Did you know...

...that the circus now consists of horses, camels, dogs and two elephants? 

I mean, who knew?!  Well, our family does now!  Collin insisted he was going to see "two yions and a monknee" on Sunday when we took him to the circus in Little Rock, but that certainly did not happen.  However, we still managed to have a great time!  More on that in a moment.

Friday afternoon we had our usual Mommy/Collin date.  We went for smoothies, and as usual, Collin insisted that we sit in the kiddie booths.  I can totally get in one of these, but getting out quickly is a bit of an issue and I'm sure humorous for anyone sitting nearby!

Saturday we all got up and did some work in the yard.  Collin with his sidewalk chalk and bubble mower, Jarrod with his electric, hedge trimmer thingy and me with my bossy instructions.  Then we made our first family trip to a swimming pool.  Collin thought it was the neatest thing ever.  He kept saying, "Mommy, I 'cited!  Mommy, I have FUN!" 

Here's the thing...  I taught swim lessons for several years back in high school and college.  I very specifically remember thinking that one day I would get to do that with my own children, and (as I told Jarrod repeatedly last week) I have waited 12 years to do so!  I just knew I would have an opportunity to do some things with Collin on Saturday, but evidently his idea of "swimming" is standing on the edge of the pool in his lifejacket, throwing his water toys into the pool and making us play bird-dog.  Yeah.  He got in a few times and he kicked a little bit with me, but that was about it.  We'll keep trying.

Ok, so now for The Greatest Show on Earth!  Collin was only interested in the parts that included animals.  Every time they would do an act with just people, he would get in my face and say, "Where de amimals?!  I wanna see da amimals!"  The only non-animal act that he really enjoyed was when they took two guys on dirt-bikes and had them ride around inside a steel cage.  He ate that up.  Should I be worried about his potential to repeat that particular stunt?

It was because of this part of the show that he insisted on getting a motorcycle as a souvenir...



How cute is Amelia Jane?!

After the circus, Jarrod went to get fitted for a tux, and the Men's Wearhouse we went to happened to be in the same place as Toys-R-Us.  Collin has been talking about getting a bike and a "bike hat" for his birthday, so we took him in to try out a few of the little-kid trikes.  Good thing we went for a test-drive instead of just getting him one, because that poor child could not figure out how to put pedal and steer together to make GO!  We're still lacking a little coordination, so I think we're going to hold off on the bike and "bike hat".

That puts me back at square one in the birthday gift department.   Although, he did say he wanted one of these...



He's a dreamer, like his daddy!





The Stars @ Night Are Big & Bright...

... Deep in the Heart of Texas

Jarrod and I love our homestate with such a passion that it is probably safe to say it has become an idol of sorts!  We've gotten a lot better and no longer diss our current state of AR.  However, I have to say it: When I was in Texas over Memorial Day weekend, I felt like I could breathe.  It's the most wonderful place ever, and I hope the Lord provides a way for us to return someday.

We left last Thursday after work and traveled what is normally 6 hours to Jarrod's parents, but because of an accident in Little Rock and a fussy toddler, it took us more like 7 1/2 hours.  We hauled everything up to our room, put Collin to bed and passed out a little before 1:00am.  We all got up the next morning and ran some errands, a.k.a. did some SHOPPING!!  Then around 3:30pm we picked Jarrod's mom up from her school, and we headed to Brownwood to family land, known as Turkey Peak. 

Jarrod has wonderful childhood memories of Turkey Peak.  It's special for me because of the time we spent there while dating in college and during the early years of our marriage when we would hop in the car and travel a few hours to there from our home in Austin.  There is an actual lake on the property and some really great central Texas scenery.

I sat on the porch for a little while & read while Jarrod took Collin for a walk across the dam.  This is what I saw on their way back :)

                                          

This was Collin's second experience fishing, and he was adorable!  He enjoyed reeling the fish in, but he did not want them to be anywhere near him once out of the water. 

I saw entirely too many lizards and other creepy, crawly things for my liking, but I can get over it.  Jarrod told me that for a country girl I am all "city".  My response was that I love the country, just not the creepy, crawly things!

I picked this lovely wildflower bouquet.  I would take one of these over a store-bought bouquet any day!

