Two and A Half

Stinker Boy is TWO and A HALF!

Colby is a very strong willed spunky little boy! He knows what he wants and doesn't know how to take no for answer! Most days he thinks he's four and can do everything that Kyle and Emily do.

Colby is completely potty trained. Most days he does good with going to the potty...but still does have accidents every once in a while. At night, we set him on the potty before we go to bed...other wise he wets the bed.

Colby loves Spidey, Elmo, and the color yellow.

Colby is very smart. He can identify most capital letters and can count to eleven all by himself! He also knows most of his colors. Colby can do pretty much any puzzle we put in front of him...he even helps with the "big people" puzzles! He talks in completely sentences...although half the time we have no idea what he's saying!

Allergy wise...
The only food allergies we are now dealing with are tree nuts and peanuts. He can eat pretty much anything else. He does tend to have GI issues though if we left him eat too much processed food (too much as in more than a "meal" of processed food every few days.)
He's still allergic to lots outside. He's talking three different allergy and asthma medicines to help him breathe easy. For a while we were having do two nebulizer treatments a day because his wheezing was so bad, but now we only use the nebulizer as needed. We also have an inhaler that we carry with us in case he has trouble breathing when we are out and about. Hopefully this fall we will be able to stop all the meds like we did last year and he'll be good through the winter.

Colby is still a boob boy! Most days he's only nursing at night, but every once in a while he will during the day. If I let him nurse during the day, he only gets give drinks. He knows this and is okay with it. I've started talking to him about being done and will continue to do so, but I'm not ready to force him to be done yet. We'll keep talking about it and hopefully soon he will decide on his own that he's done.

Our pediatrician and allergist have been said breastfeeding is most likely the reason that Colby's gut has healed form the damage done by gluten and has helped heal him of his food allergies. I'm really hoping that when we do stop, that he won't start having more issues with food again.

Colby still isn't a great sleeper. Most days rest time is a fight and some times bed time is too. If we are lucky, he goes to bed around 8pm and wakes up around 8am and takes a two hour rest in the afternoon. Lately, he has been waking up in the middle of the night crying (we think bad dreams) and it sometimes takes him a while to go back to sleep.

Colby loves being a big brother. He loves to "help" Peyton do things and loves to give Peyton hugs and kisses. He also likes to nurse at the same time as Peyton...when I let him, he normally holds Peyton's hand or rubs his back while they are nursing together.

Some days Colby really likes to play by himself. Other days, he follows Emily or Kyle around and playing with them. Him and Emily like to do a lot of imaginative play together and its a lot of fun to watch!

Colby has recently learned to stand on his head with the help of the couch or a wall...it's his favorite way to "sit" on the couch at the moment!

Colby loves the water! He loves to splash around in our little pool and loves to jump into big pools. We've swam a couple times in a friend's pool, a hotel pool, and Lake Michigan. Colby has no fear and has to be watched closely because he will just jump in with no floaties!

We are so thankful for the two and a half years we've been blessed with our little stinker boy so far and pray for MANY MANY MANY more!

I asked Colby the same questions I started asking Kyle and Emily at two and a half...

What is your name?	Colby
How old are you?	Three
What is your favorite color?	yellow
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?	Yogurt
What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?	Noodles
What is your favorite thing to eat for dinner?	Noodles
What is your favorite snack to eat?	fruit snacks
What is your favorite fruit?	fishes
What is your favorite vegetable?	Noodles
What is your favorite thing to drink?	Apple Juice
What is your favorite animal?	Lion
What is your favorite toy to play with?	Spidey
What is your favorite book to read?	Spidey
Where do you like to go?	Zoo
What is your favorite song?	Batman
Who is your best friend?	Peyton
What is your favorite thing to watch on tv?	Elmo
What do you want to be when you grow up?	Adult
What is your favorite thing to do outside?	Blow Bubbles
What is your favorite thing to wear?	yellow
Who is your favorite person?	Mommy!

