Sunday, November 2, 2008

Halloween Fun!

So, I have been slacking (once again). There are some new developments in the Colson household....I have gone back to work. We decided a few weeks ago to have me apply for a job with the Sheriff's office as a dispatcher, and what'd ya know? I got it! So last week was my first official week back to work and I loved every second of it. There is a ton of stuff to learn, but i do enjoy what I am doing and the people I work with . It has been nice getting out and talking to people, but I do feel terrible about leaving my little kids at daycare. Jared has been AWESOME about getting them fed, dressed and out the door every morning. He has made it so much easier to go back to work. Now the time I am spending with my babies is quality, even though I miss them terribly during the day. McKinlee is actually in a pre-school and loving it! She is making new friends and learning a ton. Logan is in the same facility but just in an infant section. He doesn't care one bit, big surprise! He just goes with the flow. It is fun to go pick them up and have them get all excited to see me. I am just happy things are adjusting. I keep telling myself how blessed we are and how prayers are answered, just sometimes not in the way we were expecting them to be. Jared has been able to spend a lot of time with the kids by himself being a daddy and I think that is the greatest thing that could have happened! So enough with that let's get on to Halloween festivities 2008!!!

This year McKinlee totally knew what was going on. She knew she was going to dress up and get candy and let me tell you, she got a butt load! I had the day off (Yippy!) and so Jared took it off as well and we headed off to Idaho Falls to buy candy, run errands and meet Jared's mom for lunch. We dressed the kids up in their costumes (McKinlee was a kitty and Logan was a turtle) and went into Sam's Club where we were going to meet Jared's mom. I am totally not a mom who usually dresses the kids up to go shopping, but we wanted Barb to be able to see them in their costumes. I was happy to see many other crazy moms who had their kids dressed up, too. So McKinlee was able to get candy all throughout Sam's because everyone thought she was cute. By the time we actually got home she was already chuck full of candy and really didn't need anymore, but Trunk or Treat here we come! McKinlee really did enjoy going from car to car collecting her 'loot'. She doesn't understand the concept of waiting in line, so she would just weasle her way to the front of the pack and grab what candy she wanted. Hopefully next year we are a bit more polite. However, she did say 'thank you' to every person... Logan was just as content as can be and eventually fell asleep in the car. After trunk or treat we decided to brave the elementay school carnival. As Jared said 'it was a great form of birth control'. There were kids all over hopped up on sugar! We tried to be good parents, though, and let McKinlee do some stuff like the cake walk, haunted house, duck pond, and fishing pond. Jared even bought her a cotton candy. She had it all eaten in about 3 minutes (no exagerration), then started helping herself out to her friend Luke's. She was COVERED in blue sugar from head to toe. By the time we had done the fishing pond we were all ready to go home. Jared took McKinlee to a couple houses to go Trick or Treating, then we headed home, bathed the kids, and put them to bed. Halloween was EXHAUSTING!!! But, we had a blast!


My parents and aunt came up Saturday morning and watched the kids while Jared and I went to Jackson so I could do a Scentsy party. They then met us for a late lunch and mom and juju took me shopping for my birthday while Jared and my dad took the kids back home! It was GREAT! As much as I adore my children, shopping is much more enjoyable when they are not around!


Alright, that is our last couple weeks in a nutshell, now here are the cute pictures of Halloween!

















Sunday, October 12, 2008

lots of catching up to do!

Ok, so lately I have totally sucked at updating the blog. I finally feel like I have a minute, so here are the latest going ons in the Colson household. It seems like we have been super busy! I have started selling Scentsy and with that comes numerous trips to Pocatello. Thank you to all who have supported me! It has been something fun to do. The kids and I have been lucky to visit lots of people, but we have been sad to leave dad at home. He has been busy finishing up his Fireman 2 class and tests and starting EMT. He passed Fireman 2, WAHOO! We will see how his EMT classes go. He really isn't into the blood and guts type of stuff, so it isn't quite as fun as the Fireman classes were. We made a trip to Twin Falls to visit my brother Russ and his family, as well as seeing my brother Bill and his family. It is good to see everyone, and even better to let McKinlee play with the "boys". She loves hanging out with them. She actually even let my brother Bill be around her...totally not typical. She usually freaks out and yells when he comes near her....(hopefully it is just her being 2 and she will grow out of it..) On one of our other trips to Pocatello we saw my sister Gretchen and her husband and baby. It was fun to see them and we are excited to have them eventually move closer! Colin makes Logan look like a brute! It is amazing what 2 months will do when they are babies. That same weekend we went to an ISU game. McKinlee was finally able to wear the ISU cheerleading outfit that Adam and Jenna gave her many years ago. She looked adorable and had so much fun at the game! She actually watched the game. She is the only 2 year old little girl I know that asks to watch football with daddy. So cute.! Logan was also a great trooper and was just enjoying watching people.



