was the perfect opportunity to toss around a balloon! after all, what's a birthday without balloons? especially since we saved the cake and (all but one of) the presents for saturday.


he had fun. i've never seen a kid stay in one spot and still have so much fun! to be honest, i think grandma had fun too :)

when i asked cole what he wanted on his birthday cake this year, he initially said "thomas!". well, i didn't have the time, space or supplies to do a thomas the train cake (although in my head, i had a fun detailed setup. maybe next year, if he's still into thomas then), so his next choice was a tractor pull. that was more doable...

...frosting, crushed graham crackers and some toy tractors from fleet farm. had it not been for the somewhat recent trips to the symco tractor pull and the antique military and tractor show, i'm not sure he'd have had a second choice beyond thomas. in any case, he was pretty pleased that he had a tractor pull on his cake (minus the actual sled. but he didn't notice that.).

four candles! i can hardly believe i have a four-year-old now. *sigh*

he was quicker than me with blowing out those candles... i thought he'd kind of hesitate, since it's been a year since the last time he got to blow out candles. boy, was i wrong. he practically jumped on 'em.

after cake there were presents, of course! he got some birthday money in one of his cards. as i was reading the card to him, i tried to slip it out of sight so i could put it somewhere safe, but he saw it...

... gasped, "oh! some money", folded it up and stuck it in his pocket. smart kid, he is! i nabbed it later so it didn't get lost or go through the wash, and one of these days, maybe he and i can take a little shopping trip together, just the two of us. you know, before he's too old to be seen shopping with his mom. because that time will come before i know it, too...

the last box he opened was from his grandma and grandpa- knowing what he was getting from us, they got him a helmet. it didn't really occur to him that he needed something to ride on too, so he was just happy that he had something to wear on his head. easy to please :)

when daddy brought out his bike, his face lit up like no other. i wish i'd been on the other side to catch his expression, but alas, i was in the wrong place at the wrong time. poo. but i assure you, he was on cloud nine. he took it for a quick spin round the living room, then with some help from uncle ted, took it outside where there was more room.

he got some pointers from his new friends, but he'd already gotten it down pat. for a kid that's refused to use the pedals on any other ride-ons for the past two years, he sure picked up the bike thing fast. it was like he'd been riding all his life, and after the first two hesitant corners, he was circling the house like a tiny tornado on a shiny red bike. he insisted that grandma go with him, so my poor mom happily obliged supervising his rounds around the yard. he was at it for a long time!

see? he's doin' great! :)

cole's not the only one who got a package or two... remington got something in the mail too! after some research on its effectiveness and positive recommendations from a lot of friends, we decided to order an amber teething necklace for him. there's acids in the amber that, when heated to body temperature are absorbed into the skin and have calming properties. people use it for relief from anxiety, chronic pain and yes, teething. i wasn't sure just how well it was working until two days later when i'd taken it off of remington and forgotten to put it back on; i couldn't figure out just why he was so fussy, and then it dawned on me: he wasn't wearing his amber. sure enough- about a half-hour or so after having it on again, he was calm. so now he wears it almost all the time, and he's one happy little boy.

we attempted madison's first french braid... not bad, considering she wasn't that keen on sitting still just then and i didn't have the spray bottle handy to mist her hair down.

our princess <3

this past wednesday, remington was had a weight check and feeding observation. he's up to 10.5 lbs on the dot... a 6-oz gain in the last month! it's not enough, but it's something. it was mentioned that it appears that his facial muscles may be weaker than they should be, so he's to see a speech therapist on tuesday. the way it was explained to me is that because he's having to work two or three times as hard to get fed, his body isn't able to properly use what he's taking in (which is not enough to begin with, most likely because he just gets too tired to try for more). so basically, they think he's using all of what he gets to fuel his attempts at nursing, rather than for growing and developing because he has to work so much harder for it. we'll see what happens on tuesday, and we'll know more then. in the meantime, he's a happy little five-month-old pipsqueak who still doesn't fit in his bumbo...

... but won't give up trying!

(notice how he's trying to open his hands more? still, he almost always has them in fists...)

stare-down with the froggy.

see? he's happy! he's got the most infectious grin, in my opinion. then again, i'm a little biased...

remington's sunday outfit for today; the poor kid doesn't have much for dress clothes because he's using cole's old baby clothes, which are mostly onesies and little jeans. i keep putting off getting more because for one, he's a baby so he doesn't really need to be too dressy and two, about the time i shell out for some fancy duds, he'll have a growth spurt. or if he doesn't, then he'll be stuck in the wrong clothes for the season. anyway, the jeans, shoes and socks are all part of the outfit he wore home from the hospital. so out of curiosity, i dug out the onesie that he wore home to see if it still fit.

it did.

then, i got to thinking... it would be neat to see how much his little face has changed since the first time he wore that outfit, and to my horror, i discovered that we never took any shots of him wearing his little homecoming outfit!! the one above is the closest we have- you can see his jeans. in all the crazy, complication-induced madness, special instructions and desperation to finally get home already, we'd forgotten to take photos before packing the camera bag back into the van. now i'm kicking myself for not double-checking that we had that base covered. grr. but in my defense, we had so many other things to think and worry about. ooops. oh well; at least we remembered to take any sort of photos!!

anyway, that's been our life the past week and a half- hope yours was great too! :)