And of course, the whole reason we went to Turkey Peak, we spent time with Jarrod's grandpa.  Collin gave Grandpa "five" on the hand and he would give him goodnight hugs, but we couldn't get him to sit on Grandpa's lap except for the last few minutes of our visit during this picture -





Jarrod in his "natural" habitat




The Baum men



He's obsessed with playing with rocks lately



An Update

Last Tuesday Collin's daycare had their "End of the Year" program, and I have to say I felt like a newborn baby at a rock concert.  I have never been so overstimulated in all my life.  Parents of young children are ruthless, and without inhibition.

The program took place at a local church's Family Life Center.  Think: carpeted gymnasium.  There was no stage.  There was a sort of riser-ish thing with a million chairs in front of it.  So imagine us sitting to the right of the platform thingy, 15 rows back and me unable to see my son when he came out to perform the one song his class was participating in that night.  Lucky for my husband, my inhibitions were still in place, because what I really wanted to do was stand up in my seat in the middle of 50 other people in our seating section so I could see my baby sing "He's Still Working on Me"!!  Why on earth would you take tiny people who are three feet tall and put them on a platform a foot off the ground and expect a room of 300-400 people to all be able to see?

It probably didn't help that my tiny person decided not to stand up on the riser-ish thingy and instead, according to Jarrod, sat down on the corner of it during the whole song! 

Collin was really excited to see his teachers and his friends outside of school.  He thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Collin with his good friend, Addie.  I don't know what he is doing with his tongue!

Fast forward to this past Saturday...  We have been talking for a while about transitioning Collin to a toddler bed.  His crib converts super easy, but I didn't want to spring a lot of changes on him.  Since he's doing so well potty training, we decided to just bite the bullet and Saturday morning his crib became a toddler bed.  I'm surprisingly unemotional about this transition...

My biggest fear was that Collin would have this sudden enlightenment and realize that he could come and go whenever he wanted to do so.  Also, I worried that he wouldn't go to sleep and would constantly be out of his bed trying to play with his toys.  Knock on wood, neither of these things has happened!  He goes to bed just like always and waits patiently in the mornings for us to come get him up.  Yesterday morning we found him in his bed with a small ball and a toy car.  So he did at least get up to get those items, but then he hopped right back in his bed and waited on us to come get him up for the day.  Then last night, I heard him rambling in the middle of the night.  I waited a little while before going to check on him, and I found him asleep on the floor next to his bed.  His puppy and blanket were with him, and he was sprawled out!  Cute boy!!  Jarrod told me not to risk waking him by picking him up, so I just left him (against my wishes, because come on, any excuse to pick up and hold my sweet, sleeping boy is a good one!).  This morning, when we went to get him up, he was back up in his bed.

Yesterday afternoon, we watched our friend, baby Canyon.  Canyon is 4 months old and already weighs half of what Collin weighs.  Collin seems to like holding Canyon, but on two different occasions now he has said to me (about 30 seconds into holding Canyon), "Mommy, he too hebby".  Then he usually puts on his best I'm being crushed by a car face, and we all roll with laughter.  Adorable.

Also, can we just talk about something for a moment?  I am always reminded of just how true it is that all children are different whenever I hold another kid.  I go to pick them up and expect it to feel familiar and sweet, but it usually feels awkward!  My niece is 8 days older than Collin, but everyone in my family will tell you that holding her feels completely different from holding Collin.  They aren't buiilt the same and they have different preferences on how they like to be held, etc.  So watching Canyon yesterday was a bit of a chore.  He didn't seem to like anything I did for him!   Insert frowning face here.  Incredibly, Jarrod had the magic touch.

Sleeping in the hammock



Confession Time

Yes, I have a confession.  I have an English degree and yet, somehow, I have never read The Great Gatsby.  Somehow, it was never required reading for me.  And somehow, when given the choice, I managed to push it aside for other titles.  So here I am in my late 20's and reading The Great Gatsby.  I already know what happens at the end, but I decided that no self-respecting English major can pretend to be super stoked about the movie premiering and still have not read the book.

In other news, we dedicated baby Collin last weekend.  He now officially belongs to the Lord even more so than before ;) 

That precious boy told me he had to go potty right before we were called up on stage.  I told him to hold it.  I'm sure that was the first of many times to come!

