Autumn has an announcement:

So, there you go...baby name! We've known for a while but kept forgetting to video her saying the name, haha. The story is that we were keeping a shared Google doc with boy names we liked. Mike kind of wanted something nature-y but, really, it's hard to find nature names for a boy if one is not a hippie or Native American. And the one name we did like, Ashe or Asher, just didn't sound right with Colley. Well, one night, Tamara and I were looking at names and she mentioned Garrett. I liked it and added it to the list. Long story short, have some chat logs:

Mike: Did you put down "Garrett" as a name?

me: yes. is that one you like? or don't like?

Mike: I was about to put that down.

me: oh, cool

what made you think of it?

Mike: I'm going through the list of all the names in my mail server.

And the next day:
me: is garrett your favorite name right now?

Mike: Kinda mebee?

me: i don't remember if it means anything

Mike: Rule of Spear

me: other than, "it sounds nice with colley"rule of spear? well, that's a very kali name

Mike: Mighty with a spearme: i can dig it

Couple more days and conversations later, we added Michael (Autumn's middle name is Rose which is also my middle name) and voila! Baby name! And it was way, way easier than I was expecting it to be.

Today was our 3d ultrasound and...it was weird. :) We brought Autumn and she did great although she's still trying to figure out how some gel and a wand made pictures on the screen. She took one of the pictures and put it in a magnetic frame on the fridge that Penny gave her about a month ago. We didn't get a 3d with Autumn so this was a totally new experience. It's crazy because it's so vivid but at the same time we are now afraid he might be ugly, LOL. In a couple of the pictures, he looks like a creepy old man with a freakishly large schnozz. But in a few of the photos, he looks like me or Donnie. Mike took one look at the first face shot and said, "that's your family's nose." Hahahaha. He's right. But, Autumn had a very my side of the family nose when she was born and it seems to be okay so maybe baby Garrett won't be grossly out of proportion. And if he is, we'll just make sure he's confident and dresses well. :P Anyway, have the least disturbing photo of the bunch:


Ok, that one's pretty cute. Also cute? He kept sticking his tongue out at us.

So, that's all the good stuff. We do have a couple of prayer requests. Because of Autumn's growth restriction issues, they have been keeping a vague eye on this baby's weight. The general consensus has been that there's unlikely to be an issue since his umbilical cord is fine (hers only had two vessels) but if there's any kind of history like that, they check just to be safe. Last time, he was in the 36th percentile. This time he was at the 23rd. They aren't crazy concerned that he's small because, seriously, I'm not exactly a big person but the doctor does want to make sure that he's not on a steady downward decline, as opposed to it being a normal fluctuation. I will go back in two weeks for another weight check and then they'll decide what to do from there, depending on the results.

Autumn, covered in spaghetti sauce and practicing her skills on baby Hudson.


Another thing they'll be checking in on is a cyst in the placenta. The doctor said she genuinely has no idea what it might be, if anything, but she doesn't seem too worried. It might resolve itself like the one on the umbilical cord from early in the pregnancy. If it's still there in two weeks, she's going to send me over to the high risk doc I saw with Autumn just to check it out and make sure it isn't causing any problems.

All in all, though, things are looking good! Couple of little blips but so far nothing too crazy. I'll update everyone after the next ultrasound in 2 weeks.

Next post: party pics!

SO MUCH NEWS

First! Welcome to baby Hudson!!! Hudson was born yesterday and has a full head of hair. Congratulations to Ryan and Leah and Tyler!

(totally stole this pic from Lindsay's facebook)

Second! We knowwww what we are having! :D Any guesses? Well, let me tell you by sharing Autumn's prayer tonight:

Dear God, thank you for Lainey and P.D. and for mama and papa and for my new baby brother and for tyler's baby brother and for give a pig a pancake. Amen.

Yep! It's a boy! Autumn's reign as Colley Family Princess remains supreme. :D Here's one of the ultrasound pics:


The ultrasound was a lot of fun. He was super active, just like Autumn was at her 20 week ultrasound. Everything looks great--no cord problems, no visible issues, just bouncy baby-ness.

Autumn is excited about her new baby brother--she says he's going to be the prince, she's going to be Belle, Aunt Penny is going to be Cinderella, and mama and papa are going to be pirates. So, apparently, we are just one big play in Autumn's mind. :P I'm glad she's taking it so well because she was totally convinced she was going to have a sister named Cinderella and she'd call her Ella. Hahaha. Funny kid.