Logan turned 6 months...WOW! He weighed 17 lbs 13 oz..60th percentile, his length was 27.75 inches...90th percentile, and his head was 19 inches..40th percentile. Good average baby. He is continuing to eat like a bottomless pit, but is super super happy! It is nice because he and McKinlee are on about the same schedule, so we have both kids in bed and asleep by 8:00 each night, and as much as I adore my kids, the quiet is great! They are sleeping until about 7:30 in the morning and we are not complaining at all! My mom keeps letting me know how lucky we are but I inform her it is just my great parenting (hahaha..totally just kidding!)



The snow started this weekend...it has been butt cold for most of the week and I guess I just need to get used to it! It sucks, though, because we had our good friends Aaron and Noelle come up this weekend to take family pictures and the weather was horrible! Hopefully we got a few good ones.



Well, that should catch everyone up on the past month! Here are a couple fun pictures.


Logan and Colin just playing at Grandma's house
Go Bengals! (even though they really suck this year and lost....)

Sleepy towards the end of the game.



Cheese!!! We were just playing with the camera tonight and caught some cute pictures of the kids.


Mom and McKinlee
McKinlee and daddy watching football
Mom and sweet baby Logan
Dad and his buddy.
So a little explanation...Logan was sitting playing on the floor and one of McKinlee's cupcakes from her little kitchen was right by him. I saw that his forehead would be a good place to put the cupcake not thinking it would stay there very long, well I was wrong. He played and played and the cupcake just sat there. He didn't even try to take it off!
Another picture that needs explanation (first of all, ignore the mess, this was a few weeks ago and the house was a disaster!). I was leaning over Logan making him laugh and McKinlee, who yes, is not wearing any pants, crawls up on my back and leans over to see Logan. Jared grabbed the camera and took a lovely shot of me and my kids..(typical pantless day at the Colson home...)

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Stanley, Football Season, 5 Months

So over Labor Day weekend we took a drive up to Stanley to see Jared's parents' new home. Finally after many years of waiting for this home, it is finally almost done. It is beautiful! It will be nice to have a place to stay when we go up there to visit. We left both kids with Jared's parents on Saturday and we headed off to Boise to watch ISU vs. BSU....well, let's just say ISU didn't win. I can't believe that football season is already here! This is Jared's and my favorite time of the year, both for very different reasons...his is football, and mine are the holidays. Anyhow, we had a great time in Boise and it was nice to visit with friends we don't see too often. We made our way back to Stanley on Sunday and stayed over until Monday. We had fun taking the kids to the fish hatchery and to Redfish Lake. McKinlee absolutely LOVED feeding the fish at the hatchery. We had SNOW on Monday morning...I wasn't too thrilled about this, in fact, I was quite upset. I had only packed flip flops!!! My toes were frozen and we ended up leaving a little earlier than we had planned, but we still had a great time.

McKinlee feeding the fish

The only ISU fans in a sea of BSU fans


SNOW!

Logan turned 5 months yesterday. He is eating us out of house and home!!! Since he has started cereal he has also started in on vegetables. He loves them!! A normal dinner consists of a thing of peas, thing of squash, and a bowl of cereal. At this rate he will be bigger than McKinlee next week! He is rolling over all by himself! I guess this means I can't just leave him laying on the couch or on the bed all by himself. I was also hoping that I would only have 1 thumbsucker to have to deal with, well I was wrong. Logan has started preferring his thumb to the binky....oh well! I suppose that won't be the only thing he learns from his big sister! Here are some cute pictures of my kids...and as you can tell, he is already almost as big as McKinlee.




