Uncle Zak gets Engaged!

What a special time for our family! Aaron loves his Uncle Zak and soon-to-be Aunt Heather. And in February it all became official. My little brother proposed and now sweet Heather will be a part of our family!

Zak let us in on the plan and we were so thrilled to be a part of it. We surprised Heather by having her wonderful family come down from Oklahoma for the big night. So after Zak proposed, he told her that they should share the news with the Colburns. When they go to my parent's house, her family was there and she could not have been more surprised! It was a wonderful night and we are so thrilled to have her in our family!

Tears all around....

The ring....

They are so sweet together.

My brother was so happy he pulled it off and it was so great to see everyone so joyful!

The newly engaged couple with Heather's family...and...

with our family (minus Aaron..he slept through the whole thing).

February

This was another crazy month for our family! We sold our house and began to prepare for our big move to the Kansas farm! We spent a couple of weeks packing and getting organized for 2 moves. One move to my parents house and another to Kansas. Who knew that toddlers could accumulate so much stuff?? Oh my goodness...

I'll have another post on our actual moving experience. It was a doozy to say the least. But for now, here are some random pics from February.

Aaron LOVES his puppy dog named Dusty! He loves to drag him around and to pounce on top of him! 

 As you can see..Aaron has learned how to ham it up for the camera! Such a cheesy little man!

We've been practicing with crayons and coloring more latley. He loves to play and make a big colorful mess anytime he can!

Of course, we think anytime he isn't EATING the crayons is a successful craft day :) 

18 Months Old

18 Month Stats (January)
Weight: 31lbs, 15 oz (97th percentile)
Height: 36 1/2 inches (off the charts in height)

(I know I'm just a little partial--but I think he is so handsome!)

The best way to describe Aaron at 18 months old is pure JOY. He is such a happy little boy. He loves to run and laugh and play. He is super busy. He eats just about everything and lots of it! His favorite foods right now are avacado (would eat this at every meal if he could), cheese, green beans, carrots, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, meatballs, chicken nuggets, peaches, pears, mandaran oranges, and pretty much all Mexican food! He drinks milk at every meal and has 1 afternoon snack. He takes one nap a day from about 1:30-3:30. He sleeps 11-12 hours at night! He is a great sleeper.
He likes to do things by himself and is showing more and more independence. He gets upset when you take things away that he can't play with. But he usually moves on pretty fast. He rarely has meltdowns. He does not like change and if he's tired then we will see some craziness. He is saying a lot of new words and he babbles all of the time. He says: Bye bye, hello (but can't say the "l" sound), Grammy (MeMe), Grandpa, Mama, Daddy, "here we go" and bible.
He loves to carry stuff around. Especially if it's something bigger than him or heavy. We think he might be going for world's strongest baby. He still loves his books and reading together. He loves pots and pans and being in the kitchen when we are cooking. He even has his own set of cooking toys..and it's so cute to see him stir things up! And he is in LOVE with bathtime. It's his favorite time of day and he never wants to get out of the tub. He's not scared of the water at all and he loves to splash!

As you can see, most of the time he is just a big ball of energy and fun!

He is having a little seperation anxiety and doesn't like to be left with anyone new. He prefers my Mom (grammy) to just about anyone else. He loves to be outside and it doesn't matter if it's cold or rainy...he just wants to be outside. He is so fun and he is ALL boy...which we love. He's not really a baby anymore and that sometimes makes us sad. But it is so fun to witness all of the changes that are happening. God has given us an amazing gift and we can't say enough how much we love him.

Christmas Morning

With all of the blog posts I've done on Christmas this year, I had to have a little one just for Christmas morning. We have a little tradition that Jarrett and I started our first Christmas together, and that is that we like for it to be just us on Christmas morning. It's such a hectic time of year, with all kinds of family and friend get-togethers. We like to keep this morning special and simple. So it was just the 3 of us that morning. It was quiet and easy and such a sweet time. 

Aaron loved Jarrett's stocking gift--the beloved slinky :) Of course, it has now become Aaron's toy!

As you can see, we had kind of a domestic theme of gifts for Aaron this year. It was unintentional, but it's just what we thought he would like. He loves to help us with our chores..like vacuuming, cooking, etc...so we thought he should have his own things to play with.

Yay for small pots and pans! So cute and Aaron loves to "stir" things up!

I didn't know about the apron until we opened the whole little cleaning set...Jarrett wasn't too sure about it, but I thought it would be cute to get at least get a couple of pictures :) This is the only time Aaron has worn the apron--but he is still playing with his cleaning tools nearly 6 months later! 

I hope his love of cleaning and helping his Mommy around the house continues for the next 17 years, but I have a feeling it might fade :)
We had an amazing Christmas with our friends and family this year. It was so fun to see Aaron really start to learn and get into the whole thing. We can't wait to see what next Christmas will be like with our little man--oh what joy! 

Kansas Christmas 2011

We also spent a few days in Kansas this Christmas. We were able to exchange gifts with the Schmidt family and the boys were able to play together!

Uncle Daniel and Aaron are only 18 months apart and love to play together!

Daniel was so happy to get Veggie Tales and stickers!

Aaron loved his new bear that lights up and talks to him! As you can see--Aaron was sick and teething while we were here---lots of drool :)

Uncle Daniel also got a new basketball goal!! He was so crazy about it!!

Aaron got a ride along alphabet train---that he LOVES!!

Such a fun time in Kansas!

Christmas with the Campbells & Colburns

Christmas 2011 was wonderful. We got to celebrate with all of our families and Aaron had a ball! Here are a few pics from our Christmas with the Colburns and Christmas Eve with the Campbells.

Aaron was so excited to see his Uncle Brandon and Aunt Abbey! They were so sweet to make time for us during their short leave from the Army!

Aaron loves his Nana--she is always so helpful!! Especially when it comes to that tricky gift wrap!

Yay for new toys! Aaron really was blessed this Christmas with wonderful gifts from his grandparents!

Aaron also got to spend some quality time with his Great Grandmother Mimi. She got to rock him a little bit before bed one night. Such a sweet time.

Aaron has almost as much fun with the wrapping paper and the boxes as he does the actual gifts!

Aaron got lots of leggos this Christmas and he loves them!

He also got a tunnel to crawl through. This was supposed to be an outdoor toy, but soon became an indoor toy. And he had so much fun tyring to hide from everyone!

What a fun Christmas with our families! We are so blessed to have so many great people in our lives that love us and support our little family. Happy times all around!

Family Christmas Pics

It's funny how as a Mom I continue to set my expectations way too high when it comes to family pictures. You would think I would have learned by now, that not everything is going to be perfect. And that sometimes the best pictures are the ones that aren't planned :) With that said, I did make several attempts this Christmas to get the perfect family picture. Aaron, Jarrett and my Mom (the picture taker) were such wonderful troopers as I made everyone get dressed nice and pose for the camera. We ended up with a million pictures and only needed a couple. Here's the best of the photo shoots (yes there was more than one).

Of course Mr. Aaron couldn't smile in this one!

 He was so happy to play with pretend presents that we gave him. I wrapped a couple of boxes with bells in them, so he could shake them and go crazy. I was trying to get some smiles :)

This boy LOVES twinkle lights!



 I'm pretty sure he was yelling something...no idea what though :) So funny!

Merry Christmas 2011!