FINALLY!!!

After 5 days of not leaving the house I decided I had enough. After lunch we ventured out. First stop was Walmart. Cooper has a gift card he got for Christmas so I thought I would try and find him something new. I know, what could this child possibly need after having a birthday and Christmas in the past two months. He's been such a trooper this week and I wanted to do something special. In addition to not leaving the house all week he has been teething. He has a top tooth about to come in and two bottom molars that came though. What is odd about this is that he only has two other bottom teeth. So I am guessing there are a couple of more on their way. Due to the teething he has been having bad diaper rash this week. Let me say that this child NEVER had diaper rash. I haven't seen it this bad since last year when we had an allergic reaction to amoxicillian. At one diaper change he was screaming so bad and crying, before I got his diaper back on he ran away and hid. I felt so bad. Anyway, I didn't really find what I was looking for but I did get a new ball and a Veggie Tail video. I couldn't leave without getting some pretzel sticks to share. Not quite as good as the ones in the mall, but cheaper. Next we were off to Toys R Us. I am in the hunt for a tunnel. Heather & Craig have one and Cooper was scared of it at their house but liked it when she brought it over here the other night. Toys R Us was sold out but I did find one online. Now I'm just trying to decide if the extra $10 is worth it to have it shipped or see if I can wait for the store to re-stock. Inventory is kind of low due to Christmas. I'll probably go ahead and order it. For dinner we are headed to Steve's parents house. Mamaw and Papaw haven't seen "their angel" in almost a week. That's probably a record.

God Love Him

First let me say thank you to my husband who took the time on Wednesday to shovel our driveway and sidewalks. Now let me show you what our drive looks like. His words were "I only shoveled part of your side, if you need to get out do you think you can back out and then swing the car over to my side?"

Snow Day Take 2

The best part of snow day #2 (Wednesday) is that Steve decided to stay at home as well. Since he has to work on Saturday, it was nice to have an extra day. Of course we didn't do anything but it was fun to have him home.

Here is a sample of the layer of ice that was on our driveway in the morning. Cooper enjoying the morning snow fall.

View of the snowfall from the back door.

A frozen bush.

A broken tree. By the way, that is Cooper's window, glad the tree isn't much bigger.

Daddy & Cooper. Those are sock on Cooper's hands if you are wondering. Also I'm not so sure that the time it took to get him ready was really worth it. Maybe next year when he can actually play.

Finally, me and my baby!!!

Best Part of Having a One Year Old

They don't question the combination of pizza rolls, green beans, and goldfish crackers. They are just happy to be eating.

Snow Day

For some reason I still get excited when there is a snow day, it's like I'm 10 again. I especially love it since I don't have to be anywhere, although I do feel bad that Steve has to get up early and go in to work. As a matter of fact I still got up early this morning when he did cause I felt bad he was out shoveling snow while I was sleeping. It's not like I helped, I just didn't think it was right I was in bed. Anyway..... we managed to get out for a few minutes today but it was freezing rain we we didn't get to stay. Once we came in I tried to get some pictures of all the layers of clothing he had on, but he wanted the camera and wasn't being very nice. Notice how he is chewing on his fingers, that is because he is getting two molars and possibly two- three other front teeth as well. He hasn't been in the best of mood today, he loves the taste of medicine so he pretty much threw a fit after I gave him some Tylenol because he wanted more. I hope this isn't a bad sign.

Here we are outside, he is trying to catch some rain on his tongue, how cute is that? Middle layer of clothing

Bottom layer of clothing, poor guy looks miserable :(

Favorite Toy

One of Cooper's favorite toys is our vacuum. Don't ask why but the kid loves for us to vacuum. He will go to the hall closet and ask for help sometimes just to try and get us to open the door and get out the vacuum. When we do get it out to vacuum he throws a fit if we don't turn it on quick enough. In the second picture he is about to throw that fit cause Steve can't get to it fast enough for him.

