Merry Christmas

Although he was shy this year, Colin did oblige Santa with a huge hug!

"Yeah, I Can Fly"

Recently Colin has been into making masks and taping them to his face. At school he made a 'spiderman' mask and taped what looked like cuffs to his wrists to shoot webs.

Here he is constructing his Iron Man suit.




Note the light up Spiderman boots from his daddy. The boys were lost in Target and came home with this purchase.

Nap Time?

Not sure what was happening during nap time.

Carving Two-Face

Colin chose to create a happy face and angry face on his pumpkin (the one from Gretchen's farm!).

T-O-L...

...E-D-O! Go Rockets!
Eh? Who knew? Anyway, we were in Toledo last weekend visiting the family and the University of Toledo had their homecoming parade that Saturday afternoon. Colin joined Zoe and some of her gal pals in the neighborhood with huge bags to collect candy. I was informed that when the kids cheer the college kids, alumni, etc, toss out candy. I didn't realize how much candy.





This was Colin's first parade experience and first candy collection. After watching the girls, he quickly caught on to the gig. All of them ended up with pounds of sugar!

It was a fun parade. The theme was the Wild Midwest; Sweet Home Toledo. Floats, clowns, horses, the marching band...it was a good time and the weather was perfect.

Down on the Farm

We went to visit Aunt Gretchen at the organic farm where she's been an intern for the summer. It was a great weekend, sunny and in the 80's. Bill and G's cousin Stacy and her two kids, Luke and Grace made the trip as well.

We piled on to horse drawn wagons to pick turnips to feed the sheep. Colin was very proud of his turnip picking prowess.




We saw the pumpkin patch where we'd later select an orange squash or two. Also along the way was Reggie, the huge pappa pig! He came up to the fence to snort a hello.

The kids enjoyed feeding the baby pigs (they were well beyond the piglet stage and close to being bacon time!), chasing the chickens, petting the horses Sam, Ruby and Clementine, and mooing at the two cows.



A fun though exhausting day. Colin really ran off a lot of energy playing (and no nap!). Thanks Gretchen for hosting us for a whole day!

Love at the Disco

Uncle Russ brought a dance video game to the lake and we hooked it up to the kinect. You follow the dance moves and score points. Colin fell in love with one of the avatars...Emelia I think was her name. Some hoochie mama. Here is Colin bustin' a move to Laga Gaga and dancing with his beloved Emelia.

The Stand Up Comic

Colin told his first joke.

I was in the wine shop (where else?) and Nana Sheila was waiting in the car with Colin. As I approached the counter to pay, they could see me through the store front window.
Colin asked, "Is that my mom?"
Nana answered yes.
"Is she paying the bill?"
Nana answered yes.
"Is she paying the shannon?"
My mom turned to him and said that he just told a funny joke.
He replied, "Stop talking to me, Nana."
And that was that.

Then...On To Being Goofy

Colin has taught himself to burp on command...his command. Not sure if this is one more thing he's picked up from the big kids in his class, but I'm not amused.

Other funny-isms.

If he doesn't get his way, you are not his best friend anymore. Nice. I just say, "Nope, I'm your mom".

We spent the night at Nana Mary and Papa Beard's house before heading up to the Lake. Upon arrival Colin greeted them with big hugs and then asked, "Where are all my cousins?" For in his more recent memory there was a house full of relatives visiting for the holidays.

He is eager to be 4 years old so he can be bigger and faster.

Colin is definitely comfortable with technology and expects everything to work like an Ipad. He was touching the graphics of the NASCAR race on Kathy and John's TV trying to move them out of the way. On the way to the Lake he was getting ready to watch a movie on his travel DVD player and asked, "Where is the YouTube? I wanna watch a show." And, he's found all the game apps on my Ipod.

Some tough questions

"Mommy, am I going to die?"
Ummm....long pause.
Well, yes, after a long, long, long time, everyone dies. Elephants, birds, bugs, people...
"I don't want to die. Why do I have to die?"
You don't have to worry about it for a long time. After many birthdays, probably not until you're 99 yrs old and a grandpa.
"I'm scared to die."
It's okay to be scared. I don't like to think about it either.
"How do I die?"
After many years and many birthdays, our bodies slowly stop working and sort of like closing our eyes, we die.
He hunches his body over. "Like this?"
I guess so. I don't really know what it's like to die.
"Then do we come back new? As a new person?"
Some people do believe you come back new as a person. Some people believe you can come back new as an animal. There are lots of ideas of what happens after we die.
"I want to come back new."
Okay, me too.

So unprepared for these conversations with my always processing 3 year old.

Lake Week 2011

We enjoyed great weather for Lake Week 2011. Most everyone was able to make it in for some or all of the week. Colin loved having Zoe and Justis to play with and only beat up on them a few times. Naptimes and bedtimes were an after thought as we swam most days and chased fireflies at night. By the end of the week Colin was very comfortable "swimming" when loaded up with his life jacket and water wings.

Colin was convinced to go on the boats when we said he could drive. I picked up some kid-sized gardening gloves at the Hidden Lakes gardens, and he used those as his driving gloves, weeding gloves, and super hero blasting gloves.






