Ock

Happy 40th Birthday Uncle Ock!

You may ask yourself, Uncle Ock? Yes, short for Buttock. As in John Jr. referred to his brother's head looking like a Butt-Ock and it stuck.

Anyway, we hope your birthday is a smash! I hope this works in-lieu of a birthday card. We are basically living by the seat of our pants these days - forget planning ahead.

Swinger Baby - Yeah!

After months of our wintery indoor prison (minus the trip to Florida) we are getting out. Jr. loves going to the park and apparently loves swinging. Loved it for at least 30 minutes straight.







Adrienne and Carter met us at the park for a little chilly fun in the sun. We played outside a lot - it was lovely. We also celebrated with our friend Sara on her 30th birthday. He told me Sara was pretty and nice.

He was in a fantastic mood all weekend, maybe it was the fresh air or the supreme naps, but he was a sugar baby all weekend. At night when I put him to bed now not only do we have to mooch, but we have to high five and fist bump. He speaks so clearly.



The other morning he told me that there was a baby in Junior's belly. He is going to name it "Baby Sister" and that the baby is SO BIG - SO BIG!

Speaking of the big baby, Carrot boy is kicking me right now thanks to the ice cream I just ate. My stomach is getting really heavy and I can hardly cross my legs anymore.

P.S. Happy Birthday Uncle Jon! We are really excited for this weekend!

Half Way There!

Banana Boy is at 20 weeks. That is half way to 40 weeks. That is half way to mid July. Half way to our next huge life changing event. Half way to falling head over heels in love with a new baby boy.

Speaking of baby boys. Friday night Carter came over to play. Janeen and I couldn't help ourselves and put the boys into the bath together. Carter lasted for about 10 seconds and then was OUT. Janeeen and I then dressed the boys in identical outfits and swooned over their adorableness.



Jr. had a fantastic weekend with his Nanny, Uncle Bean and Faith in town. There was a fantastic trip to the park and tons of Nanny snuggles.








Jr. and Faith are nearly the same size, she has maybe one or two inches on him in height, but not an ounce in weight. Since they are the same size you sort of expect them to be the same age. Two years difference. It is crazy.

Boy Part Deuce

So there you have it, Heirloom Tomato Coleman is a boy. I will spare you the uber creepy ultrasound pics. The tech this time was kind of odd. I mean this one wanted to chit chat about illegal immigrants and health care reform, which don't get me wrong is SO much better than the last time where the ultrasould place gave up people's ultrasound photos for pro-life propaganda. . . but that is different story. She printed out two photos for us, one the skeleton face baby and the other is the feet. I think Ed wanted the one of his "turtle".

It was such a HUGE relief to see that everything looked good.

Junior got to see photos of his baby brother which he still insists is baby sister. He was less than impressed. He has also been sick, which I am convinced has turned him from sweetface monkey boy to "Nasty Baby".

All day today he was a total a-hole. Except for the time spent at Target. Whiney, crying, up at 6:15 AM not eating, hitting, falling down, abusing the dog a-hole. Afterall, I am not sure you were aware of this but, toddlers are a$$holes.

I even took him out to see his daddy ice fishing. Junior screamed the whole drive out there "Junior Fishing!" "Daddy fishing" "Erik fishing!" "Mommy Sleeping!" "Milllkkk mommy!" He is learning to say please which offers one moment of redemption in a cloud of otherwise total a-holeness. On a rare occasion he will say thank you. Last night during our marathon 1+ hour bedtime ritual he kept standing up in my lap and saying "huggy hug" and "smoochy smooch". Then he would hug and kiss me. It was hard to tell him to quit it and close his eyes and GO TO SLEEP!

No New Photos

Sorry in advance. I have been a major slacker on the camera as of late. You will have to put up with some old photos.

Big news for daddy. He has a new job too! Big promotion to bureau chief. He beat out two guys with tons of program experience. It is the next step up in the state food chain. We are all so very proud of him. He starts next week.




As for baby news, I made them move my due date back. I know when bell pepper was made and I can do the math. The bonus of moving the due date back is that if I go overdue again I will have 8 extra days of overdueness - you may notice we are repeating week 18. I would very much like to have a different birth than we had last time.

I didn't feel the baby move at all until Friday, now I feel that little sea monkey moving all of the time. Friday is the ultrasound and yes we will find out the sex, but that isn't what is important. It is important to make sure that bell pepper has all of the pieces and parts and after that, we will find out what bell pepper will be.

