Lagoon Trail

Cole and I were getting a little restless at home yesterday, so we decided to go for a stroller walk on the Lagoon Trail. We live exactly 1 mile from Lagoon, and they have built a paved trail behind the park in the trees, and it's really beautiful and shady. By the way, if anyone is thinking of making a Lagoon trip this summer, our house is open and available to stay overnight! You can have the whole downstairs! Anyway, the weather was great and Cole loves the stroller.

There are several really cool bridges along the trail, as shown below:

A shot of the trail. Can you see all the cotton along the edge? It looked like it had snowed.

Cole says hi and we better get moving soon or I may cry.

Mom obviously didn't get moving fast enough, I did start to cry but the binky and blanky saved the day.

Almost asleep...
This is how close the trail is to Lagoon, you could jump this fence and be in the picnic area of the park.

Look at those skis! What big feet for such a little guy! I just love em. And they can sneak out of almost any blanky-wrapping job.

It's been fun getting to know Farmington more, the longer we are here the more we love it. Hopefully by the end of summer we'll have stroller-ed most of our little town.

I think it's Thursday...no it's Friday...is it still June?

Well the little man is finally napping after an unusually squirmy day, and I thankfully have a few minutes of adult time. I'm continually amazed how different life is now that we have Cole with us. Everyone tells you it's going to be different, you know for yourself it will be, you think about what it is going to be like taking care of a baby, but it still has shocked me what an adjustment it's been. Someone asked me on the phone yesterday what day it was, and I had totally no idea. I couldn't think of what the day of the week or month was, honestly. We're on Cole-time here at our home, which instead of revolving around a 24 hour, 7 day week, we revolve around 2 hour feedings and morning/night. Good times!

I finally went on my first outing (as far as driving somewhere) with Cole yesterday all by myself, no Tyler hooking in the baby seat or mom and Tegan with me. I was excited but a little nervous, for some reason I'm really afraid of him waking up while I'm out and can't feed him right away, and he gets hysterical and I look like the new mom who has no idea what she is doing :) Which is actually the truth. So I fed him and immediately headed to Target, knowing I had approximately 2-3 hours before he became unhappy. The trip to Target was uneventful, although now instead of meandering through the aisles and clothes, I stuck to my list and was in and out. I got to the truck and he still seemed content, so I headed to the library for a book. Again, he was a perfect angel. Then daddy called and wanted me to swing by Costco, and although we had already hit that 2 hr. time limit, I decided to be brave and head down there, knowing I could feed him if I needed to. Again, another great trip until we were unloading groceries in the car, in which he started to wail. I opted against feeding him in the hot truck and headed quickly home. Once we started going, he decided he really could wait until we got home and just enjoyed the ride, thank goodness. It was a terrific day! It felt good to know my life can go on, even with a little one :)

I wish I had some more pictures, I feel like Cole has changed a lot lately. We have another doctor appointment on Monday so we'll see if he's been growing. Tyler took the camera with him to his latest adventures (volunteering at the Ragnar race and Scout camp), but unfortunately the camera didn't get much action.

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks. In honor of that, here are my 3 favorite things about my boy today:

1 - How cute he is when he makes an 'o' with his mouth

2 - How crazy his hair gets when he wakes up

3 - His sweet little sounds when he's tired

Just 3 of the million! We are so blessed!

Home Improvements at the Petersen's

We've been lucky to have Tyler's parents and our niece Shaely here from Oregon for the last few days, and we've kept them busy. The boys started the day early pressure washing the fence to get it ready for stain, then spent the second half of the day staining it "mission brown". And it turned out awesome!! Thanks for working so hard guys.

Here's a before and after picture of the fence; we also put another coat on after that.

The project went a lot faster after we got the airless sprayer.

Rod and TP taking a break to pose for a pic.

The final product!

This is our adorable niece Shaely kissing Cole. How cute, they match!

The Petersen's!

The girls and Cole.
Here they are before we went out to eat. Cole slept the whole time we were at the restaurant, thanks Cole.

I peeked in on Cole yesterday, and he had his little hands up under his chin like this. What a sweetie!

Just another one of Cole. Are you sick of him yet? :)

Cole's Photo Shoot

These are the amazing pictures that our cousin Jill took this week. She is so talented! Thanks so much Jill, we will treasure these forever.

Baby Bliss

Hello friends and fam! I'm back to blogging, but I'm really proud of Tyler for filling in while I was re-cooping and not feeling up to it. I didn't even ask him to, he is just so proud to show off our little one :) It's so cute.

Baby Cole is a week + 2 days old now, and doing super great. It's wonderful to be home and out of that lousy hospital robe and bed. We have loved getting to know him and all his sweet little sounds and mannerisms. He is a really good baby, he'll eat then usually go right back to sleep and give us a couple hours to do our own thing. He's just so cool. This is one of my favorites of our little Cole-man. He loves sleeping on daddy's chest, he stays there for hours.

