Nana visits

We just finished finished spending a week with Nana. Time with her guarnantees lots of fun adventures. This is such a fun time of year with beautiful scenery and lots of fun celebrations!

Here are some of the highlights!

Some karaoke and fun family dinners

Tryin out Colter's new bathrobe

a date night

Celebrating Jessie's birthday with a yummy cake by Mark and shredded beef and chedder flautas. yum!

a trip to the park

smores around the firepit with some neighbors

A walk down in Edmonds complete with hot chocolate AND ice cream

A trip to the pumpkin patch (another post)

A breakfast at a new spot with the best hot chocolate I have ever had.

Thanks for a memorable week!

The Golden Birthday Extravaganza

First off, lets clear up the confusion on what a golden birthday even is. Apparently most people are not aware of this amazing event :) Whenever you turn the number of years as the day of your birthday (28 on the 28th of September), that is your golden birthday. Most people have theirs when they are younger, so there is usually not a lot of celebration. I am a lucky one who has known about this for a long time and have waited in eager anticipation for this day. It only happens once, so I wanted to make sure it was a year to remember!

I spent way too much at the party store buying up everything that was gold- gold plates, napkins, utensils, table clothes, confetti, stars, door steamers, things to hang from the ceiling, gold hair spray, balloons, etc. - I went all out.

Ben had the awesome idea to set up our camera and have it take pictures throughout the party. It was so fun to go back through the pictures and see everything that was going on. It was a ladies only party and when you unleash stay at home moms without their kids and husbands, things get a little crazy. We had some amazing food, fun times playing the game celebrity, (I swear I didn't know the camera was about to take a picture)

and some serious dancing/karaoke.

I feel so blessed to have such amazing friends by my side.

On my actual birthday, Ben and my friends went way out of their way to make me feel special throughout the whole day. Ben made me the most delicious banana bread french toast which I thought was better than the wild wood restaurant in Whistler. A couple neighbors stopped by in the morning with some yummy starbucks, Colter took two amazing naps, my sister made my favorite lunch, and I got to go to Edmonds to meet up with Jill who just got back from her 3 month stint in Italy. To top it all off, the day was absolutely gorgeous- my favorite kind of day. Totally sunny, crisp, cool air with a slight breeze. Perfect. That night, Ben made me an amazing dinner- steaks, twice baked mashed potatoes, and proscuitto wrapped asparagus. Can I get a what what for my chef husband!?

This was probably my favorite birthday yet. I felt so blessed!

Three years

Fall has officially arrived! This season marks the beginning of a whole slew of celebrations! One of the first on the calendar is our wedding anniversary. We celebrated our third anniversary this year, which doesn't sound like very much, but feels like much longer because of everything that we've gone through in these three years. We relocated to a new state shortly before marrying, we bought a house, I started and quit a job, Ben experienced a bank takeover, and a new position, we got pregnant and had a baby, whew. A lot in these past 3 years!

We had a full day of celebrations. Our day started with ammaaaaaaaaaaazing red velvet crepes. I can act like everything is perfect in our house and tell you they turned out exactly like the pictures on this blog,

but in reality, they were a mess.. an amazing mess.

For dinner, I cooked up some tasty cilantro tacos and guac, and we watched all of our past wedding videos that Ben puts together every year. Man we have done a lot over these past 3 years! Ben also brought him the most amazing bouquet of flowers I have ever seen.

2 weekends ago we went to a chocolate shop by greenlake and had some great conversations over peppermint patty hot chocolate. This past Friday we went to an amazing Italian restaurant down in Magnolia where we had the most incredible gnocchi with sage/butter sauce, 5 kinds of bruschetta, and a spicy tomato pasta dish. Afterwards, we walked around the downtown area of Magnolia and happened upon a Fall festival that was going on complete with live music and an art walk. too fun!

When I reflect back on this year with Ben, I am brought to tears by how much grace God has poured out on our marriage. This has by far been the most challenging, as we have faced the reality of what it is like to be parents and have our time split a million different ways. We have had to put way more effort into having quality conversations, date nights, and making sure we still feel connected to each other. We have learned that from here on out, we will have to fight for our marriage so that when our kiddos are all grown and gone, we wont look at each other across the dinner table wondering who the stranger is. I constantly have to check myself to make sure I am serving Ben before friends, Colter, and other family, man is that a challenge.

I'll tell you one thing about this year though, I have fallen more in love with this man than I could have imagined. His sensitivity to the emotional roller coaster I went through when transitioning to motherhood, his relentless support of me in whatever I am passionate about, his constant encouragement and reminders of what is true, and his ability to make me laugh in my most despairing moments, have been more evident than in this last year. He works hard and then harder to provide for our family. He is constantly trying to be a better husband whether it's helping more around the house, planning more date nights, thinking of more questions to ask me to get to know me better, keeping a detailed book about things that I like, and giving me many needed breaks for more sleep when I am on the brink of exhaustion.

This man is amazing, he is mine, and I couldn't be happier. He is an absolutely fabulous father, loyal friend, and the best hubby around. I am so blubbery writing this post, i don't even know if it makes sense.

I love you Benjamin. I want to grow old with you.

7 months!

I feel like 2 days go by and it's time for another update! Just stop growing up already. Well actually, you can continue to grow up because it is so much fun to see you change all the time. You continue to be a delight, I just love watching you become a little boy. There have been several times in the last few weeks that I have looked at you and realized that I am not parenting a baby anymore, but rather a little man as I like to call you :) In fact, you've started to sprout some facial hair.