Thursday, August 21, 2008

4 months, silly kids, Yellowstone

So Logan is now 4 1/2 months. I took him to his Dr. appt. and he weighs 15 lbs 3 oz and fits exactly into the 50th percentile. Jared is happy to know that his head is only in the 45th percentile...so no, my child doesn't have a HUGE head! He had his shots and did just great! McKinlee has been doing some pretty silly stuff lately. Some nights she insists on wearing 'mommy jammies'...so I have to go rummage around until I find a shirt that doesn't drown her completely, and that is what she wears to bed. Now me being the paranoid mom that I am have to go strip her down in the middle of the night because I am just convinced that she is going to get all tangled up in the shirt and suffocate or something....me just being a little crazy! We have also started feeding Logan cereal, and he loves it! McKinlee insists on 'helping' feed. She has her own spoon and everything. Good thing Logan is so easy going, because he deals with the spoon in his eye or jammed in his cheek very well!
Mommy Jammies
Feeding Logan



We also took a spontaneous trip to Yellowstone last weekend. We left after Jared's graduation and came home Sunday. My parents were able to come with us and had a great time. Since my mom had to start school again (she is a 6th grade teacher) this week it was her last harrah before she had to get to work. We actually saw a bear! It was awesome! It was eating a buffalo in the river...way cool! McKinlee loved every bit of it, but of course her favorite animals were the chipmunks. A girl after my own heart! Jared was excited to take her to the mud volcano called the Dragon's cave or something like that. It is his favorite thing in the park, and McKinlee didn't disappoint him. She loved it! She is still asking to go see the dragon! Fun, quick trip!

Dad and McKinlee in front of the Dragon's Cave

Monday, August 18, 2008

Congratulations Fireman Jared!

Jared has been working for the past 6 months on becoming a fireman, and this last Saturday he finally graduated! We are so proud of him! McKinlee couldn't be more excited to have a dad who is a fireman who can drive a fire truck! This isn't the end of Jared's continual education...he starts the EMT classes in September. Jared isn't doing this for a career change, just for a 'hobby'...quite the time consuming hobby, but it makes him happy. Here are some graduation pics... CONGRATULATIONS, JARED, WE LOVE YOU!

Grand Junction

The trip to Grand Junction was fast but fun. It is so nice to see family and in this one weekend we were able to see family from both sides that we aren't able to see too often. Being in Grand Junction during 100+ degree weather made me very grateful for Victor where it has been around 85. We had a blast swimming and hanging out. We were able to take a girl's afternoon and go see Mama Mia (awesome!!!) and go eat. The boys went golfing that morning and then watched the kids for us. Gretchen and Matt taught Jared Settlers of Catan (not sure if that is how you spell it) and he is hooked..yippy!! The drive was very long but were were so glad we went. The kids traveled very well which makes it easy for us to go on even more family trips. Here are a few photos of our fun time in Grand Junction!


Swimming with 'shark whale'

McKinlee with Aunt Gretchen

Logan with his tubby belly! Gretchen and Colin sleeping on the couch.









The blessing...

Meeting Caleb for the first time!

Sorry that I haven't posted for a while...Life has been hectic!! This post will be all about a little family vacation to Grand Junction for the blessing of my sister's new baby Colin. On our way down we stopped in Salt Lake at Jared's Aunt Carol's house to see our other new nephew Caleb. He is such a sweet happy, fat baby!! He is 3 weeks older than Logan but weighs quite a bit more! Jared's brother Adam and his wife Jenna and baby Caleb live in Houston, so for me and the kids it was the first opportunity to meet Caleb.

This is a picture of McKinlee playing with the snakes at Carol's house. There were about a dozen water snakes in an aquarium and McKinlee and I were loving it!! Grandma Colson (who is deathly afraid of snakes) thought we were crazy and didn't enjoy any of that!











Me holding all three kids..aren't they cute!







Jenna holding sleeping Logan and Carol holding Caleb.






Jared and Caleb






"Nana and Papa" with there 3 grandkids...It looks like we pushed it a little too long for the kids..it was pretty funny though! Logan just sat there while the other two yelled and squirmed!




Two buddies! We can't wait till Adam, Jenna, and Caleb move back home!!!