Flying Solo

 

We did it! Collin, Tate, and I flew to South Carolina to visit my family for a week. My dad bought us the tickets and Collin had the time of his life riding a REAL airplane!

I was a little worried about flying alone, but since I had never really done it before I had no idea what to expect and therefore, what to really worry about. It could have been WAY worse, but lets just say you haven't lived until you spend 5 hrs in an airport with a 2 yr. old who announces every 5 min. (very loudly) that they have to poop or pee, chase a two yr. old into the busy men's restroom, get sprayed in the face with yucky toilet water, and then try and use the restroom yourself with a 20 pound 4 month old strapped to you, and a 2 yr. old who thinks that everything shiny in the restroom needs to be touched and that the reason the bottom of the stalls are open is so that you have easy access to your neighbor. Yep, that's real living right there :)  

We did make it alive though and the worse thing we caught was a little head cold.

 (Which is very surprising considering how many things Collin ate off the floor)

We had lots of fun with my family that week.

Collin LOVES his uncle Logan and the fact that Logan built him a huge fort under the dinning room table, might have sealed Logan as the "uncle of the year" in Collin's mind.

(please excuse these next set of photos. I guess my lens was blurry :(

 Collin got to hand feed Aunt Tori's ducks everyday! 

 Uncle Logan taught Collin a mean game of "chase the ducks"

Collin also enjoyed chasing the three cats around.

He would probably live with them if I would let him.

 Aunt Tori bought Tate a matching SC shirt.

 Collin and papa grilled for us

We call Tate "lil Lonnie because he looks so much like my dad.

Collin and Sam 

(a neighbor who is just a few years older than Collin. They got along pretty well)

 Getting some grandma lov'in

My dad made Collin a car for their Ward Pinewood Derby and let Collin paint it. I'm not sure how Collin managed to paint himself with 4 adults around...

  

Collin wanted a Lightning McQueen car so that's what he got. It didn't go very fast but Collin didn't care. He just liked watching it run down the track.

 

 Hanging with Uncle Bryce

 Collin crawled beside his papa for a snuggle so I had to take a picture since this kid does Not snuggle.

 15 min. later I realized the reason for the snuggling. This was probably the only nap he got the entire trip.

 And of course at night he just played till he dropped.

 Someone got into Aunt Tori's jewelry  and had to put on every single necklace :)

I'm saving this for future blackmail

Hopefully we can visit again soon

And Just Where Have You Been?

Where have we been all month? 

I really don't have any good excuse as to why I haven't posted in FOREVER.

 Don't worry though, you're about to get a overload of posts in the next few days :)

 My "second parents" the Brinkle's happened to be in Florida last month and stopped by for a visit. Collin and Tate both took to them very quickly. I'm so glad they stopped by to see us. I really really enjoyed their visit. It made me realize how much I miss this family.

We LOVE us some Brinkle's!!!

Collin has been conducting several science experiments. 

The first were these Magic Bubbles!

I found the directions on how to make them here

Just dish soap and water!

These were so awesome! We had so much fun blowing and playing with these.

 Did I mention how huge they got???

Know what happened in these next two pictures? 

Tasty :)

 We also worked on mixing colors. I let him do this all on his own. His face was priceless when he mixed the two colors together and made orange. It was like magic! (unfortunately I didn't catch it)

I caught Collin and Tate sharing a private joke. I was standing right there, but I never could figure out what was so funny. Probably some joke at my expense :)

 Michael and Collin reading bedtime stories under his blanket.

There's nothing sexier.....I mean more attractive (my mom reads this blog so better keep it clean) than a man who plays with his children.

 See what I mean!?

 Oh yeah, Collin got a buzz. I think I was more traumatized than he was. I made one too many mistakes when cutting his hair which forced us to take drastic measures. I was so sad. Thank goodness hair grows back. And he still looks cute in my opinion.

 And to end our blog post, I leave you with this picture.

I went to get Collin up one morning and walked in to find this. I started getting scared until I saw a little hand. Who sleeps like that? Well, besides Collin.

 It doesn't get much cuter than this.

 Oh wait! There's a baby in a hat!

Our friends, the Hall's, were nice enough to let us tag along at Disney this past Monday. It was Tate's first time! 

Collin had to wear his Toy Story shirt for the special occasion.