My in-laws came for the dedication.  We spent Saturday in Little Rock shopping and had yummy cupcakes for dessert that night.  Collin loves when his Nonne and Papa come to visit.  In fact, he woke up every day last week asking for them and each day I had to remind him that they were back home in Texas.

Also, Landry got a haircut and a new necklace.  She is one posh pup.  Yes, I just said that.

This weekend was, of course, Mother's Day weekend, and what a glorious time we had around here.  We were lazy, and we played outside - A. Lot.  My boy likes to catch bugs, and by catch, I mean he smacks them with his hand and then holds his hand up with a dead bug attached to it and says, "Yook!  I got it!!"



My Mother's Day present!

 

Getting kisses from this little boy!

Collin also discovered the magic of a Bubble Mower this weekend.  My mom gave it to him last year, but by the time he received it the weather never really cooperated, so I've kept it put up until now.  I'm kind of glad too, because Collin is all about "mowing the yard" right now.  It's all he wants to do.  He is so serious, and I think he really believes he's mowing the yard!  I hope he has the same attitude 10 years from now.


I cannot even stand how cute this kid is!!

He's really starting to enjoy playing outside now, and I feel comfortable letting him go out by his self for brief periods.  In the evenings, while I'm cooking dinner, he'll play in the patio or in the yard with Landry and I can see him from the kitchen window telling her what to do.  Saturday he helped me let Landry out to potty, but when I came back inside he decided he needed to stand in the doorway and make sure she did her business.  I could hear him yelling, "Doo-Doo, GO POOP!  Go potty!!!!  Doo-Dooooooooo!!!  GO POOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!!  Now!" 

All I could think was, I'm not even embarrassed that my neighbors are probably all hearing this because it is hysterical!

Baby Dedication - Two and a Half Years Later

Our church is having Baby Dedication in a couple of weeks.  They do this periodically and we've been approached twice to participate, but we weren't ever able to do so because we were out of town.  Well, this time around I'm determined we will be involved.  Poor Collin is going to look like a teenager up there with all of the precious, new babies!

I have to provide the church office with a little blurb about Collin and what our hopes/dreams/prayers are for him, and this really has me thinking about the things I hope for for my boy.

Before Collin was born, we heard a sermon at my parent's church about the importance of a name's meaning and the importance of speaking words-of-life over a child.  As if there isn't enough pressure to give your child the perfect name, I felt this was intensified after hearing this sermon.  I wanted to name my child something that could be relevant to any time period (so nothing too trendy), and yet I wanted to name him something a little different.  Also, in the spirit of speaking words-of-life over him, I wanted to name him something with a wonderful meaning - something he could aspire to live up to.  So a cute name would come to Jarrod or me and we would both agree that we liked it, but then when we would look up the meaning, we would discover it was something ridiculous, or just plain awful!

I have liked the name Henry for several years now, and it also happens to be a family name on my dad's side.  It is my dad's middle name, as well as his grandfather's, so I knew Henry would be my son's middle name.  Because it was the only thing I was certain of, I took to calling him that while I was pregnant.  Henry means "ruler of the home".  You could take that to be a bit too authoritative, almost like "dictator of the home", but I'm choosing to hope it will mean Collin grows to be the spiritual leader of his home one day.

So back to his first name...  I thought for a while that I wanted to name him Brighton.  In Hebrew, Brighton is "the one who is loved".  However, Jarrod wasn't crazy about this name and several family members let us know they weren't either!  I ultimately decided against it.

Collin just came to me one day.  I looked up the meaning and discovered that the name is thought to be derived from the name, Nicholas.  Nicholas is, of course, the male version of my first name, Nicole.  Both Nicholas and Nicole mean "victory of the people".  I thought it would be really cool for both my name and Collin's to have the same meaning.  Jarrod and I decided we both really liked Collin Henry, but we could never fully commit to it while I was pregnant.  We also didn't want to risk having that name shot down by our family members, so we kept it a secret until the baby was born. 

I remember looking at Collin after he was born and asking Jarrod, "Ok, so Collin Henry - are you sure?"  And then Jarrod would say, "I don't know, are you sure?!"  It's such a huge responsibility to name a human being!!

So that's how we got our little boy, who in name alone is: The Victory of the People and a Ruler of the Home.