Anyway, that's it for now! I have a ton of picture from THREE different parties over the last four days so I am going to try to get those up before Sunday.

Odds and Ends

We've been pretty boring around here this week so I don't have a whole lot to blog about. I thought I'd just do a quick update and post a couple pictures.

Me:
I'm doing much better than I was! I'm 14 weeks along and the morning sickness is definitely tapering off. I'm still very tired a lot but I'll take that over how it was around weeks 7-10. My kids aikido classes start back up later this month. I have scaled back to once a week for the time being. I actually didn't really want to do the toddler class again (just have my older kids class and my adult class) because it's exhausting and I feel like I'm doing a terrible job but I found out that almost all the kids who were coming are coming back--how cool is that? Plus, every time we go to school now Autumn asks, "when we going to my kido class?" :) So, if anyone has any tips or tricks or activity suggestions for toddlers (we don't just do aikido--we sing, count in Japanese, act like different animals, stuff like that), I am all for them!

Oh! And I just realized I haven't posted many photos from our session with Elizabeth in November so...here are some of those:


Mike:
Mike has been very busy with work and side work. He's started working a 7am-4pm shift which means he misses rush hour but also means he wakes up at 5:30am! I am NOT an early riser so I will pass on that! He's also been going to a different side job every night. It's a huge blessing and I'm really thankful for his technical skills and for his clients. Mike has also been a little sick late this week with some sinus stuff. Poor him. Autumn has the same little bug so they are very pitiful together today. Mike is on my happy list because he got me a papa john's pizza for lunch today. I have been wanting one for a couple of weeks now so I am very grateful for that little splurge. Thank you, Mike!


Autumn:
She's a little sicky. Poor thing woke up in the night sick and coughing. She's mostly fine in the day. Plays, then snuggles, then plays, then snuggles. Haha. She and Mike just had some monkey and papa sniffle and snuggle time on the couch watching football. I think she's going to be fine in a couple days. Other than that, she's doing great. Loving her new Christmas toys. She likes to pat "her baby." She'll say, "is my baby still growing in there?" She's talking up a storm and mostly really well. One of my favorite things she says is "very, very" except it comes out as "werry, werry" like, "that is werry, werry pretty, mama." Oh! And she bought me a bracelet. :) Autumn, Aunt Lauren, and Lainey were out and about last week and, I don't know whose idea it was, but Autumn ended up getting me a gift. Lainey says Autumn went up to the sales lady and told her that the door was locked but she needs to see the colors for her mama. Later, Autumn said, "I got you a present! I want you to open your bracelet." Hahaha, toddlers are not so good at surprises, huh? It was sweet.


By the way! Click here and see this pic of Autumn from Donnie and Liz's wedding. I'm going to have to order a big one to hang and like 20 small ones to give out. :D I was looking at it and recognized Landon and Tamara in the background immediately. I didn't realize it was me, too, until I thought, "hey, those are cute shoes...oh, wait, those are my shoes." There's also a blog post with some more wedding pics.

I think that's enough for one Sunday night! I will leave you all with a pic of Autumn having tea with her babies:


Have a great week, everyone!

This is it...

Well, it looks like we're moving on Saturday! The living room and breakfast area won't be finished and neither will one upstairs bathroom, but everything else is pretty much done and waiting on cleaning and touchup paint! And, of course, all the million tiny little things that crop up unexpectedly (like painting switch covers which I just remembered). So, this week's going to be something else. I still have to pack most of this house, haha.

I'm going to be pretty unavailable the next week to 10 days, just so everyone knows. We're all hard at work, as you can imagine. No one is safe from getting sucked into house work. Not even brothers who visit from Kansas City:


Autumn's been working hard, too. She wanted to paint with Uncle Brad so I gave her a roller and a closed bucket of paint and told her to pretend. It worked out pretty well. To the point that she was a little put out that Nanny was using her roller.


Autumn has also been helping me take tape down after painting the trim. Friday we did a good chunk of the house so this is what Autumn collected:


She even babysat Beebee Woxie. :P Well, entertained her a little is more like it. My mom and my sister Valerie came over and helped me with some of the paint stained floors.


