3/26/12

Well our little man is finally mobile. He started scooting a few days ago and hasn’t stopped for a second since. I knew that once he could move on his own he would be a lot happier entertaining himself for longer and I was right. Any time he is in motion he has such a pleased look on his little face. He is such a happy little guy these days. I swear this whole parent thing just keeps getting more and more fun! We still have Aunt McKenzie staying with us and she has been watching our friend’s baby, Carter Adamson. Coop likes having another baby around. Not sure how much longer Kenz will be staying with us though. she broke up with her boyfriend who is away on a mission and now wants to head home to start a fun summer with her girlfriends. We get Nana (Grandma Debby) in a week though so we won’t be alone for long! We are all going to head down to Charleston S.C. for Easter. I can’t wait. Andrew and I have been to Charleston twice before and loved it both times. It is just so charming and neat. And wow what good food.  Both times we went with our friends the Berlins who really know their way around so this time will be a bit different on our own. The weather this winter and spring have been totally awesome so hopefully the beach will be nice. It has only snowed once and has been warm enough for shorts since February! Kenz, Coop and I have been loving it. We love doing stuff in the yard while soaking up the sun. Oh another totally awesome Coop “trick” I forgot to mention is that he is waving bye bye and says it. You can’t quite understand it but he says it every other time. So his first words are mama, which he says when he is upset. Dada when he is playing with Andrew. And now buh buh for bye bye. I know everyone thinks this about their first kid but I totally think that he is a baby genius.

And he really has the sweetest most fun personality. It is impossible not to fall completely in love with that little guy when he looks at you and grins. That is excepting when it is bed time and then he tends to turn into a little monster these days. Especially when I am at Young Women and it’s past bed timze. Boy howdy it can be tricky to get that boy settled without a human pacifier, if you know what I mean. ;) But really even then he is crazy lovable even pitching and screaming. Hee…Hee…

Another beautiful Bonnie shoot. I hope she never stops needing her hair done!                              

 

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Catch ups. Ignore post date :)

2-6-2012                                            Painting at the children's museum 

Well little Coop man is now 7 months. We can’t believe just how fast 7 months have gone by. Cooper is such an awesome baby. He is such a joy. Things he is doing these days are sitting, rolling, and laughing laughing. He is a really social little guy and loves people. He also loves bath time like no body’s business. He splashes like crazy, and if he topples over in the water or gets it in his face it doesn’t even faze him he just gets right back to work splashing away. Andrew and I are loving being parents and are just trying to find a rhythm to juggling life. Andrew  really enjoys his job at the law firm Allman Spry doing mainly commercial real-estate law. And I am doing Cooper wrangling and hair at home in the kitchen when I can just to fill in our budget gaps. People come for hair when Cooper goes down for a nap in the morning or on Saturdays. It’s so nice to be able to be a completely stay at home mom with him and to be able to have an income. We have been really blessed with my work over the years.

We  have Cooper’s Aunt Mckenzie staying with us for a few months right now. It has been so nice having her. She is so fun and it is so nice to have an extra set of hands around. Cooper adores her. Any time she walks into a room he lights up and gets excited. He will be so sad when she leaves. We are hoping to talk her into staying longer.

Oh and something kind of funny and exciting, Cooper goes on the potty! I know it sounds really weird to be toilet training your 7 month old but it has been extremely easy. I had just noticed that he let me know every time he was doing number two. So one day I just took his diaper off and stuck him on the pot and whalah… It’s been about three weeks now and in that time I have only changed one poopy diaper! I just put him on every time he wakes up or in between if he lets me know and he now recognizes what it is and what he is supposed to do on it. He is even starting to pee on there. And it’s not like we spend forever in the bathroom just waiting for something to happen, I put him on and he makes himself go. Smart little guy. I hope our other kiddos are this easy to potty train. And I hope this lasts, fingers crossed. Now if we can just get him to sleep better at night we’ll be good. Can’t complain though.

