The Best Part of My Day!

When I hear happy "singing" coming through the baby monitor in the morning I know my sweet little man is up and my sweet dreams are now over. Although I know it will be constant going and going... at least until nap time... it's still the best part of my day.

With a kid this cute, how could it NOT be!?
Here are some of my favorite moments with Collin.

Bath time!

Collin's new bath-time trick is to throw all the foam letters out of the bathtub before you can put them back in. I love how excited he gets when he hears the bath water running. I think he likes bath time so much because it's the only time I let him go completely naked. That boy does everything he can to get away from me before I can put a diaper back on him and grunts his disapproval when I finally catch him. I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do once he learns to undress himself...

I also love watching him play with his best friend Gromit. Sometimes he crawls into his room and tries to get Gromit from his crib by pulling him through the bars. When I finally lift Gromit out and give it to him he starts bouncing up and down and attacks Gromit with kisses. He then lugs Gromit around the house my dragging him by the ear. (as you can see in the picture above)

And of course the day I found him in his room surrounded by books I was the proudest parent! It's sure proof that he's a Boyd :)

Collin LOVES Baby Einsteins movies too. He sits there for the entire 30 minutes just watching. And of course I take full advantage of our cuddle time :)

Dinner time for us is often dinner and a show. Collin LOVES food and is often impatient when he doesn't get it right away. It cracks us up watching him shove the food in his mouth as fast as he can and grunt for more even before he swallows.

I also love watching him interact with other babies. He just loves them! Usually they are trying to get away from him as fast as they can because the kid has no sense of personal boundaries and can be quite smothering. We like to stick him in front of the mirror so he can see his reflection. He gets so excited and tries to touch the baby. Just today I showed him his reflection and said "Say hi to baby Collin." And he started laughing and waving. I just can't get enough of him!

All Boys love Balls, Bears and Bubbles!

Bears say ROAR!

Collin loves to climb and wrestle with his huge bear "Uncle" Norm gave him.

Every time he spots a camera he smiles and strikes a pose. Learning a little young I think.

He gets so excited for bubbles!

But his favorite toy is his ball. He will play with that thing all day. He loves to throw it and then crawl after it. It's only gotten him into a few tight spots. (literally) Like the time I was doing laundry and was letting him play with the ball at my feet. He threw it between the washer and dryer and then went to try and get it. The space between the two is only a foot wide if even that. He got through it though, but the problem came when he tried to get himself out. He had no room to turn around and I guess he hasn't figured out how to reverse yet.

Hey Mom, Look What I Can Do!

Today I was washing the dishes and loading them into the dishwasher to dry when I happened to look down. I couldn't believe what I saw!
Somehow, without making any noise, the cautious boy who whimpers when we so much as try to get him to pull himself up into a standing position, was now sitting on my dishwasher lid!
I placed him safely back on the floor only to watch open mouthed as he immediately used the lid to stand up and then crawl onto it again.
Apparently Collin only does things when HE'S ready. And then does them a little too well. :)

Collin and his PEEPS

My family came to stay with us for two weeks this month and I thought I had been really good at taking pictures while they were here, but sadly I didn't do as good as I thought I did :(


The previous owners of the house left their Satellite dish on the side of the house so my parents brought their receiver with them and hooked it up so that we could have satellite T.V. while they were here! There was one MAJOR stipulation to this deal though...
At 5pm mom got complete control of the T.V. so she could watch Glenn Beck. We then listened to her talk to Glenn throughout the show saying things like, "I agree!" or "You tell um' Glenn!" At one point I looked over at my little brother Logan with raised eyebrows. He said, "She does this all the time."

One night my family went to visit my Aunt and Uncle and while they were gone Michael and I were enjoying flipping through ALL the different channels. We finally settled on a show and 15 min. later as soon as it turned 10pm the satellite cut off. My dad had programed it that way so that my younger siblings couldn't watch anything past 10. We needed a password to unblock it and since we didn't know it we ended up reverting back to our local channels picked up by our antenna. We felt like teenagers being blocked that night :)

Michael and Collin taking advantage of 24/7 basketball.

Aunt Tori trying to persuade Collin to enjoy his pool.

We liked to keep the boys caged in one room. We've found that less destruction happens that way.

On my family's last night we got Italian ice from Jeremiah's. SOOOO yummy!
There's...
cookies and cream
peanut butter
Scoop Froggy Frog (mint chocolate chip)
blackberry raspberry
chocolate Gelatis
and Key West Tropical Gelatis

That's it, I'm off to have some left-overs :)

Yes We "CAN"!!!

My mom brought her sealer with her when she came to visit me so I could add a few more jars of sugar and rice to my food storage. She had also brought some sealer bags so to try them out we got a few items from the Bishop's storehouse.

We canned, or bagged

Apple slices...

Do we really have to do ALL these Grandma?

Re-fried Beans, and some of the yummiest cocoa ever!

Collin was ready to try all the yummy food. He had his tongue out practically the whole time.

If a hurricane hits us this year and we are stuck at home for a few days, at least we know we'll have re-fried beans and apple slices to snack on and cocoa to wash it down:)

To Swim or Not to Swim?

Grandpa got Collin a wading pool so we thought we'd get him used to it before taking him to the big pool...he wasn't to thrilled.

No amount of coaxing would change his mind

On daddy's day off we decided to venture out to the community pool despite Collin's reluctance. It's just too hot in Florida not to swim. We'll make him a water baby whether he likes it or not.

He didn't like it...

But after several minutes of fussing and a few distractions by uncle Logan...

He finally started to enjoy it!

Of course, his favorite part of the whole experience was snack time :)

HAPPY EASTER!

Happy Easter Morning!

The Easter Bunny dropped off some goodies for Collin!

Collin loved it when his Great-grandma, Great-Aunt and Grandma played catch with his Easter eggs with him.

Easter Egg Hunt at the Arnsdorff's!!!
300 eggs were hidden including one spotted egg.
The one who found the most eggs got the huge chocolate bunny in the picture below. (Bryce collected the most eggs. I guess his arms and the giant bunny are all that represent him in this picture) The won who found the polka dot egg got an iTunes gift card. Way to go Austin for finding the spotted egg!

Everyone else got to pick from the big bag of candy.

You just can't take some people out in public ;)

And of course it wouldn't be Easter without the traditional bunny cake!
(Made with love by Tori and Grandma)

We are so thankful for the opportunity to be with Family this Easter and even more thankful for our Savior Jesus Christ and the Atonement which brings so much happiness into our lives.