Jordanelle

We took the boys to Jordanelle a few weeks ago. We only stayed for one night, but we still had enough time to enjoy a campfire, fresh air, the stars, and time with the kiddos.

Caught with his pants down!! Those shorts are a little too big...

The matchbox cars always seem to find a way to make the trip...

One of Cade's favorite parts of the trip was our map of the campground. He carried it around all evening and kept telling us all about the roads on the map...

My Favorite Super Hero...

My favorite super-hero is a pantless, fireman/fighting tiger. He can scale any wall, topple any tower, and defeat even the strongest of discipline techniques.

Don't let the smile fool you. Danger is {or should be} his middle name.

What Can He Hear?

Lots of people have asked me just how much Coleman can hear without his hearing aids. Here's a good, basic video of hearing loss simulation. Coleman's loss is in the mild-moderate range, which means that a few of the higher pitches are just a mild loss, while most others are moderate.

We are very lucky that in Coleman's case, he has nearly normal hearing with the aids. Many people don't understand though that while hearing aids amplify the sound of normal conversation, they amplify all of the background noise (the fan, the radio, the humming of the fridge, the a/c, etc) also. This is why we have a deaf education specialist come to our home every other week to teach him listening skills, and to teach me and Russ teaching skills. This is also why it's important for everyone to look directly at him and to speak up when talking to him.

So there you have it! Deaf Education Fred Flinstone style!

C-Man at 10 Months

Coleman is 10 months old (well, almost 11, but I'm slow at this stuff). Here's his 10 month picture. He wouldn't stay put long enough for me to push the button, so here's a picture of his escape attempt. I love the tongue out of the mouth grin... he's doing this about 90% of the time that he's awake lately.
Coleman is the easy-going member of the family. He's just content to watch everybody and doesn't complain or fuss. Here's a perfect example... Cade was giving me a run for my money, and I was busy disciplining/cleaning up/making him happy while Coleman was left in his high chair after he finished lunch for too long... way past naptime. Poor buddy.

Coleman is crawling all over the place now...

and figuring out how to get into trouble!!

More things about Coleman this month...

He is babbling mama, baba, and dada, and saying dada and uh-oh with meaning.

Coleman mimicks my signs, but signs dog with meaning.

Coleman will try to sing the chorus of his favorite song... "If all of the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops" by singing "ah ah ah ah!!"

He figured out how to blow a whistle. Cade and Coleman love to take their whistles and blow them at each other as loud as he can.... uhhhh, love it.

Coleman's hearing tests are all pointing to a conductive loss (the bones in his inner ear are most likely malformed), which is good because it means that chances that the hearing loss will worsen are very unlikely.

Coleman's hearing aids have now been broken 4 times. It's an impossible and never ending battle to keep them in. His audiologist tells me that it should start to get easier any time now, so we're hanging in there.

Coleman's EI teacher says that he is making great progress, and she expects that he will pass his upcoming development test with "no delays". I'm so proud of him!

Kennecott

We have talked about going to tour the copper mine by our house ever since we moved here. This week the tours were free, so we finally made the 5 minute drive up there. It was amazing!! Cade was in Heaven. In the museum, he ran from display to display (all of the displays were models of the mine lined with construction trucks) saying, "wow!" the whole time.

Hobbler Half Marathon

I ran my first post-Coleman half a week ago. It was a great race. Maria and Mandi ran with me, and since they are super-speedy, I had to work hard to keep up! The last half I did was in September 09, and my time was 2 hrs 20 mins. My goal this time around was to finish in under 2 hours, and my time was 1 hr 59 mins and 30 secs. I was really excited to meet my goal.

Russ and Cade got to ride in a hot air balloon while they waited for me at the finish line...

Here's my fast friends! We all did awesome and I'm very proud of us! Maria even won some headphones for her rockin imitation of Katy Perry. What can I say.. we had a good time :)

4th of July

We had a lot of fun this year on the 4th. We went to my aunts' anual BBQ/fireworks show on Saturday, then on Monday we had our own BBQ with Dall and Court. Dall provided a stellar fireworks display of his own that night. Cade loved the sparklers, and Coleman just loved to be there... as always.
Cade was refusing to be a part of the picture.

He wouldn't put his blanket down all night.

Cade was in heaven... Dallin let him throw snap pops from the back of his jeep. He snuggled up with Court all night.

