DONE AT 2:05!!

Well, it's finished! I have updated my blog! It only took me 3 hours! I hope you enjoy. For your reading pleasure I put everything in backwards so that when you read it, it will be in the correct order :) I tried to go month by month to fill you in on what has happened since May, besides adoption stuff. From now on, I will try to do a better job of keeping it up. By the way, I have created a new blog about our adoption. It is a private blogspot so if you would like to be invited to that email me and let me know. I will not be posting much adoption stuff on here as I don't want the entire world to know details of our adoption.

Visiting Aunt Deb.

We took a trip to visit Aunt Deb. in Wabash. Colten had a great time and it was good catching up with her and Uncle Randy. Besides the two dogs that Colten loved to feed vegtables to, he found lots to play with at their house. Colten with Aunt Deb. And by the way, I do not neglect my child. As you can see Aunt Deb. has on a winter coat and hat and my son is in a t-shirt. It was May and not freezing out (well maybe in Aunt Deb's opinion). My Aunt is from Florida and does not adapt to cold weather well. So don't call CPS on me :) Colten with Uncle Randy. It was Colten's job to keep Uncle Randy awake as he was very sleepy due to a bad night. ...Uncle Randy's motorcyle and remote control cars he puts together. (I'm just glad Colten didn't break them.) He sure enjoyed racing those cars! Go figure...two things he likes best, cars and racing! ...and yes, it's a slot machine. This kept Colten's attention for quite some time, for many reasons. 1. You put coins into slots. 2. You push buttons. 3. It makes really loud noises (we couldn't figure out how to turn the volume down and it was LOUD!) 4. Money spits out at you! And that happened often! Colten was rather a pro at this game! I think my Aunt wants to kidnap him and take him to Vegas! Hey, not a bad idea to fund our adoption??? Is that wrong?

MAY

Well, I think this is where I left off the last time. We were beginning to start t-ball, and boy was I excited! What was I thinking?????? Sure, my kid was the cutest one on the field but boy was he the most frustrating one. Words of wisdom, don't put your 3 year old in t-ball!!! Colten loved t-ball for the first 3 games. After that it was all down hill. I think his best position was catcher cause he was too busy throwing the ball back to the picher that he didn't have time to do art in the dirt :) I know all kids play in the dirt, but my kid refused to do anything you asked him to do. All he wanted to do was play in the dirt. But, it's all in the past now and I have cute pictures to show for it. That's all that matters right? Now, I think he's wanting to play soccer! Oh Boy! Here we go again. This was Colten's first big hit!!! His first time up to bat all season and he got a hit! What a slugger...and yes he's a lefty. On base and ready to run it in for a score! This is the most alert he was all season! No joke... I actually caught him paying attention!!! What a pro. ...and this is where it goes downhill. "But," you say, "he's chasing after the ball...that's good!" No in fact the ball wasn't even hit. He ran infront of the pitcher in the middle of the at bat to run across the field to say hi to his grandma and papaw Lee watching from the crowd. That's Matt chasing after him and bringing him back to his position... ...A good father/son talk... ...and there went the focus! This is what the rest of his t-ball career looked like. At least he got to hang out with one of his best buds Caleb.

JUNE

Bill, Matt's brother, graduated from med. school which gave us a good excuse to take a mini vacation to Florida! We went in with his brother and stayed in a beach house. The beach was right across the road, and Colten remembers it vividly to this day! He loved the beach. He asks at least once a month if he can go back. He enjoyed the QT with his cousins. Every chance he got he was in the water. Probably 2-3 times a day, we went to the beach. Pretty much the whole day. He'd go in the mornings with his dad, come back for lunch, take a nap, go for an afternoon swim, back for dinner, and end the day with a romantic walk on the beach! Here are a few classic moments with Uncle Bill that I loved! I can only imagine the thoughts going on in Colten's head, cause his Uncle Bill is the coolest person to ever walk the face of the earth, in his opinion...not saying your not cool Bill, but personally, I think his mom is the coolest!!! "it's pretty simple, you just throw the board down and jump on it!" "No Uncle Bill,...really, I think you should use this one. Look it's got a cool dolphin on it!" I'd love to be back on the beach right now. Sitting in the WARM sand, listening to the waves crash in, and see those beautiful sunsets! Every night we had an amazing scenery. God is a great artist!!!

