Saturday, December 12, 2015

Colin is One Year Old!

Colin just turned one! He is 17lbs and 29". He is very fast and almost able to climb up on the couch. He is quite goofy and silly. He points a few things out (sis, brah-brah, ma, da, ball) and these are also all words he can use. He eats ok, maybe not quite as good as brother and sister did at this age. He gives great hugs and kisses. He is finally starting to read books instead of eat them.

I re-read Nolan and Liana's one year posts and it is funny (but not surprising) how similar they are!

chrisandkacey.com/Colin
Goodness, cake is yummy!

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Colin is Ten Months Old!

Colin is getting pretty goofy. He baby-talks to us a lot now; it seems like he is sometimes trying to have a little conversation. He is eating most things now and pretty good at chewing. He still doesn't nap very well. He is trying to climb on stuff still, but hasn't YET been able to get up on anything. He is just now starting to point at things, so soon he may be able to point to things that I mention.
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Swinging at the library

Tuesday, September 08, 2015

Colin is Nine Months Old!

This little guy is progressing well. He still seems small, but eats ok and is super active. He is walking! He started taking steps a few weeks ago, and now he almost walks more than crawls around. He can stand up quite well without holding on to anything. I need to find some more foods for him to eat. It is funny how you forget what you used to feed the first two kids when they were this age! He is very goofy; laughing and giggling a lot. He likes to dance and wiggle to music. He is also starting to learn how to climb up on things, so that will get interesting. Liana and Nolan both had very kid friendly play areas at this age; Colin, not so much. He still won't lay down for a nap except for maybe once a week. Most days, I still hold him.

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Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Nolan is 7 and Colin is Eight Months Old

A little late, but better than never...

Nolan turned 7 and once again we weren't really in a place to have a party. So, we took him to Mystic for the day, then home for pizza and cake. He picked chocolate cake with blue icing and gold sprinkles. He picked out a stuffed octopus from the aquarium and got a new bike.

Colin is so close to walking. He is kinda taking a step, but mostly falling toward me. His fifth tooth popped through and more coming soon I am sure. He is eating bell pepper, cucumber, chickpeas, cheerios, apple, banana, and pear now too.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Colin is Six Months Old! And other happenings

Colin is six months old! Times going pretty quick now. He is crawling around so fast, it is a little challenging thats for sure. His two bottom teeth popped in a little over a week ago, and his top two are working their way through right now. We have been cup feeding most of the time, that works the best for him. He still isn't taking naps in his crib; he wakes as soon as I lean him over. We also let him try a few solid foods recently. He had a little avocado mixed with milk and some squash. He seemed to enjoy it.

A couple days ago, Nolan started riding his bike! We had tried a few week ago, but his balance was not very good (his training wheels were too tight giving the bike no lean at all). So, he has been riding his scooter around a lot. That seemed to help his balance a lot. He hoped on his bike and just took off without a second thought the other day! We are still practicing stopping and getting going, but he will have it mastered pretty soon I suspect.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

New York City

For Memorial Day weekend, we drove to New York City for a few days to take in the sights. We stayed near Columbus Circle on the edge of Central Park. Thursday night after arrival, we ate some Thai food near our hotel. It was good, as we haven't had good Thai food in a long time.

We had a list of things to see and a possible order to see them in. Friday we started off at the Statue of Liberty. We arrived early (in line around 10) so the wait wasn't too long at all (maybe 20 minutes). The weather was nice and we enjoyed the view a bit. We didn't have tickets to get in as they were sold out a week in advance (crown tickets book 6 months out). We decided to skip Ellis Island as we didn't have a strong desire to go and we had lots of other things we wanted to do. Once we got off the boat, the security line was stretched around most of Battery Park. We started walking north and took a few pictures at the Charging Bull. Our next stop was the 9/11 Memorial and Reflecting Pools. We talked to Nolan a bit about what happened there. Next we went to Lombardi's for pizza. This is supposed to be an iconic New York pie. Honestly, I was not thrilled. It is heavy sauce, light cheese, and expensive. The crust is very good, though. Then Kacey went to Purl Soho while I let the kids play at a park for a little bit. Lastly, we went to the American Museum of Natural History for the last hour it was open. We walked back south through Central Park and ended up eating at The Greek Kitchen. Food was quite good!

