Been a long time...

Sorry the posting's been a little light. We've been super busy lately. Here's a quick update and a few pictures to catch you up.

We spent Thanksgiving up in Nappanee and Cole really enjoyed seeing his cousin Riley. She loves playing with "Baby Cole".


Cole is getting very big and is pulling himself up and crawling and is very close to standing alone and walking.


(Don't you just love that little chubby face???)

Last weekend we went to the Irvington Business Christmas Open House and Cole got to see Santa. He didn't really have any idea what was going on. It was still a great photo opportunity.


(Is it just me or does Santa seem a bit intense?)

Anyway, that's all for now. Except this one last picture.

Crawling Cole

Look out world. Here I come!

(Sorry the video is so blurry. My dad recorded it with his phone.)

Trick or Treat

We took Cole to the Indianapolis Zoo's "Zoo Boo" this weekend. We enjoyed eating his candy. We also enjoyed seeing all the cute little babies in costumes. Cole was a lion and we like that the lion's mane is reminiscent of how Cole's hair stood straight up for the first five months of his life.

Apparently he was a little freaked out when we took him to face off with the real lion. But he's definitely the more cuddly of the two.

We had a great time! It's fun dressing up your kid before they have a say in what they wear. It's so much cuter being a cuddly lion than a power ranger.

When the frost is on the punkin

Cole is now 8 months old. He's been hitting quite a few milestones. He has pushed two teeth through those bottom gums in the past week and also constantly repeats his first, and only, intelligible word: "Da-Da". He is not a master of the classic crawl yet but he maneuvers himself all over the living room by laying down and sitting up and rolling and sitting and somehow he's all of a sudden pulling on the cord of my laptop before I even notice he's there.

As Halloween approaches, Cole is gearing up to be a little lion. We've been trying to get him to learn to roar but it seems that he'll be the little lion that says dadadadadada. Our little lion will be helping us give out candy to trick or treaters on Halloween night and will also be making appearances at the Irvington Halloween Festival, my office, and the Indianapolis Zoo's "Zoo Boo".

Crawling... almost

Cole is THIS CLOSE to crawling. He's got all the elements down. He's just got to learn to move himself forward. He's got crawling in place down, he's got sliding backwards down, he's even got some crazy yoga moves down. Just not the actual crawl. I'm thinking it'll be soon. He must be waiting until Grandma comes to visit the week after next to do it. At any rate, here's a little video of him doing everything but crawling. (No, there's no sound. I keep on getting little videos with my camera because I keep forgetting to plug in my video camera.)

Also, ten extra special bonus points to the person who can name all the proper names of the yoga poses he's doing in this video. Rebecca, my money's on you.

Be sure to check out our new slideshow on the left hand side of this page. It's a summer in review show. It includes pictures of the zoo, the Indiana State Fair, camping, swimming, Cole's first Cleveland Browns game and Cole just being cute.

A little off the top...

Here's a video of Cole's first haircut. I did it with my camera, not the video camera, so that's why there's no sound.

Little of this... Little of that...

Cole will be 6 months old this coming Saturday and has been doing a lot of new things. Here's a summary:

He's been sitting up pretty well now. Sometimes he falls over, more out of sheer boredom or tiredness than anything else.
He wants me to tell you that he doesn't NEED his boppy. It's just that when Mommy walks away to do things, it's better to fall over onto that than onto the floor or a hard toy.

I don't have a picture of this, but his goal is to get his mouth onto his hard toys and gnaw on them because his first tooth is attempting to poke through his gums. It's the bottom left one. He's not too fussy about it, which is nice but the amount of drool coming from his mouth is astronomical.


Here's a photo of him gnawing on a designated gnawing device.

You can't tell from this photo but the front of his shirt is completely soaked.

Cole has also begun eating vegetables and fruits. His face when you first put food other than bland cereal into his mouth is priceless. He looks supremely offended.

We have peas (this was his first food other than cereal) and sweet potatoes. Note the bright green color of the peas. Nope, you can't get that from jarred baby food. Only from the homemade stuff. I'm making all of Cole's baby food and so far it's gone really well. His palette currently includes green peas, crookneck squash (from my garden), sweet potato puree and bananas. We will be adding apple puree and pear puree this week.

In other ADORABLE news, Cole and his best friend Harrison are really warming up to one another. Proof of their undying friendship:

How cute are they in their little khaki cargo shorts? Also, Cole totally reached out to grab Harrison's hand all by himself. This is what sparked the photo op.

Until next time...

Lonely in Louisville

There they are. My family. Very attractive bunch.

I'm getting ready to leave for 6 days to go to Louisville, Kentucky for work. First of all, I really wish I was heading to a more glamorous destination. The tourist highlight of my week will most likely be when I get to leave the hotel where our convention is being held to go to the Louisville Slugger Baseball Museum, which the fraternity I work for has rented out for an evening. Since I'm not a huge sports fan to begin with and I'm definitely not into baseball, I foresee yet another exciting evening where I will be mingling with older gentlemen and hearing about the "good ol' days" when they were in college.