Colby Update

Potty Training
Colby is pretty much completely potty trained. About two weeks after he started wearing underwear during the day, he started keeping his diaper dry at night at at rest time. So now he is in underwear 100% of the time!
The only down side to this is he uses it as an excuse to get out of bed during rest time. He often stands at his door yelling and if someone doesn't come help him go to the bathroom right away, he goes on the floor. He has started taking his pants and underwear off, so normally there is just a mess on the floor... but most of the time it's poop. :(

Allergies
After give days of the new dosages of allergy meds, Colby was still wheezing a lot and having a hard time catching his breathe, so I called the doctor back on Wednesday. She ordered a nebulizer for him and he's doing breathing treatments with albuterol. Currently we are doing both morning and night time treatments and it seems to be helping a great deal. The allergist said to to do two treatments a day or a week and then cut back to just night time treatments. Once we feel he's doing better, we can cut back to as needed.
He does really well with the treatments... he sits really still and holds his mask to his face. I think he likes watching the "smoke!"

Weight Gain
After his weight check in the beginning of April, we bought a scale so that we could check Colby's weight often at home. He is still very slowly gaining weight... according to our scale he's up about half a pound in the past six weeks!

Potty Training Colby

I'm pretty sure Colby had been ready to be potty trained for a while, I'll just haven't been ready to put the effort into it with everything else going on.

So... Wednesday after he pooped first thing in the morning and asked to wear his spidey underwear I decided to jump on in....

Day 1 (Wednesday)
Brent changed Colby's diaper when he got up and then when he helped the kids get dressed, he let Colby put underwear on Oct his diaper.  Shortly after breakfast he pooped in his diaper. Once I gother him cleaned up, he insisted on no diaper and just his underwear so I just kind of went with it.
All morning I asked him every ten minutes or so if he needed to sit on the potty and made sure he dI'd about every half an hour.  We made it through the morning with no accidents!
At nap time, I put a diaper on him but he woke up dry and managed to stay dry all afternoon.
We went to church for dinner and Brent up a diaper in him before we left and he wore a diaper to bed.

Day 2 (Thursday)
Colby woke up with a poopy diaper... and brought me a wipe and a pair of underwear to put on once he was cleaned up. He did good with no accidents all morning.
At lunch time, he did have an accident while eating. He took almost an hour to eat and I forgot to keep asking him about going potty. He didn't even tell me he had an accident until it he was all done eating. I got him cleaned up, he sat on the potty and peed a ton, then I put a diaper on him for rest time.
After rest time, Colby did good sitting on the potty all afternoon. He did have another accident during dinner, but stayed dry other than that. At night, he wore a diaper.

Day 3 (Friday)
Colby woke up and wanted to go potty right away. His night time diaper was only damp. He did good until about 11am... then he pooped in his underwear. But made it through the rest of the day without any more accidents.

On Saturday, Colby got some more Spidey underwear (he only had three pairs) and has been very excited to wear them ever since. We've had a few tears at rest time and at night time because he doesn't want to wear a diaper.

Colby has been doing very well telling us when he needs to go potty most of the time. I've been trying to remember to ask him every ten minutes or so. He's had a couple accidents.. they've all been when he's been busy playing and I forgot to remind him that he had underwear on instead of a diaper. I've also been trying to make him sit on the potty before Peyton nurses... because if I don't, without fail, Colby will tell me he needs to go potty while Peyton is eating.

I'm hoping he continues to do well and these first few days are a good indication that he really was ready to be potty trained!

Stinker Boy is TWO!

It's crazy how fast the past two years have flow by.

It seems like Colby was just a tiny little baby... and now he's a big boy with a tiny baby brother!

Colby lives up to his "stinker boy" nick name. The kid is full of spunk and life. He is into everything and doesn't like to be told no. He is always determined to do whatever it is that he wants to do and doesn't know how to give up.

Colby has ten teeth all the way in, and two more are working their way through his gums. This broken teeth are still hanging on, but are very slowly starting to get dark. Hopefully they will stay in for a few more years...