Now, before you think we are working the little miss to death...she *is* getting some playtime...


I thought it might be kind of fun to show everyone the before and after of one or two of the rooms. This is the master bedroom before any work.


The picture of Autumn with the paint roller is kind of an in the middle pic because all the carpet is out but the walls are already painted. This is the after. It's a different blue, all the walls are blue (instead of the one brown wall), the ceilings have been scraped and painted, crown molding has been added, the intercoms have been removed and the carpets are new. Also, the fan is no longer hanging by a couple of wires like it was when we bought the house and there are four new cans lights thanks to Papa D. Ooh, and new windows.


This one's Autumn's room. It took two coats of primer to cover this green. The lights were odd in several rooms. For some reason, they were all off-center. Almost like someone had moved the walls and left the lights. Autumn had two lights. One was offcenter in the middle of the room and one was a random light next to a wall. Papa D centered the middle light, patched the random extra one, and put in two cans. He and Manuel also made her closet bigger by making the adjacent playroom closet smaller. Craziness, huh?


And here's the after. This was the second go-round with pink, haha. The first was so nuclear that you could see it glowing from down the hall. Same deal as the master, crown molding, no intercom, new doorknobs and hinges, new carpets and windows, scraped ceilings. Major plus about all this carpeting and all the new paint? No more dog urine smell. Score!


So that's what we've been doing! In every single room. Busy, busy. Thanks for putting up with us during all this stress. Moving won't make it over because there will still be more going on but hopefully not having to deal with two houses and keeping up for house showings will help a lot!

There She Grows...

Hey, guys! I am so sorry...I am working on a video and completely lost track of when I last posted. Things are busy as always here. I've spent this week doing some more serious than usual marvelling over what big girl Autumn is becoming. She can kind of pedal her tricycle now...back in November when she last rode, her legs weren't long enough to push the pedal all the way forward.


I moved the high chair out of the kitchen for the party a few weeks ago and decided just to leave it out. So we had an influx of what Autumn calls her "big girl" items--a new potty seat to replace the one that came with her training potty, a booster seat for the table, and a step stool that's taller than the one that her training potty converted into. She's thrilled to use all of her new stuff, of course, but the thing that tickled us is how the first thing she wanted to do with her new step stool was brush her hair in the mirror.


She's also been doing some awesome pretend play. Autumn's always had great imagination but now she's got a sheep that she calls the Mommy Sheep and she takes care of her "beebees" gently and caringly. "Okie beebees, it time for night night. Mama, zeza (Autumnspeak for zebra) is cold...have a balink (blanket), zeza, is that better?" :) Mike's family brought over the vanity and salon supplies they got her for Christmas so she's been cutting people's hair, saying "snip snip!" and "ok, be still!" And, speaking of the salon, we went to my mom's last week. While I was getting my hair done, Autumn spent a good chunk of the time saying, "mama, I'm about ready to go." We were like where did you even hear that??


Anyway, all that to say...little miss is growing up. :) And, P'd, don't worry...I'll have that video for you soon. Haha.

Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday. Or, at a minimum, a better holiday than Mike had:


Haha. He had a good holiday. He's just a little peopled out. I have a ton of really great photos but I thought I'd post a year recap like a few others have done. I thought it might be kind of fun!

In January, Autumn started Mother's Day out. And I had long black hair!


February brought the biggest snow I have ever seen in Memphis...I think the official Lakeland tally was 11 inches.


In March, we went to Colorado to visit Brian and Andi and their kids Nate and Sophia. We also went snowboarding which really could have gone better than it did, hahaha.


This doesn't have any particular story attached for April but I love this photo. :P This is her first documented icy stare.


In May, Autumn turned two. It's hard to believe she's going to be three in a few short months. Incidentally, I'm already planning her birthday in my head. :D


June brought Autumn's first toasted marshmallow experience.


July was a busy month. We went to Florida where Autumn decided she hated the beach but kinda liked the pool. My grandmother moved to the Philippines where she is doing well. And I made this dress for Autumn.


August brought Vegas! And in Vegas, Mike's mom found the first of the...Tink Dresses!


In September, I turned 29 and Autumn had her first school pictures made. In this outfit. Complete with the blue beads, lol.