Not much going on

I feel like I haven't been keeping up with blogging as much as I have the past couple of months. January has been pretty slow for us, which is actually a good thing. It's been a long month but a relaxing one. Not much has gone on. Cooper is doing great with his tubes, he hasn't been waking up at all. Friday night he slept from 7:50 until 8:15 without making a peep. That made yesterday great because he only took one nap and it was for over 2 hours. He is starting to walk a little more but he isn't quite there yet. I think the problem is that he cannot get to a standing position without holding on to something. If he is already standing he will walk across the room to whatever he wants, if he happens to sit down and there isn't anything nearby to help him up he has to crawl again. He does a great job when he's on his feet so I'm not too worried, he will get there one day. He's also doing a great job in the nursery as well. I haven't got called back in over a month. Steve went with his brother to the IU game today and they left around 9 so he had to miss church, I thought about visiting Charlestown Independent but I was afraid to take Cooper out of the nursery for a week and I wasn't about to try a new church nursery. We have been saying that our attendance has gotten better since having Cooper. We were always regular attenders but we would also let a cold or a late night get in the way of not going. Now we are up anyway and consistency pays off with a little one. One new thing that he has started to do is look at photo albums. He loves them, especially pictures of people he knows. I can't tell you how many times in the past week or two we have looked at his photo albums. He has also started to roar when we ask him who Uncle Scott is. He's strange, but I love him. Here he is with some of his pictures.

Eating

Cooper is probably the happiest when he is eating. It doesn't matter what it is, what time it is, where he is, he will eat anything. Just this morning I got out the box of Cheerios and he gave me the most precious smile like I hung the moon. Really he just wanted the Cheerios but in my mind I like to think that he wanted me. Here are some recent shot of him enjoying some snacks.

Here he is eating some Oreo 100 calorie snacks. He's too cute with the chocolate all over his chin.

He can't get by without some of Daddy's ice cream. In an effort to get him to walk more, Steve said on the couch and I sat in our chair and Cooper walked back and forth between us one night to get our snacks. He quickly realized that Daddy's ice cream was much better than mommy's snack.

You can't really see this very well, but this is after a real Oreo cookie. He had tiny chocolate crumbs all over his face and hands. After he got done eating he starting rubbing his eyes, it was everywhere. The lighting doesn't do it justice.

It's My Turn

I feel as if I always blog about Steve making dinner for us, usually pancakes. I thought I would return the favor and make some French Toast. I wouldn't really say return the favor since I am the one who usually does make dinner, but breakfast for dinner is always a treat. I love a big breakfast but I would rather eat it for dinner than breakfast. I'm just strange that way, if I eat too much for breakfast then I don't feel good the rest of the day, so we tend to cook breakfast for dinner a lot. Here are some shots, is was pretty good. Not exactly Cracker Barrel, but good enough.
Cooking the toast. Some good turkey sausage, I had to be healthy in there somewhere.

The finished product.

No more guest blogs

Just wanted to let everyone know that Steve has decided to author his own blog. Click here for The World According Steve. Or you can check out the link on the blogs that I read.

Just when you think your child is a genius

I'm sure most moms have had that moment when you feel your child is a genius. Then something like this happens:
This morning I was making muffins for breakfast and Cooper was sitting on the kitchen floor just playing by himself. Steve walks in, looks down and informs me that our son is taking off his socks, picking the lint out of his toes and eating it. It doesn't get much better than this.

First Haircut

We took Cooper to get his first haircut on Tuesday. Most people would like at him and say, haircut, what hair does he have? His hair is very blond so you can't really tell, but the back was getting way out of control. Think Joe Biden hair. So we finally decided he needed a trim, at least the back only. I already had an appointment scheduled for myself so I asked Jessica if she could fit him in before me. He did so great, he pretty much sat still the entire time, let out a few cries, but no real tears. We were very proud, so proud that daddy took him home and fed him 5 chicken nuggets, green beans, yogurt, juice, and ice cream. I can't even eat that much!!! Steve was also in charge of pictures since I was helping to make sure he didn't jump out of the chair, so we only have three.
Here he is all ready to go. This is what I call scared Cooper.

Aren't they cute? Cooper and Jessica after it was all done. It wasn't that much torture now was it?

He even got a certificate for doing such a good job. She also gave me some locks of hair for memory keeping. My little guy is getting big.

Hide N Go Seek

I can't remember if I've blogged on this before but Cooper has a place he likes to go hid. It's usually in his tunnel although at times it can be behind in the chair in the kitchen or even in the middle of the room with nothing blocking his view. He gets this cute little sneaky grin on his face every time he does it, it's too cute.

Sunday and a New Game

If I had to describe a perfect Sunday that did not involve being in Walt Disney World, then this past Sunday would be it. We started off with church, my alarm clock woke me up, not Cooper. That is always a good day. He's been sleeping in till around 7 or 7:15 lately, it's awesome! I did not get called back to the nursery, another miracle! He was a little fussy when I picked him, they said he did great the entire service until the end, by that time it was so close to being over they just dealt with. I was proud of him. That makes two Sunday's in a row. It would so be easy to quit going until he gets older or keep him in the service with us, but I know that is not what God wants me to do. It sometimes is still a little hard for me to give it my 110% attention because I am nervous and just waiting for my number to pop up, but I'm going to keep on trying.

