Beautiful Gifts-FFF

The theme of FFF this week is "Beautiful Gifts". Of course the first thing that comes to mind is the best gift ever-the gift of a child-the gift of Collin. Funny thing is that this gift came from someone I don't even know,someone I will probably never meet but someone to whom I will be eternally grateful and someone that I owe a debt of gratitude. The hard part is that I can never thank her and I can never let her know that her precious gift is well cared for and loved beyond words. So here he is...my most beautiful gift.

THEN...



AND NOW...





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Cracker Barrel Cowboy

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Collin loves his skeddi!!

Trick or Treat

Okay-so I am a few days late but better late than never. We are living in complete disarray at the moment. We are redecorating our family room which means painting, new carpet, new furniture but really means HUGE MESS. We had to empty the entire room,get rid of lots of stuff and store the other stuff somewhere else in the house so the mess extends to the entire house, not just the one room. While we are making a mess we decided to make it worth our time and get rid of one of my worst mistakes! When I first bought the house and was decorating I got the brilliant idea to try the latest trend of adding "texture" to the walls by adding this gritty sandy stuff to the paint-BIG MISTAKE FOLKS-don't do it!!! First of all,it's nearly impossible to wash the walls and when you have a sticky fingered toddler and a booger blowing cat in the house that is not a good thing! Don't ask about the cat-long story!!It is also not good for knuckles, elbows, knees or any other skin covered body part that may come in contact with the walls. Imagine carrying a basket of laundry up the stairs and scraping your knuckles against rough concrete-not fun. I'm sure Collin's head and other various body parts will be skidding along those walls very soon so rather than having Children's Services knocking on the door we decided to have the walls sanded and repainted with normal paint. Of course with sanding comes...you guessed it...DUST, and lots of it! So in the next 3 days our house will be covered in dust-oh joy! I am just relieved that we are paying someone to do it 'cause that is not my idea of fun! My mom and I painted every inch of this house 8 years ago and I'm still not over it!! Hopefully by Christmas the house will be back to normal-at least our version of normal!

So back to trick or treat. We have been preparing for trick or treat for weeks. We looked at costumes on the computer, talked about what he wanted to be, bought and returned several costumes and finally settled on a dinosaur. He loved the dinosaur costume when it first came in the mail. He wore it all around and roared at everything. BUT-something happened-all things Halloween became "SCARY" and I think it all started on a trip to Lowes. As soon as you walked into Lowes there was a witch and some type of zombie looking dude that moved and talked. They freaked me out a little so I can only imagine what a 2 year old thinks. He didn't quite know what to make of them but it was clear he did not like them! Any time we even drove past Lowes, from the back I would hear, "No witch Mama". Soon the dinosaur costume was "too scary" and all Collin would say was "No spooky Halloween Mama"! So, I figured if I bought some books and movies about Halloween he would loosen up a bit. I bought a book about trick or treating with a doorbell and th eold classic It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.


Well, he loved the movie, so much that he is obsessed with Snoopy aka "Do me". Yes, that's right, when he says Snoopy it comes out "Do Me" so every time Collin points at the DVD player and says "turn on Do Me Mama", I kind of giggle and think "What kind of movies has your father been showing you"!?!? He even liked the book but Halloween was still scary.



Trick or Treat finally arrived. I took the day off work and was very excited for the whole parade my adorable child in his cute dinosaur costume around the neighborhood thing. This was going to be great! Okay-not so much. He refused to put on a costume. Here is Collin T minus 10 minutes and counting.



Yep, laying on the bed watching "DO ME"!!! No costume and no interest in leaving the comfort of "Daddy's bed"!! GGGRRRR!!

After much poking and prodding and quite a few trick or treaters coming to the door he decided that he would put on a ratty old ripped up Superman costume that I bought for $2!!!
He took the cape off at the first house so he walked around with his bright orange pumpkin shirt hanging out and his lack flame Converse tennis shoes looking like Superman on Kriptonite Krack!

