We've turned a corner!

For any of you who have heard me talk about our swimming lessons experiences, you know that I practically cringe when mentioning them! They usually involve Cole starting to get squirmy and say "no mama, no mama" when we pull into the parking lot. Then the pleas get louder as we go into the locker room and start to put on his swimsuit. By the time he is dressed for swimming lessons, tears are streaming down his face and he has a white-knuckled grip on my shirt. It is really very heart-wrenching for a mother (and for Granny and Grandma who take him on days that I work). He usually cries for "Mama" the whole 10-15 min lesson and then for about 5 minutes afterward until he finally smiles and waves "bye-bye" to his teacher and we head to the car. Well, as of today, I can finally say it's all been worth it!!! The moms sitting to either side of me (the ones who are there every day at that time) were in awe of my little 18 months old, talking and laughing, splashing and playing, in the swimming pool! He swam to the edge of the pool and pulled himself up, he "jumped" off the side of the pool and swam to the teacher, and even did his dreaded back floats without a problem! I'm glad that I brought the camera or else I don't think anyone would have believed me telling them all this:-) He didn't even want to get out when the lesson was over! I was amazed! I think I'm going to have quite the little fish on my hands! Watch out Michael Phelps, Cole Bucher is going for the gold!!!

Easter!

I know it's taken me a while to get some Easter pictures up but its been a busy week! I was lucky to get Easter off of work since last weekend was my weekend to work. Missy was in town for a few days, so it was really fun to get to spend the day with her! We did an Easter dinner with Adam's family on Friday night because they were going to be gone over the weekend! Cole had a little Easter egg hunt in their family room and loved it! Of course he was spoiled by "Gamma"!

On Saturday I had to work but Adam took Cole to the Easter Eggstravagansa at our church! It was the first time he actually sat on the lap of any holiday character! Usually the closest he'll get is giving them "5" but he actually sat on the Easter Bunny's lap! I think I might have been a little scared of this Easter Bunny:-)
Then on Easter we went to church and had Easter lunch over at my parent's house. He looked absolutely adorable in his little Easter outfit! He actually wore the hat to church but of course it was off by the time we picked him up from the nursery! It was a fun weekend and of course it's awesome to celebrate Jesus' resurrection that set us free!!!

A reason to be thankful!

As I sat in church today, I was reminded of how often I thank God for such an incredible life! I thank Him for my beautiful son, my loving husband, my close family, a beautiful, warm home to live in, cars that run and have heat and air-conditioning, jobs that we like and provide us with a living, and so on and so on. I have been so blessed! The thing I realized though, was how few times I take the time to thank God for the one thing that matters! For the fact that he sent Jesus to die on the cross and that he rose again so that I could be forgiven of all my sins and go to heaven. For his absolutely, unconditional love! With Easter just around the corner, I am in awe once again as I think about the incredible sacrifice Jesus made for us all, but that he would have done it anyway, if I was the only person he was doing it for! I am so thankful for that, when I think about how many times a day I blunder my way through trying to be an example of Christ. I am so thankful that He loves me enough to wipe my slate clean every day!
I just had to share this because it had a particularly big impact on me today! I think it's so important to remember that above all the awsome blessings God gives us day to day, he already gave us what matters most when Jesus died on the cross! God is sooooooooooooo good!

A Day at the Zoo!

Today we took Cole for his first visit to the zoo! He was enthralled with everything he saw! I think all the people caught his attention almost more than the animals though! There was a huge easter egg hunt there and an unbelievable amount of people.

I think he was afraid of the monkeys for some reason. After a couple of minutes watching them swing from the branches, he grabbed onto me really tight and said, "done, done, done!" He liked the goats at the petting zoo though. They were soft and just his size!

We also saw the zebra, tiger, sloth bear and leopard. I think we'll try to go again this spring when they get their "Out of Africa" attractions done! Once we were done in the zoo, Uncle Neil took Cole over to see the geese in the park. He loves "deese", as he calls them:-) They decided to chase them a little bit which, as you can see by his face, Cole loved!

I think it had been at least 15 years since I'd been to the zoo, so it was fun to see how much it hadn't changed! It is fun to have a zoo so close to home though! I'm sure we'll spend a lot of time there in the coming years!

My Garden!

I'm planting a garden this year! A couple of my friends decided to start planting seeds inside in order to transplant them into the garden later this spring. I have wanted to plant a garden for a couple of years now and decided that now is as good a time as any. After seeing all the seeds I bought, Adam asked if I thought we owned 10 acres or something! So I may have gone slightly overboard but oh well, I got the 10 cent seeds, no harm done! I've got lots of Zinnias growing right now (most of the green sprouts you see to the right) and my 2 little cucumber plants just came up yesterday! My herb garden is actually looking pretty good too (above picture)! I've got basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, cilantro, chives, and parsley. The chives and parsley haven't shown their faces yet but the rest are coming right up! In my vegetable garden I've got tomatoes, squash, zuchinni, cucumbers, cantaloupe, and watermelon (of course!).  I've got beans, peas, corn, and a few others to plant later too. I know, I've got high hopes but if I start out big, I'll at least get something, right?!? Well, I'm at least hoping to have some really good BLT's this summer and maybe a good watermelon! It's really fun to watch the little sprouts come up and feel like I'm

actually growing something! God really knew what he was doing when he came up with all this! It's pretty cool! I'm anxious for Cole to get old enough to watch things grow and not want to pull them all out:-) Anyways, I'll keep you updated, see Adam about putting bets on how much I'll be able to keep alive!

A Day at the Park

Finally! A decent day without 30 mile/hour wind! We went for a jog and ended up at the park where Cole can play for hours! He loves the slide and swings especially. He sees other kids running around screaming so he runs around screaming too, it's pretty cute! He wants to explore everything and loves to "drive the cars" with the steering wheels on the playground. I can tell where we'll be spending a lot of time this spring and summer!!! Here's a little video of Cole sliding too!
 

Cole-o-sauras Rex!

Cole loves to pretend he's a dinosaur. After his bath last night Adam dressed him up in his dragon bath-robe and he had so much fun crawling around and "growling". It's so much fun to have this little person in your house to make you laugh and act like a kid again - of course Adam and I were on the ground crawling around with him! When we get down with him he says, "crawl, crawl, crawl", wanting us to crawl around with him!