cold days and warm cheeks

Before I post anything about our Christmas festivities, I wanted to post these pictures from my blogging queue. Little did I know this was the beginning of a week of very, very sick kiddos. But fevers and all, the big boys were out in the snow with Daddy. We conveniently have a giant sledding hill right in our backyard. But no, I did not venture out there to get cute pictures. Use your imagination. (fyi, for any photog nerds, these are straight out of the camera. Didn't feel like spending time editing today...)

Hot chocolate with a dash of cinnamon on the stove to warm them up-- one of my most nostalgic sights and smells from childhood. Five winters of my childhood in Canada made for a lot of pots of hot chocolate. 

 Mean mommy!! I had to get just one shot of my little snow angel :) Not too happy about it:

a winter weekend

Little C man was super sick Friday and Saturday with a fever that climbed to 103.9. He didn't have any other symptoms but he was very fussy the whole time and very tired. I'm guessing it was linked to teething but who knows. I was very, very glad to have my happy baby back when he woke up on Sunday morning.

I don't know what it is about these three snuggled in next to each other that makes me frantically run for my camera. I suppose it's because it happens pretty infrequently. Usually one of them (ahem, dawson, cough cough) is not in the mood for snuggles or another one is on the run. And the older Bennett gets, the more I'm desperately trying to record and capture these little years of chubby cheeks and button noses and sweet little voices. The "these are your best years" phrase we young moms hear all too often is starting to sink in. Watching videos of Bennett as a two-year-old yesterday was breaking my heart. Sure, it'll be reeeeally nice to go on vacation without packing a packnplayanddiapersandboosterchairandboppyandcarseatsandstrollersandandandand. But there's just nothing like their little squishy bodies that need me. Like, really need me. And want me desperately. I sort of love being their whole world. Even if it means not pottying alone for another few years.

 

On Saturday, my mother-in-law planned a baking day for all the Colyer women. It was such a fantastic and refreshing day. We actually didn't get all that much baking done but we ate lots of good food and ending up making felt ornaments (I'm sort of addicted to making those now and would love to do it all day long. See photos above for three reasons why I'm not).

She made each of us our own apron with fabric we chose:

 
I love these girls. We are all as different as can be but somehow our vastly varied personalities mesh together just right and we genuinely love hanging out (at least I do! Pretty sure they'd say the same :) There are very few people in my life that I'd rather spend a day with.

And a little snapshot of Bennett on Sunday morning in the church musical. The boy sang his heart out and did all the motions. Several people came up to Jon or me and said how great he did. So proud of his enthusiasm in everything he does!

 Nana's so patient with the kiddos and all the rearranging they do:

 

And my favorite Instagram photo from the weekend. Sipping hot cocoa out of the Peter Rabbit mug that was his daddy's as a little boy:

A blog post for blogging's sake

There hasn't been much in life lately that has felt "blog-worthy". The weather's cold and Channing takes two long naps a day so we don't get out much. But I wanted to post something so we'll just go with it. I found these pictures in my "to blog" folder from way back at the end of the summer and they were just too cute not to post. If my nieces are at my house for a long time, I beg them to let me do their hair since I never get to :) She looked so cute in her pigtails.

 
 

This project isn't completely finished down to the last detail but it's close enough so I'll go ahead and post about it. When we were house shopping, we chose this one because it had all white woodwork (my #1 must), had a good layout and the builders had painted the entire interior tan, rather than leaving it white (a huge plus in my book). So even though there was a lot we liked about it, it still was majorly lacking character. (Pretty impossible to find character in our price range in a new home though, so I wasn't complaining). Anyway, I mentioned adding some more trimwork on our main floor around the doorways and in my husband's typical fashion, he got right on it. Here are a couple of before pics:

And the after (I'm in love):

 Obviously we have paint touch up left to do:

I don't have a before shot for this one (I'm sure you can use your imagination) but as you can see, he had to add a bulkhead (is that the right word?) and drywall for this one since the walls just went straight up on the sides. That still needs to be painted too along with a few more coats on the woodwork.

 

And here's this guy since he was just sitting there all cute like:

And another little project I'll show off--we recently had a Girl's Night Out with the moms group I'm a part of and I volunteered to lead an ornament craft. (We usually just do a cheapo gift exchange and frankly, I suggested a craft instead because I'm not fond of spending money on something I really like to bring to the party and going home with something I hate. Anybody else feel that way? I know, I'm just way too picky for my own good.) I found all of these felt ornament ideas on Pinterest and decided to make all three ahead of time so everyone could make their favorite at the party.

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I just loved how they all turned out. I think the green is my favorite. None of them were very hard at all although the rosettes had the biggest learning curve and was the most challenging. I have to say, I got sort of addicted to crafting. It was just so darn calming. I want to make a bunch more for gifts. We'll see if I have time (Mom!!! ;) Speaking of gifts....I'm so excited about several of the gifts I'm giving this year. A lot of them are really personal and I can't wait to give them! I'll have to post a couple on here after Christmas.

And one last shot from my phone I'll leave you with. Me and my little cubs:

 

9.

Sheesh, time to dust off this ol' blog. It was starting to grow cobwebs. Sorry for my unintentional absence. Life got away from me there. But I had some motivation to blog this week because this little guy turned nine months old! Not sure how that happened.

