silly boy.

two things that make colin very happy - waffles for breakfast (or lunch or dinner) and wrinkly hands when he gets out of the bath tub.  pictures like these make this momma very happy too. 

a nephew is coming!

on saturday night we went to my sister and brother in law's house for dinner and more importantly, to find out that my baby sister is going to have a baby boy! i am so excited i can hardly stand it.  i am the (very) proud aunt of 3 gorgeous nieces and i cannot wait to meet my first nephew!  colin is super excited too - he can't wait to have another cousin to play with and boss around, ha!  now that we know they are expecting a sweet little boy i can start my many sewing projects and party planning....cannot wait to get started on all of it.  july 4th cannot get here fast enough - i think i might be a little bit of baby hog once he is here.  i cannot wait to love on him and i cannot wait for my sister to meet her baby boy!

they had their anatomy ultrasound last monday but asked the doctor to keep the gender a secret from them too.  so they typed up the gender and put it in a sealed envelope that kim & michael opened in front of all of us at their house on saturday night. the buckert's and the valdez's were all crazy excited for the announcement!

it's a boy!!!! yay!!!! congratulations to kim & michael - can't wait to meet your little bundle of joy and i really can't wait to start shopping!!!!

my valentine.

i love valentine's day for so many reasons.  to me it is a day to make sure those you love know how you feel - whether it's a spouse, parent, kid, sister, brother, grandparent, you get the point.  we should make sure our loved ones know how we feel every day of the year, but in reality that doesn't always happen - at least not for me.  so i love having a designated day of the year to remind me of how blessed i am to have so much love in my life.  i felt extra special tonight when luke got home.

he knows me well.  3 of my favorite things: pinot grigio, flowers, and chinese food.  i love this man! 

colin also brought me flowers.  is he the best or what?  excuse the chocolate candy mess in his mouth.  and excuse me looking half dead - today is monday afterall.

then we went through all of colin's goodies from school today.

everyone deserves to feel special and loved and my boys definitely made that happen for me tonight.  i hope i make them feel just as special and loved in return.  i have the two best valentines a girl could ask for.  so, from my littlest valentine to you, happy valentine's day!

big weekend for the horton family.

we had a GREAT weekend!  on saturday all 3 of us participated in the texas med 5k fun run/walk and it was so much fun!  we walked and colin strolled and we finished in less than an hour - so i think we did pretty good.  can't wait to sign up for more events in the future.  i helped organize a team for my department at work for this walk and now we need to get going on the susan g. komen event and the march of dimes walk - can't wait for those! i forgot my camera on saturday but luckily luke brought the video camera so we have some evidence of our participation, ha!

after the walk we met up with the white girls and honey and daddy jay for some playtime at herman park - no pictures there either but we always have fun with them.  we walked, played on the playground, and went to lunch - colin was so worn out he kept falling asleep in the car. 

we are also working on updating/redecorating our living room a little bit - we got a gorgeous, huge new rug yesterday afternoon and some other things are on the way.  can't wait to show a picture of it when we are all done!

since we were up at 6am yesterday we are our enjoying our coffee and lazy time this morning.  happy sunday!!!

Amen!

Every night before dinner Colin reminds us we need to say an amen - this is what he calls a prayer.  He folds his hands so sweetly and bows his head waiting or one of us to begin. Usually he will have a very loud "Amen!" ready at the end and then he sometimes will clap for us after the prayer is over and tell us "good job" - nice of him, huh?  Lately he has also starting paying a lot more attention to his prayer bear - I don't know if this is the official name or not but Grammie gave it to him over a year ago and now he has decided he loves it.  You can push either of the hands or feet and each time you hear a recording of a different kid-friendly prayer.

Of course he can't forget about giving Henry bedtime kisses - and of course he always does this after his teeth are brushed.

Sweet boy - I am guessing it won't always be this easy to get him to say his goodnight prayers.  Maybe I will be wrong.  Who knows but I think he is off to a good start.

Party Time!

We had a blast at Colin's party last weekend - a lot of friends and family came over to celebrate with my little boy and it was so much fun.  I actually managed to take some photos of the party decorations this year and then turned over the camera to my sister for the actual festivities.  :)  The kids at the party did not stop - except for pizza and cupcaks - but they were running and playing together the entire time, just like they should be!

This picture above shows how we all felt by the end of the night, ha!  The party was perfect for Colin and he really had the best time.  He slept until almost 11am on Sunday so we know he had a grand time on Saturday!!  He kept looking for his friends Andrew & Zekey from school all day Sunday too - so sweet to see him with his little friends.  :) 

Happy Birthday Colin!

 First things first, my little boy turned 2 last week! The last 2 years have literally flown by and I am having a hard time keeping up with how fast he is growing and developing into such a sweet, loving, compassionate little man.

I had planned on updating the blog on his actual birthday but my laptop/memory card/usb drive were not getting along, so here we are almost a week later. Oh well, better late than never! We started off the day with a trip to our local Waffle House – Colin has a slight obsession with waffles and would eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I let him. Last night I actually did let him have a waffle for dinner, but that story is for another day.

After our waffle breakfast we headed into Houston to the Children’s Museum. Colin had only been there once before and he was still drinking from a bottle and not yet mobile so we thought we’d give it another try and he LOVED it! I think we could have stayed all day long and he would have been happy, but we had other things to get to on our itinerary for the day.

After the museum we headed home for lunch and nap time – one thing about us is that we don’t mess with nap time at our house, at least we try not to. My sweet, loving little man can easily morph into a grumpy, tantrum throwing spit-fire without a nap (and if I am being honest, lately he does this even with a nap!).

After an abbreviated nap we took him to the movie theatre! Luke was really excited to take him to his first movie, and lucky for us we were the only ones in the entire theatre. I guess that is what happens when you go see Tangled at 3pm on a Wednesday at the end of January – it was so nice! He got his very own junk tray with popcorn, fruit snacks, and fruit punch. To be honest he was so engrossed in the movie he barely even touched any of his ‘junk tray’ until the end of the movie. He did great and clapped after the female character (can’t remember her name) would sing – so cute!

After the move it was straight to Chuck-E-Cheese for pizza and games. We took Colin to Chuck-E-Cheese for his birthday last year and he loved it but we hadn’t been back – it’s the kind of place that is really only tolerable once or twice a year. Again, we had a fantastic time and Colin was so excited to play all of the different games and he begged us to ride Barney over and over and over. At the end of the night he picked out his prizes and was so happy with his little treats.

Finally, we went home and sang Happy Birthday over a brownie, then it was time for bath time and bed. Luke and I went to bed shortly after Colin that night too – we were all worn out from our fun-filled day celebrating my most favorite little boy.

Like I have said before, I don’t think you can adequately describe the love a momma (or daddy) has for their child – at least I don’t know how. All I know is this little boy fills our lives with so much love and happiness (and sometimes craziness) that I don’t know what my world would be like without him.

"A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.” - Anonymous