JULY

VBS, VBS, VBS!!!! July was full of putting on many VBS programs! For our Amazing 80 journey we put on a VBS at my parent's church. We were the missionaries, and also at Ben Davis. I got the opportunity to lead worship at my parent's church which was so much fun! Colten enjoyed going to all the VBS programs cause he got lots of awesome snacks!! Not to mention he got to throw a pie in his Papaw Huff's face!!!! (thanks to his dad's great idea :) The VBS we did for our church was centered around the story of Noah's ark. So one night we got to bring Brandy, Colten's best bud! They spent a little time hangin out together. I love this picture! We also had lots of swimming in July as well. Our pool was a little high maitanace this year, but well worth it! Colten learned to swim on his own without the floaties this year! He was pretty pumped up about that. He does better when he keeps his head under water. For some reason head up signals, butt down and sink, for him. He mastered the cannon ball or the can opener by the end of July :)

AUGUST

August started off with a long Saturday for Colten but an exciting one for my sister. She graduated from Purdue with her masters and we decided to go and celebrate with her and go to her ceremony. It was a long one but well worth it! Grandma Huff stocked Colten up with lots of snacks, books, cars, you name it and she had it in the bag!!! From there we headed to a wedding with our tuckered out tike. Not just any wedding...a catholic mass! He did great! I was so proud of the little guy! He had a long day and was ready to go home after that! Colten also got to go to the races!!! He loves cars and since papaw Huff is the racing chaplain it gives us lots of chances to go to the races. So we had to squeeze on in before the season was over. At first he couldn't keep his eyes off the track, he liked the loudness too. We were hoping to see a good crash in the figure 8 races, but no luck...I guess that's a good thing!

SEPTEMBER

Not a whole lot went on in September. Colten noticed a lot of his friends were going to pre-school and began talking about school. So he asked if he could go to school. Well, I don't see the point in paying someone to do what I know how to do, and he gets plenty of social time with all the church activities we have going on, so we decided to set up school in the play area upstairs. We made a bulletin board calendar and I pulled out all my teaching stuff and we went to town! He is amazing me at what he can do and how much he absorbs!!! He knows all his letters and their sounds, he knows his numbers up to 10. He can ALMOST write his own name, if he feels like it :). But what has really surpised me lately is his beginning stages of reading! We were playing on the computer together, a game called, Reading Rabbit Journey (something like that?) anyway, it was having him repeat words like am, I, see, at, it, apple, and look. (sight words) anyway, later, it was asking him to choose the correct word out of 3 words and he chose the correct one EVERY TIME! He knew to look for the correct initial sound to find the word they asked for. I WAS AMAZED! You'd think after teaching for 5 years it wouldn't be that shocking, but this is my 3 year old. I'm gonna become one of those parents that I hated during teacher conferences who thought their kid belonged in the gifted and talented class :) Okay, I'm not that bad!

OCTOBER

Of course, the most important thing is that we celebrated my 29th birthday. I had a nice birthday spent with the two guys I love the most,...Matt and Colten! I'm not looking forward to next year! Colten and I got to carve a pumpkin. It was more fun this year cause he actually helped!! He enjoyed pulling the slimy seeds out but had a break down when we had to get rid of the pumpkin as it was decaying on our front porch. (He understood that though thanks to 'Sid the Science Kid'...thanks Sid!) It was pretty funny because as you can see the pumpkin once had teeth carved out. The older it got the more the teeth sunk in. One night as we were walking through the front door, Colten stopped to look at his pumpkin and said, "Mom, it looks like a papaw now!" We had a good laugh over that one. Also all month Colten had the treat of having his baby brother spend some time with him on Tuesdays. When our friends Tom and Stacey had their baby, Colten called him his little brother and it has stuck ever since. Stacey needed someone to watch the little guy on one day a week for the month and I had to jump on the chance!!! Here's Colten giving him a ride on his back...What a good big brother!

Murder Mystery

I helped Kathy with a murder mystery dinner...80's theme... for our trip to Liberia. We had about 85 people come dressed in their best 80's attire!!! It was a lot of fun. Matt and I were both nerds!!! AWW!!! I must say he played the part better than I did :) Here's some pics from our fun night... Our good friends Tom and Stacey had a great 80's outfit!!! We couldn't help but not forget a great pic of Colten's little bro. dressed as 'toadstool'. How cute is he??? Sorry, Tom and Stacey, look good too :)

3 year old pictures!!!

We haven't had the money to do the 3 year pictures yet, so today I finally decided that I would take Colten's 3 year old pictures myself, and save a little money!!! Why not? I set up a little studio upstairs and he thought it was fun! I was excited cause for the first time he actually smiled in a posed picture!!! And they turned out pretty good. Now I just have to make the effort to take them to Target and get them printed out! It might get done before Christmas! And of course....Colten had to have some goofy faces for some of his pictures. He loved these the best! He laughs every time he sees them.