Between teething and two back to back colds, this little guy has not been himself this month. I suppose he's just making up for the first eight months of hardly ever crying. It must have been all bottled up in there, waiting to come out. I said to Jon, "I think he's cried more this month than he did for the first eight combined". And really, I think its true. Poor thing. He's even woken up at 4:30 or 5:30 several mornings lately. I let him cry for a while (15-20 min) but have always ended up giving him a bottle and then he goes right back to sleep for another few hours. I'm probably going to have to take my own advice pretty soon and let him cry it out to break the habit if it keeps up. I have never had a baby do that before at this age. (I do think its interesting that I've been the least consistent with Channing's schedule and he's my least consistent sleeper!)

 
 

He started eating Puffs the last few weeks which has made life much easier when I'm trying to get other stuff done and he's just being fussy. But that has also caused him to be horribly constipated. I asked my chiropractor what to do (my pediatrician suggested cocoa for constipation! I tried it once in his bottle. His first chocolate milk :) It did actually work). My chiropractor said all the extra sugar in his diet (those Puffs break down to sugar really quickly) is throwing off the healthy bacteria in his gut so he said to give him Probiotics. I started mixing some in his baby food yesterday so hopefully that gets him back to normal.

He's eating a lot more variety of baby foods and isn't too picky anymore. He still hates anything with texture though. But he is in that phase of constantly trying to grab the spoon so half the time I'm feeding him, he's crying in frustration because I won't give it to him. He's now completely weaned as of just a few days ago. Thankfully I still have plenty of frozen milk left (even after supplementing with some for three of his feedings for the last month! All that hard, time-consuming work of pumping those first two months after every feeding paid off big time.) It should last us another couple months.

"Mom...pleeeease don't make me do this right now!!"

"Somebody get me outta here! Bennett?? ... Dawson? ... Anybody?" 

 "Fine. One smile. But I'm still crying on the inside."

He's just barely starting to scoot on his belly but really the only time he does it is when he's on our bed. He gets a fist-full of the comforter, face-plants, and pulls. He's a little inch worm. A very slow inch worm. He's also now attached to a little blankey. As soon as you give it to him, his little thumb goes in. Its so sweet. I got good advice from a few women to make sure your thumb-sucker has a lovey. Because then when they're older, you can take it away and they'll stop sucking their thumb. (Although, that still doesn't seem much better than trying to remember a pacifier everywhere you go...but if it helps in the end, I know we'll be glad).

We managed to get a group shot with both sets of grandkids. A Thanksgiving miracle:

And my favorite shot from Thanksgiving day, my niece, Piper with Channing:

Follow me on Instagram if you want more day to day @haverlee

Colyer Caravan (Part 4)

And onto Disney! We went into Downtown Disney after our day at the beach for dinner. These next three pictures crack me up because I can just see what Caleb was thinking.

 
 

Yeah, I suppose we need to discuss with our son that the money stays in the fountain and isn't there for the taking! (Obviously Jon was taking these pictures since no one was stopping him ;)

 

The big deciding factor to go to Orlando was because my Uncle works for Disney and can get us in for free. We just didn't know how many tickets we'd get until the day before. He pulled his resources together and had two other Disney employees meet us at the gate too so we all got in for free. I know, I know, I can feel your death glares through the computer. Its pretty much the best family connection ever and we were all so grateful. (We did reimburse them for their time and trouble since they all had to meet us at the park both days).

We got there before the park opened and went to Magic Kingdom first. Dawson didn't get the memo that he was at Disneyworld!!!

 

 
We got these shirts made for all the cousins before we left. (Note the bow on Minnie Mouse :) They were adorable in them and it made it way easier to keep track of all the red shirts. (Unfortunately this was the best shot we got from the back. Oh well. The fact that we got one at all is sort of a miracle).

 Cooling off:

The only grownup who can stomach the teacups. (Although Jenise would have too if she weren't pregnant):

I love these next pictures so much because Dawson was just so happy. He had a lot of rough moments that day but you can see the joy through his entire body when he met Tigger and Pooh!

 

My favorite shot of Kietlyn:

The benefit of having your grandparents along:  

Oh sure, you can have your treats! Just as soon as you smile for a picture: 

 

Good job. Here you go: 

Watching the parade:

These clouds look ominous but it barely even sprinkled that day. It was such a relief to have the cloud cover, it was just perfect weather.

 Desperate times call for pacis in public:

This little guy did great. I borrowed this carrier from my sister-in-law and it was very comfortable. He took all his naps in here:

We stayed at Magic Kingdom until dinner time and then headed over to Epcot for a couple hours. We were pooped by then and didn't do much at Epcot but it was still fun.

Heeeeere's Brucey!

 

It was a wonderfully exhausting day. Bennett got to ride Space Mountain twice so that was the highlight for him. That boy loves roller coasters. Dawson was devastated when he was too short for Splash Mountain but he did get to ride the Goofy roller coaster and loved it. Dawson's favorite from the day was the Haunted Mansion. (They're really into spooky stuff these days). I think the longest we waited in line that whole day was 20 minutes. There really is no better time of year to go!

 

Vacation Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3