What do I think it is? Girl? Maybe. Ed is SURE it is a boy. He says that there is a lot of testosterone going on inside me making me want to wrestle him and push him down sometimes. Couldn't be that he does things that are irritating. No. Baby's fault.

My new job is going well. It was a little boring at first, but is starting to pick up. I need to be busy, I need it to be worth those extra 8 hours a week I am giving up with my baby boy. I need to know that being a Soil Scientist is worth it. My job would be perfect if I could work 3/4 time again. Maybe. . . someday. . . If I was still at my old job, I would have quit when little bell pepper was born. My old job didn't mean enough to me. That is why I need this one to be worth it.



And now after a lot of blah blah blah, lets get to Jr. We went to spend Valentines Day with Jr.'s most beloved Auntie Liesel (Lee-sow as he says it). He enjoyed spending some time running around her house chasing beagles and the cutest terrier ever. He was a champ of a boy. He was great on Saturday night when we took him to Hooters. Yes. You read that right, we took him to Hooters. He adored our waitress ate a hot dog and left with some Hooters crayons.

He was great at the carousel, park and out to lunch on Sunday. He was very excited to play on the Ebola train at the mall and didn't even notice that his mom had left him with Liesel to run and buy some maternity pants. All and all, I would say he gets the MVP of babies for the weekend. It was nice to have three straight days with him.

He is really talking like crazy. I don't know how better to put it. He can count to 10. He repeats sentences in context. He sings sweet little songs. He knows his first name "Junior" and sometimes even knows his last name. He is getting very loving and didn't hesitate with Liesel at all, he is starting to remember people and pick up where he left off with them. His development is amazing.

Oh and he loves pickles, tomatoes, bananas, apples, grapes, berries and oranges over ice cream or cookies. Weirdo.

Janeen and I were joking that we should name our new babies after the food that we craved while we were pregnant. She said that her little girl would be named DQ Blizzard. Mine might be strawberry ice cream or pizza crust.

Baby Sister

Oh no, we don't know if it is a boy or girl yet. Don't worry, we will let you know.

This is Jr.'s "baby sister". He loves to haul around baby sister and feed her, burp her, put her night night. I like that he has dollies to play with, Ed is less than thrilled.

Jr.'s baby sister or baby brother is now a bell pepper.

So Much

So much has happened in the last few weeks. First let me say that Florida was amazing. It was so relaxing. It was just what we needed after the longest coldest December I can remember. Fun in the SUN!







Jr. LOVED his grandparents.





He LOVED his uncle Ock and aunt Patty.


And he LOVED the beach. We didn't do much, just went to the zoo, ate out a couple of times and spent every day at the beach. We loved the sunset. When we could we would head down to the beach, watch the sun set and say "bye bye SUN!" and then have a sunset "mooch".







Thank you MIL and FIL and Bill and Patty for the best week.



Then I had the luxury of a week off. That was one whole week with a whole lotta nothing. Well actually I had a ton of small tasks to check off of my list before crunch time. Today was the first day of crunch time.

I napped, pulled out maternity clothes, sorted Jr.'s clothes, cleaned the house, so on and so forth. I also had a fabulous lunch with Janeen and Carter. Carter was the most AMAZING baby I have ever been around. Carter tooled around his house playing quietly and sweetly. He then behaved like an ANGEL during Janeen and my hour plus lunch. I always say that I hope that our next one is a girl, but damn, I would settle for a little Carter in a heartbeat. His mom claims he is a handful, but I think she is a total liar.

Our weekend was fantastic, Uncle Brian came to visit and Jr. was THRILLED. He brought him a little hot wheels fire truck, we went to the boat show, which was also incredibly thrilling. Jr. got to drive the boats.

Saturday night we took Jr. skiing with Kim and Neil. Just like with everything new, there was a ton of grumpusing. Jr. has a pretty plush little stroller with skis on it that is pulled by his daddy or his uncle Neil. The four adults were thrilled with how slick the whole contraption worked, but Jr. wanted to get out and walk. Of course I totally forgot the camera for the entire weekend.

Sunday we went over to papa's house to see Uncle Bean. Then it was buttoning up the last few details and getting ready for my new job. I had to wake the baby up early, before he was ready and slap some clothes on him, bust him into the car, ditch him at Aimees and then I was off to my new job by 7:45 AM. NUTS!

