new little cousin

just a quick post to welcome a new cousin: america laverne gabhart was born on 3rd june! congratulations to eric, audrey, addie, konrad, adrianna and truman on the new addition! can't wait to meet her- she's beautiful! sarah and stephen have a link to eric's page, there are pictures there. we love you, indiana cousins!

lazy saturday...

our saturday was pretty uneventful- we pretty much stayed in, with the exception of our weekly trip to walmart and meeting andy for a late lunch at chili's. i decided that it was high time i made bread again so that was the one thing i accomplished. for some reason it always turns out more dense than my mom's, but it's edible, so i guess i can't complain.what i HOPED was that the bread would make itself and i could take a nap while kelvin spent some time with cole. what really happened was the boys crashed and i had to make the bread after all. the photo above is proof... sleepyheads!
i couldn't resist- bathtub photos are always fun, and cole has been such an expressive little boy lately. his newest thing is sucking on his top lip with his tongue out. he started doing it as a way to get mommy to laugh, i think, and then it just went from that to an alternative sort of pacifier. if he's tired or concentrating, he'll really go to town on his poor upper lip! funny- really cute, too!
water is funny....
i love, love, love his funny-face!!!
cole's favorite tub toy? the drain plug. don't ask me why, i haven't a clue! he does like the fishy toys that mom and dad brought him in april, but for some reason, the drain is just a little more appealing. usually he takes in a mouthful of water when he goes for it, which really doesn't deter him, but scares me because he sputters and coughs and gets all red in the face. i think it's more a drama thing than actual choking because when he's done he looks up and grins really wide like he just pulled the wool over my eyes. therefore, i tend to try to stop him from playing with the plug. that, and it's part of the drain and drains are gross. sorry- i have SERIOUS bathroom issues... if it was practical, i would prefer to not touch even the plug without gloves, but whatever. anyway, i was fiddling with the camera and kinda watching him inch toward it, and then got his attention for a photo, but i think he thought i was going to tell him 'no', and that's why he has the deer-in-the-headlights look! cute, no?

anyway, can't wait to scrapbook these too... poor kid is going to have to have his own library for all his scrapbooks. i wish- i STILL only have two pages (his ultrasound pics) done. maybe someday... i'll have to hire a sitter so i can get that project going!

oh, one more thing- i found the sweetest baby basics for my new nephew... can't wait to get more collected and sent!!!

cole's cracker

cole had his first cracker tonight! he likes to crawl around the kitchen when i'm working there, and a lot of the time, it ends up that he clings to my leg, or if he's feeling particularily voracious, he bites my leg instead. or my toes, whatever is most appealing at the moment. so, since he tried chicken noodle soup with finely crushed saltines yesterday and really enjoyed it, i figured that i would give him a whole cracker and see if he'd take to it. he did. very much- in fact, he ended up eating two.
don't worry, all you fellow mommies out there- i scraped all the salt off first! so, while mommy had her late afternoon snack of left-over chicken noodle soup, cole munched away on his cracker. i was prepping myself for a soggy mess, figuring that he'd just suck on it and most of it would escape via the never-ending trickle of drool that comes with the teething territory, but i was severely mistaken. not 10 seconds after he got his cracker, i hear "crunch crunch..."- he skipped the whole gumming it up first thing and went straight to chewing it. looks are very deceiving when it comes to those tow tiny little teeth... boy do they make quick work of anything edible!
("that was yummy- more please?")

i guess i really don't have to mention that there was very little mess to clean up.... sure, every baby leaves a food trail but he got most of it. i was putting off the cracker thing, because i wasn't sure when the 'right' time for crackers is for little ones, but i guess that his time is now.

he loved it, and i have found a new way to keep him out of trouble- the apartment is silent when he's munching away!

baby picasso

(this is what he thinks crayons are for...)

last night, after supper, cole was a bit restless so to kill time until his bath, i gave him a piece of paper and crayons. we got the crayons when went to ihop last week- i am amazed at how many waitresses talk about their kids/grandkids and still give a 9-month old crayons. really, what are they thinking? crayons will not magically expand the attention span of said child- they will only be eaten and thrown on the floor. this process will take approximately all of 2 minutes.

anyway, we took the crayons home because someday he'll know what their purpose is and be able to use them to their full potential. i figure that this day is at least a good 6 months away... apparently, he has already got the idea. for the most part- the first picture is NOT a good example of just how much of this concept he has grasped.

with a little help from mommy, he managed to make some pretty good squiggles on his paper. there are lots of random dots, mostly blue (since he thought the orange crayon should be a snack instead) from throwing it around. almost like a jackson pollack instead of a picasso, but picasso is what came to mind initially. he did have a bit of fun for a few minutes, and i did keep the finished masterpiece. dated, of course.