We get home and for the second time this week we were able to keep Cooper up until after lunch. He has taken only 1 nap quite a few times, but if that one nap is before lunch then we are in for a rough evening. Yesterday was great, he made it until after 12 then took a good nap, well we all took a good nap. Before I had Cooper I would take naps every Sunday, sometimes for 2-3 hours. Then I wondered why I couldn't sleep Sunday night??? After nap time we decided to go to Sam's. I needed some paper towels and Cooper needed some chicken nuggets, his 3-4 times a week lunch. As I was feeding Cooper a sample of fudge bars they were handing out, Steve was sneaking individual size Blue Bell ice cream cups for him and Cooper. I wonder who spoils him more? After we got home Steve decided to make dinner, his usual staple of pancakes. I can't complain, they are delicious. After dinner was when things took an unusual turn. Cooper found a new game, you can see pictures below. It involved paper towel rolls, sorry some of them are a little blurry, they were action shots. We ended the night with the premiere of 24, who doesn't love Jack Bauer?

I couldn't get more than 2 or 3 stacked before he wanted to knock them over.

Party at the Reid's

Friday night the Reid's hosted their first bash at the new pad. Somehow between Thanksgiving and New Years they managed to buy a house, sell their old house and move in. The party goers included us (Steve, myself, and Cooper) the Reid's (Eric, Tracey, and Levi), the Bush's (Paul, Gretchen, Pierce, and Hope), the McCarty's (Josh, Jana, Ashlyn, Luke, and Ian) and the Murphy's (Matt, Melanie, Corbin, and baby Murphy) if you are counting that is 10 adults, 8 children, and one on the way. Gretchen and I agreed it was the one time we like our small homes, it gives us an excuse not to host anything. Levi has a nice toy room for all the kids, they had a great time. As did the adults, so thanks to Eric & Tracey for a fun evening. If you want to check out the pics, click here for Tracey's blog. I've become a bit lazy on picture taking.

There are NO ex-Bitty Ball Players in Prison

(GUEST BLOGGER)

My wife and I this past Saturday went to our first ever Bitty Ball game where friends of ours 4-year old was a participant. While we sat in the small, musty old gym I was reminded of a fact that I have previously learned in the past, but from time-to-time forget and it is this....kids have it all right and adults have it all wrong.

Bitty Ball is a great example of how important mentoring is for children. As these four year olds ran/fell up and down the court, you could tell the game was being played how it was meant to be played. That is with laughter, teamwork, and good sportsmanship.

Bitty Ball is an exceptional example of the old adage we have all heard that states....everything we need to know as adults we learn before the age of six. There is some truth behind that. These kids learn to work together for the better of the whole, not to focus on 'who' gets the glory, try hard irregardless of the score (if there even is a score), and how to keep our eyes on the goal (so you don't run off into the stands, get lost and never return to the court). You get the picture.

It makes we wonder if those people whom find themselves in trouble as adults ever had someone invite them to Bitty Ball? Did anyone ever share with them the importance of others first and me last? The answer is probably resounding.

It is fun to watch kids playing basketball who get excited about simple things such as, "look mommy I've got my own jersey" or "look mommy I was able to put my own shoes on today...the right feet too" or "WOW, we got strawberry Caprisun today...COOL!"

That in comparison to tattooed professionals who in-between games attend court dates on weapons charges, care more about how they look on the court than how they can make their teammates better, think sharing somehow involves passing around STDs to out-of-town groupies, and annoyingly tug at the front of their jerseys to draw attention to the team name on the front of the jersey when in reality they are actually attempting to draw attention to their own successes.

Bitty Ball shuns those principles and is successful in part because some adults care enough to show children the right way to engage in competition. Unfortunately, as our children get older the caring adults seem to vanish and are replaced by drill Sargent's bent on world domination or however far the 10-12 year old pee-wee baseball soldiers can take them.

Yeah, my gut feeling is there are few if any Bitty Ball players sitting in prison. However, maybe that could be a good ministry for some eager men/women interested in sports and convicts. We could call it Bitty Ballin'. After all, it is never to late to go back to Kindergarten and learn all that we need to know even if we are no where near six any longer.

Steve

(Thanks to Paul and Gretchen Bush for the picture of Pierce hoopin it up)

Bunco

I started in a new Bunco group this week. I played in one for about a year and a half and quit right after Cooper was born, the time wasn't good for me and almost all the girls lived over in Louisville. Gretchen and Tracey invited me to theirs and I think I'm going to be regular. Check out Rather Be Shopping and Rainman's Blog to read all about it.

