Cow whisperer

Last week we braved the heat and went out to the country so Cole could see some cows with Grandma and Grandpa.  He LOVES cows and "moos" every time he sees one or even in Kroger's when we are in the dairy section and hears "moos"!

Sitting in the shade in the Polaris Ranger with Gma and Gpa.

"Petting" cows with the cow whisperer (aka Gpa).

Looking adorable in his John Deere outfit and hat.  I wish my pudgy middle looked that cute:)

Beach bum

Here we are sporting some of our birthday clothes and looking cool after church.  And yes, he went to church sans shoes....that's how we roll in our house.  However, now that he started walking we bought him some snazzy shoes to protect his feet...I'll try to post pictures of them soon:) 

Layout and walking

As you can tell, I changed the layout of our blog not because I disliked our old design but that was the only way to get rid of that pesky photobucket box in the middle of the screen.  I will hopefully update this one to something more festive soon. 

To more important matters...WE HAVE A WALKER!!  He still crawls some but definitely is walking more than crawling.  Here is a video from last week of the first time he took several steps.  Yes, next time us two Aggies will turn the light on so everyone can see better.  I love his facial expression and the noises he makes while concentrating:)  I hope to do a full 14 month update soon (as that occurred on Wednesday of last week) but this is definitely the biggest news this past month!

Birthday party boys

This past weekend, we took a scenic trip of western East Texas (aka we got lost) going to the first birthday party of the son of some good friends of ours. When we finally got there, we were excited to see another friend of Russell's from college was also there with his wife and son, who we hadn't seen in person yet! We have all been wanting to get the 3 boys together to take pictures since the youngest one was born and hadn't been able to until then but taking pictures of small children is always comical...Happy Birthday Darren and glad to finally meet you Brody!

Russell and Cole with his two good friends from college (and my friends now too as me and Jeana were preggo together---see below!) and the boys

(I was about 30 weeks in this photo and Jeana was about 20 weeks)

First photo attempt with 2 escapees...I love his look of "hey, where are ya'll going?!"

I love Cole's look in this picture of "Really, you want me to sit still for a frog?!"

This is the best shot we got. I wish they were all looking at the camera and Cole was smiling but, hey, you take what you can get with little ones and the camera!

Water bug

Cole has definitely gotten over his fear of water and LOVES being a water bug! He "requests" a bath every night by crawling in the bathroom and slapping the side of the tub and trying to lift his leg up:) Since he mainly "swims" in a little pool at my parents and they headed back to work this week, we decided to get him something to play in here. I had seen splash pads like this before and finally found one at Target....it has water running through it that comes out of holes around it. I think the pictures show how much he likes it!

That yellow column actually has some inflatable stars you can put on it.

Baxter hates water immensely...note how he keeps his distance:)

Posing in my new water entertainment center!

Closet organization, take 2

UPDATE--After posting about our insurance ordeal, a couple of people emailed (I felt loved to know someone actually reads my ranting on here!), and told me to negotiate the bill. I never thought to do that and wish I had known you could before paying the hospital portion as the doctor portion was knocked in half! Plus they are re-filing with the insurance company which might result in even more being covered (as they were listed out of network the first time but can some how change it this time...???)! The insurance people have kinda been butts (sorry, I know that is a very mature way to put it) about everything but the doctor's group, who actually rendered a service, has been very helpful because they just want to be paid something. So please learn from my experience: 1. read your insurance guidelines and 2. NEGOTIATE!

Ok, so I have put pictures on here before of Cole organizing his closet but now he's discovered the wonderful world of gift wrap in our front bedroom closet. I figured I would let him play with the ribbons for a few minutes so I could wrap a birthday gift and ended up with a huge mess! I will post more pictures soon as I have been a slacker this month and have several things to add including some video of our now "I-can-take-10-steps-by-myself" walker!

Aerial view of the destruction

The cutest "holy crap, I've been caught" face on the planet!

Insurance and overalls

If you don't want to read an FYI I have learned about health insurance that might save you some money some day then please scroll to the end to see some pictures of the boy looking cute in overalls! We have really good insurance with the federal government so I was really surprised to see 2 rather large explanation of benefit statements from Cole's emergency room visit. Come to find out, even though our hospital is "preferred" by our insurance company, the emergency room doctor in the hospital emergency room is not as they are part of a group that is separate from the hospital (and supposedly most hospitals are like this). Therefore we are responsible for the entire bill (let's just say I should have gone to med school to make that much in 15 minutes). Plus, since this doctor (who is for some reason not possible to contact) coded this visit as a "medical emergency" and not "accidental injury" (even though insurance would accept it as the latter) which means the SECOND bill from the actual hospital is only partially covered (insurance would fully cover accidents but not medical emergencies). BUT, the kicker is, if I had driven a mile further (which in this situation I could have but what if we had been out of town and had to go to the nearest medical facility?!), to an urgent care clinic then the whole bill would have been covered. Plus, other doctors in a hospital may not be covered either....e.i. your doctor delivering your baby is but the anestheiologist that comes in to give the epidural may not and you would be responsible for the entire epidural. My FYI is to check your insurance to see if it is the same way because I am assuming with a little boy that tried to eat a marker this past weekend, I might need medical assistance after hours as many of you might (but hopefully won't) that isn't a true "emergency" and a local urgent care clinic might save you alot of money. This, my friends, is where true health care reform is needed!

Ok, so enough ranting. Here is the boy being cute and then trying to escape in the last picture!!

Spa

I'm thinking about opening a spa to bring in some extra cash. Our signature treatment will be prune facials...

Children's museum

Downtown Bryan has a Children's Museum that I assumed was geared more for older kids until a few of my friends went and found they have an area for kiddos under 2. I was excited to take Cole since finding fun and safe activities in the air conditioning are hard to come by for one year olds. We met my friend and her little girls, Evelyn and Isabelle, up there a few weeks ago and once Cole warmed up a bit (he is very shy and reserved at new places), he found lots of new fun things to play with (and the natural lighting was great!). Evelyn is about 7 months older than Cole and was such a busy bee with her grocery cart (they have a neat HEB area where kids can "buy" "food")...I know most mom's are going to call me crazy, but I want Cole to start walking ASAP because 1. Evelyn looked like she was having so much fun exploring the other areas of the museum and 2. the boy is getting heavy to carry:) We had lots of fun and look forward to going back soon!

Evelyn getting her groceries!

Cole was fascinated by Evelyn's ponytail and kept trying to swat at it:)

An amazing moment where both of them sat still for a picture together!