Colby is talking so much. It's sometimes hard to understand what he's saying, but he eventually gets his point across. His favorite words/phrases are "No," "I do," and "Me."

Colby LOVES to eat. His favorite foods are bananas, cheese, pizza, and ice cream. But, for the most part, he will eat whatever we put in front of him. He is still gluten free and peanut/tree nut free, but as I explained in the post about his well visit, we are going to slowly start to try introducing gluten into his diet and see what happens. We having been praying that God would heal him of Celiac's disease, so we will see if our prayers have been answered.

Colby is still nursing. Most days, he only nurses at night before he goes to bed. Every once in a while, he will nurse during the day as well. He was excited to have milk again (instead of colostrum) after Peyton was born. I'm still just planning on letting him decide when he's done...

Colby loves being a big brother. He tells us often "Peyton so cute" and enjoys giving Peyton hugs and kisses. He also tries to share his toys with Peyton (by throwing them at him).

Colby has discovered how light switches work in the past few weeks. There are a few he can reach standing on the ground and he loves to turn light on and off. The ones he can't reach from the ground, he has learned that he can push a chair over to the switch, and then he can reach them to turn lights on and off.

He also has taken an interest in helping making food. He loves to push a chair over to the counter in the kitchen and watch/help me make lunch and dinner. Sometimes it's fun... sometimes it more of a pain than anything. He also likes to steal food off the counter as I am making meals.

Colby has mastered walking up and down the stairs by himself. He's still pretty slow, but he can do it all by himself and loves that he can.

Colby enjoys playing with Emily and Kyle. He's starting to understand the concept of playing with them and not just next to them. He normally imitates whatever they are doing. They often get annoyed with him, but are all learning to play nicely together.

We haven't started officially potty training yet, but Colby is using the potty regularly. Normally he sits on the potty before rest time and before bed time just like Kyle and Emily. During the day, we help him sit on the potty if he asks. But.. he is still wearing diapers full time. We did buy him some spiderman underwear a few weeks ago and he loves to wear his underwear over his diaper. Maybe in a month or two we will really start working on potty training him.

Colby LOVES Spiderman and Elmo. He gets very excited any time he sees them. He got a Spiderman watch for Christmas and loves to show it off to everyone.

Colby favorite "toys" are puzzles and the iPad (which he normally does puzzles on). He is getting a LeapPad for his birthday; he likes to play with Kyle and Emily's, so hopefully he will enjoy having his own. He amazes us often with how well he does puzzles and how hard of puzzles he can do all by himself.

We love our stinker boy and are very thankful for the blessing that he is to our family! We have loved watching his grow, develop, and explore the past two years and look forward to many many more!

22 Months Old

I'm only one day late this month!!

I'm not sure a whole lot has changed since last month's update... other than this kiddo will be TWO in two short months!

Colby talks non-stop...if there aren't a lot of people around. His favorite words are "No," "Me", and "I do!" He's talks mostly in short phrases now and is very good about making sure we all know what he wants.. or doesn't want.

Colby loves to lick people... and loves to stick his tongue out...I blame his daddy and big brother!

Colby still thinks he's three.. and wants to do everything Emily and Kyle do. This includes sitting on the potty. He sits on the potty (and goes) every night before bath time. He will often ask to sit on the potty during the day as well. We've had a few days were he's only used two diapers all day long... he always wakes up in the morning and after nap time wet. I think he may be easy to really potty train once I decide I'm ready for that!

Colby has turned into a hitter and a bitter. We have lots of talks and time outs for hitting and biting Kyle and Emily. Half the time he bites though, its their own fault for sitting their fingers (or nose) in his mouth!

We think Colby had another ear infection this month. He was miserable for a few days and kept saying his ears hurt, so we took him to the walk-in clinic in Ionia. He finished his antibiotics a few days ago and started complaining again about his ears.. and not sleeping, so we went to a pediatric redi-care yesterday (our peds office wasn't open) and she had to clean out lots of hard wax to even see his ear drums. She's not sure the doctor would have been able to see his ear drums two weeks prior with the amount of wax, so we aren't really sure if he had an actual ear infection or not. She cleaned out some of the wax, told us to use some drops to soften the rest, and still follow up with the ENT (who we are waiting for an appointment with).

Colby is still nursing... but is down to only a few minutes each night. I'm still just letting him do his own thing with weaning and not pushing him to be done. I have very mixed emotions about him weaning... so we are just letting him decide when to be done.. for now.. :)

Emily has been teaching Colby to "ink"... (wink)

Colby loves to cuddle with Peyton... and push on him! He gets very excited when Peyton pushes back through my belly. He loves to give him hugs and kisses!

Colby is still a little stinker.... I'm pretty sure his "terrible two" phase has started. He's much more strong willed than Kyle and Emily ever were!

And he's cute.. and he knows it!

Three and a Half!!!

My tiny little babies are turning into big little kids! It's hard to believe they are already three and a half!

Emily has started to be a little mommy. She loves to take care of her babies. She feeds them, changes their diapers, changes their clothes, and makes then take naps. She also likes to tell her brothers what to do! Emily LOVES her brothers. She loves telling people she has three brothers and referrers to them often as "my boys." We ask her often "Who is in charge?" She normally says "Mommy and Daddy" but recently has started to give a smart alack answer of "Emily!" and always says it with a little smirk on her face.

Emily still loves pink and purple, princesses, skirts and dresses, and other girly things. But she also likes to "play" sports and play cars with her boys.

Kyle is a wild and crazy little boy... or as much as we will let him be wild and crazy! He loves to run around in circles, sing loud obnoxious songs, and wrestle with anyone who he thinks might enjoy getting pushed over and squished!

Kyle still loves blue and brown, cars, trains, and firetrucks. His toys of choice are cars and puzzles.

In the beginning of the summer, Grandma and Grandpa Franks got the kiddos bikes. It took them a little while to get the hang of riding them, but they finally got it figured out. We took a break (a two month break!) when Kyle broke his arm, but they have been riding them again the past couple weeks. It seemed like it took them a time or two to get the hang of it again, but for the most part, they do pretty well on them. They still need help getting going sometimes and going up hills in they don't start with enough momentum.

Kyle and Emily are being coming familiar with their surroundings and how to get places. They know the general way to church, the library, Meijer, Grandma and Grandpa Eubank's house, Grandma and Grandpa's Franks' house, the Zoo, and the children's museum. If we go a different way somewhere, they know and say who ever is driving is being silly!

Emily and Kyle still love going to church. They enjoy their class and doing "projects" and learning about the Bible. They normally can tell us a general idea of what they learned about in their class. They also love reading the Bible as a family at night. Most nights it doesn't seem like they are paying attention, but they have a good idea of what most of the Bible stories that are in their children's  are about. It amazes me often listening to how much they actually remember from what we read and talk about. Not only do they remember the stories, they also know/use some of the application!

Kyle and Emily enjoy singing songs. In we are in the car for more than a few minutes and they don't have something electronic (their LeapPads or a movie) to entertain them, they usually start singing. It's kind of cute, but kind of annoying when they start arguing about whose song is whose. Apparently, they own rights on certain songs! Favorites include Jesus Loves Me, Twinkle Twinkle, Old MacDonald, Let it Go, Life is a Highway...

We started to do preschool last week. They've been really bugging about school, so we decided to do homeschool for preschool. We are working on letters, numbers, shapes, sorting, patterns, and animals. They already recognize most capital letters, so we are working on lower case recognition, letter sounds, and writing letters. For number, they can both consistently count to ten (and sometimes beyond), but don't recognize any numbers. So we are working on using numbers to actually count things (not just recite in order) and number recognition. They can recognize all their basic shapes, We are using shapes to work on coloring skills and drawing shapes. We are also using shapes to learn about patterns. For sorting, we are working on matching and grouping similar things. For animals, we are just talking about their favorite animals, where they live, what they eat, and other simple things. So far they are loving school (we've only done three days). Emily has done really well with everything. Kyle gets frustrated (he's still figuring out how to hold a crayon again after breaking his right arm) and doesn't want to do much beyond color when it comes to our "worksheets." Hopefully it will continue to go well and they will keep being excited about "formal learning!"

One of Emily and Kyle's favorite adventures is to the zoo! They love having maps and reference their maps often to make sure we are seeing all the animals. They both love to watch the animals and make noises at them. Kyle's favorites seem to be any type of hop-a-roo (such as a kangaroo) and monkeys. Emily's favorites seem to be the reptiles and fish; she also loves horses, but those aren't are the zoo.

Potty training, most days they are accident free! They are pretty good about telling us when they need to go and have started sometimes just going by themselves. They both still want help wiping when they poop, but can handle peeing all by them selves. We do take Kyle to the bathroom before we go to bed at night, otherwise we are almost guaranteed he'll wet the bed.

Kyle and Emily are starting to become more opinionated about what food they eat. At our house, their option is to eat what mommy makes or not eat, so normally they just suck it up and eat it even if it's something they "don't like." Kyle does not like peppers and onions (he's tried them several times), so normally I try to leave those off his plate and the same with peppers for Emily... but she LOVES onions! Neither of them like mashed potatoes either, but will eat potatoes pretty much any other way. Emily's favorite food is most defiantly mac'n'cheese, but also really likes strawberries and green veggie s. Kyle's favorite food is hot dogs, but also really likes french fries and cheese. They both LOVE their "cow milk" and probably drink more than they should.

Naps rarely happen around here anymore. We still try to do rest time every afternoon, but most days it turns into WAR! Most days, they both still really do need to take a nap, but they really don't want to. If they lay still and are quiet for long enough, they normally fall asleep and will sleep for a couple hours. If they actually rest and don't fall asleep, they do okay attitude wise for the afternoon. But if they won't even rest, our afternoons are filled with one meltdown after another and two tired kiddos ready for bed by 5pm. Right now, if they are actually quiet for at least a half an hour, I take them their LeapPads in to play with.

Schedule wise, not much as changed. Their clock "wakes up" at 8am and lets them know it's time to get up. Most days they are quiet until their clock wakes up. We eat breakfast shortly after they get out of bed. In the mornings, we do adventures, school, or just hang out. We normally eat lunch between 11:00 and 12:00, and then do rest time after lunch. After I give up on them actually resting, they get up and play until dinner time around 5:30. After dinner, we pick up toys, takes baths, read the Bible, pray, and go to bed. Normally they are in bed between 7:00 and 7:30.

Both kiddos love books. They love to "read" them and love to have people read to them. Most of their favorites are their Cat in the Hat books. They both love going to the library and picking out books to take home and read. They've been really excited when we do school to read their library books.

I asked questions again... there are lots of answers still the same from six months ago... Click here if you want to see...

	Emily	Kyle
What is your name?	Emily Eubank	Kyle
How old are you?	Six	Three
What is your favorite color?	Pink and Purple	Blue and Brown
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?	Balls	O's
What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?	Noodles	Cookies
What is your favorite thing to eat for dinner?	Hamburgers	French Fries
What is your favorite snack to eat?	Fruit Snacks	Fruit Snacks
What is your favorite fruit?	Strawberries	Oranges
What is your favorite vegetable?	Carrots	Nothing
What is your favorite thing to drink?	Juice	Milk
What is your favorite animal?	Horses, Snacks, Giraffes	Kangaroo and Crockadile
What is your favorite toy to play with?	Princess Kitty	Queen Mater Toys
What is your favorite book to read?	Buzz and Woody	Queen Mater Book
Where do you like to go?	Bounce House	Home
What is your favorite song?	Let It Go	Life a Highway
Who is your best friend?	Mommy	Mommy and Grandpa
What is your favorite thing to watch on tv?	Frozen	Mater Change
What do you want to be when you grow up?	A Mommy	Tractor Driver
What is your favorite thing to do outside?	Ribe my bike	Ride bikes
What is your favorite thing to wear?	Costume	Bathing Suit and Coat
Who is your favorite person?	Grandma	Mommy

19 Months Old

Mr Colby Oley is 19 months old today!