That brings me to my hopes/dreams/prayers for him.  Obviously as a mother I hope my child is likable, handsome, athletic, smart, etc.  It's just human nature to hope for those things, but in truth, none of those things matters if he doesn't know the Lord.

Collin has been expressing such a sweet interest in praying recently and he likes to sing "Dat Bible song", aka, Jesus Loves Me.  I hope we're teaching him about the Lord, and I hope that as he grows up he will see Godly examples in both Jarrod and myself. 

This is the verse we have hanging on the wall over his crib and it is my prayer for him.  It is something I struggle daily to remember, so I hope that if Collin starts out his life knowing this truth then he will take it with him always.

My dad was in Seattle recently for an event called Time to Revive.  This ministry is based out of Dallas and they travel to cities around the country to share the Gospel with people.  They tend to focus on cities that are really populated and also really lost.  During an event, you can follow along online and each day there is a YouTube video posted that summarizes the day.  On Day 3 a good portion of the video features a little boy named Joseph.  His dad is the videographer for Time to Revive.  Joseph's fervor for the Lord is both precious and impressive.  I couldn't give a waiter my drink order at his age, much less talk to strangers about Jesus!  I hope Collin is this unabashed in his faith one day.

What the 5K?!

So here's an idea, let's not do anything physical for several years, have a child, get even more out of shape and then sign up for a 5K. 

The thing is that I've really been feeling convicted for some time now to get into better shape, but of course I always come up with excuses.  I don't have the time.  The weather is bad right now.  Etc.  So when I got a flyer from Collin's daycare about a 5K Color Run benefiting an anti-trafficking organization, I thought it would be a totally awesome thing to do...if I was in better shape.

Well, silly me got a little too eager and mentioned it to the girls in our small group, and sweet Kirstin quickly said she would do it with me.  I told myself we would back out of it, but dang it if Kirstin wasn't committed!

Last Friday I went over to her house on my lunch break to run with her around their neighborhood.  I realize it was stupid to run like that the day before the race was to occur, but I really needed to have an idea of how out of shape I was.  It didn't take long to figure it out!!  Kirstin easily pushed her baby girl in a jogging stroller, uphill(!) while I panted and stopped to walk every other minute.  We did about 2 miles before I had to head back to work, and the first thing I said was, "We have to do MORE tomorrow?"

This is me, sweaty and red-faced when I got back to work on Friday.

Of course, I woke up Saturday morning sore and grasping for excuses!  My sweet husband let me buy some new running shorts the night before, so I concentrated on my nifty shorts and relatively new/unused running shoes and made myself get ready.

Kirstin picked me up and we headed over to Harding where the race was held.  We instantly felt a little out of place...  Here we were, two moms several years past our co-ed days, and we were surrounded by overly eager college students.  We ran into a few girls who work at Collin's daycare, so I focused on visiting with them and trying to be as excited about the race as they were, and then the race started.

I seriously considered stopping and walking back to the start line to wait for everyone!  I know.  Pretty lame, huh?

It was so hard!

Luckily, it was a "fun run" and no one was too serious.  Pretty much everyone walked at some point or another, and Kirstin was sweet to say, "It's ok!  If we walk, we can talk!!"  So we would run, and then we would walk/talk and then we would run and repeat the whole cycle until we finished :)

It turned out to be a beautiful day and a perfect morning for the run.  Plus, the fact that it was a Color Run really broke up the running aspect and made it tons of fun.  And now that I've had a few days to recover and have regained the ability to make minor movements without feeling excruciating pain, I'm actually excited to start running again.


It was so funny driving home like this & stopping in @ Tropical Smoothie Cafe on the way !





I went straight to the laundry room once back home!

What a mess!

The other good thing about this experience was that it gave Jarrod and Collin some time to be together without me.  They don't get "guy time" often enough.  They were going to go fishing, but Collin fell down near the pond at my parents' house once (whilst being supervised by Uncle Daniel).  He got his bottom all muddy and wet and now he's convinced that this is what happens when you go near water.  He kept telling Jarrod, "No!  No go fitching!!  I no wanna get wet!!"  So Jarrod improvised and they played camp-out in the patio.  They set up a tent, played with Collin's little toy grill and spent time in the hammock together.

My boys!