 They took us to the new fantasy land since we hadn't seen it yet. LOVE the way they remodeled the new Dumbo ride. Now they just give you a pager and your kids can play in the play area until it's your turn. I wish every ride was like that...

We visited Gaston's Tavern which was really cool. 

 The Halls

We rode the Little Mermaid ride which Collin liked.

 

And then stayed for the fireworks. Collin really got into them. I was afraid Tate might cry since we were really close and it was really loud but when I turned to look, I found him just like this. 

It was a fun night. Thanks Halls!

I Like My Babies Like I Like My Soup: Thick and Chunky!

I know you shouldn't compare your children, but how can you help it when your children are as different as night and day!?

I've always heard parents tell their children that they don't have favorites and that they love all their children the same. Now that I have two kids of my own, that phrase has held new meaning for me. I have the same amount of love for both my boys, but I don't LOVE them the same.

For instance, Tate gets the biggest smile on his face when I attack his face with kisses. He lights up when I talk to him and will "talk" back as long as I'm willing to keep the conversation going. He hates being alone and loves to snuggle!

Collin on the other hand, will only give and receive hugs and kisses when HE wants to. Even when he's hurt he just wants a quick hug and that's it. If you hold on too long he pushes away. Cuddling is a rare, and I mean rare, thing for him. He likes people and enjoys interacting with them, but he's just as happy to play alone.

Because I am a hugger and cuddler myself, I found that I was gravitating more towards Tate. I felt like I spent more time hugging and kissing on him than I did with Collin and I started to feel guilty. 

Maybe that meant I loved Tate more? I didn't want that! Collin is my first baby and is irreplaceable.

It took me a while to realize that just because I love on Tate more, it doesn't mean I love him more. It just means I love him differently. If I loved on Collin as much as I love on Tate, there would be a really annoyed 2 yr old running around the house and I don't think our relationship would be as close as it is right now. :)

I love on Tate because he likes it and responds well to it. I show Collin love by doing things that he likes, like playing trains or dancing. (He's quite the dancer)

I still struggle with this daily. My natural instinct as a mother, and a hugger, is to show physical love. Sometimes I still feel like I'm a bad mom if I don't show a certain amount of physical affection.

I'm still learning that it's not important to give Collin "x" amount of hugs a day, what's important is making sure I'm there to give him that one hug when he needs it most.

Aaaaaand, this wasn't what I intended to write about at all when I sat down at my computer. I was going to write about how Tate weighs 15 pounds now! (hence the title of the post) 

anyways, if you're still reading, here's the rest of the pictures from this week.

 Collin became a little scientist when he helped me experiment with my Singing Time activity for Sunday. I found this cool idea online where you write the song they're learning on the board with colored chalk and then have a child come up and stir the magic potion into the jar. Whatever color the water turns, that's the color you erase on the board. Then you sing the song with the missing words. It went over really well! 

Click here for more details on how the game is played.

 After Collin helped me with my experiment, I let him do his own experimenting.

 I have taken down all of my Christmas stuff but have yet to put it back in the attic. Everything has been haphazardly placed in our spare room. Collin went in there the other day and dragged out his nativity set. I was somewhat hesitant because the pieces get spread all over the house and then it takes me forever to locate them again, but when I saw what he did with it my heart was softened. I love how everyone is gathered around looking at baby Jesus. Sometimes he knows more than I give him credit for :)

 We went to the park earlier this week and I cracked up! Everytime Collin went down the slide his hair frizzed! This one little girl looked very concerned when she saw it. It was hilarious.

 And then Collin got sick :( He ran a low grade fever for about 24 hrs. so we stayed home and did a lot of coloring.

 I got so tired of trying to shove broken crayons back into the box that I decided to do the famous "crayon melt" everyone seems to be doing. Yeah, not as impressed as I thought I would be. They're big and bulky and hard to color with. But Collin loves them! He's been carrying them around ALL day! And that's the important thing right? I put the crayons in muffin tins so they wouldn't mess up my cupcake pan and they ended up looking like Reese's cups. Which is probably why Collin tried to eat it several seconds after I handed it to him :)Whoops.

 And as a side note, I find it funny that, that boy can peel paper off a crayon in 10 seconds after I've just told him not to, but when I WANT him to peel the paper off he suddenly needs help every 3 seconds. Very suspicious.

Anyways, look who's lifting his head!

He army crawled off his blanket last night. No lie! He did it while face planting, but we were still pretty impressed.