October was a milestone month with Autumn. Looking at the photos, I'm seeing a lot of places where she really came out of her shell--she played with animals and in the bouncer at Tyler's birthday, she cooked with me and her Aunt Penny, she played great with her Uncle Rex at their first meeting, Autumn rocked out at the zoo, all kinds of things. I think October was the first time Autumn had her nails painted, too, which, if you have spent much time with her recently, you'll know was a major event for her. She loves some nail polish! "I got nails painted, mama! Lula paint nails!"


In November, we went to see the Playhouse Disney Live show (which was not super great, lol) and had all the family things around Thanksgiving, and some friends of mine and I went to see New Moon. :D Oh, and this Thanksgiving was Autumn's first year at the Big Girl Table!


I'll still have some December pics to post but here's one for you...


We hope you had a happy new year!

Guess Who's A Big Girl!

This month, Miss Autumn started a new class room at her Parents' Day Out! When she promoted, Autumn went up 2 rooms instead of one--something about her birthday and having started out in a slightly younger room because she was a late walker--and Autumn absolutely loves it. These days, Autumn barely sheds a tear when we pull in and, most of the time, she toddles right into the building on her own power, holding mama's hand and chattering away.


Also, Autumn is tooootally into the backpack that Penny gave her. She pretty much carries all her gear on her own not only to school but just about everywhere else, too!


The first day she wore the backpack to school, Autumn walked into the room, looked up at her teacher, and very seriously said, "backpack." Then, she just turned around and wandered into the classroom. :)


ALSO, Autumn is only one of a couple of kids in her class who is potty trained! Yay! It's actually very cool--Autumn is totally in big girl undies and doesn't wear pullups except at night or at naptime. We weren't really going to do night training but she's been doing that on her own, oddly enough. She's pottied twice tonight already and gone right back to bed.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure...it was a long, long journey. It took Autumn about a week to get the idea of pottying in the potty all the time. And about 4 weeks to really get it down. I'm pretty sure I spent some time doubting whether or not I had done the right thing with the potty training at least once a week during that time. And then another month or so passed before I got brave enough to stop putting her in pullups when we ran errands. Autumn was probably ready for it sooner, but I think after Vegas was when I completely cut out pullups. Now, my friends, don't tell me about your kids who were completely potty trained in 1 to 3 days at 18 months with hardly any accidents or regressions. I love you and I don't want to know. But for those of you who want some encouragement that the 14 accidents in 1 day on day 3 of going cold turkey is worth it...we made it through. And it is worth it. :P

Potty Monkeys R Us

I've been asked several times how the potty training is going so I guess it's time for an update. :) Tomorrow will be one week and one week was the amount of time I had given myself to decide if we were going to stick with no diapers or go back to diapers. So what are we going to do?


I think we're sticking with the potty and not going back to diapers. Although she seems to be working on some timing issues (going to the potty before and not during or right after she's wet), she's really only having to change training pants about twice a day. Which, compared to her 10 or 12 times a day last week, is enough progress that I'm cool with sticking to underwear!


Now, I have a couple acquaintances who SWEAR that their two year olds were potty trained in JUST ONE DAY or in JUST ONE WEEKEND (imagine the Sunday Sunday Sunday voice) using some MAGICAL METHOD of AMAZINGNESS but I gotta say, I'm pretty okay with 80% potty trained in 6 days. I mean, after 24.5 months of diapers...I think I'll give her at least 8 days to stop having accidents. AND THEN PUNSIHMENTS BEGIN...


Totally kidding on the punishments, lol! Who could punish this face??


:D Oh and a big THANK YOU to both Miss Michelles for awesome birthday gifts. Yesterday Autumn wore the dress from the Miss Michelle in Memphis and it was the first real outfit we put on her since starting potty training. And, wrapped in the blanket is her Madeleine doll from Miss Michelle in San Diego! Autumn has been carrying it ever since she opened the box! Thank you both. :)


Of course, now that I've written this positive entry, Autumn is totally going to regress and I'll have to eat my words. Ha!

Happy Birthday, Little Missy!

I'm a dork so this is something I put together at the last minute to have printed for Autumn's party...one photo from every month of her second year! We'll have her status update tomorrow after her 2 year checkup. :)

18 month checkup

Monday morning we had a super dramatic doctor's visit. Dramatic because Miss Autumn is apparently emotionally scarred by the doctor's office the same way Molly is emotionally scarred by the vet. Sigh. She took one look at the nurse who called her name to come back and immediately tried to make her escape. As long as the nurse or doctor was in the opposite corner from us, she was fine. Like a boxing match or something.