Secondly, I'm really gonna miss my boys. I'll be working from 8:00 in the morning to 11:00 at night so the week's bound to go by fast but I'm sure I'll be pulling out this picture and looking at it all the time.




I'm fairly certain Cole will hit some amazing milestone while I'm gone. The First Word being the one I fear missing most. The ONLY way I'll forgive him for developing coherent speech while I'm gone is if his first word is Mama.


I know he'll be in great hands while I'm gone. Philip is a WONDERFUL dad. He knows how to do all the things that I do and then some and he'll take care of everything just fine. I'm more worried about him forgetting to water my flowers and vegetable garden than his ability to care for Cole. Plus, Cole's expecting visitors while I'm gone: Grandma and Cousin Riley and also Papa, Nana and Cousin Kaitlyn.


He'll have a great week. I just hope with all the fun he has, he'll remember who I am when I return. Because if he doesn't, I may just never want to leave again... unless the destination is anything other than Louisville, Kentucky and the companion for the trip is my husband and not my co-workers...

A New Feeling of Homesickness

This past week was one of those long weeks. You know, when on Tuesday morning, you're thinking that it has got to be Friday already. One of the reasons why my week was this way was because I was out of town for work on Wednesday and Thursday. It was the first time I've had to be gone overnight since Cole was born.

I have never been one to be homesick. I've always enjoyed traveling, whether with others or by myself. I always look at it as a chance for adventure, whether the purpose of the trip is business or pleasure. But, this past Wednesday night I felt the odd feeling of homesickness for one of the first times in my life. I was only gone for one overnight. Afterall, South Bend is only a 3 hour drive away from Indianapolis.

But as I sat in the Fiddler's Hearth (an Irish Pub in South Bend--go figure) and watched a slew of amateur guitarists demonstrate their passion through six strings and a microphone, I couldn't help but realize just how much I missed being home with my wife and child. I found myself constantly pulling out my cell phone and looking at this picture on Flickr:



God truly has blessed me, and for that I thank Him each day. For me, going home to Crystal and Cole makes a long week seem wholly insignificant and totally worth it.

~Philip

Best Buds

On Saturday, June 14th, 2008, Cole's best friend was born and he's been bugging me to let you all in on this news. So here it goes.

Weighing in at 8 lbs. 14 oz. with the longest fingers and toes ever is Harrison Dean Gapinski Coon. He's very cute and we stopped by the hospital so he and Cole could meet. Here they are:

You all should probably get used to Harrison because, as he is Cole's best friend, he'll probably be a frequent guest star in the Sheward Family Blog.

I know a lot of you are saying to yourselves, "What if they don't like each other?" Well, it's not really up to them at this point and so far we've gotten no complaints.

So, in closing, Congratulations Brian and Rebecca. Harrison's one great kid and we're proud to call him Cole's best friend.

My Name is Cole

Hello everyone! Cole here. I'm 14 weeks old now.

I suck my thumb:Most of the time I look like this: With a lot of this thrown in:

But sometimes, now this is rare, I look like this:
(Mom: It's not THAT rare! Cole:Stop it Mom. This is MY blog entry.)
But MOST OF ALL I'm cool, very very cool, like this:

Well, until next time, I'll be keepin' it real.

Cole

Hats, hats and more hats...

A few weeks ago, my Aunt Sue and cousin, Jessica, came down to see Cole and while they were here I showed them his room and some of his clothes. Well, Jessie suggested to me that I should take pictures of Cole wearing all of the hats he has. As a master scrap-booker, she saw the potential for a great scrap book page. Now, I'm not into the creative memories thing yet, perhaps that will come, but I did follow the sage wisdom of my cousin and a few days ago, Cole and I had a photo shoot with the hats. He would start laughing and smiling every time I put a new hat on him. At any rate, here's the link to the slideshow. Grandmothers, fair warning, you're going to want to jump up and down he's so darn cute. Here's the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24017746@N08/sets/72157604828625770/show/

Side note: If a certain dog (ahem, Allie) leaves a different toy strategically placed on the steps every night and every night a certain new mom goes downstairs to make a bottle and almost trips and falls down the stairs and DIES, does it mean that a certain dog is trying to kill me? Any thoughts?

Cole Being Cute

Hey everyone. We've been a little negligent when it comes to putting videos on here. I presume that ya'll like seeing photos, but videos just seem to be much cooler. The problem is actually taking the time to get the camera out. Downloading the video to the computer's not a big deal, but uploading them to YouTube seems to take forever!

Anyway, tonight Crystal, Cole and I were just hanging out in the living room, and Cole just started being really cute. I mean, we think he's always cute, but he was being cute enough that I thought I'd try and catch it on video to share with ya'll. By the way, if you're trying to remember how old he is, he'll be 10 weeks on Saturday.

In any regard, enjoy!

An Early Lesson for Cole

Today I came home from work and explained to Cole this principle: "The public wants what the public wants." Cole looked at me as if he didn't understand the words that were coming out of my mouth. I looked at Crystal and said, "should I have explained that to him in French?"