                                                                 

                                                                2/28/2012

Cooper is hilarious when it comes to food. He is a little bit crazy our little man. Lately he doesn’t want to eat anything that doesn’t look like adult food. Any time he sees that he is being fed mashed up baby food he refuses in the beginning. The only problem is he doesn’t have any teeth yet to actually chew that adult food that he so desperately wants. So what I’ve been doing lately is feeding him off of creative “spoons”. I will take a slice of cucumber or a cracker or apple slice and scoop his food onto it then let him think that he is taking a bite while he is actually just slurping the food off of whatever we are using. Hee hee… although I’m not sure how much longer it is going to work because today as I was trying to give him the first bite off of an apple slice he pulled his head back, looked at the food on the apple and just laughed. Uh oh….

More catch ups...

"There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep" 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Here is Coop man on his first Halloween... he took it very seriously.



 Fam Photo!

 This tri-photo was taken by Bonnie's husband Jonathan and was made into huge prints and hung in a pediatricians office in Boone NC. So ya... Cooper and I or... excuse me... I mean my legs are pretty much famous. 















January 23, 2012 (written by Andrew)

It was Cooper’s first Christmas and New Year’s, and we got to spend both in Utah with family.  Tiffany flew out a couple of days before me with Cooper.  This was Cooper’s second time flying, but his first time flying alone with his mom.  We were a little worried about Tiffany having to handle everything on her own, but her and Cooper both did a great job.  Cooper slept through most of the flying, and Tiff did a great job of handling the luggage, getting to her connecting flight, and getting the rental car once she got to Salt Lake.  Just in case he decided to be grumpy on the plane, we dressed him up in a cute little Santa outfit that Steve and Kim Berlin gave us so that it would be a lot harder for people to be angry with him.  Tiffany said he was a celebrity everywhere they went.

Sorry I can't flip these photos for some reason.

Coop and his Grandpa Mike.

Uncle Milan, Blake and Aunt Briana.           

As has now become the tradition, Tiffany’s family had their Christmas eve celebration on the 23rd.  This year everyone spent the night at Brianna and Dave’s.  We had a great dinner with the entire family then sat around and talked and played games.  Of course, the main attraction was Cooper who was constantly passed around and played with.  He seemed a little overwhelmed at first, but he got used to the attention quickly and enjoyed spending time with grandma and grandpa and all his aunts and uncles.  We spent Christmas eve and Christmas morning with my family at Ruth and Mike’s house.  It was more food, talking, and games.  And of course, Cooper was again passed around and played with constantly. 

The rest of the trip was spent going back and forth between our families and making sure everyone got plenty of Coop time.  Cooper didn’t really enjoy all the time in his car seat, but he had a great time playing with everyone.  Unfortunately, with all the excitement going on, he didn’t sleep the greatest during the trip.  By the end, we were all pretty wiped out, especially Cooper and poor Tiff.  It was so nice to get back to our quiet home and sleep in our own beds.

            Next year we may have to make it a shorter trip.  As fun as it was to see family, we’re still trying to get Cooper to readjust back to life at home.  Even though he stayed healthy during the trip, he finally managed to get a cold when we got home.  The cold, combined with the bad sleep habits he picked up on the trip, have left us with a sleep schedule that is still making for some long nights for Coop and Tiff.

            But all in all it was a great holiday season and it was so fun to see Cooper with all his extended family.  Next year he will be at a really fun age and we can’t wait to see how much fun he has then.

Some more Cooper Journal catch ups...

Here is Coop and Andrew at our friend Steve Berlin's house. We go over there on Sunday's for dinner. Steve and his new wife Kim were Cooper's first babysitters.







My Friend Bonnie (was Berlin but is now Burton) Has Taken the most beautiful photos of Cooper from day one. She is so talented.
Here he is around 2 months.

                                                     A typical Coop face....;)

9-1-11

Yesterday two things happened in Coop world. The first was I left him in the middle of his little play mat (that he loves like you wouldn’t believe) and ran to change the wash over and take the garbage out to the curb. When I came back I found him most of the way off of his mat and facing another direction. He just smiled up at me like “look what I did”. So he is officially mobile, even if it is back inch scooting. He also played in his first sprinkler.  I brought him outside in his little car seat with me to do a few minutes of yard stuff. I had set him just inside the open garage thinking that he wouldn’t get wet there while I adjusted the back and forth sprinkler. I was focusing on getting the water not to spray the street  and had my back to him. He kept doing these little warning grunts and I kept saying “just a minute honey” when I finally turned around and saw that the sprinkler was totally spraying him and all he was doing was letting me know. Bad mama, Good baby.

