halloween

At least I'm getting these photos up before the next holiday gets here...

Cole was Plankton (from SpongeBob Squarepants, if you're not hip to Nick) this year, and there were 2 big surprises related to his costume. The first surprise was that Cole kept his antennae on his head during all of his trick or treating. He cried when I took them off to put him the car. You would've thought I had stolen all of his candy from the way he reacted.

The second surprise was that no one at a 2-year-old's birthday party held the Saturday before Halloween knew who Plankton was. But then again, not a single person at the same celebration recognized his Charlie Brown costume last year. The best part of the party was the Moon Bounce. Cole loves to jump whether it be hopping on the ground or flying high in his crib. It was so much fun to see him just throw himself around and not worry about him getting hurt. If only I could pad his whole room...

2 years!

The hustle and bustle of moving is behind us and the drywall dust began to settle just in time for Cole's second birthday. We had 3 consecutive weekends of visitors and his birthday was celebrated 4 times with the last candles being blown out on October 28th with his little friends. I baked our traditional duckie cake again and then a mongo Halloween-themed cake for the kid party, a co-celebration with 2 other October babies. Cole's favorite word is "No" but that was replaced by "cake!" for the last few weeks.

Cole talks constantly now, although, it is not all in English. I'm fairly fluent in Colish though so we can communicate pretty well. He has a new joke where he points to his elbow and says "ELLLLLMMMMMMMMOO" and giggles. He CAN say elbow, he just doesn't want to. He'll also insist on calling something "CAAAAAAKKKE" just so you'll correct him and he can protest by saying "CAAAAAKKKEE" over and over again.

Cole is putting words together now too. "More cookie" is a favorite of his. The other night as I crawled into bed at 6 a.m. I was greeted with my favorite sentence "Hi Momma." I had no idea Tony had brought him into the bed until I heard his little voice. It was so cute that it ALMOST made no sleep okay.

Cole's love of music is now expressed through song as well as dance. We can perform a lovely duet of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" or "Row, Row, Row your Boat" with Cole singing the last word of each line. He surprised me the other day by singing along to "Loco Man" from the Mighty Wind soundtrack which I guess I have played a lot in the car.

Cole's a helper, and he proudly helps with the laundry and grocery shopping. He'll take things out of the washer (love the front loader!) and hand them to me one-by-one. He'll also push the laundry basket full of clothes into my room for folding, which is where I take over. At the grocery store, Cole insists on putting the items in the cart for me which led to broken glass and embarrassment in Aisle 9 last week. He also helps unpack the groceries when we get home, but I've learned to move the breakables to the counter right away. We're always learning new things together.