It's A Girl!

Abigail Mackenzie Colton "Abby"
was born on October 14, just 4 days after her due date.
She weighed a perfect 7 lbs. 10 oz., and is just beautiful.
So sorry for the delay in announcing her birth...we have been just a little busy!

It has been a long time!

Wow, are we behind on blogging or what?!? Bret is almost 14 months old now (pictures to come soon) and I have less than three weeks to go till baby #2 makes her appearance! We are so excited! I haven't blogged much lately because between chasing an active toddler all over the place (yes, Bret is walking and running everywhere now!) and being 8+ months pregnant, by the end of the day I just don't have very much energy. This afternoon Matt had to run to the hardware store (he's fixing a leak in the faucet) so he took Bret with him, which has at least given me a little break. Bret is just into everything...I try to babyproof things, but then he has figured out how to climb up onto chairs, the sofa, I even found him on the table a couple days ago! So I have to keep a constant eye on him, and he just hates to be confined (in his playpen or crib) or even in his bedroom with the child gate up. He is just such an active, busy little guy. He's started talking a little too. He says "Mama" "Dada" "Hi" "Oh-oh" and "Ball".
I'd better go rest for a little bit as I know "the guys" will be home soon. I'll try to update more often, especially as the baby's due date approaches!

Bret is one!

Bret turned one on Sunday! Happy first birthday, Bret Andrew!

Looks who's almost one!

Bret loves the water

With summer quickly approaching and hot weather upon us, Bret and I have been spending our days outside in the wading pool in our backyard, or at the "big wading pool" down the street (the community pool). Bret absolutely loves the water. I put his little floatie swim suit on him, and his just loves being in the water with mom. I bring his favorite duckies and boat along for him to play with, and he is in heaven. In the wading pool, he sits on his own and crawls all over the place, and I sometimes sit in there with him just trying to beat the heat, and when we go to the big pool we both bounce around in the shallow end and I keep ahold of him since he'd tip over even though he has floaties on. He likes to crawl around on the steps in the shallow end sometimes too. With me getting more and more pregnant as the summer progresses, I'm only going to get hotter and hotter, so I'm sure we're going to log plenty of hours at the pool. We have air conditioning at home, but we don't like to use it unless it gets really hot just to keep costs down. Okay, that's all for now. Everything is going well with our pregnancy and we're thinking about names for our little GIRL! Have a great weekend!

Here's our little 10-month-old!

20 week ultrasound

This morning I went in to have my 20 week ultrasound done. And we have some exciting news to share...
IT'S A GIRL!!!
That's right, come October Bret is going to have a baby sister! Matt was so excited when they told us, he started high-fiving the tech and the assistant. I was so surprised I didn't know what to think at first. It took a couple minutes for the thought that we are going to have a daughter to really settle in. And then I was just as excited as Matt. Thank you Lord for this precious blessing!

Update on Bret

Bret is doing great after our little scare the other night. He gets his stitches out tomorrow! Which is really a good thing because one has come out already on it's own! If they were supposed to stay in much longer, they'd probably all come out by themselves, because when Bret is in his carseat he likes to rub his head back and forth and that's probably how the first one came out!
My first Mother’s Day was lovely yesterday. Bret gave me flowers and a card and this beautiful necklace with this little boy charm on it and you can get more charms to put on it so when the baby’s born we can get another one for him/her. It was very special. Matt made me breakfast in bed and we went out to dinner in the evening. And Bret was very good at the restaurant, he must have known it was Mother’s Day!

What a night!

Last night after his bath Bret was crawling around the living room playing. He was attempting to pull himself up on the couch, and lost his balance, falling backwards. He hit our coffee table, cutting the back of his head. I immediately panicked, because it was bleeding a lot (apparently heads do) and he was really crying, fortunately Matt was much more calm although still obviously quite concerned about his baby boy. We quickly rushed to the ER, where our poor baby needed five stitches! And believe me he let us all know he was not happy about that! We stayed for a little while to make sure he wasn't showing any signs of a concussion, and then had to wake him up every few hours during the night to make sure he was still okay (I think he was a little confused when we did this though, usually it's the other way around with him waking us up!). He's been fine today, although he does sometimes rub the back of his head with his hand so I've been giving him Tylenol. We're so thankful to God that our baby is okay and that nothing worse happened! It was quite the night though!

Bret is 9 months old today!

Bret is 9 months old! My baby is turning into a toddler before my very eyes! He is crawling now, all over the place! I used to be able to set him on the floor on a blanket with some toys, and he would pretty much stay put, or at least not get too far, but now he is all over the place! I've had to baby-proof all my kitchen cupboards, otherwise he crawls into the kitchen and opens them all and starts pulling everything out and making a mess everywhere. He does the same thing in every room actually, he's pretty much into everything! He's at such an inquisitive age, trying to figure everything out. He's constantly moving too, always going from one thing to the next, always exploring and seeing what's new. It's such a fun age!

