Today Colton, Grampa and I walked over (in a wheel barrow that I pushed Grandpa Richard in first to entice ColKie to ride in after) to Chris' house to see his gardens. Chris is a biker-looking gardener if there is such a thing. He's very nice, but Colton wasn't too sure of him at first. 

In typical Colton fashion by the end of the visit he opened up. Chris asked him what his name was and he said, "I Col-tin." He still refers to himself when speaking as Co(l)Kie, but he knows his name is Colton. We also quizzed him on the wheel barrow ride back about how old he was. Without a pause he replied, "I two."

Good boy ColKie.

Colton was eating corn with "GranPa" today and I was trying to sign to him "I love you."

Typically when I sign "I love you" (and then point to him) he growls (literally) - "I wuv wu."

I did the sign - point three times and he scowled a bit and said, "Busy eating."

Got it!

Then he repeated three other times tonight, "I'm busy."  Hmmmm

Today was Colton's first horse show. Nothing like starting out in the big leagues at the 2014 Region 10 Arabian Horse Association Championship.  

He started out in the entrance ramp hesitant. He went in and balked a little until his friend Felix (the 3-year-old who gave him a grape the day prior) helped urge him in.  He then stopped and saw mommy and grandma in the background and came trotting back.

We convinced him to give it another try and he went out hesitantly at first. Then he broke into a trot and handed the photographer, Jolene, his pacifier. From this point on it turned into the Colton Mallet show. While the other children were performing their moved (walk, trot, canter, back…) Colton did his own thing. He trotted around, then he went and parked his stick horse, Robby, on one of the pylons. The ring master came to talk to him trying to convince him to get back on his pony.

Mommy had to come out and get Robby. I told him that if he wanted a prize that he had to get back on and line-up with the other kids.

He did and was very proud of himself. We told him that if Robby was a good boy that we'd get him ice cream following the ride. This was something he did not forget. He insisted on wearing his number during ice cream eating, in the car ride home and for a large part of the day. He then went home and demonstrated for Grandpa Richard and Great Gramma Ellie how he showed Robby and how Robby was a "good boy."

All in all, his first show was quite successful (and expensive, I think I spent more money on photographs on this show than any of my own).

The entire thing was captured wonderfully by Jolene of Avalon Photography. All photos below were purchased from her website. - http://www.avalonequinephotos.com

The best thing happened today. While I was sitting on couch this morning at grandma and grandpa's house, Colton came over, put his head on my shoulder and said, "I wuv wu mommy."