But the good news is that all is well. She's small but I don't think anyone's shocked by that. She hasn't broken 20 pounds but Autumn is about 30 inches. Well, as much as they could tell. Who knows how tall she really is. Like I said, drama. Autumn's doing really well developmentally although her physical skills seem to be progressing a little faster than her verbal. The doctor was pretty pleased with her weird little collection of words as well as her ability to understand and follow directions and that was good to hear. So, yay! Healthy, happy (mostly) baby.

Oh, something funny we talked about: Autumn licks things. A lot. It's a little, um, strange so I kind of mentioned it. The doctor laughed and said it isn't unusual for very affectionate and snuggly children to lick things in order to get acquainted with them. So, yeah. Apparently Autumn orients herself to the world through her tongue, like a snake. We'll have to make sure she stops that before her teens...

Anyway, to celebrate Autumn's year and a half-ness, I strung together some random clips from the last year or so that haven't made it into other videos. I wanted to do a "Dancing with Autumn" one but I don't have enough dance clips yet. Heee. So you can just look forward to that. And it might just be me but that photo of Autumn with her little vacuum cracks me up. Mike doesn't think it's funny--it's like his personal hope that Autumn will grow up and take over his chore of vacuuming, or maybe even raking since she seems to enjoy helping with that, too. BUT SHE WON'T. I've already claimed her for laundry. Haha!

Houston...we have mobility

Guess who pulled up all by herself for the very first time today?? Yep, Miss Autumn--10 months and 3 days old. I put her in her crib to play while I put away some towels. When I came by the room to look in on her, she was standing up and grinning at me like a crazy baby!

Not only THAT but Mike saw her crawl for the first time ever! It's a day o' firsts! I didn't see her do it but he said she took two actual crawl "steps" and then dragged herself a couple more and stopped.

No photo of the crawl but she stayed standing long enough for me to grab the camera:

10 Month Update

I really can't believe that in 2 months, Autumn will be a year old. Crazy stuffs!


It's been a good 10 months! Autumn is growing entirely too fast for my taste but I'm guessing I'll feel that way until she's, like, 50, right? Overall, Autumn is totally little miss happy and snuggly and smiley which is cool. Although the snuggly part can get a little old on occasion. :) We haven't managed to get it on video yet but Autumn will clap and shake her head on command. She is also LOUD. hahaha. Can't imagine where she got that. ::looks away:: So far she has the ma, ba, da, and na sounds. I'm not convinced she's saying anything although I something think Autumn is saying "hey" and meowing when I meow at her.


Something she inherited from her papa--Autumn startles easily. She's terrified of the food processor, jumps when the garage door opens, doesn't care for the vacuum, and is wide-eyed when Mike runs the coffee grinder. And, funny thing, when she's in the church nursery, she's usually really great except whe someone comes in and then leaves. Whenever that happens, she cries. Isn't that weird?


I think she also inherited Mike's love of being outdoors. This nice weather has been awesome. We've been going on walks and sitting outside. So far Autumn is thoroughly unimpressed by bubbles but is determined to make grass part of her diet.


Lately, her favorite thing is to take things out of her basket o' toys. I realized she was into that when I sat her in front of the laundry basket and gave her a chewy toy. She tossed the toy into the basket, tilted the basket, and then pulled it out again. Rinse and repeat.


10 months and no teeth. Autumn's become a pretty good eater. Not real interested in texture, big people food, or anything sticky or gooey (plums, banana slices, pasta) but she thinks she's a big girl and need to drink from a glass. No sippy or bottle for this one. And it must be ice water. I like my drinks room temp so she did NOT get that from me. :P


No walking or crawling or pulling up. She's been attempting to pull up and can when she has a little assistance. Autumn can stand holding on to things and will scoot on her bottom. But no real mobility. No complaints here!

As far as me, I am rapidly improving much faster than the doctors expected--my iron count is already above normal, I am working out at a pretty decent level, and I've lost all the weight. All things that the docs predicted would take a little more than a year. I'm not quite back to where I was but between boot camp, aikido, and the stuff I am doing on my own, I'll be back in business in no time.