Big changes this month is your ability to get on all fours and rock back and forth, and finally figuring out how to roll in both directions! You now roll intentionally towards toys, and are starting to dive from a sitting position towards things, which usually ends up in a less than graceful head plant onto the ground. You don't really like to sit still anymore, so it's a little more challenging to keep you occupied since you want to move, but haven't quite figured out how. Once you figure it out though, I don't think you're going to stop! You absolutely LOVE to stand. You are the happiest standing, whether its standing at your play toy, on the couch, the chairs at church, or your crib. Your favorite toys this month are kind of random. You love to suck on the string of your snail pull toy, you enjoy chewing on the flag of your sailboat, reading tails and your first words book, and playing with your alphabet blocks, especially the x and y cube (of course you love to chew it). You love everything that shouldn't go into your mouth-plastic grocery bags, envelopes from the mail, tags off of new clothes, and paper towel rolls. The other day we were at a house that had two dogs. I don't think you had ever seen a dog up close before. You got the biggest grin on your face and wanted to tug their hair so bad!

The only way I can get you dressed is by standing you up on the changing table to look at the bird picture. You are SO squirmy and SO strong that diaper changes are a whole new challenge! You twist your body with all of your might and I have to try as hard as I can to keep your flailing feet from getting poo on them. A lot of times I end up putting on your diaper when you are on your tummy.

Your language continues to grow by leaps and bounds and it seems like you are starting to talk to some of your toys or make sounds in excitement over new things like the night light that you discovered yesterday. You are most chatty in your booster seat after a meal. Apparently you have a lot to say to your cup and spoon that I give you after we are done eating so you don't have a melt down.

You also love drinking from a cup and from your own water bottle that dad got you. It always makes me laugh when you are going to town drinking, and then all of a sudden you spit out a ton of water that you have apparently been storing for a while! You love to feel food with your hands and will sit in your seat opening and closing your sticky hands or rubbing your hands around your tray for a while.

You continue to love bath time and are now sitting in the tub like a big boy. You love to face the water faucet and try to grab the stream of water. You also still love to suck on your wash cloth or play with the bath toys. You definitely do not love to have water poured on your head and onto your face. You close your eyes, make this really loud sucking noise and kick your legs really hard.

We usually have to work pretty hard for it, but when we get one of your sweet laughs, it melts our hearts. Here are two of your favorite activities.

I'm not going to talk about it, I'll just give you a picture to confirm. Yes that is a head lamp on my head.

One thing that is new about sleep this month is that sometimes after I get you asleep in the ergo, I am able to sit down and rock with you for a good portion of the nap. I actually really treasure this time because I don't get a lot of snuggles from you during the day. There is something so special about feeling the dead weight of your body against my chest and the soft rise and fall of your breath as the glider creaks back and forth in the dark. I know you start to wake up when your little legs poking out the side start to wiggle around and your hands start scratching my arm. I will give you some credit, you have had some really good nights of sleep this past month. Last week you slept until 5 or later 4 days in a row. Some days you go 3-4 days of all good naps, and then have some rough days.

I can't believe we are getting closer and closer to planning your 1 year birthday party and thinking about things like baby proofing! I love you Mr. Colterman, my son.

a random update

1. I pretend that Colter is really into the kid band Caspar Babypants, but I might be a little more into than he is.

Click here if you want to hear my favorite song. I'm warning you though, it's addicting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjFJCZCHzNY

2. I recently joined a book club and am almost 3/4 through my first book since Colter was born (other than breastfeeding and sleep books). I forgot how much I love to read.

3. Colter had his first sleep over (don't worry I was there too) at auntie Jessie's house and had his best night of sleep EVER. We might be showing up at their front door a little more often :0

4. Ben has had some recent opportunities to pursue some of his hobbies including sailing (unfortunately no wind for the 2nd time in a row!) and a guys golf weekend!

5. I couldn't wait. I decorated the house for fall and can't get off pinterst finding more fall decorating ideas.

6. We've started hosting our community group on Monday nights. We absolutely love entertaining and using our home for this purpose.

7. We are about to enter into the craziest time of year with 7 birthdays in our family in the months of September and October and our anniversary on September 27th

8. I had my most exciting freebie deal last week. It wasn't totally free, but I got all this for $20 out of pocket. Yes that is 4 bottles of vitamins and ALL THOSE TOYS!!!!!

9. Colter is spinning in circles and rocking on his hands and knees. Our lives are about to change dramatically.

10. The Crowls and the Heavilands hit up the Greek festival for the 3rd time and enjoyed gyros, greek fries, and some serious dancin from James-o.

Grandpa Willie

Grandpa Willie was in town for the past couple of weeks and we had a great time spending time outdoors, getting spoiled with lots of tasty dinners, and having a lot of fun adventures!

Here are some pictures of some of our fun times!

Greenlake wading pool

Old McDonalds

Swimming at Ballanger Beach Park

A beautiful day at the Edmonds beach park

Play time

yummy lunch at Ro Ro's bbq

fun bath time with glow sticks

Thanks for the fun visit grandpa willie!

playing!

Ben thought of this awesome idea to capture 30 minutes of playing and condense it to 30 seconds worth of pictures to show how busy this little guy is! What a fun idea! I love the monkey on his head that randomly shows up throughout the video.