Once he figured out people were handing him candy, he caught on real quick and decided this wasn't such a bad deal after all! He was all over it!! He couldn't get enough! Pops loved it and was more than happy to walk all over the neighborhood with little capeless Superman to fill up that Elmo bucket!





Collin rarely gets candy at home but on trick or treat we just let him go. He's like a wild animal ripping into the wrappers, biting one thing while opening another.

We thought for sure he would get sick to his stomach. He was definitely on a sugar high! We finally got him washed up and in his jammies but before bed we had to all get an "instrument" and sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. The things we do to make this kid happy-LOL!

Fun Fall Day

Okay-so I am about a week behind on my posts so it is catch up time. A little off topic, I recently saw on thecutestblogontheblock.com that you can have your blog printed and professionally bound into a book. I tried it to see what it would look like and I think it's awesome! I thought -this is what I have been blogging for-who needs a baby book and all that other stuff. I have been blogging about Collin's story since our very first visit trip! It is truly his story. It brought tears to my eyes it was so cool!It makes me so glad that I have kept this blog-even if I do get a little behind. That may just be the inspiration I needed to get back to work and stop letting life get in the way!I think I am going to divide the books into years so there will be a book for each year! I'm very excited about this idea if you can't tell. He loves books so much so I know he will just love this!

So, back to business! Our fun fall day...which just happened to be last week... but who's counting! I really look forward to days that the family can just be together without any plans and without rushing around to do this and do that. We all enjoy going to the park and playing on a nice day-especially Bosley!




Collin and Wyatt enjoyed a game of tackle football. We just have to work on teaching Collin that you can't tackle everyone, all the time! He thinks it is funny to run into people and fall on the ground-not sure where that came from??? Let me tell you, this kid LOVES sports! If it involves a ball he is all over it.







Of course, dad had to do one of his infamous headstands! Collin tries to imitate him by putting his head and hands on the ground and lifting one leg up in the air-it's hilarious!





I love taking pictures of Collin and Wyatt, a father and son walking side by side or Collin up on his shoulders. I think it is so stinking cute. Collin is so lucky to have a dad that loves to joke around and play with him! I'm lucky too-it's free entertainment!





We always head to the river so Bosley can take a swim and we throw some rocks. What a great way to spend a beautiful fall day!!






And last but not least...a rare pic with Mama!!

October COFLAC Outing

We hosted the October COFLAC outing and visited Leeds Farm in Ostrander for the first time. Only 4 families showed but it was a really great day! The weather was beautiful and the farm has TONS of fun activities!

They had a hay barn, tractor races, zip lines, bouncing pumpkin, banana train,corn sandbox, petting zoo, hay ride,mountain slides, pumpkins, fresh kettle corn, homemade pies-I could go on forever! And thank goodness they have a "How tall this fall" so we don't ever have to go back to Circle S Farm again! This place was a million times better AND cheaper! Peyton, Alexis and Greg joined us so we had the whole family-SUPER FUN DAY!


















Collin decided he wasn't going to go on the banana train by himself so since the rest of the family was in line for the zip line I had to squeeze my big butt in a barrel with him!! I have to admit I was fighting off a panic attack the whole time hoping I wouldn't be STUCK when the ride was over-that would have been really embarassing!! Fortunately, I was able to pry my girth out of the little barrel and carry on as if it was no problem-phew!

FFF-Spooky

Don't feel bad Hannah-I don't have anything either! I was lucky to get Collin in a costume at all! So here are our "SPOOKY" pumpkins



and a "SPOOKY" guy we kept running into during trick or treat-more like CREEPY! Collin's dinosaur costume was "too scary" for him to wear but this guy didn't scare him at all?!?!





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Collin in front of the neighbors Brutus Buckeye. Go Bucks!!!

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Test from the iPhone

FFF-Adventure

As you can see I was attempting to get Collin to sit still and smile for the camera with his new Preschool t-shirt-what an adventure!! There is a new host for FFF so check out Hannah's blog Me Me and Monkey's Big Adventures for more FFF.













I finally turned on the tv and at least got him to stop acting silly!