Elmo Slippers

DSC00481, originally uploaded by ilovefab4.

Colin insists on sleeping without shoes and socks. Fine at night, but not for naptime when he's wearing regular clothes. So, we tried Elmo slippers. Nana bought them; GaGa got him to wear them. But, he still wont' wear them to bed. Oh well!

Trick or Treat!

IMG_3433.JPG, originally uploaded by ilovefab4.

Colin the Monkey hopes you'll check out his slideshow of pics from Halloween 2008.

Colin Builds Monkey at Kate's Birthday Party

IMG_3211.JPG, originally uploaded by ilovefab4.

Kate celebrated her third birthday with a Build-A-Bear party. Colin created a Lumberjack Monkey that he named "Ee-ee."

You can view all of the photos from flickr.

Another Cute Pumpkin Pic!

DSC00367, originally uploaded by ilovefab4.

Until I get all of these photos reorganized, this will have to do.

Down on the (Pumpkin) Farm

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I'll post some more links later, but we had a lot of fun this weekend at two different farms celebrating fall and all things pumpkin.

Colin's Birthday

IMG_2907.JPG, originally uploaded by ilovefab4.

So, I'm trying to catch up and meanwhile switching back to Flickr for photos (yes, you were right, Matt Chandler), but here's a cute snapshot from Colin's birthday.

Colin Celebrates Birthday with his Crossroads Friends

From Colin Celebrates his Birthday with his Crossroads Buddies

Mommy brought cupcakes into Colin's daycare at Crossroads this week to celebrate his birthday with all of his friends. Daddy came, too. You can see all the pictures if you click on the big one. Pictured here is Colin's class and the preschool class, and baby Cate is in the background. Brady had already gone home for the day.

Colin Starts Busy Saturday with the Wall Street Journal

From Colin reads the WSJ

Colin had a busy Saturday, reading the Wall Street Journal, then going to the zoo with Mommy, Daddy and Aunt Laurie and finally heading to church and then out to Noodles and Company for some mac and cheese. The link to the album is on the big pic; for some reason the formatting isn't working correctly if I link the thumbnail photos.

Colin's Latest

From Colin Late Au...

Even though Colin is with my parents right now, I thought I'd share a few recent photos. First, Colin is with his buddies Jacob and Ethan (left to right) for a backyard swim party. The other photos in this album showing one of our weekend rituals: going to Country Fresh Produce, where he insists on taste testing an apple. He says "apple" the second we hit the parking lot. Finally, he's out for a ride in his dump truck.

Colin Learns to Spit

From New Album 8/2...

Out of all of the things Boppy has taught Colin, from dance moves to "driving cars," the most practical one is probably the all-important boy skill: the art of the spit. Colin, who enjoys teeth brushing as long as he's in charge of it, just recently added spitting to his regimen, thanks to Boppy's modeling.

Elmo is Not Meant to be Eaten

From New Album 8/1...

Grandma brought Colin an Elmo cupcake after dinner. At first, he wasn't sure what to think. Then, when he realized that Elmo was chocolate cake under the icing, he got excited. But, once the cupcake was gone, Colin said, "Eh-oh Elmo. Go?" Which meant, "Where did Elmo go?" And then he started crying. That's the last Elmo cupcake.

Yum....Brownies!

From New Album 8/1...

Colin visited Grandma's recently, where she let him help her make brownies, just like his daddy used to do. I think Colin is sold on the merits of baking. Here are some other fun pictures from the same day. You can click on the picture above to visit the album.

Playgroup at Brooklyn's

Colin went to Brooklyn and Lincoln's house for playgroup this morning. He never got around to swimming, but he did enjoy eating (of course) and playing on the swingset and in the sandbox. You can see more pictures here.

Roman's Birthday

Colin's buddy Roman just celebrated his second birthday at his house. Roman, like his daddy, is already an amazing cook, as shown here. He also knows how to get down to Stevie Wonder. Colin, at 22 months, isn't far behind Roman in his talent development, I'm quite sure.

Popsicles

Colin really like popsicles. The other day, he got one that was so big, he had to hold it ON the popsicle, because the wooden stick was too far down. Enjoy the frozen goodness.

Colin's Haircut

Colin got a new haircut today at Cookie Cutters. Between his sucker, Elmo video and pink car (his choice), he barely noticed. We had to take off his shirt to dust off all of the hair.

