Not a fan of pink, BUT...

...I just love the roses in our back yard! A little nugget of info about me: I HATE PINK. I hate the girliness of it, even to the point that if Aiden had been a girl, I would have requested NO PINK on all my my baby shower invites. Give me red any day. Anyways, the previous owner of our home was a HUGE fan of pink (you should have seen one of the bedrooms before it became Aiden's nursery), and apparently that love extended beyond room colors. We have three rose bushes in the back yard, and each is a different shade of pink. And surprisingly, I don't mind them, especially this one on the side of the house near the back porch. Maybe it's because it's not TOO pink, or maybe just because I *heart* roses in general. Regardless, these flowers have been a welcome surprise this spring. :)

First Trip to the Zoo

We FINALLY made it to the Columbus Zoo today! I've been wanting to go for weeks now, but every time I planned it, the day would turn out crummy. We had PERFECT weather today, though--mid seventies and partly cloudy. Mike, Aiden & I really enjoyed ourselves. I hadn't been there since I was in 2nd grade--21 years ago! It was really neat to see all the animals. We didn't get to see the new baby elephant simply because we didn't want to wait in the hour-long line, but we did see A LOT of other animals, as you can see in the slideshow below. Kudos to Mike for taking some fantastic photos as well! Aiden seemed generally interested, too; he would point at animals (he's "showing" me the elephant in the photo above), and he even called a small wild Asian cat a "kitty." Unfortunately, he fell asleep right before we got to the monkey section, so he did miss them. We'll have plenty of opportunities as he grows older to head back, though. A good time was had by all, so we'll definitely return :) Enjoy!

Dad's Birthday

Yesterday we headed up north to celebrate my Dad's 61st birthday. It was another beautiful day, and a bit warm, too, for late May. We had a great cookout (my dad is the best grill master EVER), and we even got to visit with my grandparents, too. We stayed outside the entire time, which is quite a feat! Aiden had fun crawling around in the grass and splashing in a cooler full of water (a bit redneck, I know, but he had fun).































On the way home from my folks', "Right Round" by Flo Rida came on the radio. Mike had told me before he's seen Aiden bopping his head to it, and now we have it on film :)

You Spin Me Right Round from Kimberly Cotter on Vimeo.

A Trip to the Park

We have been blessed with some B-E-A-Utiful weather recently. Since I usually have about 2 hours between the time I pick up Aiden and the time Mike gets home from work, I decided to take Aiden to a local park yesterday. We were lucky enough to have Aunt Abby join us, and we all had a great time!

A New Toy

Bum-Bum from Kimberly Cotter on Vimeo.

(Nearly) Ready for Football Season

So the Red Room is nearly complete; I only want to get a few more painting projects on the walls--including a block-O and a helmet, but we'll have to do those by hand as the block walls won't allow for Fatheads--and we ultimately would like to get some berber carpeting down there, but those are both future projects. Our newest additions are the OSU curtains, made out of a set of twin sheets (thank you, MiMi, for your sewing contribution) as well as a "new" mini-fridge courtesy of my brother, who assures me that we are only providing a temporary home for his appliance. Sure goes great with the decor, though :) And now that we've got cable down there as well, it's a much more functional room than before; I think it will be a great place to sit and watch TV when the summer temps start to climb. I'm really looking forward to catching my Buckeye games in there...only about 3 months to go...

Out & About

I'm waiting for Mike to get home so we can head up to Mansfield for the rest of the weekend, so I thought I'd stop by. I ended up winning a $25 gift card for a little competition I was in at work. I never win ANYTHING! It's all due to Angie, though, so I give her mad props. Anyways, the gift card was supposed to go towards a new pair of walking/running shoes, but since I already have two pairs that are still in great shape, I figured it would be okay to spend it on something else. Enter Aiden into the picture: he is the lucky beneficiary of my generosity, and he scored a new Magnadoodle and Elmo backpack. Lucky kid.
Whilst at Target, I was also looking for some easy Aiden-friendly food items to take up to my mom's house, and finally took the plunge and bought the mandarin oranges. Score one for Mom AND Aiden this time because He. Loved. Them. And again I'm left asking myself why didn't I try this sooner? Better late than never, I suppose.
I hope all you moms--and soon-to-be moms--have a GREAT Mother's Day!

It's Hard to Get This on Film

Boy, is it difficult to get a movie of Aiden "walking," especially when Daddy's not here to help! This is my best attempt (as I type this, Aiden is terrorizing the cats by chasing them around, and he's laughing hysterically).

Walking? from Kimberly Cotter on Vimeo.

UPDATE: Okay, it's a few hours later, and with Daddy home, we got a pretty decent video--enjoy!!!

Better Walking :) from Kimberly Cotter on Vimeo.

A Week of Firsts, and a Regret

Aiden has conquered A LOT of firsts in the past week, almost to the point I want to tell him to slow down a little. He started by melting my heart last Saturday; while we were at Quentin's party, I pointed to myself and asked him "Who's this?" I've been doing this for months now, and if he responded at all, he'd usually say "DaDa!" So I think my heart literally skipped a beat when he looked at me and said "Mama!" Just to be sure it wasn't a fluke, I tried it again twice more that day, and sure enough, his answer was Mama. Best feeling EVER. :)
I already posted about Tuesday's breakthrough--those five beautiful steps--and he's continued to do some limited "walking" on his own. I think we've got a ways to go before he's running around, but I'm definitely thrilled with his progress!
Some other good news to report--Aiden now has tooth #6, and it looks like #7 & 8 won't be far behind. Another neat thing that his sitter let me know is that he's mastered the baby sign language sign for "eat/hungry." Now I'll admit I was a pretty big skeptic of this baby signing stuff UNTIL last night, when he crawled over to me near dinnertime and made that sign! How nice that we could skip the frustration of not knowing what he wanted! So now I'm regretful that I hadn't jumped on board with this sooner. I think with Baby Cotter #2 (who is still resting comfortably in our distant future, so don't get excited), I'm going to make a true effort to try the signing out, and really get Aiden involved, too, as I believe it will be a fun way for him to communicate with his sibling.
We were supposed to go to the Columbus Zoo today with our monthly playgroup, but the forecast was calling for rain and so we changed our plans, heading to Build-A-Bear at the mall instead. Now I'm a little disappointed because rather than the predicted rain, it's a beautiful sunny afternoon. Oh, well--someone's asleep, so I guess I'll go catch up on some yardwork. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!