(look, mom- neat, huh? now can i eat it??)

so, cole's first dabbling in the wonderful world of art was a success of sorts. we have proof that he wielded a crayon before the age of one... if he's not too frustrated maybe we'll give it another go this afternoon. unless, of course, he's still more interested in ripping the paper and munching the art media... then we'll skip it.

what a day!

yesterday went from this...
to this...
to this. happy, cranky, vandal. i think we can call this cole's first attempt at vandalism. he did rather well for a 9 1/2 month old!
he had a LOT of fun. now if we could only get him to change himself...
in his hasty exit, he had diapers stuck underneath his tummy that stuck with him as he crawled away... what a goof!
and this would be the aftermath. i can't wait to scrapbook this! first i have to get the rest of it going- i have his ultrasound photos done... 2 pages, woo-hoo. now that we have a printer, maybe i can get caught up before the baby is born. yeah right, huh? keep dreaming!
speaking of dreaming, as i look at these photos and curse the limited flash and zero aperture options, i think back to when we were last at best buy and the beautiful cameras that they have there. not really in my budget but i can dream... and drool... and think "maybe someday". don't get me wrong, i love our camera, it's great for a point-and-shoot, but there are times (many times) when it just can't do what i wish it could. unfortunately a good camera costs money and lots of it... maybe in the not-too-distant future...!
anyway, i know i'm almost always a day behind on my posts, but by the time cole goes down for the night, i'm bushed. right now, he's napping- he only had 5 oz of his bottle for breakfast, showed no interest in anything else until about 9.30, when he had his cereal with bananas. then it was lights out... i stuck him in his pack-n-play where he protested for a while before finally passing out in the corner. for some reason, no matter where i put him or in what direction, he always ends up with his head mashed in the top left corner. weird. so, there he is, head in the corner, butt in the air, and i am off to take a shower while i still can!
oh, one more thing... i weighed and measured cole and then went online to see what his percentiles are according to the charts from the cdc. he weighs 21 pounds (65th percentile) and is 28 inches (45th percentile). his head circumference is at about the 70th percentile, so he's doing pretty well. i know that they kinda bounce all over the chart until about 18 months, so i'm not worried about anything with him- he's showing over-all regular growth in every area! every now and again some random person will comment on how HUGE he is for his age... ok, then explain to me why, at almost 10 months, he is still wearing 3-6 month bottoms and 6-9 month tops? his tops are 6-9 month because he's too long for 3-6. i think he's just right...

finally

so, i finally made my prenatal appointment. i was putting it off because i was dreading going back to dr quack, but as luck would have it, he doesn't do obstetrical. weird, because that was one of the things listed on his profile from our insurance search, but whatever. i decided that instead of going over to the women's health division of sun life family clinic, i'd just go find someone else altogether, somewhere a little more on the up and up. i found new horizons women's care here in casa grande. they are accepting new patients but i wasn't able to get in till 6/20. apparently, everyone else has more confidence in new horizons than sun life too! anyway, the receptionist was really friendly- already a step up from sun life. they were very quick to mention that they only deliver at the hospital in chandler, which is one of the suburbs of phoenix, but that's fine with me. i think wisconsin is much more advanced when it comes to the ob department- all the hospitals here (and i mean ALL) still have you labor, deliver and recover in one room and then send you to a different room for the rest of your stay. or maybe new london is the only place where you are in the same room from check-in to check-out? anyway, i looked at the chandler hospital website and it seems much nicer than casa grande regional medical center. if you want to, you can check out new horizons at newhorizonswomenscare.com.

another busy weekend...

cole likes watermelon. then again, who doesn't?? when we got his baby food mill, it came with this little mesh bag on a handle... munchkin makes it. i'd been told about it but never got one... as it turns out, this little dealy-ma-bob is pretty neat; great for fruits, like, oh, i don't know...watermelon! glad he likes it, the only thing is that his favorite hobby now is throwing things. i swear, he tries for record distance with everything! cute, mostly!

(melon-in-a-bag!)

kelvin's parents came back to the area on friday afternoon, so we went out for supper at the ihop in town. i had a club sandwich- it was super, but unfortunately i didn't finish it- slight nausea hit me halfway through. bummer- i wanted to finish, but decided it would be better not to attempt it. appetite was there though!

yesterday (saturday) we all went to yuma, which is on the border of arizona and california. the country there is so rugged and beautiful! the yuma territorial prison state park is less than a mile east of california, so that gives you all an idea of where we were. it's also not that far north of mexico... the prison is now a state park and is right next to the colorado river. it was in operation as a prison from 1876 to the 1909 (i THINK it was 1909... for some reason, 33 years sticks in my head). there are a few places to walk around, and there's a bunch of neat stuff on display in the museum. we spent a good hour and a half there- we decided to call it a day because it was about 105 and cole was getting hungry... so were we!

the first picture is the entrance to yuma prison, the next one is the cell that they have all fixed up as it was in the prison days. i had one of cole peeking through an iron grid (one of the gates), but accidentally deleted it when i was trying to get these all reorganized- i will repost it another day! it's cute- he did SO well, walking around in the heat. he stayed hydrated- he actually used his sippy cup! see, when he gets desperate enough, he'll do it... that was my theory and sure enough, that's the way it went down.

(cole was helping unload the dishes on friday...)

so, we had a busy weekend. like i said before, cole did really well, especially since he's still feeling congested and just generally cranky. now i've got the bug too... greetings from wisconsin, huh? as i always say, better the worst cold in history than the intestinal flu... and that would be the silver lining in our congested, coughing and sneezing cloud.