Saturday, Kacey wasn't feeling super well so I took Nolan and Liana to Intrepid Museum. We got there as they opened, but as it was Fleet Week, the line was long to get in. Luckily it moved, but still took a while. We first went to see the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Nolan liked this and we checked out a lot of tools and other artifacts. The deck of the ship was covered in aircraft and the kids each picked out some favorites for pictures. We then climbed up to the officers control decks to look around a bit. Next we headed to the hangar deck to check out some kids activities. There was also a 1/40 scale of the Intrepid built in Lego. After playing a bit, we started to wrap up our visit and went out to look at the submarine and the Concorde. On our way to bus to Top of the Rock, we stopped for a snack of some fries. We then met Kacey and Colin at Top of the Rock. We decided to go up this rather than Empire State due to hearing it is just better all around (experience, view). It was pretty easy (stroller accessible) and a pretty good view. After this we went to Times Square to walk around and eat ice cream. Well, we didn't really do either as Times Square was packed (probably as usual) to the point it was hard to get around, and we couldn't really find any ice cream until we had almost given up. We ended up walking all the way back to Rockefeller and went to the Lego store and plotted out dinner. We found a place that looked good, but the wait was too long, so we ended up at Rosie O'Grady's. This was my first Guinness since Ireland and while it is true that they aren't as good here, our Irish waitress made it a pleasant, memorable evening. On our walk home, with a stop at Grom along the way, we happened to walk next to the Ed Sullivan Theater, home of the Late Show with David Letterman.

The next day we took our time getting up and our first stop was Eataly. While I had high expectations of this place, the things I was looking for were not really there. We did eat pizza and pasta here, and they were pretty good. We took a look at the famous Flat Iron building, which is next door, then started a walk north. Our plan was to walk past and look in the Empire State Building, the Library, Grand Central Station, and the Chrysler building. After we wrapped up the walk (and got some Junior's Cheesecake), we went back to the American Natural History Museum to see some things we didn't get to during our prior visit. Nolan had a lot of fun looking at the ocean animals exhibit. We picked Toloache for dinner, a modern Mexican place. The food was pretty tasty and the staff was nice to us. We decided to stop by a donut ice cream, Holey Cream, sandwich place on the way to the hotel. They source pretty good ice cream, and we were glad to have not tried the donut ice cream sandwich; we saw one and they looked intimidating!

The next day we visited the Bronx Zoo on our way home. This was a pretty good zoo and the kids had fun.

Pictures from our trip can be found here.

Friday, May 08, 2015

Colin is Five Months Old!

Colin turned five moths on Tuesday. He has been barrel rolling and scooting around for a week or so (also getting up on his knees), but Monday night he really crawled. Now, by the end of the week, he is getting much faster! He went to the doc today and he is 25" and 13lb 8oz. He is small, but also very active and not eating much during the days. He has been sleeping in his crib some during the day, but he doesn't sleep very long as he is probably hungry. He ends up sleeping on me quite a lot. Hopefully when I can start some solid food, he will start sleeping more (like how things went with Liana).


Friday, April 10, 2015

Colin is Four Months Old! And other progress..

Colin is 4 months! He is getting so big. He is rolling around; we already have to be careful about where we leave him. Transitioning to expressed milk via a bottle is a struggle. Liana and I really struggled with this and I am trying to not repeat that. One morning he figured it out, but forgot by that afternoon. Yesterday he drank some from a little cup, so hopefully that is our ticket to getting this boy fed during the day. He doesn't nap very long at all; 45 minutes is long for him, usually only 20-30 minutes. He has also gotten vocal. He does some loud squeals to talk to us.

Liana is potty trained! A couple weeks ago, she really wanted to start wearing her underpants and that was the step change to get her on her potty. She has only had a couple accidents, and also has been on some long road trips. The only real problem now is she is kind of scared of large toilets, so she won't go when not at home. She screams at restaurants. I am making her use big toilets more at home to help.

Nolan likes karate. We are not real sure what he is actually learning, but thats ok. Hopefully we can find some soccer soon as he wants to play that too.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Colin is Three Months Old! And other updates...

Colin is three months old! He gives lots of smiles, but makes funny/scared faces for the camera. So, mostly the smiles are just for us. His legs are quite strong and seems like he really wants to roll over. He likes playing on his back some, hitting the hanging toys with his hands. I think he is close to giggling, but not quite there. He is cooing at me some.

Liana is almost 2.5. We are starting some potty work. She does a great job talking in sentences to us and most of her words are now said the correct way, although some of them were quite cute (Nolni for Nolan). Her appetite and food habits changed somewhat during the moves and new baby, but she is getting back to eating a bit better. She loves to sing and dance. She is pretty stubborn some times, but probably just average for a two year old. Nolan never really went through the terrible twos, so I think we just aren't used to it.

Nolan is doing ok in school. He seems to have little desire for reading and speeds through his writing. We have been working with him to slow down in writing so it is more legible, and trying to find books he wants to read. He has a great imagination. In spite of a few fights, he and Liana actually do play well. He just started karate and said he wants to play soccer in the spring. We unfortunately haven't done piano since Ireland, but he and we want to keep doing lessons. With this transitioning life, things like this have been hard, though.