Are You Comfortable??

You may not be, but my kid sure was...although he may not look like it. This may have been a sign that he was SO tired he could have cared less how he feel asleep.

And he barely moved when I moved his legs out of the rails.  It sure made me smile though. :_

12 Month Pics

For Mother's Day, Ben surprised me with another photo shoot from our good friend Patrice Ekart. She did our engagement pics, our wedding pics and Cole's 6 month pics. She does an amazing job and always captures the best of us. Click here for a peek at Cole's shoot over Memorial Day weekend!

Overdue Update

You would think that I would have posted this right away, but how easily time gets away from me.  The Friday right before the long Memorial Day weekend, we got the LONG awaited news that Cole's body had FINALLY shed the E Coli!!  What great news to get!  Last Tuesday was his first day back at daycare and it's so nice to be back to our routine again and to not have to worry about finding people to watch him.  And it's weird not constantly thinking about when his next poop will be so we (by we I mean I) can take another sample. ;)

We are SO thankful that God kept him healthy through the whole thing and that we didn't have to admit him to the hospital or worry for his life.  Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers and a special thanks to Ben's mom and my parents for taking time to come and hang out with your grandkid! :)

The Big Party

Things (or should I say weather forecasts) don't always turn out the way that you hope they would. When I hear a consistent "sunny and beautiful" forecast for a week before the big day, I'm pretty sure it will be "sunny and beautiful", not cloudy, cold and thunderstormy.....unfortunately that's the way it turned out for Cole's big party. It was pretty disappointing, but needless to say, we have great family and friends who were totally flexible and willing to move wherever the party went. Thanks everyone for celebrating our son's first year of life! Enjoy the pics!

Our good friends, the Johnsons, from Duluth!

My friend Sue from work and her daughter Stephanie (yeah, it was that cold)

The birthday cake and monkey cupcakes (why banana flavored monkey cupcakes - of course!)

The birthday boy - not diggin' the rain, cold and wind.

My mom and niece Ellie trying to stay warm.

Trying the monkey cupcake (picture courtesy of Dan Bennett)

First taste of birthday cake! (picture courtesy of Dan Bennett)

Trying out the wagon...State Fair here we come!

Happy 1st Birthday Cole!!!

One year ago today, my sweet baby boy entered the world.  What a year it has been!  It's been fun to reminisce with Ben about the labor and delivery (4 hours start to finish!) and to think back to how tiny our boy was (he was even wearing preemie clothes the first week!). 

We both decided to take the day off today and spend it celebrating Cole.  We continued our tradition of having breakfast at McDonald's on Cole's birthday.  As many of you know, when I was in the throes of labor, Ben decided to go through the drive thru at McD's!!  It's a fun memory to look back on and laugh. 

After Cole's morning nap we took him to Como Zoo in St. Paul.  Even though we know he won't remember it, it was a fun experience to have with him.  He was just as interested in all the people as he was in the animals.  Before we left Cole and I rode a horse on the carousel and had a blast.  We also managed to fit in a little pool time before dinner.  Quite a busy, but fun day with our big one year old! 

We are having a party on Saturday and are so thankful that the weather is going to cooperate! 

Happy Birthday baby boy!  I love you more than words could ever say and I now know that my purpose in life is to be your mommy.  In the famous words of Jerry McGuire, "You complete me!" :)

Bummer...

Both test results came back positive. :(  We wanted negative.  So, we submitted two more samples tonight and will keep taking samples until we get two negatives.  And only then will he be able to go back to daycare.  ugh.

But, we are thanking the Lord that Cole is feeling fine and not in the hospital.  I'm sure it could be MUCH worse.  It's just a bit of an inconvenience for us at this point.  Thanks for all of your prayers!  Keep them coming!

Waiting Game

The Dept of Health called today with an update.  Apparently the test that I stuck in the mail first thing on Thursday didn't arrive there until today....ugh.  So, she put as much of a rush on what she could and says we should hear back tomorrow afternoon.  Fortunately, Ben's mom is hear with Cole today and tomorrow and then we'll see what happens after that.  Hopefully he'll be able to go back to daycare and that will be that!

She suggested that in the meantime, I do the other two tests "just in case" one of the other tests came back positive.  So, my poop scooping continues. *sigh*