Winter Update

Why is there a giant, orange robo-dog cake just sitting here?

You guessed it:
Coen Turns One!

What is Coen up to these days, now that he's a big one-year-old? Here's a short list:
*Loves to give kisses to everything
*Says: "Dada" to almost everything, "woof" to every face (and looks for the doggie on his shirt), "Uh-uh" (uh-oh!) all the time and drops everything, "mama" occasionally, just started to say "nye-nye" when I ask him if he wants to go night-night. And he's starting to say more babbly stuff.
* Dances all the time, even to really bad restaurant music.
*pushes chairs, walker, Nora's walker all around.
*points and says "da?" (shows me stuff and talks about stuff)
*likes to give us stuff and then take it back, of course.
*hits toys and chases after them. Started to push cars.
*plays peek-a-boo... way too fast.
*claps and waves.
*plays little games with us when he's in a silly mood...makes them up.

Okay, that wasn't really a short list and I'm sure I forgot some. It's been so fun to watch him learn and grow and do things that Nora could never do or took a really long time to do. Makes me appreciate those little things even more now. He has a sweet personality: loves to snuggle, but also wants to conquer everything, has a streak of stubborn-ness (no idea who he got that from), wants to be in with what's going on around him. He's great at escaping places we've corralled him into. Coen is amazing, that's the only word I can really find that explains what he is and means to us. I can't wait to learn more from him... and watch him learn more.
His one year pictures I took. He's always crawling into baskets or anything he can get inside and sit in.Thanks for feeding me, Gramma, you're the best!
His very own personal cake. A robot dog. He didn't dig right into it like we all anticipated. He was a picker... don't know if he actually got any of the cake, just the frosting. So different than Nora, who completely destroyed her cake and ate most of it.

Is miss Haley bug jealous or just sniffing the cake?
Giving Daddy a messy kiss.

Hubby played a game of Chess with KT while the rest chatted. This isn't showing all who came, just a handful. I wish we could hold more people in our smallish house. There were quite a few who I didn't get to invite... Not that Coen cares at all. It's mostly for us adults. :)I wanted to thank all Nora's teacher's and therapists for their hard work, so I made them reversible bags with goodies inside as an end of the year holiday/thank you gift.
Daddy helping Coen open his first presents ever. Good practice for his birthday.
Hadders playing with her new magnets while sitting on Coen's bath train... silly girly.
Pretty hair, Norabelle. Cute new twisty-feelies look cute as a hat. We're starting a new fad.

Sister enjoying morning drink... coffee? tea? hot cocoa?Good morning, sleepy head.
Brooklyn loves her new baby. Congrats, Sister!Nora had her EKG before the new year. Just a check up thing, nothing to worry about here. I had to hold her on my lap while they stuck a bunch of electro thingys on her chest and under her arms, then they cliped the cords to the sticky things which liked to come undone a lot. The actual EKG only takes, like 10 seconds, it's the hook-up that takes a while.

We also had some visitors from Cornland come before the new year. My sister and her family!! I was so happy to see them. They also brought their old time friend, Stephanie along. It was lots of fun. Too short, though.We played greed. It was a wild night! You have no idea!
We were about to hire out Danny's services for continually putting Nora to sleep. It was amazingly wonderful...She loves her Uncle Danny.
Senna and Ocean got to stay up and play Greed with the adults.
Stephanie tried her hand at virtual 4wheeling.
and read Glade some books, some of which she wasn't too fond of.
Nora fell asleep on Uncle Danny again. Danny had a full lap.
Aspen playing on the floor. He was quite different than the last time I saw him. Cute!
On their way home. Stephanie gave Ocean a hammer for the car ride home. I'm sure Becky and Danny were thrilled with that.

Now we are guest free and into our old routine. Daddy here is reading the kids a book after their baths.

So, my New Year's resolution was to do a blog post a week (I don't actually believe in New Year's resolutions, it just happened to be a new year), which obviously hasn't happened so far, but hopefully from now on it will. Then I can save some time by not having to post a mile long post that everyone is bored with. Oh well. Working on it. I was also hoping to join in with the 52 weeks thing and have a picture with me and the kiddos each week. Kinda scared to commit to that. Gotta try anyway. See you next week!