na-na and da-da...

these pics are from yesterday... cole was a bit impatient for breakfast- he thought it wasn't coming fast enough, as you can see from the whiny expression on his face!

ahhh- full tummy! "have breakfast, will wreak havoc". does this face look impish or what?

cole still love his decks of cards. stacking them, throwing them, eating them... it's all good! it was pretty funny, the way he looked at his card, ever so delicately turned it around and examined it, then just chomped it as hard as he could. see his pinky? the other pics are the same, his little pinky is poking out. he does that when he's snacking on one of his gerber graduates wagon wheels too. what a funny little boy!

we've been encouraging cole to differentiate between "mama" and "dada". or at least, we've been trying to. he knows who is who, and sometimes he looks at kelvin and says "dadadadada" (he's been a real daddy's boy lately...); last night on the way to meeting we were trying to get him to say "mama", since that's something we haven't heard. i'd say "cole, say mama", and the response i got almost every single time was a big grin, "dada" and a giggle. hmmmm. finally he did say something other than "dada"- it was "nana", so i don't know if he hasn't gotten the hang of the "m" part yet or what... i'm resigned to the fact that i might just be "nana" (or possibly "dada" #2) for awhile. [that was a joke- i know he'll get it sooner or later]

on a fun note, it's thursday, which means it's only two days from stroller pickup day! i can't wait- we're going to hit two birds with one stone on saturday, as there is a flatbed trailer that kelvin wants to look at in coolidge, which is in the same area. it's a bit longer than what he was originally hoping to find, and heavier and sturdier than the ones he'd looked at down here, but for a fraction of the cost of a brand new one. the guy who has it is an electrician as well, and knows the smits, so philip clued us in on this guy and the trailer he's wanting to sell. i guess someone owed him money, but ended up having his business close so he gave this guy his trailer instead, in place of the money. of course, the guy would rather have his cash, so we're going to take a look at it. kelvin's been saving cash here and there, so he's got half of what the guy is asking already, and the rest is in our budget (i guess...). so- hopefully it's what kelvin's looking for, since it would make him pretty happy to be able to use it for the trip home!

*oh, and all you fellow bloggers out there- does anyone have any idea why the comments on a post would just cease to exist overnight? my last post had 3 comments, now they're gone... it's like they never existed. no, they weren't deleted, they're just g-o-n-e, gone. any ideas??*

Q and A

"borrowed" from amber and aleigh... i have to, i haven't done one in awhile.

1) Name something you have in common with all of your siblings. everyone says we look alike, so i'm guessing we share the same genes...

2) Do you fold your underwear? only when i'm not wearing them.

3) Do you like to drink the juice out of freeze pops? that's the best part!!

4) Who is the last person you wrote a letter to on paper? i don't know- does email count? because then i'd have to say my parents.

5) What was your first job? babysitting... same year i got my license.

6) Aside from Driver's Ed, who really taught you how to drive? my dad. the drivers ed teacher i had was a joke, seeing as how he got his teaching license revoked because of a dui.

7) What's the one thing you love/miss about your Grandma's cooking? everything... you haven't eaten till you've had one of grandma pheifer's thanksgiving (or ham) dinners!

8) What color is your favorite hoodie? orange.

9) Who was like your second Mom or second Dad? ummmm- nobody really compares.

10) Name a sound that disturbs you? ha! just about everything- birds, people chewing/eating, "cottonmouth" when people talk... that's just the tip of the iceberg.

11) What's your typical ice cream order at Dairy Queen? oh, haven't had that in awhile- usually a cherry dillybar, or a mocha moolatte, if i'm feeling calorically invincible.

12) What comes to mind when I say cabbage? sauerkraut, gag... need i say more?

13) What did you do today? emptied the dishwasher, filled the dishwasher, gave cole his breakfast and lunch, made zucchini (cole), made my lunch, periodically did random stuff online, took a shower, not in that order.

14.) What did you do last night? supper, played with cole, bathtime, put cole to bed. ordinary, mundane night...

15) Do you have a cell-phone? of course- it's like my lifeline!

16) Are you emotional? duh- kinda comes with the preggo territory!

18) Name a song that makes you happy?chitty chitty bang bang. don't laugh.

19) Do you use chap stick? rarely.

20) If you were in an emergency situation and you had to deliver a baby, could you? maybe; it can't be much more difficult than giving birth now, could it??

21) What was the most recent thing you bought? vanilla iced coffee from mcdonald's on sunday.

22) What is on your refrigerator door? some magnets, a few photos, our wisconsin neighbor's birth announcement, ultrasound photos from my 11-week scan.

23) Name something you have to do tomorrow? who knows? maybe start packing- depends on what cole will let me get away with...

24) What was the last movie you watched? not sure.

