It's been a long time...

But here we are again.

Cole turned 3 years old on February 16th! Here he is celebrating:

I can't believe how big he is and how smart he is. He's so much fun to have around! Just the other day, he told me, " Mommy, You look very nice." I replied, "Thank you." He then said, "You look very cute." To which I also replied, "Thank you." He then sneezed into his hand and looked up and said, "Mommy. Look at all my germs." He loves dinosaurs and tractors and Thomas the Train and Toy Story and tractors and Finding Nemo and tractors. Did I mention he loves tractors? He also recently looked out the window and said, "Look! A squirrel." (which he pronounces "swirl") Then he watched it for a while and looked back at us and said, "He is very cute.", with a big smile on his face. (That one's for Uncle Clint, who is constantly at open war with the squirrel population in Nappanee.)

Henry is growing so fast. He is a very happy baby. He loves his Daddy and always has a huge smile for him. He's sitting up on his own now. He's very laid back and has the ability to sleep anywhere. Including in the middle of a birthday party full of three year olds. He's holding his bottle on his own now and eating all sorts of baby food.

We're excited for spring and summer to get here. We plan on a lot of bike rides, walks, zoo outings and camping trips.

The boys get a long great (so far). Let's hope they stay that way the older they get. :-)

Happy Birthday Crystal!

Crystal's 31st Birthday was last week. Cole really happens to be into birthdays right now, so we made a big deal out of it (for both Cole's and Crystal's benefit.)

Here's a photo of all of us wearing party hats.

Henry also ended up getting really excited. Here's a video of him getting in on the birthday action: (As always, in order to see the full video click on it to watch it on youtube, rather than directly on the blog. Not sure why that is.)

Stay classy, blog readers!

Gorillas and Bunnies

Is it a gorilla? an orangutan? big foot? a monkey? alf? a sasquatch? a wookie? At any rate, it's CUTE!!! Cole was a gorilla for Halloween this year and although people who saw him had a hard time deciding what he was, they all agreed the costume was one of the best they'd seen.

He was able to get a lot of use out of his costume this year. In addition to trick or treating on Sunday night, we attended a 'trunk or treat' at a local church on Wednesday night and a costume birthday party at the Children's Museum on Saturday. Needless to say, we have A LOT of candy to help him eat.

Henry tagged along for the trick or treating in the stroller. He was dressed as a little blue bunny.

AW! So cute!

Well, we hope everyone is enjoying the fall! As always, more to come...

Chair Thief

Last Christmas, Cole got a mini arm chair. We keep it in the living room and sometimes he sits in it to watch TV. I guess it's time for Cole to get used to sharing.

Just A Typical Evening at the Sheward House

We don't have anything notable to report today. But, part of the intent of this blog is to allow those we love that are living far away from us to be able to watch our boys from a distance. This is just a typical evening at our house. But this "typical" is what gets me through each work day. This is what I love to come home to. (And I still haven't figured out why this happens, but the blog format cuts out part of the video. If you want to see the full scope of it, you'll need to click on the video so that it redirects you to youtube.)

Cole the Daredevil

We have some very good friends who unexpectedly had their second child at 27 weeks. Luckily, little Sean is doing very well and tonight Crystal decided to go visit him in the NICU. Since no child visitors are allowed, the boys and I had a "He-man Woman Haters Club" night.

The definition of crazy: being the only adult taking a 5 week old and a 2 1/2 year old to Monkey Joe's, an inflatable heaven for children (and not so bad for dads either.) This visit was a little different for Cole, though. Previously, I've been able to play on the inflatables with Cole. But this time, since I was holding Henry the whole evening, Cole had to go it on his own.

I was surprised how well he did. Check him out.

I still think he likes it better when I get to play on the slides with him (or at least I do.) But this is just a little example of how you realize that your kid is getting older and more independent; he can careen down a two-story inflatable slide without you.

Cole's Rockin' to DMB

So I guess Cole likes Dave Matthews, or at least he likes playing his guitar with DMB. We were watching the NFL Kickoff pregame, and this is what Cole started doing.