Surgery Day

Like I said, everything went very well this morning. A lot better than expected, I was concerned about him wanting something to eat or drink in the morning, he did sleep until right before we left the house so that made it a lot easier. First let me back up about 12 hours, he went to bed as normal around 8:15, around 12:45 we heard him crying. This was the beginning of what was almost two hours of us rocking him, which he was calm and asleep in our arms, but crying as soon as we laid him down. We even tried our bed, which he hasn't slept in since he was like a week old. That didn't work, he was wide awake pointing at the fan. So we tried rocking again, finally around 2:30 he fell back asleep for good. I'm not really for sure what was wrong, it could have been his ear or his tooth, I have no idea. Luckily he did sleep till about 7:15, Steve and I were already ready to go, we had the car warmed up, all I had to do was change his diaper and clothes. He then did something that once again he has not done in over a year, he peed all over me. I then had to go change my clothes. Bad morning already!

We were scheduled to arrive at 8:15, we had to go to the Louisville Surgery Center in downtown, it's actually about three blocks from where I used to work. We got there a little early, we probably waited about 15 minutes before they called us back. That is when we changed him into his gown, a nurse took his temperature and blood pressure, and he was given some medicine to make him more relaxed. After that we waited maybe another 10-15 minutes, then the anesthesiologist (yes I used spell check on that one) came to talk to us and while he was asking the questions another nurse came and took him back to have the surgery. It was kind of sneaky, kind of like they used the doctor to distract us, which was nice in a way. We had to go back out to the waiting room, waiting for us out there was the early childhood director from church. She just took over the position and it was so nice of her to come over. She sat with us and talked until the doctor came out, once again, maybe 15 minutes and it was all done. We went back to get him and he was still asleep. He woke up about 10 minutes later ready for some juice. They warned us he could be a little fussy and not have an appetite, not our Cooper. He was been ready to play and eat all day long. The little guy came out like a champ. I'm glad it's over and hopefully he will have a much better night than last night. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers. I'm sure it was harder on Steve and myself than it was on Cooper.

Early this morning on the way, poor guy has no idea what is about to happen. Playing with daddy before surgery.

This is my favorite picture, no it's not a bad picture, this is really what his eyes looked like.

And finally the saddest picture taken before he woke up.

We're Home

We're home. Everything went great, I will post details a little later.

Books

If I happen to turn around and can't find my son, this is typically where he is. I love it that he loves book and loves to be read to, but I'm not kidding, we could do it for hours. He would rather read than play with toys.

Backpack

Here is Cooper trying out his new backpack that Grandma & Grandpa got him for Christmas when they went to Nova Scotia earlier this year. Click here to read about the day they got home from their vacation.

Church Nursery

Cooper made it through church service on Sunday without me having to be called, the first in a while. Even though he hasn't started walking all the time he gets to play in the room for walkers to two years. It's much more age appropriate for him and I think that is why he likes it more. It was too cute, Steve has taught him a few signs, he knows help, more, thank you, and sorry. I guess he kept asking for help for different things, one was to ride a rocking horse/dog thing. The funny thing is, his help actually looks like a clap, so poor woman probably thought he was wanting to play pat-a-cake the whole time.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day for tubes. I feel pretty good about everything, I think it's going to hurt me more knowing he might be scared for a few minutes when they take him away and after they wake him up. I called this morning and we have to be there at 8:15 and surgery is at 9:15. My biggest concern now is that I can't feed him in the morning. I'm hoping we can keep him up late tonight and eat a late snack and maybe he will sleep in late enough so that he isn't quite awake when we leave. This is a very slim chance since he wakes up some mornings around 6:30. Poor guy, as long as he doesn't see his cup or any food we might be okay.

Year in Review

Everyone else is doing this, so why not me? Here is a year in pictures plus some fun memories. Have a Happy New Year everyone!

January- The first ever smile I caught on camera. February- Trying out the Bumbo for the first time.

March- First cereal feeding, mixed with some Amoxicillian.

March- First Easter

April- Chillin' with Daddy on the sofa.

April or May- A child divided.

June- Last day of Daycare

June/July- Morning walks

July- Swimming at Grandma's.

August- First family trip to the zoo

August- Trip to Indy to see Lucas Oil Stadium

October- Picking Pumpkins

October- Fun time with Levi

October- Last trip to Speed Park for the season

October- Halloween

November- 1st Birthday

December- Merry Christmas!