Santa Claus is coming to town...

Actually Santa came to Mayfair mall and Cole begged to go sit on his lap. We met up with Cole's lady friend, Lucy, and waited it out together. Cole and Lucy were both really good, not much fussing and nothing a few puffs and Cheerios couldn't fix. I also enjoyed some puffs and Cheerios, which is one of the benefits of having kids - Kristin always has snacks around.

Cole asked Santa for an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle. Of course Santa said he would shoot his eye out. Cole's initial reaction is shown below.



Despite numerous attempts and 4 adults trying to get him to settle down, relax and smile, Cole continued to cry. And wiggle and cry and scream - I do not think Cole was Santa's favorite visitor of the day.

We felt pretty terrible making him sit up there, crying and reaching for us, so we made it a pretty quick visit. We will try again next year!

I wanted to reference Charlie's visit to Santa in the Christmas episode of It's Always Sunny of Philadelphia but some of our 6 readers might find it too vulgar. If you want to check it out, go here. Thankfully Cole did not draw blood while trying to escape from the Big Guy's lap.

Surprise!

"And my wolf pack, it grew by one." The Hangover.

"Oops!...I did it again." Britney Spears

"Nobody puts Baby in a corner." Dirty Dancing

"All that she wants (is another baby)." Ace of Base

Yes, I am trying to tell you something. We are expecting child number 2. I am writing this as Cole is crawling around with a load in his pants (don't worry I will change him soon) and I am seriously wondering what we're doing. Another one. Yikes. We are just figuring this one out. Accidents, I mean, everything happens for a reason...right?

In all seriousness, we are very excited for the new addition. I'm not sure how thrilled Kristin is to be pregnant again though, but as promised she got the summer off...now it's back to work. I think it will be nice for Cole and the new addition to be close in age. Also, the sooner we have them the sooner they are out of the house and I can retire.

Due date is June 15th. We think Cole will be a pretty cool big brother.

First Haircut

Cole just finished celebrating his last first holiday (Thanksgiving), but the FIRSTS still continue. He just received his first haircut. Kristin and I both agreed a haircut was necessary, Cole's hair was so long that it would stick out over his ears like Doc Brown from Back to the Future. However this was still pretty difficult for a couple reasons:

1) Cole, of course, would not sit still 
2) Kristin looked like she was going to cry, so I was dealing with two babies

I started the cutting and with every snip I could hear a little gasp come from Kristin’s mouth. Yeah, that wasn’t annoying at ALL. I wanted to chop quite a bit off, but Kristin wouldn’t have it and only allowed me to cut the back and around the ears. Actually, I only made it around one ear and then Kristin took over. I could tell she was really nervous watching me, so I let her finish up. She took a few very, very small cuts and was done.

Before

I try in the bathtub

After much discussion, Kristin takes over on dry hair

Terrified he looks silly

Ta-da!

Overall, I think it turned out pretty nice; although anything was going to look better than a baby mullet.

Bad Parents!

St. Nick did not visit Cole this year, we decided to skip. Technically, I guess we have skipped twice on Cole as he was only a few days old last year. We didn’t think much about it but now we feel a little guilty, especially since people have been asking, "Did St. Nick visit Cole this year?" Kristin finally just started telling people, "Yes!" because she was getting such awful reactions. We can't be the only ones to skip this, can we? Cole didn’t seem to mind at all. In our defense, the stocking we ordered for Cole has not arrived, so we didn't have anything to hold his presents. Plus, Cole doesn’t eat candy and  he has plenty of toys, so what would we even have gotten for him? Okay, now I don’t feel bad anymore. I’m glad we could work that out, good talk. Did I mention we are not decorating for Christmas this year? Not even a tree...I know, the HORROR!

Cole has a Blue Face

It is hard to believe that Cole is one year old. He has grown from tiny little baby to a big, strong independent little man. We have grown and learned so much since his arrival. We can't imagine our days without him (although we do still remember sleeping in and how wonderful that is!). FYI - Kristin wrote this cheesey part!

Cole had a few birthday celebrations over the long weekend. The first celebration was on Thanksgiving at Kristin's parent's house. Uncle Ben couldn't make it home from Philly, Jeremy and Karla can't travel because their baby is due to arrive any minute, Amy and Paul and the kids were celebrating in Sheboygan this year and Jess had to work - but despite missing all his aunts, uncles and cousins Cole had quite the crowd ready to help him party. He had both sets of Grandparents, both his Great Grandmas and Kristin's cousin Rob. After rejecting his Thanksgiving meal and instead eating applesauce, Cole dove into his cake. He LOVED us all singing to him and smiled and clapped.

Robot Cake!

After eating his cake Cole had a blue face! A long long time ago, I ate a giant blue gumball. I ended up with blue all around my mouth. Jer and Amy, my loving mean, older siblings, decided to chant, "Nicky's got a blue face." I  hated this and would throw a fit and cry. They thought it was hilarious and even after the blue got washed off, if they chanted, "Nicky's got a blue face" I would react...so of course they did it all the time. So it was funny when Cole ended up with a blue face. Luckily mean Amy and Jeremy were not there to tourture him. And to my friends - I am willing to punch you if we start thinking this is funny again.

Other highlights: Cole got some awesome birthday presents. My mother made Cole and I matching winter hats, which are awesome. The first one she made was huge, so my Dad was also lucky enough to get one. I think we all look pretty good.

Tissue paper was a favorite snack

Yesterday was Cole's real birthday. Kristin and I both took the day off from work and hung out with the birthday boy. We took a walk in the cold and did a lot of playing and tried to teach Cole to say, "I'm one." We met Grandma Debbie for dinner at Balistreri's and Cole ate pizza and cake. Not a bad birthday dinner.

The night before his birthday we started to tell Cole the highlights of his arrival. At 8:30pm (Nov. 29th - Kristin's birthday) Kristin's water broke, then we went to the hospital...and waited and waited. And finally, 22 hours later, on the 30th, Cole arrived at 4:37. He had SO much hair and a bad case of baby cone head. We can't believe it has been a whole year already!

Happy Birthday Cole (we named you Henry for about 56 minutes)!