God Bless America... and Seersucker

Thanks to my text book hookups from my aunt being a clothing design professor, I've been working on trying to design some of my own children's clothing patterns lately. Last week, seersucker was on sale at Joann's (oh, happy day... I love love love seersucker). So I came up with some matching outfits for the kiddos. Cade was not having posing in a picture, so you'll have to take my word for it that 1. he wore the outfit, and 2. it was cute.

The ladies over at eighteen25 inspired me here, and I came up with these little embroidered t-shirts for the boys to wear with their shorts to the fireworks. Cade still doesn't care what he wears (as long as it doesn't restrict his movement, he's good!), so I'm getting away with the cheese while I can... and I'm loving it.

Camping

Russ took Cade to the Father/Son Campout a few weeks ago and the two of them had a lot of fun, so we decided it was time to give a family campout a shot. We bought a tent and set it up in our back yard. Cade was sooo excited. He ran around in the tent saying, "dis my houff mommy!" (This my house mommy). When it was time to take it down, Cade was broken-hearted; he wanted to sleep in it so bad. We compromised by setting up his play tent on his bed. He kept the tent up and slept in it all week.

We went camping at Rockport State Park this weekend. We used up every square inch of our car packing all of the gear we needed for 18 hours. The boys did great. We stayed up late with the kids by the fire. Coleman went to bed without a peep.

Cade's favorite part of camping was the campfire. He sat still in his chair for two hours.... probably a record for him! I kept asking him if he wanted to go to sleep, and he said, "no, me want to watch the fire." He counted the stars too (he made it to seven... several times before giving up).

Cade finally told me around midnight that he wanted to "west my eyes wight ere" (rest my eyes right here), and he fell asleep in his chair.

Cade also had fun watching a squirell pop in and out of his hole. He chased birds, threw rocks, and tried to run away many many times. It was exhausting but fun. I'm sure we'll have many more camping trips ahead of us.

3 and 9

I'm a little late in posting this one... better late than never I suppose!!

Cade turned 3 in May, here's a few of his 3-year-old stats and facts:

Height: 37.5 inches (50th percentile)

Weight: 36 lbs 8 oz (90th percentile)

Favorite food: Cookies

Favorite person: Coleman

Favorite phrases: "That's mine!" and "No, me try mommy!" (we're going through an independent phase!)

Favorite toy: any and all of his one million matchbox cars

Favorite activity: Riding the bus to preschool

Coleman turned 9 months in May, here's some of his stats and facts:

Height: 28.5 inches (45th percentile)

Weight: 21 lbs 4 oz (75th percentile)
Coleman started crawling at 9 1/2 months. He is a champ at sleeping through the night. He has started pulling up on furniture, and now (at 10 months) is just starting to try to cruise. He's doing better at keeping his hearing aids in, as long as I keep his hat on and tied *quite* tight! He's vocalizing more and very attentive. He's still a happy-go-lucky baby. He seems to understand a few signs (more and all done), and has mimicked my signs a few times, but isn't consistent with them yet. He likes to listen to me sing, play games, read books, and watch Cade.

These two are sweet boys that keep me ON. MY. TOES. Our house is always a party. A loud, crazy, messy party but still a party!

The Perks of Being a 3 Year Old

Being 3 is *tough*. You have an oppinion about everything, but mom's oppinion always seems to matter more. You have enough energy to run to China and back, but you have to keep it contained to the backyard. You could wrestle a bear... and probably win... but you get in trouble everytime you try to practice on your baby brother. Yes, my friends, it is not easy to be three. Even though being three usually means 5000 trips to time out each day, there are a few upsides.

For instance...

School is still cool. Very cool. You can be juming-up-and-down excited about going, and never get made fun of.

All of your teachers love you when you're three.

You get to hold hands with your bus driver, and you're the coolest kid on the block when it pulls up in front of your house.

You get a Toy Story backpack..... *with wheels*.

You're finally strong enough to squeeze the hose thing.

And most importantly... you can drive the car cart at Lowes.

Maybe three isn't as bad as people make it out to be afterall.

Let's Race

I ran in a 10K a week ago. Russ and the kids were waiting for me about 50' in front of the finish line. When Cade saw me running, he ran out to hug me. He held my hand and we ran the last little bit of the race together. He was so excited!! The race photographer took this picture. My facial expression is a little crazy, but Cade's is priceless. I think it's hilarious that both of his feet are off of the ground too. When we finished the race, Cade said, "moe wace, mommy? moe wace?" Love that kid.