9-9-11

Cooper slept completely through the night last night! (little did I know at this point that he wouldn’t consecutively sleep nights ever again.) We went to grab some thai food with some friends and he fell asleep at the restaurant in our friend Kim Faulkner’s arms. She has the magic touch. He then slept for 9 hrs straight, woke up, ate then went back to sleep for another 3 hrs! halleluiah!!! I mean don’t get me wrong, I love the 3 am feedings. That is actually when he is the cutest sometimes. He will get so smiley and coo so much. I like to think that he’s saying thanks for getting up in the middle of the night with me  mom. But man oh man is it nice to sleep through the night. Some other little things are, he will now grab and bat at toys. And he stands as long as you are there for a little balance. He is a very strong little boy.

Cooper’s Baby Blessing in Utah-

- This is an outfit that Andrew's Oma made for Cooper


At two months we took Cooper to Utah to meet most of his family. We also did his blessing while there so they could all be a part of it. We were a little antsy about taking him on a plane just because he tended to be a little high maintenance, never liking to be put down and a little loud sometimes. But turns out he loves airplanes! Probably because you can’t ever put him down and the sounds and sights were lulling and fun and new. He smiled and talked for the first flight then slept for most of the others. On one plane there was an Italian lady sitting next to us who would give another baby on the plane who was crying a crusty look then turn to Coop and touch his cheek and say “belisimo belisimo”. I’m not so sure she would have been saying that if she had had to deal with him in the airport bathroom a few minutes prior. But we were glad that he was being “belisimo”

Coop n Nana


We arrived around midnight in Utah and headed to my family's house. I had told my mom to just leave the back door unlocked and we would sneak in since they all had to work early the next day. But when we pulled up at 1 in the morning my mom (Grandma Heather) was sitting on the porch steps waiting. She came to the car and patiently waited for me to get a sleeping cooper out of his car seat then clutched him to her and cried and cried she was so happy. Then Mckenzie, Gabe and Dad all came out and I think that was the last we held him all week. Really, if we were at my family’s house the only time I got to hold him was if he had to eat. They even wanted to take him in the middle of the night if he woke up. Blake showed up early early that first morning snuck into our room and whisked him away to play so we could sleep. I love how much my family loves babies. Even the big strong boys get all mushy and could care less who’s watching. They are all so comfortable and just love, love, love babies. That’s one reason it’s so hard to live so far away from them right now. He might end up being a little spoiled if we lived close but he would have this awesome big support network of family that he would know very well. We will just have to do our best to keep in touch as best as we can.

 The whole week in Utah was wonderful. We went back and forth between my family’s and Andrew’s. Opa couldn’t get enough and taught him how to take a binki. Thank you Opa! Debby (Nana) threw a wonderful blessing dinner party, probably fancier than any birthday party that he will ever have. A lot of Andrew’s extended family and family friends came. And all of my immediate fam except Milan, Briana and Dave were able to come. My friend that I worked doing movies with for years Jen and her husband came. All in all I think that there was around 45 people at the Provo town house for it. Andrew gave a beautiful blessing. He is such a loved little boy.

 

Here is Debby's and Sam's reaction to our baby news.

Just ignore the post date on these. I'm trying to play catch up and get on the blogging bandwagon again. :)

Here I am 9.5 months pregnant with Cooper.

