Staycation

Summer is almost over. School starts next week. We have a kid in school, and now I feel like I am committing to something for the rest of my life! Making lunches, waking up early, homework, should I be excited about this? You know how some people get the pre-wedding jitters, fear of committment? I feel like I have the pre-school jitters. I digress.....so all of a sudden on Saturday I freaked out a little, feeling like I needed to get all the fun out of my system before school started...so we tried to plan a fun getaway this week. I researched all the hotels and we WERE going to stay on the beach. Then, Sunday Cole was miserable, teething, sick, or something. I was adament we were still going, and then I checked the weather. Rain, Rainy, more rain. That's all it said. I gaveup. I was bummed. Two weeks ago our vacation to the keys got cancelled by the tropical storm....me and weather are not on good terms. The worst part? BOTH times, the weather prediction was wrong. The tropical storm disappeared right after we cancelled our reservations, and the rain here for this week.....nonexistent. COME ON!

Ok, moving on. Since I'm married to Mr. Optimistic, we decided to make "lemonade out of lemons" (those were his exact words). We headed out and had the most fun we could at home. We went bowling, which was a blast, and out to eat every meal (part of my request so I didnt' have to do dishes or clean.....like I was on vacation), and then we setup our tent inside and watched a movie, had cookies and milkshakes, and slept under....the ceiling fan. Well, Cole slept in his room, and the rest of us slept in the tent. It was a good time. It was cute listening to the kids tell people we were on a "staycation." The best part, no unpacking!

Any by the way, Cole is officially the cutest bowler ever. Here's a video. You had to be there, but still can't remember when I've laughed so hard.

Sandbar

We went out for a day on the boat with Rick's parents last weekend. We let the kids get in the water and "snorkel" for shells and help Rick catch a lobster. They loved it. We stopped by a sandbar on the way back in to swim, I was slighty distracted by the ominous storm that appeared to be heading our way.....but the captains of the boat (Rick and Grandpa T.) knew better, it missed us entirely. It was a great day.

COLE'S ONE!!!

Happy Birthday to our little "Cole-man!" It was his birthday yesterday and we had such a fun day celebrating with him. We kept it lowkey and just let him do the stuff he loves to do. We started off the morning with a visit from one of our friends, the garbageman. He's seen Carson and Cole growup, so it was only fitting for him to head up the day. Carson is training Cole to be a garbageman just like him, so it looks like I"ll be in for another five or six years of watching the truck. Yay. We swam, played outside, and played with Cole's new toys.

I was looking through Carson and Brynnli's books to see how they compared at the same age to Cole, and discovered that for Carson's first birthday we had a party with 35 people, Brynnli's had 15, and Cole's 7 (our family + Grandma and Gpa Tolbert). I guess if the pattern continues, if we have another kid we'll have to only invite half our family:)

Cole had a ball themed party because that's what he's into, anything he can carry or throw.

He LOVED eating his cake.

Cole has a blocked tear duct, which he'll have to have surgery on later this month. Most days it looks fine, but today it looked especially bad, like he got punched in the eye. Poor guy.

Swimming at Grandma and Grandpas

Cole's bday present, a firetruck ball pit

Cole's stats at 1 year:

Weight:22lbs

Height: 31 in.

Walked at 9 3/4 months

Waves, dances, loves music, playing outside, and anything with a ball.

Talking: Shakes his finger "no" and says "na na"when he's doing something hes not supposed to do. Mum, Da, "NUN"-Carson, maybe a few other words only we understand:)

He sleeps 8-7 FINALLY, and has two naps for 1.5 hours.

He's a happy guy and loves to follow the other two around.

Other than the morning when we swam, it rained all day. Cole woudl rather be outside than anywhere else in the world, so before bed I finally caved in and let him go out in the rain. It was just drizzling. He was so excited.

Can't believe my little baby is one. I really can't.

Cole's Birthday dance party

Road Trip

Cole was supposed to have some minor surgery done at the beginning of July and it ended up getting cancelled because he was a little congested, which is risky because of the anesthesia. Anyways, we decided instead to head out on a last minute road trip to North Carolina where Rick's parents have a house in the mountains. I begged Rick to fly me there.....the 11 hour drive with three little kiddos didn't sound like a great start to a vacation to me.....but he said it would be fine (which if you know Rick is pretty much his mantra for life), and it was. The kids were great. Here's the pics, in no particular order....but it was a great time, and well worth the drive.

No vacation would be complete without a stop to visit the local recycling center.....so that's what we did.

Cole spent the night on our way up to North Carolina in the bathtub of the hotel.....we didnt' have a packnplay and I wasn't shelling out 15 dollars to rent a nasty one....

We went on pony rides and to a petting zoo....

At some point on the trip, Cole decided it was time to get into EVERYTHING. He was in the cabinets....climbing on chairs....I guess he decided he was officially a big boy. Did I mention he starting walking about a month ago? Maybe I"ll blog that eventually...

The kids, especially Carson, LOVED putting out corn for the deer. When we left, Grandpa said he was going to have to put the deer on a diet becasue we'd fed them soo much corn. Needless to say we made lots of deer friends.

We took the kids mining for gems....they loved it. Brynnli wasn't so sure for five minutes or so about putting her hands in mud, but after that....

Once she found a pink gem in the mud, she was hooked.

We roasted smores and had a fire.....

We hiked a waterfall.....which was beautiful. We brought the kids swimsuits and they had a blast playing in it.....I was however a complete and nervous wreck....

I left Cole with Rick for two minutes to be brave and walk around with the kids in the waterfall, and this is what I looked over to.....my sweet Cole who I had been trying to keep dry (the water was freezing!) was soaked and chewing on a tree.

We were so excited this hummingbird stopped to drink long enough for us to take tons of pictures (usually they fly so fast you can barely see them)....until he was there way too long....we're not sure but maybe he got drunk and nectar and passed out....because he was still there the next morning (not with us anymore)....until Rick "helped" him fly back down below.

The kids had fun playing on the playground below the house and riding on the paddleboat....what is wrong with this picture? The only one who CAN'T swim is the one without the lifejacket.....I promise he was wearing one until I walked away for a second....RICK!!!

Carson learned to play horseshoes with Grandpa and daddy, and was pretty good.

Kids watching the deer (it's down there, just in the shadow...)

Watching the bats at night....

Cole getting into trouble....confiscated a Krispy Kreme doughnut off the table and LOVED it! We were there over the 4th of July too, but that will be it's own post. It was such a refreshing trip, and nice to have fun together. We might have to make it an annual thing.