We've had a busy week home (it's funny how "busy" means something totally different now), and the very best part of being home was having my mom and Tegan there with us. For those of you that have had kids and your mom came and helped out that first week you were home, I'm sure you know how nothing could replace that. It was such a special time, and although I was focused on Cole and figuring him out (still am), I've never felt closer to my mom. She was an absolute angel, cooking every meal, cleaning, doing laundry, helping with Cole, just anything that needed to be done. Just to have someone there to ask "is this normal?" or "what in the world am I doing", was worth more than anything. And Tegan provided entertainment, laughs, and he usual fun spirit. Thanks for being there for me mom, now and always.

I can't believe this is the only pic I took of mom and Cole that whole week, you'll have to send me the ones you took on your camera mom. He definitely loves and knows his grandma!!


Here's Tegan taking a break from folding baby laundry to practice her nintendo skills to try and beat Tyler when he gets home from work. What a great auntie!

Cole also enjoyed a photo shoot with our very-talented Jill, who is married to my cousin Torrey. She offered to come and take some pics of our handsome guy, and who could say no to that? He was an absolute angel for us while we took over a hundred pictures and made him lay in baskets and do alot of other cute things. He just slept through it all! (until he got hungry). I snuck a shot in with my own camera while she was shooting him in the basket. What a sweetie! I think he liked all the attention.

Tyler set this pic up, we're going to try and remember to get a picture with him every week with his little horse to see how much he's growing.

Another fun thing for us is bathtime! Although we've only had a couple, I love it. Mostly because of how yummy he smells after. He doesn't mind it too much either. Here he is patiently waiting for mom to take a picture while he freezes. Look how curly his hair is when it's wet! It straightens out on it's own after it's dry.

Kind of blurry, but still cute! He's already giving high fives.

He also LOVES riding in the truck. He just sleeps through everything. This was on the way to daddy's work to show him off. He just looks so little in there. Check out his little toesies, they are SO long like his dads.

This is the sign that my kids at school gave me to put in our yard when Cole was born - they were so concerned about how they would know he was here, since school was out while I was still pregnant. Since I live in the same neighborhood as all my students, they wanted me to put the sign up after he came so they would know he was here. Cute huh!

We took Cole to his first doctor's appointment yesterday with Dr. Vande Merwe. He is a terrific doctor, and we feel lucky to have him! The best part about the visit was to hear that Cole has put on almost a whole pound since we left the hospital! He now weighs 8lb. 8oz, and when we left the hospital he was at 7 lb 9 oz. This is good news because he wasn't having many wet or poopy diapers until just a few days ago after my milk came in, and we were expecting him to weigh less like they usually do. So that was exciting. He did great with everything else too, practically perfect in every way! Way to go Cole! The doctors commented on how strong his neck is, because although he doesn't have much control, he likes holding his head back and looking around when you hold him on your chest. Unless he's sleeping, like in this picture. This is after the doctor poked his heel for the PKU test and we're getting ready to leave.

Overall, it's been a terrific week + 2 days. I couldn't love the little guy more, and it's been fun to enjoy it all with such a wonderful dad/husband. We still have a lot to figure out, but it's been a blessing to have so much support from family and friends, and also to have an angel for our first. He's really breaking me into mommy-hood easily, and I really appreciate it. Let's hope it continues!!

Okay People, We made it home and here is the set of pictures I promised. Since Jackie is in the recovery mode, I will be making one or two more posts in her stead. They aren't in any real order, I just scrolled through the pictures and put them on.

All packed up and ready to go, this is the biggest she was, D-Day!

Here we go! This one is right before the first dose of drugs to start the rush. No turning back!

Waiting for the drugs to kick in and get the ball rolling. This was on a trip from the bathroom.
She made in to 10 cm. that was quick, 4cm to 10cm in less than three hours. Don't ask me, they said it was fast, I say sweet!Here is Cole right after he was delivered. Notice the conehead. (don't worry it isn't that bad in later pictures.) Here's the nurse checking to make sure his vitals are all where they should be. Isn't he cute?
Look how much he weighs, and half of that is his head, ha.
Dr. Gemmel and the Petersen's just a few minutes after the delivery.
Jackie's Mom, Michelle holding her third Grandson.
Big daddy in the house. This was today, right as we were packing to head home from the hospital.


The Crew, so patient, the ended up waiting all day to see the big event.




Daddy's first time holding little Cole.

Mommy and Cole taking a break after all that laborious effort.
TP and CP hangin' on the recliner. This is my favorite thing in the world. He just stays and sleeps on my chest, isn't that sweet?
Finally a family photo, where you can see everyone's faces. Oh, Cole, you had your eyes closed. Haha.
That's better. All the way open.


So there you go. Not bad for my second time "blogging", Eh? Enjoy, sorry it took a day or two. Love ya'll. TP, Jackie and Cole.