Easter Blessings

We have so much to be thankful for this year at Easter! God has blessed us abundantly!
~Matt's parents were able to spend Easter with us from Oregon
~Matt's brother and family were here with us for Easter as well
~We have a wonderful marriage
~We have the best baby in the whole world ;)
~We have a strong and healthy new baby on the way :)
~Christ died for us and rose again!!!
And of course so much more!

My big boy loves the outdoors!

Bret and Josh

Here is a picture of Bret and his cousin Joshua (left). Joshua is 3 months older than Bret. Aunt Vivian and Uncle Bill and Josh were here for Easter and Bret and Joshua had lots of fun playing together. Aren't they cute?

Bret is 8 months old!

I can hardly believe my baby is 8 months old already! He is getting to be such a big boy, and his hair is so blond now. The poor little guy was sick with a nasty cold and cough for about a week and a half, fortunately that is finally clearing up. I took him to the doctor a couple days ago and he is now on an antibiotic, which is helping. They weighed him at the doctor's off, and Bret now weighs 20 pounds! He's really been growing a lot this past month. He's also getting close to crawling. He scoots all over the place on his tummy, and gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth. I'm sure he'll be crawling in no time! He's been babbling more and more too. Such an expressive little guy!
I'm 12 weeks pregnant now, and fortunately the morning sickness I was experiencing is beginning to lessen some. It was just so hard to get up in the mornings when I would always be feeling that crummy. I'll be having an ultrasound in a week and a half, so maybe we'll be able to tell whether Bret will be having a baby brother or a baby sister. Matt and I are really excited!

Baby gymboree!

I signed Bret up for a little Mommy-Baby class at Baby gymboree. We went on Thursday for the first time, and it was so much fun! Bret got to play on the mats they have, scoot all over the room, interact with other babies (not sure how he felt about that, he hasn't had too much interaction with other babies!), and participate in music time. He really liked the music time, he was laughing and smiling the whole time! And I got to meet several other moms with babies close in age to Bret, which was really fun. The only socialization Bret really gets with other children is at the church nursery on Sunday, and those children are all one year old or older (he's the only baby right now), so I think this class is really good for him (and me).

7 months old already!

Where has the time gone? I can't believe our little guy is seven months old already! Here are some recent pictures of our little man.



He's getting to be such a little champ when it comes to eating. He loves the stage 1 baby foods we give him, and is taking the bottle really well now since it is getting harder for me to nurse him now that I'm pregnant (I just didn't have as much milk as before). I still nurse him to sleep at night though. We've eight weeks along with baby 2 now. So exciting!

Watching Bret grow

Bret is growing so much! His hair is turning blonde. When I took him in for his 6 month check-up last week he weighed 18 pounds 5 ounces! Such a big boy already! He's such a little cutie. He loves to smile and flirt with anyone, and will do almost anything to get picked up. He always gets excited when Daddy comes home from work each night. Bret can army crawl on his tummy pretty well now - yesterday I put him in the living room on a blanket with some toys, and I came back a few minutes later to find him over by the couch! I'm sure not used to him being able to move around! It's really weird to think that Bret will be a big brother later this year. He's still a baby! I go for my first doctor's appointment this week, so it will be exciting to hear how our next little one is doing and confirm his or her due date. Bret will be about 14 months when the baby is born.

Bret at 6 months old

5 months - My favorite teddy

5 months old!

All ready to go! Getting so big...

3½ months - Happy boy

2½ months

Strong boy! But still a little wobbly...

"I don't like my superman outfit!"

Bret - 8 weeks old

Bret at 6 weeks

1 month old

Proud Daddy

Bret's newborn pictures

Here's Bret when he was first born

The family

Our little man

So we know this is what you've all been waiting to hear about (and don't worry, pictures will follow shortly)...Bret Andrew Colton is 6 1/2 months old now, he can sit up by himself (but is still a little wobbly), loves bathtime, enjoys swinging in his baby swing, loves cuddling with mommy and daddy, is learning to eat solid foods (rice cereal, baby food pears, peas, sweet potatoes, peaches), and loves to babble. He is our pride and joy, and we love getting to watch him grow and accomplish new things. Oh, and our latest newsflash - we just recently found out that Bret is going to be a big brother sometime in October!!! That's right, we're having another baby, due October 10, 2006! Right now Ashley is 6 1/2 weeks along, and has unfortunately just started experiencing some morning sickness. Hopefully it won't be as bad as it was with Bret.
Pictures of Bret will be coming soon!
Until later,
Matt

Trying out this thingy

Okay, so we've just created this blog thing, and we want to see if it works. Here goes. ;)
Matt and Ashley