Cooper is here!!! Our little man came into the world on a very stormy Monday night after a breezy (being sarcastic here) 24ish hr labor. He was born on June 27^th 2011 at 9:02 pm. At Forsyth Hospital in Winston-Salem N.C. He weighed in at 8 lbs 1 oz and was 21” long, and was just beautiful. I had had on and off labor for about a week and was oh so ready for things to start for real. He was 4 days over due and I had a bottle of caster oil calling my name. I didn’t use it but had it on hand just in case things got completely unbearable. Then Sunday afternoon I was having the same on off contractions when Andrew suggested we take a car ride. Being in the car always seemed to start things going a little stronger. When things didn’t seem to really be progressing very fast we decided to head to bed and see if we couldn’t get some much needed sleep. I laid there for about an hour and the contractions started to come a little stronger and more regular. So I got up and went down stairs to bounce on my yoga ball and watch our local travel channel. I hadn’t really eaten anything that day because of tummy troubles so I thought I had better try and down something before things got too far. I only got a quarter of a cup of raisen bran down. Had I known what was ahead I would have forced myself to eat a four course meal right then. Not eating or sleeping for two days straight I think was my down fall. After a few hours of bouncing I got Andrew up and said that we were getting closer. We got everything in the car and then gave it a couple more hours just to be sure nothing was stopping. Then around 2 A.M. off to the hospital we went. When the nurse was checking us to see if they would be admitting us or sending us home she asked if this was our first and then let us know that they usually send first timers home at least 3 or 4 times before they will admit you. I was being so quiet during contractions that I don’t think she thought that I was really in labor. Then when she checked she said “Oh, you are at a 4!” Yay! I thought great we will have this baby by lunch time. Hee…hee… Then after 14 hours of hall walking and swaying with Andrew rubbing my back I was at an 8. But I stayed at an 8 for about three hours. Andrew by the way was totally amazing throughout the whole thing. I told him if the whole lawyer thing doesn’t work out he should consider being a doula. He said not in his worst nightmares. So by this time We were both sooo exausted and sooo hungry (because they wouldn’t let me eat ANYTHING once we were admitted) that I started passing out in between contractions. My body had had it. So I gave in to the epidural. Well actually my pain levels were so high because I had been in transition for so long that they gave me a spinal first so that there would be immediate pain relief and then the epidural and then broke my water. Then Andrew and I fell right to sleep. After about an hour the  Dr. came in and checked me and I was STILL at an 8 then he said that something was going to have to happen soon and If nothing had happened within an hour that we were going to have to talk about the possibility of a c-section. So as soon as he left I asked the nurse and Andrew to help me move onto my side. We did a couple of side flips and I said a few prayers then after about an hour when one of the nurses checked me she said “we’re ready to go, she’s at a 10” Thank goodness!!! Then we got a new nurse (we went through three shift changes of nurses and Dr.s) and did a few practice pushes. She thought things might go quicker if we waited for the tiny bit of the epidural left to die off and shoot up a little pitocin. So everything that I didn’t want to have happen excepting c-section, happened. But all that really mattered was that he was here and healthy. So we waited a tad and then she told Andrew to grab a leg. I don’t think Andrew thought he would have to be so involved. I really couldn’t have done it without him. Then after about an hour and a half of pushing and throwing up strawberry kiwi propel every push, to the soundtrack of the most amazing thunder outside our little Cooper arrived. The Dr. put him right onto my chest and immediately I was completely overcome with the most intense love. I had never experienced anything like that feeling. I mean I love Andrew that way but that feeling was built up over time. Nothing could have prepared me for that all at once you would do anything and I mean anything for this little person that you seriously just met two seconds ago. He was beautiful. He was so alert, he gave just a few hearty little cries and then just sat checking out the world while snuggling mom and holding dad’s hand. The first thing Andrew said was “look at those hands!” He had really big hands and feet. The feet he has grown into, his hands still look pretty big. He also had these deep creases in between his eye brows that looked like deep frown lines. I thought that they were just from being squished in utero but turns out he scowls a lot and tends to look pretty serious. Everyone always comments on his serious little grumpy face. But he makes up for it with the cutest smiles that stretch across his whole face. After an hour of just staring at him Andrew and I were so hungry that he decided to brave the storm and ran out and got burger king never did a burger taste so good. We were both starving. The next couple of days in the hospital were a blur of Dr’s and nurses in and out of our room at all hours.  We were happy to get home and finally get some rest. Then Nana (Andrew’s mom Debby) came on  week 2. It was wonderful having her. She Cooked awesome food, took Cooper when I needed naps, and gave great mom and medical advice (We had a nasty nasty battle with thrush both him and I that I won’t go into) we were sad to see her go. Coop is really strong for a baby. I have not been surprised though, I could feel that while he doing his exercising in my belly. On his two week, that’s right I said two week birthday he started rolling over from his belly to his back. At first I thought that he had just somehow fallen over because of how I set him but after doing it 6 more times we knew it was legit. 

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So sweet...

Birth announcement