Pumpkin Patch

Cole has been one lucky little boy this Halloween season. He has gone to the pumpkin patch three times. His first visit, 10/10/09, was with my sister, T, and his cousins J and C. Cole discovered straw while cruising the hay bails. He couldn't get enough of the hay. He also enjoyed cruising the park, playing with the pumpkins, watching the bigger kids run around and riding the train. Based on his reactions to everything, I think his favorite part was the train. He enjoyed waving to all of the people as we passed them by.


Our second trip was on 10/22/09. Cole and I went with a fellow babyfit mommy and her daughter. Cole and C happen to only be one day apart so watching them interact is really fun. It has been so much fun getting to know G and watching our little ones learn and discover the world together. The kids had a great time at the pumpkin patch. During our outing, G and I also took the kids to the Irvine Zoo and the playground. It was a beautiful day and I am so glad we were outside to enjoy it.


Our third trip was today, 10/27/09, with a new friend E. E has a little girl, E, who is three years old and a little boy, T, who is seven months old. Cole and T are very close in age and watching them play with the pumpkins this afternoon was very cute. E wasn't to thrilled by the ghosts that jumped out of the pumpkins but as long as we stayed away from the ghost she was one happy little girl.


I am so excited that Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Cole's 1st birthday are all right around the corner.

Some fun recent 1st...

Cole no longer is eating baby food. He is a big boy eating tons of veggies, fruits and meat.

Cole likes to cruise the house with his new walker/scooter

If ever my son goes missing in the house 9 out of 10 times he is under a sink. Notice we no longer have any items under the sink?!?!

Cole at PretendPlay pretending to be a farmer. He had a great time playing with his friend C. They cruised the place and found many things to play with.

Cole at his first birthday party, which happened to be a costume party, and his first time in a bounce house. He couldn't get enough time in the bounce house. He giggled and crawled the whole time.

He has taught himself how to open the cabinets. I think it is time we baby proof.

Cole is watching Brian wash the patio. This isn't a first but the picture was to cute to not post :)

Cole enjoying his first golf club. We opted for a plastic club as his first to preserve our floors as much as possible. I know it won't be long now until he'll have his own set or irons.

This first time I put shoes on Cole. He wasn't to sure what to think of them.

Mommy needed to clean the kitchen so what did I do? I opened the tup-o-ware drawer and let Cole do as much damage as a 7 month old can do.

Three days after Cole started crawling he was not happen with just cruising around the living room. Nope, my son wanted to conquer the stairs. So being the good mommy I am, I let him!

Cole's first sip of soda, compliments of daddy!

Cole practicing his stair climbing three days after learning to crawl. I have a feeling I'm in a lot of trouble :)

Santa Ana Zoo

Cole, Rissa, Tandy and myself headed out to the Santa Ana Zoo this weekend. This zoo is the perfect size for a small child. There are many monkey's and birds to watch and you can see the entire zoo in about an hour or so. The picture on the right is Cole and I in front of a bald eagle.

Rissa decided we all needed to take the train ride around the park. Cole couldn't stop "talking" and waving his hands during his first train ride. The picture on the left is Cole sitting on the train. This also happens to be one of my favorite pictures of him to date. He was all smiles that day. After the zoo, Cole took a 3+ hour nap. I have decided we need to go to the zoo at least once a week if we are going to get naps like this every time :)

It was a wonderful day and we will be going back.

Visiting Texas and Memphis

Cole was a little traveler this summer. His first visit was to Dallas, Texas to visit his great grandfather, grandfather, aunts, uncle, cousins and some of my friends.

I was a little worried when I heard our flight had been delayed 4 hours due to mechanical difficulty but Cole was a trooper the entire time. The staff even commented we could fly with them anytime and held Cole as much as I would let them.

Cole buckeled into the seat next to me.

Waiting for our plane to get fixed

Taking a quick nap before we board our flight

When we got to Texas we had great times visiting our friends and family. Cole had a blast playing with his cousins, going swimming and visting the aquarium.

**Still working on this post**

Cole Wakefield Stevens

My due date of December 25th, 2008 came and went with no signs of Cole being ready to enter this world. My doctor scheduled an induction for January 05th, 2009.

We checked into the hospital at 7:30am. Our nurse, Kathy, hooked the heart rate and contraction monitors up and we began our day. When she hooked me up to the monitors she commented I was having contractions every 2 minutes apart...but I felt nothing. She checked me then and I was closed tight but 95% effaced. She started me on pitocin at 9:30.

She up'd my pitocin every 30 minutes and at 11:30 a doctor came in to try to break my water...once again I was closed tight and he couldn't do anything. My DH and MIL went to lunch and get back at 1:10. We start talking and at 1:15 I felt a pop and next thing I know there is water rushing out of my body. I was totally laughing just saying over and over how gross it felt. Well, about 2 minutes after my water broke the contractions started. The nurse checked me again and she said I had to have at least a pinhole for my water to break but I was still closed pretty tight.

From 1:15 and 1:45 the contractions were every 1.5 apart and getting pretty intense. I ordered the epidural and at 3:30 the epidural was in place and relief had begun. I have to say anyone that labors naturally has my up most respect. I went from 1:15 to 3:30 and the pain was more than I could handle at points. Once the epi was in my nurse checked me again to see if she could manually dilate me. Well, she didn't need to I had gone from 0-4 in about 2.5 hours. What a relief that felt like.

The nurse came back in at 5:00 to check me and I was dilated to a 9. She called my doctor and he came to the hospital to check me out. He got there at 5:30 and said okay it's time to push. So I started pushing. My DH and I worked really well together and I have to say I would not have been able to get through it without him. I felt no pain (thanks to the epi) but pushing was so hard. I had begun to tear so we called the doctor in at 7:00 to help out. After one set of pushes he said that our son was to big to make it past the pelvic bone without any assistance. So he used a suction device to help Cole make it past the pelvic bone. At 7:13pm Cole entered this world.

Overall my delivery was very fast and easy. I could not have asked for a better first time birthing experience.

Birthday: January 05, 2009
Weight: 8lbs 10oz
Length: 21.5"
lots of blond, blond, blond hair and beautiful big blue eyes

Our Honeymoon

**Saving space so I can come back and fill out**

Our Wedding Day

Brian and I meet 6 years ago while working at M-Flex. We were friends for about a year before we started to date. After 2 years of dating, Brian proposed to me on a private beach in St. Thomas. How could a girl say no to that proposal :) We were married on 07/07/07.

Family Website

I have been going back and forth on whether I wanted to create a family blog or not. I was horrible at maintaining a journal as a little girl so I wasn't sure if I could/would maintain a blog. Well, the fact that I am writing this first post means I must be ready to attempt a family blog.