Thursday, March 28, 2013

Its been crazy trying to find time to write about Cole and the past month of his life, but I'm finally getting down to it. Much like the past few months, Cole has been growing and changing bit by bit.

I mentioned last month that he was teething and since then he's been rocking 12 teeth. His molars look like giant chicklets stuck in his gums. Its really funny to see him smile and laugh and see those giant molars in the back of his mouth.

Cole had his 1 year checkup a little later than his first birthday, but with it came some updated stats. He's still little guy, only in the 20th/25th percentiles for his height/weight and head size. So he's definitely small, but the doctor said based on my height and Jenn's that we should expect him to even out around 5'8" by the time he's an adult. So thats good to hear.

He's still cruising around things, and his little jello legs, as I call them aren't helping him learn to walk any better. I'm sure he'll get there, but for now he seems very content to crawl every where he wants to go. As for food, now that we've hit the year mark, we've got the green light for all foods, and that boy eats. Eats like a man. He definitely eats way more than Abbi. And for a lot longer.

Overall, month 13 has been very similar to the last 12, all pretty awesome. Its great to see another kid growing up thats mine, but at the same time so vastly different from his sister.

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Friday, March 15, 2013

This is another picture of one of the kids while we were out. We've spent a good bit of time out shopping these past few weekends gearing up for an upcoming vacation. He was playing in the cart, having a good ol time too. This face you see here, this is very often the face of Cole. Just laughing about something, and being a happy little boy.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013

I think two weeks ago when we went out shopping over the weekend Abbi was obsessed about pretending to be the "mom". I was the dad and Jenn was the kid and Cole was the baby. This scenario went on for at least and hour and half. Its a cute scenario, that she thoroughly enjoys. I personally think she likes being in charge the most, but I'm not certain. This picture came about because she was wearing the "Mom" sunglasses for full effect.

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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

One morning Cole decided to unroll the toilet paper. I wasn't around and Jenn took this picture. It cracks me up to see his face and see how proud of himself he is for making such a mess. If you don't watch him closely Cole definitely gets into things he would be better off staying away from. Such a little boy.

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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Abbi's at the age where she's curious about everything, and touches everything. While we were in Target the other day she saw these bunny ears and had to put them on. Which of course meant I had to get a quick picture of it. My little cuttie.

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Monday, March 4, 2013

The look on Cole's face here is perfect. So often these days there is look of mischievousness on Coles face. And you can see it here perfectly. If you tell him not to do something, he'll look at you, smile and then often do it anyways. He's clearly playing with us, and having fun, but its also interesting to think about it from an adult perspective with regards to what kind traits it shows for Cole to have this type of personality.

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Friday, March 1, 2013

This has been a trying month with Abbi. I think with the grand observance of Cole's first birthday, Abbi has struggled to feel as important as she wants to feel, and so we often find her acting out in a way to get the attention that she wants.

She constantly asks Jenn to hold her, something I think is directly related to the fact that Jenn holds Cole often. Abbi will get very upset if she doesn't get her way, often creating a mini-tantrum to express her displeasure. Unfortunately we've been struggling to figure out exactly how to deal with these displays. We're working, and its definitely hard. Its hard for me as a dad, because it just doesn't make sense. She could definitely get what she wanted if she acted in a more calm/rationale way, something she does understand, but clearly at 3.5 can't really turn on and use all the time.

From a development perspective her writing and drawing has taken some massive steps forward. She's moved on from drawing random lines on the page to drawing shapes and collections of shapes that represent different things to her. She often tries to replicate things that actually exist, and does a decent job. Also, she's now coloring inside the lines. This wasn't something we ever stressed, it just kinda happened naturally. One day we kinda noticed that she was basically staying inside the lines. Its probably related, at least somewhat, to the way we color with her, obviously inside the lines.

Abbi is also doing better at writing her name, and we're working with her on recognizing different letters of the alphabet. I'll say this - its definitely an uphill learning curve.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of my little girl and smile. She impresses me, CONSTANTLY. Every day she seems to do things that are more and more amazing. She's doing fantastically in dance and rainbows and really seems to like both of the activities. I just can't believe how quickly time is going by. For her I'm sure it seems like forever between birthdays, but for me it seems to speed by way to fast.

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