10.

He's reached the double digits! My goodness, what a blur it's been. (and I'm about 2 weeks late on this post, by the way. I can't even believe that because that means he's nearly eleven months! I would say I'd like to freeze time but his birthday brings spring soon after so I don't really mind if we fast-forward to that part.)  

The cutest, you say? Who me??

 Not pulling himself up yet. Purely staged.

 My sick little man, over Christmas:

At ten months, he is such a joy. Now that we got those two months of sickies out of the way, he's quite easy and happy again. Although the nap situation has been frustrating lately. I lamented on facebook yesterday that he was boycotting his second nap of the day. Both my other two boys followed the Babywise book to a T and didn't drop their second nap til 15 months. So Channing's really been throwing this self-proclaimed Schedule Nazi for a loop. Honestly, he's been pretty unpredictable since our trip to Florida when his schedule was thrown out the window. I have a hard time not stressing about it. Today went much better though, when we switched it up a bit. So I think I will figure out what suits his needs here pretty soon.
He's army crawling all over the place but thankfully he doesn't go very far or very fast. He's still my laid back little boy. He's still on all baby food and chokes on anything with too much texture (much like Bennett did). He eats Puffs and Cheerios and finally did bread today (seriously...crazy gag reflex). We switched over to formula a couple weeks ago as my deep freezer full of frozen milk was finally depleted. He seems fine on that, although he does spit up a little more. Not too much else to report!
Jon and I leave first thing in the morning for Costa Rica (he wheeled and dealed with some timeshare agency and got us an all-inclusive week for just a few hundred dollars). So the boys will be staying with Nana and Pop the whole time (bless them!!!). What a strange feeling to leave them there tonight, knowing I won't see their faces for six days. Its all kinds of nervousness and sadness and anxiety and relief and joy and giddiness all shaken up together. I'm thrilled to spend a week alone with my best friend, since its sometimes hard to remember you're best friends when you're parenting three wild boys who deplete every ounce of my energy every. single. day. So at that, I sign off. By some miracle, I didn't procrastinate this time and I can actually go to bed now (instead of at 1 am which is my usual bedtime the night before a trip). That 3am wake up call is gonna be nasty. But oh so worth it.

the blog post of Christmas past

Well, sorry this is so late. Seems a little extraneous at this point. I'm guessing there are a couple of you who have yet to even take down your tree though, so I'm probably doing ok in your book. (And the only reason my tree is down already is because it's 2 feet tall. I wrapped some saran wrap over it, ornaments and all, and carried it to the basement. Do I regret not having a big beautiful tree? Not for one single second.)

But speaking of Christmas past, let's revisit, shall we? Just to see how far we've come...

2007

 2008 

2009

 2010

2011

And our completely unsuccessful attempt to get a cute picture in 2012 (pretty sure Dawson could not possibly be smiling any bigger):

And outtake #6 of who-knows-how-many. This was even with bribery! I guess candy doesn't tempt a 9 month old like it does a 3 year old. Shoulda offered him chocolate milk. Oh well. Such is life. 

We had Christmas with the Colyer side the Sunday before. All smiles and poses here!! Where were your brothers??

Channing was already pretty sick at this point. Bennett had had a high fever the two days prior and Dawson was hit with a fever this day. (yeah, yeah, we're going to tackle the pacifier beast soon...and the potty-training beast....)

 Mr. Mellow Yellow and Mr. Go-Getter with their Pop:

 Rallied up some energy just long enough for presents:

 

You think this guy's tough? You should meet his grandma. 

And that's enough partying for one day. Sleeping with his new pet dinosaur, named Rudy. (Don't ask, 'cause I have no idea. He named the llama we pass every day on the way to preschool, Carcy).

My parents got into town the next day and Bennett and my dad wasted no time putting together the new Playmobil pirate ship that comes with fifty bazillion pieces: 

And our second Christmas with my side of the family on Christmas day (and yes, if you're keeping track, that would be the third day in a row our boys are in these pajamas):

So that one will definitely go down in the books as our sickest Christmas ever. I had all three boys into the doctor the day after Christmas. The big boys were doing fine fighting it off on their own but poor little Channing was pretty bad. He had RSV and the beginnings of pneumonia. We went from the doctor, to the hospital for chest x-rays and back to the doctor that day. Thank goodness my parents didn't have any other agenda and were there to help me the whole way through. It made a stressful situation much easier (although very unfortunately for my mom, she got it too). Channing went on two antibiotics and a nebulizer treatment for 5 days (the first I've ever used one of those). I figured out it was probably the first time I'd filled a prescription in at least four years. I'm so very thankful to have a healthy household again! It seems like the whole country had that nasty junk at the same time.

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: