Three Generations of Schwartz Men

Hmmm..failure anyone?

So, I know I am like the worst blogger EVER! It has 4 months...and I swear so much has gone on in those 4 months. Cole's first Christmas, a trip to Iowa, a first birthday, a first haircut...you get the idea. Lots of firsts.

I was talking to a friend tonight who was politely not giving me a hard time about the fact that everyone else I know can blog at least a couple of times a month, and yet hear I am taking 4 months to get one post up. I really want to do better. I just wish I could will the photos and stories onto the page.

Here are a couple of photos from the past 4 months....

Cole tells me he loves me..

Music to my ears....even though he has no idea what he is saying!

A time of Thanks!

We have a lot to be Thankful for here in the Schwartz household. Even though I don't love living in Arizona, we both have good jobs, we have a nice house, and we have loads of wonderful family and friends (even if most of them live in other states!). So lots to be thankful for.

Mostly this year we are thankful for Cole - he is such a fun baby/little boy and we are blessed to have had a happy, healthy first 1o months under our belts.

Due to Chris' work schedule it is hard for us to travel for Thanksgiving. We have been with friends the past couple of years, but this year celebrated just the 3 of us. We had a yummy dinner. Below are some videos from the day - we are still waiting to purchase a camera.

I can crawl!

Sorry for the delay in posts, but I am sure anyone who reads this blog must be used to it!

We still don't have a camera (we are thinking of getting one for Christmas!) so we are operating off taking videos and pulling stills from them for photos. Or, in the case of this blog, just sharing the videos.

Cole is now 10 months old. He has changed so much recently and is so much fun! He can crawl now and is working on walking. He loves to cruise around, either on the furniture or holding our fingers. He is very vocal, loves to smile and just is coming out of a period of "strangers=danger" where he always preferred to be held my mom and dad!

Chris and I are both doing well. We are keeping busy with work. We just put the house on the market this week. We had an open house yesterday and had a great turnout. Hopefully we will get the house sold in the next few months. Aside from that, not much else is new.

Here is a recent video of Cole crawling. He is a bit faster now and has straightened it out a bit!

Trying to crawl

Cole is getting pretty close to crawling! Probably any day now. Here he is showing his form.

He also just had his 9 month check up. He is 18 lbs 2 oz, 28 inches (I think) and he has two teeth! Teething has not been the funnest thing, but he is getting by and so are mom and dad.

Dang...that's impressive!

Cole was getting his jump on in his exersaucer while Kurtis was watching. Cole has some amazing bounce skills which Kurtis really appreciates. Check out Kurtis in the background be struck with awe as Cole jumps.

My ears!

This video is from August, but I thought I would still share as it is pretty funny. He can't handle the sound of his own shriek.

Is it just me, or does this photo make my lips look big?

No more lip plumping for Cole!

Cole and Kurtis meet!

Cole has had a very fun couple of weeks! Two weeks ago, he got to meet his cousin Kurtis for the first time. Matt, Riana and Grandma were all here as well. We all went to the pool, the playground, cooked good food, and just generally had a great time! It was so fun to see the family - Matt and Ri hadn't been down to Vegas for a year and it was Grandma's first trip back to the Mainland since moving to Hawaii. The next weekend we all headed to CA to celebrate Papa Spicer's 60th birthday. Unfortunately, we had a mishap with the diaper bag and the camera (leaking baby bottle - oh no!) so we have no pictures from that weekend and need to buy a new camera!

Who loves the bath?

Cole has graduated from sitting in a "baby" bath in the big tub, to just sitting up and chillin in the water. He absolutely loves it. He loves to splash Chris and I. He gets this really deep look of concentration on his face while he splashes the water and sometimes acts surprised when he gets his face all wet. It's that casue and effect thing he doesn't have down yet. Regardless, bath time = fun time at the Schwartz house.



Enjoy!

Cole with Family

Here are various pictures of Cole with my side of the family from our summer visits. We are hoping to get to Iowa on Labor Day so Cole can hang with the Schwartz' too! It will be Cole's first plane ride, and hopefully he will do great, since he is going to be visiting his grandma in Hawaii and his family in Iowa for years to come. We got lucky with one set of grandparents in driving distance!

Sunny San Diego

We have visited San Diego twice this summer. Once with Cole, and once without. Here is a photo from the first trip. Cole and I (along with Alli) visited Balboa Park. We took a nice walk and posed for a photo opp. It is really important to me that Cole LOVE San Diego. Maybe we will live there again one day, but if we don't I still want to visit as often as possible.

Cole also got to meet some of my friends from LEGOLAND. Here he is with Julie, Pernille, and Heather!

The next time we went to San Diego was just last weekend. We went with some friends that own race horses, so it was a very "VIP" experience at the track. Here is world-famous jockey Mike Smith riding their horse in a "work" or practice ride. This is on Sunday a.m. when it is just owners, trainers and jockeys and the track. We got the whole behind the scenes tour! We also had a sweet table the day before.

Here are Chris and I at Del Mar on Saturday in the "inner circle" at the paddock at the track. It was really cool - this is where all the horses are prepped before the race and "shown" to the crowds of gamblers. What you can't see is Mario Lopez, who also was at the track, standing just off-camera on my right.

Prunes....so good, so messy!

Cole is doing a great job with eating baby food. He seems to like just about every flavor and as long as we give him small bites, he generally stays clean.

That was, until we introduced prunes. I am not sure why - he liked them - but for some reason eating prunes resulted im the biggest baby food mess of all time.

I don't think it will always be this messy to eat prunes, but just in case, all prunes have been taken to daycare for them to feed to Cole!

6 Months

Well, Cole had his 6 month check up last week. He is doing great across the board. He was 27" long (75%) and almost 15 lbs (25%). Cole's weight "fell off" the curve a bit, so the Dr. asked to see him again in a month for a weight check. Apparently he got longer without getting heavier - who would have thought with Chris and I as parents!!!

We have him on solids now 3x a day and I swear he is already bigger.

Not much else to report. He is a really happy baby, laughs a lot, rarely cries and is generally really laid back. His latest "party trick" is sitting up, which he can do for 2o minutes or longer without falling over. He rolls over from his tummy to back, but has yet to do it in public - we just fine him flipped over in his crib!

Here is a video of Cole cracking up at me - I am showing him my muscles!!

My first girlfriend

So, Cole already has a girlfriend lined up for when the time comes. My good friend Danille's little girl Kate definitely has a hold of Cole's heart - at least if Danielle and I have anything to say about it!

Here are some moments from their second meeting. Love at second site.

Thank You Grandma!

Cole is well on his way to enjoying a variety of baby food. He has liked it all - but leans towards bananas as his favorite and peas as his least favorite (so far). He seems to really enjoy eating, and tends to follow the spoon with his open mouth, lean in and take pretty big bites.

Here is a quick video of his first run with apples - clearly a winner!!

Once again, yes I still plan to blog.

So it appears that I might be the worst blogger ever. It is not that I don't want to update, post all the amazing stuff Cole does, etc. I just find myself coming home and not being drawn toward the computer. So, all I can really keep saying is I will try to find blogging more appetizing. Perhaps this glass of wine I am having has something to do with it. In the interest of a scientific study, I will try to have a glass of wine each night this week to unwind to see it if leads me to be better at blogging.

Trevor and Aunt Janet in Cali A lot has been happening lately....SEA LIFE continues to be really busy. Chris isn't quite as busy at work right now, since we are now rarely below 110 degrees in the day - not prime golfing weather!! So, he was able to escape to Bandon Dunes in Oregon for 5 days last week. He had a great time. Aunt Janet has said we all need to rent a house up there for a family vacation and I think she has likely won Chris over now.

Cole about 6 months

Let's see...the coolest thing we have done recently (well, the beginning of July - is that still recent?) was to travel to California to introduce Cole to all our Cali friends and family. We had so much fun. Cole was a champion on the car rides and for the most part got a perfect 10 for baby behavior. There was one small misstep at his Aunt Cyndie's house when he was meeting Cyndie and Pollywog. A major breakdown - probably the worst he has ever had. I am going to chalk it up to stranger danger, but it could have been he was jealous of the way I was only paying attention to the delicious Pizza Nova we were eating. Anyone would be jealous when they feel the love I have for that food...I would KILL to have a Pizza Nova out here.

Baby Seth

What else....we stayed with Alli and Brian one night so Cole got to meet a potential girlfriend in-utero. Alli is about 6 months prego so we figure this was Cole's first opportunity to meet Baby Girl Elliott. He already has been betrothed to Kate Ryan, but I think he can try to date both of them at some point before deciding on a lifetime love.


In addition to San Diego we spent a lot of time in Monrovia with family where Cole got to meet a whole host of people, most importantly his cousins! He also spent some quality time with Nani and Papa Spicer and Aunt Janet.


Overall, we had a wonderful trip and traveling with Cole turned out to be pretty easy - although we still have to conquer that plane thing.

Happy Father's Day

Chris, Cole and I had a great day today. The day started with a homemade breakfast for Daddy - eggs, sausage and monkey bread! Delicious! Then, we spent the day hanging out with Cole and Daddy getting some quality time. Cole is working on perfecting sitting up, so we cleared out the coffee table to give him lots of carpet to work with. He did a great job, and by the time we are in CA next week I think he will have sitting down.

The US open was on, so Cole threw on a sweater vest and hat to watch with Dad. I think Cole already is hooked. There is no escaping golf as a part of his future.Chris and I topped the night off with steaks and a bottle of wine....all in all, a perfect day!

Yes, I still plan to blog!

Well, it has been a while since I shared an update from Arizona. All is well in the land of heat - we have just been incredibly busy! I am going to try to give the quick version of what we have been up to, and throw in some recent photos of Cole so you can all see how he is looking now that he is almost 5 months!

SEA LIFE Arizona officially opened on May 14 and it has been nonstop ever since. The aquarium is doing great. Too great at times. I have been literally burried in work ever since the opening. My hectic work schedule has me staying at work a couple of times a week until around 9, which has given Chris and Cole some great father -son time. Chris is so good with Cole - they love to hang together. Cole already has seen the French Open, Stanley Cup, NBA playoffs, etc. I know babies shouldn't watch a lot of TV but they are just too stinkin cute when they sit on the couch together.

Cole is getting big - he was 13 lbs on May 17, so I am sure he is even bigger now. He is still on the light side for his age (25% percentile) and long (75% percentile). He is a really happy baby - loves to smile. In recent weeks he also has started laughing a lot, rolling on to one side (but not over) and eating rice cereal. We are very proud parents.

Chris and I celebrated our 4 year anniversay on May 30. Our friends Lizzie and Greg watched Cole and we went out to dinner. Hard to believe it has already been 4 years of marriage.

Sorry for the one long post, but I thought it would be easier to do a quick catch up rather than trying to post seperately for all that has gone on in the last month!