Colin and Coke

Colin loves Coke. Of course, he's never even tasted it.

I don't know what it says about Mommy and Daddy, but he can't get enough of Diet Coke cans, two-liter bottles and 20 oz-ers. He also likes to take them out of the 12 packs and create towers with them. Here he is with one of his latest creations.

Sweet Baby Girl Carter Caroline

I visited sweet baby Carter Caroline today. She slept the whole time, and Rebecca looked amazing. I got Carter a onesie that said "I wanna rock and roll all night and potty every day."

If you want to see more pictures, check out my facebook page, or email me and I'll send them.

Kate's Latest Pics of Colin

colin308-55, originally uploaded by ilovefab4.

Our friend and professional photographer, Kate, took some photos of Colin hanging out in Adventure Club at Crossroads. You can view them all if you go to flickr.com/nataliehastings. You can check out Kate's blog here.

This Little Sailor Loved His Easter Basket

IMG_1861, originally uploaded by ilovefab4.

Colin LOVED the wiffle balls he got in his Easter basket last weekend. I think he liked them more than his sailor suit...I finally got all of the photos up on flickr.

Colin Enjoys a Chocolate Sucker

Okay, I'm mostly just testing out how video will work on here...but Colin is indeed enjoying a chocolate sucker. Or is it a lollipop? I'm not sure how you define it. It's more just chocolate on a stick. It came in his Easter basket, and it was messy.

St. Patrick's Day parade

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I went to Chicago this weekend and hooked up with my long-time friend Aparupa, who is moving back there after B-school. We got to see the river green (sort of) and saw the St. Patty's Day parade.

It's amazing how everyone is Irish in mid-March. Even Barack Obama, and a little Chinese boy we saw with his Ireland flag.

Here we are sitting precariously on a construction road barricade watching the parade.

Birthday Parties are Yummy!

IMG_1307, originally uploaded by ilovefab4.

Colin attended Brooklyn's second birthday party and thoroughly enjoyed his chocolate cupcake.

In fact, he had a piece of Elmo cake, a chocolate cupcake AND he tried to eat Mommy's cupcake.

Fun at Recreations Outlet

Colin and his playgroup checked out Recreations Outlet a few days ago.
It's a swing set showroom, so we brought the outdoor fun inside.


The swing sets themselves are hilariously ridiculous, with most of them selling for 6 to 10 grand ON AFTER-HOLIDAY clearance. I think Colin can have a nice metal swing set with a climbing dome.

At the Children's Museum

Jeff and I took Colin to the Duke Energy Children's Museum on a Saturday recently. They have this infant garden where they literally gate the kiddos in, and there's a gatekeeper to make sure no one crawls or runs his way out.

I was showing Colin how some of the playground stuff worked (sadly I still fit in it).

Otter's Totterville

...or whatever it's called. Since I'm trying to get this going, I'm going to borrow from my photo archives from the last few months. This is Colin with buddies Brooklyn and Jackson (and Emma in the back) enjoying the water table at Otter's Totterville or Totter's Otterville, whatever the place is called.

Colin drank so much water, and poured so much on himself, that I had to remove all of his clothes and let him run around naked and beg an employee to dry his clothes in the industrial dryer.

Luckily, this place is in Kentucky, so the no shoes, no shirt, no service rule didn't apply.

The End of an Era

Last week, I turned in my VW Beetle, Daisy, for a 2008 Ford Escape...in Kiwi Metallic, of course. When I bought that car in July of 2002, I could never have imagined that within four years I'd be married with a child. So, I didn't consider how having a tiny trunk and two doors might not be the best decision. Besides, I HAD to have one.

Well, after 15 months of cramming Colin in and out of the back seat, I decided it was time to "grow up." Kind of like switching my email to one with my name instead of "ilovefab4," it's just one of those inevitabilities of getting older, I guess. But no more mature, I promise.

At any rate, this awesome guy at my church named Mike who owns a Ford dealership totally hooked me up. After leaving 3 other dealerships in tears, it was an amazingly positive experience buying from his dealership. Here you can see me turning over my keys to him, and him giving me the new keys.

Christmas 2007

Okay, so I still need to figure out the formatting, but here are some pics from Christmas. Colin loved wrapping paper, Christmas trees and cookies. Presents he couldn't care less about. You'll also see my friend Natalie's new baby, Park.