So the reason I decided to bestow this wisdom upon my son was because I have heard from a number of concerned citizens as of late that the Sheward Family Blog has not been updated frequently enough. Of course Crystal and I recognize that Cole is the star of the show here, so I thought it would be appropriate to explain to him that he's going to have to get used to the papparazi. Especially since he's going to be the star quarterback of the Cleveland Browns in 2030.

So, in response to the numerous inquiries as to when the next blog posting would be, Cole and I sat down to type out this entry. Here's a picture of us in action:

Many of you have asked me whether we've gotten Cole rolling over on video yet. My deepest apologies, but we have not. Reason being is that my lazy butt still has not ripped all the video from the weekend Cole was born from the camera and saved it to our computer. So I've been procrastinating when it comes to getting stuff done with the camcorder. I'll try to get on it soon. I hope to make video entries more often, especially as Cole hits milestones like crawling, walking, and rocking out to Guitar Hero 3.

And, for all of you who are yearning for more pictures, you'll find them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24017746@N08/sets/72157604232202970/show/

I promise, we'll try to be more diligent with our blogging. Afterall, the public wants what the public wants!

Your child may be a genius if...

at one month old he can:
a. recite the Periodic Table of Elements
b. speak fluent French
c. ROLL OVER!!!!!

Yes readers. Edwin Cole Sheward, at one month and 2 days of age, has rolled over. On March 18th, 2008, I placed Cole on his stomach in the Pac n' Play and when I looked down, he was on his back. Well, I figured this was a fluke. An anomaly. So I layed him down on his stomach on the floor where he proceeded to roll over onto his back... AGAIN! He did it another time or two and so I called Philip and told him and then decided to let The Wonder Child rest so he could do it when his father got home. Of course, when that happened, he would have none of the rolling over. Such a tease!

The next day, Cole rolled over again several times and was able to do it for Philip. Now, I don't want to brag, but I looked this up and kids aren't supposed to do this until they're like 4-7 months old.

While Cole can recite the Periodic Table of Elements and does speak French fluently, this rolling over thing is impressing the heck out of me.

For those of you who may be skeptical, I'll try to get this phenomenon on video and post it at a later date.

And then there were three...weeks.

Well folks, we've managed to keep Cole alive and mostly happy for three weeks now. He's very good at being a baby... eating, sleeping, more sleeping, eating, etc. We're also getting the parenting thing down. I mean, we're not ready for the junior high years or anything but we feed him regularly and change him and such. He did ask where babies come from the other day and we've decided to go with the stork angle for now.

We've put new pictures up so you can check out how cute he is. We know, we know, we're pretty shameless about that.

Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24017746@N08/sets/72157604072752666/show/

Cleaning the Kid

Well, Cole is now into his third week with us and we thought we'd give those of you who care a glimpse into one of the only things that Cole gets to do other than eat, sleep and...well, poop. We decided to record giving him a bath because up to this point it has been slightly entertaining because of how much of a fuss he makes. That didn't prove to be very true this time. But, he's cute nonetheless (if we do say so ourselves) so we thought we'd share. Enjoy!

Some Pictures from Cole's First Week

Here is a link to a Flickr Slideshow of some photos that we've taken of Cole during his first week (which actually doesn't officially end until tomorrow.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24017746@N08/sets/72157603954507976/show/

Things have been pretty smooth the first week. We've been adjusting to the new sleep patterns, but it's not burdensome at all when you realize why you're doing it. Cole's got some jaundice issues, but that's pretty normal and we're not really concerned. The "biliblanket" that they've put him on to fix the jaundice stuff actually makes him sleep pretty well.

Also, our pediatrician recommended that we integrate some formula into Cole's diet since the breast milk hasn't been so cooperative so far. He's been a little less finicky since we started that up.

Well, that's about all for now. Until next time.

Edwin Cole Sheward

On February 16, 2008 at 8:20 p.m. we welcomed Cole into our family. Cole was 7lbs. 8oz. and 21" long at his time of birth. As you can see, he's got a head full of hair. It now looks like he's got light brown hair with blonde highlights. Kinda funny. His eyes are currently blue and we think they'll stay that way since both of his parents have blue eyes.I'm hoping to post some video for you all (don't worry, nothing graphic) but for now here are some photos from the weekend.

If you'd like to see a slideshow with some more photos, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24017746@N08/sets/72157603941338578/show/

Thunder's Room!

Alright, here is our first attempt at the whole video-blog thing. Please enjoy this pre-baby tour of Thunder's Room, soon to be completed by the arrival of our son.

Let there be a blog...

So, I've decided that with the impending birth of our child, it would be a great idea to set up a blog where friends and family could check out photos of said child, possibly videos, etc. This is my first ever blog so bear with me as I figure all this out. I thought this would be a fabulous way for out of town kin to keep up on the "Life of Thunder"... coming soon to a hospital near Indianapolis. So, not much to read or see yet, since he's still inside the womb and all but soon my friends... very soon he shall make his debut to the world.

The only thing I can tell you for sure is that the little guy has chubby cheeks. How cute is that? Chubby Cheeks!