Our 13 month old

It has been a really busy time for us since Colin's birthday.  Work and school have been overwhelming (mostly the classes that I am taking).  We've had colds on and off, courtesy of the return to daycare.  But we've been paid for the first time since April (well, it's the first time I have been paid).

Colin has been picking up some new skills at daycare.  He showed off some of his new skills when we got to Skype with Grandmom, Aunt Jan, Uncle Ryan, and baby A!  He's pointing to his eyes and tummy when asked, and he LOVES to dance.  Dancing involves shaking his head, waving his arms, and bouncing up and down. 

 Excited to go have his 1-year photos taken

 Ready for Blue Friday

 Watching Peter play volleyball

 Last Monday was a ROUGH day.  So many tears for no apparent reason.  He went and pulled his pacifier and Douglas out of his diaper bag and came to climb on my lap.

 But he recovered nicely to go back to his smiley self.

 Playing in Ella's bed is a new favorite activity.

 We celebrated his Great-Grandpa's 75th birthday and got 4 generations in one picture.

 We visited our friends last weekend, and the kiddos wanted to hold Colin.  Colin was in awe of their energy, but he mostly just loved on their sweet, calm, lab Z.

 He now enjoys standing on his booster seat.  However, he cries until you get him down because he hasn't figured that part out.

So happy that we have this sweet, smiley kid.

We seem to have finally figured out Colin's bedtime sweet spot.  If we start the routine at 7, he goes down peacefully.  7:15--forget it, it's going to be a battle.  So strange!  Not looking forward to the time change in a month or so.

We're still waiting on a language burst.  He consistently says Ella (and uses it appropriately when he sees other dogs), but I'm ready for a few new words!  I think he's close with using Mama and Dada specifically.  He understands sign for "All Done" and "Milk" and "Eat."  He waves bye-bye as soon as I pick him up at daycare, like he's saying "Get me out of here!"  I'm thinking that since his gross motor skills are ahead of most kids his age (just like his cousin R!), maybe his speech is just taking its time.

We booked our tickets for Christmas to see our Colorado family, and we got a ticket for Colin so that we could take his car seat on the plane.  I'm hoping that doesn't end up being an expensive waste!

We're ready for some cooler weather here...Colin has a crazy amount of warm clothes that we haven't gotten to use.  I'm going to have to start taking pictures of all of his cute outfits.