Recently Colby has been eating almost everything and anything put in front of him. I'm expecting him to wake up huge one of these mornings... Favorite foods right now seem to be noodles of any sort (gluten free of course!) and strawberries. He's also fallen in love with dips... if something can have dip, Colby wants dip and enjoys dipping his food!

Colby still only technically has four teeth, but the past week or so he's had another six trying to break through, the next two on the top and his two year molars. I can feel all of them trying to come up, but only two are pokey so far. They haven't seemed to bother him too much. He's had a low grade fever on and offer and hasn't been a little fussy when he's sleeping, but other than that, he's his normal happy self!

The kiddo is still loving his "booooob" time. He's still nursing twice a day, but is still slowly decreasing the amount of time he is nursing. Hopefully he'll decide he's done soon!

Colby is now consistently sleeping through the night! Every once in a while he wakes up and just needs a quick cuddle and goes back to sleep. Most nights, he is still awake when I put him in his crib. Half of the time he is quiet and goes right to sleep. The other half... he cries for a bit, but normally falls asleep within a half hour or so. The sames goes for nap time.

Last month I said Colby has finally started to talk more... but really, this past month his verbal communication has exploded. He talks and sings and talks and sings almost constantly!

Colby is still loving his puzzles! He's getting better and faster at them too. We went to the library today and when we got to the children's room, he ran over to the puzzle shelve and happily sat there doing puzzles while Kyle and Emily picked out books.

Colby wants to do everything Kyle and Emily are doing. If they are running in circles, he is running in circles. If they are singing and dancing, he is singing and dancing. There is very little that he has seen them do that he hasn't figured out how to do himself.

Colby has started bringing us clean diapers when he wants his diaper changed. He also asks to use the potty every once in a while... and normally goes when we help him take his diaper off. Before baths, Kyle and Emily both sit on the potty, and he normally does too and normally goes. I'm thinking he might be easy to potty train next summer!

Colby has gotten tall enough to open our front door. It has a handle that you pull down instead of twist and unlocks when you pull the handle down. We normally keep the door locked, which makes it a bit harder for him to open and is loud enough we can hear it right away and keep him from wandering out into the hall way. Hopefully he'll get sick of spankings soon and learn not to open the door!

Colby has learned how to take off his clothes. He can easily take off his shorts/pants and sometimes can take off his shirt. He's sort of figured out how to put his pants back on, but has a hard time pulling them up. Once he's taken his clothes off and is just in his diaper, it's a real challenge to get his clothes back on him.

Colby has gotten a lot better at stairs and wants to walk up and down them like Kyle and Emily. It's kind of a pain because he's so slow, but as my belly grows bigger, it's better than he can walk and I don't have to carry him. It's not to often that he wants to be carried anymore anyways. Normally he wants to walk, and we normally let him as long as he will hold a hand. He also LOVES his stroller (we got a new one a couple months ago), so if he sees that, it doesn't take much to get him to ride.

Clothes wise, he's still fits into most of his 12 months stuff, but I think most of it is going to get packed up this afternoon (because I have the bins out that the clothes will go in and I'm too lazy to get them out in a couple weeks when he really out grows the 12 months stuff). The 18 month stuff fits him well for the most part and I'm expecting a growth spurt soon...

Colby is still cute and still a little stinker and he knows it!

I told him I would be right back with the camera and we would take pictures. When I got back to his room, he was sitting in his chair being all cheesey. He "helped" me find the right blocks and then tried to help set them up. After a few pictures with the blocks, he threw them all on the floor... but he did help pick them all up! :)