25) Do any of your friends have children? most of them, yes.

26) Do you prefer regular or chocolate milk? no preference, as long as it's the milk in a bag from kwik trip. which we don't have down here...

27.) When was the last time you went to starbucks? about 2 weeks ago- gotta have that mocha frapp every now and again!

28) Can you whistle? yeah, and it works better if i inhale than if i blow out. no clue why...

29) Do you have a trampoline at your house? no, but it would be fun to have one!

30) What movie do you know every line to? i used to know most of the little mermaid... see #5.

32) Do you know how to do a cart-wheel? no- never really could.

33) Do you maintain any friendships originating from elementary school? not any that are still really close.

34) What are you wearing? denim shorts and a t-shirt...

35) What was the last thing you ate? lunch- tomato and sliced cheese on an english muffin under the broiler. amazingly tasty!

36) Do you take pills of any sort? prenatal vitamins, tylenol when the need arises.

37) When was the last time you did the dishes? just before lunch; scorched black beans are really hard to get off of the bottom of the pan, fyi.

38) How much sleep did you get last night? total, about 6 hours, not all at once though.

39) Do you own any band t-shirts? i wish i did, ones from the 70's.

40) Last song you sang out loud? probably something disney, for the sake of my son.

41) When was the last time you slept on the floor? about a month ago, when i was afraid to get back into bed because cole was awake (2 am) and the airbed creaks when you move on it... the floor is much quieter.

42) Would you chew gum that's already been chewed? preferrably not...

44) Who have you talked to today? cole, myself... somebody call me!!!!

45) What comes to your mind when I say pumpkins? orange and spice

46) Friend that lives closest to you? from az: the smit's; from wis, i have no idea- i'd need an atlas.

47) Color of your shirt? lots of colors- i feel like a rainbow.

48) How old are you? 25

49) What is your background on your computer? amazing photo of a rocky beach in this cool golden light- stock from windows vista, but still awesome!

50) Do you wish on 11:11PM? is that slang for a star? because then yes, i do on occassion... really- can someone clue me on? what's 11:11 pm??

51) Good advice if you ever go camping? watch out for boogey men...

anyone else curious as to why this 51-question survey is actually only 49? there's two missing... or is that part of the fun?

his bite is worse...

...than his bark. (sometimes)

yeah, this little face is oh-so-innocent, but don't let him fool you!

this is what his bite is like... it's from saturday, and the picture was taken yesterday. kelvin was trying to figure out why his bicep was a little sore and bruised, so i asked him if he got pinched or anything at work- he said no, but remembered that cole bit him there on saturday, so we took a look. sure enough, a bruise with two tiny, red teeth marks!

playing on the kitchen floor with mommy... he learning pattern and repetition in his play, i've noticed. it's not so random anymore, and he'll do things in a certain order and then repeat them. for example, he would push his little firetruck all the way from the edge of the kitchen, around me once, then back to the edge of the kitchen. then he would leave the truck there, crawl back to me, try to climb over my head (that's why my hood is on...), then start all over again. i'm guessing he's going to have a good imagination- you can tell by the look on his face sometimes that he is 100% engrossed in his own little world.

as if biting daddy wasn't enough, cole decided to bite my nose too. he's silly- he'll get this super innocent look and pretend like he's going to give a kiss... then CHOMP!!! fortunately, i didn't bruise or bleed- i hollered loud enough that he let go pretty quick. then laughed, of course. yep, that's our boy!!

movin' and groovin'!

cole gets most of the spotlight on our posts, so this one's on the new baby... what a wiggle worm! i thought i felt a little wiggle last week but wasn't 100% sure till saturday morning when i felt a little "bubble". yesterday i felt some more, and this morning, i do believe the little peanut was tapdancing in there. ahhh, nothing like those first definite movements! it won't be long and i'll be sitting in meeting, wondering who else happened to see that elbow or knee poking around... or, like with cole, whole-body wiggles. i remember a few times at the end of my pregnancy with him, i thought for sure he was going to wiggle me right off my chair! yeah, give it another 10 or 12 weeks, various body parts will be making their appearance through my skin... can't wait! i do have to say, feeling our little one moving around more now makes everything wonderful- hey, i can even tolerate listening to the morning hangover sound effects from our lovely upstairs neightbor! he's lucky i'm not still in my first trimester, i'd probably be puking right along with him. thanks for sharing, man... i will NOT miss apartment life!

hello, sunday

cole looked so cute in his little striped baby gap onesie, khaki's and baby "converse" shoes... unfortunately, he didn't want to cooperate for a front-view pic. but you get the idea!

cole's first "sack 'o potatoes" ride!

lost under the covers...

still lost...

a little less lost...