Midweek, we gave Colin a haircut. It was meant to happen in two stages. The first stage was a faux hawk to let us get started. Then he loved it so much he didn't want to sit for another trim. However, he didn't want his hair spiked, so it was an odd looking faux hawk. We have yet to get him to Great Clips for a clean up. Justis liked it and asked Uncle Bill to buzz him down too. In the photo below Colin is sitting in his old excersaucer still at the lake. I don't know how he still fits (sorta), but you can see his lovely hairdo.

Dinos and Diggers

Nana Sheila was visiting for the weekend and we took her to COSI to see the Dinosaur exhibit and Construction trucks.




Colin liked the dinosaur activities, but was very wary of the big moving dinosaurs. The T-Rex did appear to keep his eyes on you.

Graduation, sort of...

Colin and his fellow Penguins at school put on a dance show for their end of the year celebration. They danced and sang to some of their favorite songs. Their teachers, Anne and Jackie, videotaped the performances and shared with the parents. It was quite entertaining to see how they corralled 8 toddlers for several songs, showcasing some skirmishes, tussles, and yelling. Funny. For their special performance they worked on making tie-dyed t-shirts.

Below: Colin and his class, and then Colin with his buddies Ingrid and Addie. The "Big 3" as they were called moved up to the Bunny Room two weeks ago. We are still having some morning battles getting him to go to his new classroom, but he doesn't want to leave at the end of the day. So, I think he's okay.

The Spelling CP

So, as Bill put it, "the safety net is gone!" No more spelling words in front of Colin to have an adult conversation.

The other night, getting him ready for bed, Colin had a sore, red bum from a bout of diarrhea. As we were prepping with some aquaphor, Bill mumbles to me something about Colin's "a-s-s" and how quickly it gets a rash. The conversation moved on and the next day Colin's bum was looking better.

The next morning, we're getting ready for school and Colin asks Bill, "What did you say about my bum yesterday? My bum was red and you said something." Neither of us really recalled the conversation, and Bill said, "Your bum was red and we put cream on it." "Dad, you said a-s-s. What is that?" We couldn't look at each other. :) Fortunately, Bill came up with some explanation talking about his bum and then moved the conversation to one of the books in the bathroom about boats and that they say S.O.S. when someone is in trouble. Hopefully, the attention diversion buys us some more time. Or, he'll use it at Daycare much to their surprise.

Seriously, he's three and already we can't spell in front of him? Oy!

School Transition

Colin is in his last week of being a Penguin at school. He and a few classmates move up to the Bunny room next week. He's been talking about becoming a Bunny for months and one of his 'best buds' is already a Bunny. That was until the transition started -visits to the Bunnies and getting to know his new teachers. Colin hit the brakes! He definitely needs time to assess the new situation and I think he finally realized what it's going to mean to be a Bunny: new room, new (older) friends and new teachers. He doesn't want to leave his favorite teacher, his love, Annie.

We've been talking about the changes and that they can be scary and different, but he's going to be okay...I explained that this is his last week as a Penguin and that next Monday he moves to the Bunny room. He thought about it for a minute and said, "I think I'll take that day off."

I think we are going to have a few weeks of rough transition, then he'll be fine.

Mother's Day 2011

Colin's class made chex mix (their favorite snack) for their moms' surprise gift. Colin made a special card that read:
"I wanna make a painting for Mommy. I love my Mommy. My Mommy's pretty. My Mommy has a vacuum." Love, Colin.

This is interesting because I don't think he's seen me use the vacuum. Ever. (ha ha.)

The weather was great, meaning it wasn't raining. So we took a walk at the Park of Roses. We brought Colin's big wheel --and a stroller in case he pooped out.
He rode the whole time on his own.

This morning, however, he did tell Bill his stomach hurt. Bill thought it may be because he needed to go #2, but Colin said, no, it was from riding his big wheel on the loooong walk! I showed him some stretches to see if it would help.

Easter 2011

We enjoyed a fun, though chilly, weekend with my family. Colin was so eager to meet Baby Lucas and asked several times to hold him. Thank goodness he's a mellow baby, poor 'lil guy. Colin and Lexi did great together too.

It took a minute for the kids to get hopped up on the idea of an Easter egg hunt.







Lexi begged off greeting the Easter Bunny and we thought we could get out of the line. Colin was insistent on sitting on the Bunny's lap for a photo. He didn't want to leave his new BFF.



At the Children's Museum. They had a great time playing together.

Awww...We Love Spring!

"Great day for a mow!"

Jungle Gym update

Two new things Colin has learned playing on the climber:

1) do not trip on that one tall blade of grass running to the climber, hitting your face on the bar, causing a bloody nose;

2) and flipping!

Climber

We were debating once again whether or not to pick up a swing set for the backyard when I remembered that AJ and I grew up with a jungle gym that we made a climber, fort, swing, etc. After some internet searching we found what we were looking for. As promised, Saturday we assembled the 5x10 climber. Colin was a big help, eager to see the project completed.




It's pvc instead of the old metal ones I grew up with. So, little hands won't get burned on the hot metal in the summertime.





Colin liked to say how much he was exercising and that he was doing new tricky tricks!