My first day was LLLLOOOONNNNGGGG. Lots of talking about work, filling out forms, faxing, mailing, shaking hands and not remembering names of my new co-workers. I didn't even step outside until after 3. By the time I left to pick up Selma to the vet I was totally exhausted. Maybe it was the extra two hours I worked today, or maybe it was the first day I worked after two weeks off, or maybe int was just information overload, but I am spent.

I could also blame Turnip Coleman for tireing me out, but I have actually been feeling great lately. Minus the scortching headache I had last week (way to ruin three days of my vacation Turnip!).

This One Is For You MIL

MIL checks every day to see if I posted something, so, MIL this one is for you.

Nothing much has been going on around here, well a lot as usual, but nothing worth noting. We are just preparring for our big trip to Florida. Mostly mentally preparring, but gathering and checking off of the lists. I am also getting ready for my last day of work - FRIDAY! It is scary, for the first time in darn near 7 years, I will not be working for the DEQ, not be working with my husband and not be able to walk or bike to work.

Change is good.

Change is good.

Anyway we can't wait to come see you all in Florida.

Jr. is obsessed with wearing silly hats. He is either wearing his plastic hardhat that declares him "Boss" or his fire fighter hat that declares him "Junior Fire Cheif". He also insists on carying around his "Seaturd" or lizzard as we call it. He is in that obsessed phase where you can't argue with him, you can only distract him long enough to take the hat or Seaturd away.




Lemon Coleman is doing well. I swear I can feel him/her fluttering around in there. And golly gosh I am HUGE for only being a little over 3 months pregnant.

How To Play With A Toddler

By Brian Vibbert.



Directions, find a sort of wet dirty dish rag. Wrap it around a toddler's mid section. Treat toddler like a sort of yo-yo. Involve dogs. Warning this activity requires intense upper body strength, because man that kid is heavy.

What is it again that is the father of invention?

2010

First things first. HAPPY NEW YEAR! A few days late but nonetheless, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We spent New Years Eve curled up like pill bugs in our house eating late and cold Pizza Shit pizza and playing Big Game Hunter. Ed was asleep by 10:30 and I am being very generous with that estimate. If you timed him by the time that he closed his eyes while sitting on the couch and started snoring I will give him 10:08, but I kicked him upstairs by around 10:30. I made it until 11:30 playing video games with Aunt Nancy.

Then we were off to Clinton. Last year it was a four day fest of eating and drinking with all of Ed's BFFs. This year it was smaller and shorter which made for a nice quiet house, it was just us and the Vibbert-Hinmans. Junior was the only kid other than Wally and they still had one bedroom to spare. Thanks to Brian and Angela for the wonderful time. Junior got to ride the four-wheeler and see the fire truck.





On Saturday Junior and I snuck into town to visit his Auntie Liesel and the Beagles. Junior's favorite part of the day was chasing Liesel and the Beagles and checking out the cool fish at the Iron Horse. Ed Sr. got to escape and do some snow 4-wheeling with Brian and Angela.





We rushed home to watch Denver lose to KC (DAMN IT AND MUCH STRONGER LANGUAGE THAT I SHALL NOT USE ON THE BLOG ABOUT HOW DISAPPOINTED I AM AT DENVER AND WHAT IN THE CRAP WAS JOSH DOING BENCHING BRANDON MARSHALL?!?!?!?!?) Thanks to the Moogs for feeding us AGAIN and hosting us during the football game AGAIN. We owe you big time.

Then we rushed home to toss the baby into bed and tear down Christmas. While I was packing away the Dickens Village, I got to thinking how different our lives are going to be when I open up these boxes next year. How different a 2 1/2 year old is going to be and how different his parents will be. I got a little chocked up wondering if Junior will still love his Santa snow globe or the "Horsey" figurine that pulls the chocolate wagon in our Christmas Village. Then I corrected myself and my ridiculousness, he is going to be 2 and a half, he will be awesome, the things he loves about Christmas will make my heart swell and I will have those memories to share with him when he is older. I will also have to expand my brain to accommodate Medium Shrimp Coleman AKA Blinsky and his or her Christmas memories.

I would say that by far my favorite Christmas memory of Junior this year was when he opened one of his gifts (I think it was the tool set) and CLEARLY said "Oh My God!" Where does he learn stuff like that? The other one was how much he loved Claws, but feared him so greatly.

I am already looking forward to having a yummy Christmas cocktail next year. 2010, you are going to be nuts, but we can take it.