2012

Happy New Year a few weeks late.  Happy MLK day.  Illness has struck the Coleman household again.  Jr. came down with the WORST cough I have ever heard.  It is only a matter of time before it works its way through the whole house.  Ed was gone in Missoula this weekend, so that was tough, but Nanny came to help out - and save Graham from being set outside with a sign reading "Perfectly good white baby."  I kid.  Sort of.

Poor Jr. is so sick and I am exhausted so what does Les Dastardly Bebe do?  Terrorize us both to our wits end.  I am not even kidding.  We would get up and move to the basement where he would be playing, he would then get up and go upstairs to empty out the pantry.  Jr. and I would move upstairs to play with Graham and he would empty the toy basket, rip all of the books off of the shelves, take whatever toy Jr. was playing with, throw a temper tantrum, throw all of the crayons on the floor, color on the wall and then crawl back downstairs to throw blocks at the TV.  We would beg him to stay with us and play nicely and he would yell "NOOOOO!" and run away.  This went on for about 6 hours. . .

Don't be fooled by the cuteness.  He is a little stinker.

Thank god Nanny showed up.  Things mellowed considerably.  And now, it appears the plague has moved onto Graham. 

Take me outside.

Sometimes I feel like we are always sick and have brief moments of wellness.  I swear they are fed well, get good sleep and are generally clean.  They go to a small daycare and rarely play in the contagion places like the kids museum or carousel.  What are we doing wrong?

Graham and his BFF, Nanny.

For our New Years, I took the boys and went to GF to spend time with Nanny, Dan, Uncle Bean, Faith (Doodie), and Treyson.  The boys played HARD, and had a blast.  Ed stayed home to work on the infinity garage.  I call it infinity garage because the work on it is never ending. 

He wanted to have his photo take with his new ball cannon.  It is VERY popular, but the boys have a hard time taking turns.

Developmental news on the boys:  Jr. is telling the most fascinating stories.  He has this great little imaginary life where he is married to Anabella, they have a baby, Frances, and somewhere between 5-10 cats that you can ride and they don't even get mad.  They live in a lovely purple and brick house near Paris.  He works in a place that has a lot of bears and he can watch zombie movies there.  My favorite was when we were in GF and I was trying to get Jr. to fall asleep in the bed with me, he told me that he and Anabella sleep with their baby and the baby kicks him all night IN THE NUTS!

Graham is talking.  He repeats the same words loudly!  Daddy!, Nanny!, Eddy!, Gaga (Virginia)!, NO!, Dog!, and sometimes, Mama!  He loves to dance and is quite the comedian.  He has to do everything his brother does.  I mean EVERYTHING.  It drives Jr. bonkers.  He constantly asks me - "why does Graham have to do everything I do?"  Because you are his favorite person.  Graham is all boy too.  Balls, blocks, guns, sticks, rocks, bugs and football.  He yells at the TV - "Go GO GO GO GO!"   It is super cute.

Oh and a happy belated birthday to Grandma Sheila.  We hope you had a wonderful cruise!  XOXOXO

Christmasdiculousness

We had a tremendous Christmas!  It lasted for a week at least and the Coleman brothers made out like bandits.  Seriously, those two are spoiled and very loved.  Thank you everyone for making us feel so special!

In my haste, I didn't get to post all of the holiday photos I wanted to.  Here are more.

He insists on sitting in chairs like his big brother.  Part cute, part danger watch.

Every day Graham throws a dance party on the couch/ottoman/chair.

He is actually growling.  Check out the video.

Dance party interrupted by brother hugs.

Wrestle hugs.

Can you see his little curls at the base of his head.  Plus his hair is redder and redder every day.

Seriously handsome - right?

Haunticka - it went by fast!

Riding the bison at the carousel.

Sharing an after Santa, after carousel ice cream cone.

Bear hug.

Mr. Blue Eyes.

Mountain goat.

Christmas Eve, Adrienne, Amelia and Kim came over to celebrate with us.  She is that cute in real life too.

They are very sweet together. 

Luckily Adrienne went along with Jr.'s EXTENSIVE instructions on how to build with blocks.

NEW HATS!  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

I can't get enough of these hugs!

Coleman(men)

Jr. was working on getting his camera set up to take a family photo of his own.

Christmas morning.  Graham opened one gift and just wanted to play with it.  Jr. opened EVERY gift in the house.  Like it was his job.

Video for Uncle Ock and Aunt Patty.



After presents Jr. got to play on the deck sans shoes.  It was like we were celebrating Christmas in Florida or something.



Nanny, Papa Dan and Uncle Bean showed up to extend Christmas cheer.

So many presents!  Jr. got a scooter and Graham got a bouncy car.  See below.

Worlds worst Christmas present, he cried for 30 minutes because we couldn't get the ball out of the car.  So sad.  He kept crying "Ball"  "Ball" "Ball". Video.

Holiday 2011

Happy Merry Christmas New Years!

Love the Colemans

He asked for a Mater that drives in the woods.

Graham asked that we get him away from this crazy nut IMMEDIATELY!

Where are we?

Living at Grandpa Bill's (Papa) and Streganona's (Nona) while Daddy and Mikey and Walt tear out our old kitchen (done as of Friday) and install our new kitchen (may be done this Friday????).

Background, we were not able to get a new house, so my consolation prize is a new kitchen. No, it is not bigger, but it was supposed to maximize storage space and open up the door way to allow people in our living room to communicate with the people in the kitchen. I had a beautiful kitchen picked out that was basically a dream. Apparently there was a "miscommunication" AKA I expressly said I wanted and Mikey didn't listen and ordered the ugliest cabinets I have ever seen. The style is right, but the color is pure awful.

What I have.

What I wanted. I am livid. No, we can't stain them. Paint is an option. We are definitely getting some new furniture to try to blend our oak furniture with "natural maple" AKA vomit color cabinets. I feel like I am living in college again with mix and match crap furniture. They even look bad with our hardwood floors.

Junior had a kind of a tough time transitioning into living at Papa and Nonas. He is finally getting the knack of it. It has been wonderful spending so much time with them. I don't even want to move home. They are so awesome to let us stay with them and take such great care of us.

I don't know when we will be home. Maybe this weekend. Maybe. The bright side is that we are getting a new fridge out of the deal. Very excited about that.

Jr. misses his dad so much. He also misses home and is tired of spending his evenings at Home Depot.

Postcards from the Edges

We took four days to celebrate Eds and my birthday. We took off for Yellowstone and hit Grand Teton National Park before coming home.

Long story short. We had an amazing time. Here are some of my favorite photos.

I promise to write more soon. I have a job interview tomorrow and Ed is bogarting the good computer so it takes FOREVER to upload photos.

The baby no, little boy, was sleeping so we snuck out for a photo shoot.

It was pretty chilly and little man doesn't have any mittens, so we had to put socks on his hands to keep them warm.

Old Faithful. Or as Jr. calls it "HOT!"

It is hard to catch Jr. running unless he is RUNNING STRAIGHT TOWARD YOU! Look out!

Yellowstone fire. We luckily got through it to see a new corner of the park and get to the Tetons.

Our family in front of some hot pots. "Hot!"
You can't see it from this photo, but the Tetons were on fire too. Everywhere we went - fire.
This might be my most favorite photo of all time. He is everything to us. Everything.