aha! mind you, all this wonderful exciting play was BEFORE meeting; amazingly he sat really well, considering he'd rather be crawling in circles these days. he got a bit crabby at the end (think: ear-piercing shrieks that warranted a lengthy pause before the emblems, giving me enough time to escape to the spare room- thanks, gene!!), but all in all, sat reasonably well, thanks to the life-saving construction equipment book! the funny thing is, union meeting is usually about as long as regular sunday morning meeting (about 1 1/2 hours on average), and it seems he knows when it's going to be shorter and the anticipation of sitting less actually makes him more antsy. funny, the way kids work! anyway, after meeting we went out to mi amigo ricardo's for lunch with the smit's and the johnson's, which was a lot of fun. oh, and eva's last night was WONDERFUL... i'd recommend it to anyone travelling down this way. in fact, they just opened a new one in casa grande, we were told. neat! great food- we enjoyed it a lot.

now that we have a definite date for moving home, we're realizing just how much we'll miss everyone here. it doesn't fail to amaze me how things are in the truth, with the friends. if we weren't in truth, i don't know if i'd have been able to do this, moving practically across the continent, not knowing anyone. the hospitality and love that is shown through God's people is beyond my understanding sometimes... how often would someone be willing to take in complete strangers? in this day and age, it's not really a safe bet anymore... we've really enjoyed the friends here!

as with all little ones, cole's learned a few new things very quickly in the last few days... we noticed that when he's crawling around on the floor and he lets loose with several happy, excited screeches, it's most likely because he's crawling as fast as he can in circles. it's funny- he puts his head down (maybe so he's more streamlined??...) and just goes as fast as he can. i can already see endless games of ring-around-the-rosie in my near future. he's also gotten the hang of unpacking the diaper bag by himself... amazingly, he goes right for his favorite book.cole and his favorite book. it's almost always a lifesaver during meeting!

ummm, which one...?

he's also learning colors, apparently. this morning he was playing with his stacker and it just so happened that his cheerios container (round and yellow) was sitting nearby, a result of his unpacking the diaper bag. he's getting really good at replacing the rings, almost always in the right order (usually only two or three and then he gets bored), and when it came time for the yellow one, he tried putting the cheerios container on instead! he was on the right track- it's yellow and round. unfortunately, i was too busy laughing to grab the camera right away, so i didn't get a photo of him doing it... but you get the idea. and yesterday, when cole was reaching for the camera (off-limits, but he seems to be able to climb his way to almost anything that strikes his fancy for the moment), i said "cole, NO" and he looked at me, shook his head 'no', and went for the camera again. sassy, but SO cute!!! that's the first time he's done it, but i'm sure there will be plenty of sassy head-shaking in the future!

we went with nate to the skydive arizona jump base today- he had to take one of his parachutes in, so we tagged along. we stayed to watch two plane-loads of skydivers, and cole actually watched them come in for landing! it was really neat- we were about 10 feet from the land area (i think it's the biggest solid grass area in arizona- i've forgotten what big lawns look like) so we got to see them up close. they also have a windtunnel there, so we saw that for a little while. free entertainment... and enjoyable! next on the agenda is dinner out (also with nate) at eva's, a mexican restaurant near here, which nate raves about. i'm up for some GOOD mexican food- the last place we tried was nasty... i was very surprised that we didn't all get sick! seriously- when we went to ochoa's, kelvin and i ordered taco salads- there was about an inch-deep puddle of grease from the meat in the bottom and it wasn't too tasty. that, and the service was pretty lazy. needless to say, that outting didn't rank high on our list of "let's do it again". but- when you're with good friends, it's ok- tonight should be much better!

you got home HOW??

• **this post involves pregnancy and anatomy related humor, so if it makes you squeamish, please skip this post!!!**

anyhoo, as anyone who is or ever was pregnant, along with their significant others knows, hormones do strange things to your body- namely, your boobs. those veins that all of a sudden get super noticeable overnight that many pregnancy books will fondly refer to as "road maps"? well, since we're heading for the road once again, that whole "road map" term has been on my mind. the way i see it, if we lose the atlas and the tom-tom, it won't be that big of a deal... i can just peel up my shirt so kelvin can take a look- "hmmmm... oh, yup, there's the interstate. thanks, you can put 'em away now." in my mind, there's a really funny little 'video' that plays along with the dialogue; you'd have to be in my head to fully appreciate the humor.

so, since nothing earth-shattering has happened in our arid little corner of the continent, i thought i'd muster up the bravery to share that little tidbit with you all. like i said, you'd have to have experienced pregnancy (or lived with a pregnant spouse) to really understand the humor. as for the hormones, it would seem that they tend to affect one's sense of humor as much as physical anatomy... hope someone got a laugh out of it! i know i did...