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5.23.2014

Two and a half

Someone is celebrating his half birthday today!


I realized earlier this month that I haven't updated on Mr. Cooper in awhile, but thought I would just push the post off until today, his half birthday! My biggest hope is that as we get closer to 3 we will leave the sassiness and inability to reason that is the Terrible Twos far, far behind. Ain't nobody got time for that.


I really don't remember the last time I updated, and I count on this blog for our family yearbook that I put together in December (great Christmas presents for the grandparents!) so I'm just going to try and update everything since his birthday!

  • You now sleep in the toddler bed, because you were a monkey climbing out of the crib and it just wasn't safe. However, 80 percent of the time, you want to sleep on the end that doesn't have the little half rail, and end up falling out of bed. Whoops. Silly boy.
  • Since you have all this unrestricted movement, you aren't near as good of a sleeper as you used to be. Most nights, you won't go to bed until around 10 p.m. You typically get up between 6:30 and 7 during the week, but sometimes we get lucky and you'll go until 8 on the weekends.
  • Naps are a struggle. You are just so busy and hate to think you may be missing out on something (But you do just fine at daycare.)
  • You have a mind of your own and once you make it up, there's no changing it. Cooper's way or the highway! If you don't like the shirt I've picked for you or something, all is wrong in your world! Just last week, one of your chairs blew into the pasture, and you would.not.sit.down.to.eat until your daddy went and retrieved it.
  • Your eating is different every day. It's hilarious though, most of the time if you see a McDonalds or Burger King, you start yelling. FRIES! CHICKEN! Haha.
  • Most mornings, you have your milk and yogurt (AKA sauce) before going to daycare. Sometimes you steal some of daddy's sandwich. Then you also eat at Mrs. Robin's!
  • In addition to pizza, spaghetti and noodles, you really love Mexican. Since they are pretty easy going restaurants and have chips, that's where we go 80 percent of the time that we go out to eat as a family, because you can be an embarrassing little man. You also love to eat the salsa with a spoon.
  • You LOVE chocolate milk, but only demand it at our house. You have a little system: You have to get the spoon. Mommy pours the milk. You "do it" by getting the Nesquik and putting in the cup. You need AT LEAST two dips, sometimes three. Then we stir. Then you lick the spoon. Then you MUST take a drink before we put the lid on. Whew. Lemme tell you, sometimes its like watching paint dry.
  • I'd say you are about 70 percent potty trained. We need to be better about having you wear the big boy underwear at home.
  • Your Grandma and Paw Paw got you a pedal tractor for Christmas but you have had trouble peddling. Well, you still aren't a pro, but are catching on!

  • You are a total daddy's boy. Sometimes I'll say "I love Cooper!" and you reply "I love Daddy!" Ugh. I'm pretty sure you do it just to annoy me, so I'm trying not to let it bother me.
  • You repeat TV/commercials at time and it's so cute. At the end of Eggland's Best commercials, you always say "It's EB!" We watch Wheel of Fortune every night, and you always tell Vanna "Bye Bye" at the end. We may rewind a few times to keep hearing you say it.
  • You are OBSESSED with your scabs, bruises, etc. You skinned your knee earlier this week and kept saying "Ouchie. Boo Boo" until we kissed it and got a band aid. Which you ripped off within 30 minutes. Yikes.
  • Whenever you see my workout mat or weights you say "Mommy. Work out?" It's cute. You are my little trainer.
 
  • You love the water. I have to be careful about saying that I'm about to take a bath or shower, or you run in and hijack it. Not only are you starting to get too old for this, you ALWAYS pee the minute you get in, and that's just gross.
  • You are now obsessed with tractors and automobiles. While driving you'll be like "Car. Truck. Truck. Car. Big Truck!"
  • In April, you stayed with your grandparents for a week while mommy & daddy went to Auntie Bella's wedding in California. You did great!
  • You absolutely love Mickey Mouse and usually watch at least one episode a day. You also like Ice Age movies, Curious George and Cars.
  • You absolutely love to be outside. You get mad when we make you come in. You like blowing bubbles, playing in the water, swinging, playing with your big toys and all of it.
  • You really, really lover your Coco dog! You like to take her "toast" (really just bread) as a treat.

 
  • You have figured out how to open the door. Which is scary. One day we had a family nap and woke up to you ringing the doorbell. We are installing a hotel-type lock ASAP.
  • You are my little monkey man and will climb ANYTHING. I see several trips to the ER in our future :/
  • You are OBSESSED with pow-pows (guns) as well. Most kids hate loud noises but you absolutely love it.
  • You call yourself "Pooper." It's adorable. I know you can say your "C's" because you enunciate very well when you say Coco. The other day I was calling you Coopy and you said "No, my name is Pooper." Ha!
  • Before bed pretty much every night, I sing "spider song" (The Itsy Bitsy Spider) and "Twinkle Star."
  • Remember how I said you are mean to me? I try to kiss you at night and you put up your hand and say "no tisses." If I do sneak one, you usually wipe it away. But when I leave you at daycare in the morning, we blow kisses, then rub our bellies and say "Yummy Tummy."
  • When it comes to food, etc. you hate messes. But it's so funny. If one of us makes a mess, you'll say "Mommy messy," like we are in trouble. But if you do, you'll say "Pooper messy" like it's the neatest thing ever.
  • You like helping me rinse the dishes. You still aren't the greatest and often have trouble stacking, but it makes you feel so important.
  • Like most boys, you like playing with balls. Kicking, throwing, etc. You call most of them basketballs though.
 
  • One of our biggest complaints is your thumb sucking. You do it mostly in the car or if you are bored/mad. As if that wasn't bad enough, you have now begun sucking your thumb and sticking your pointer finger up your nose. GROSS! Miss Robin has you wear a sock over your hand at nap and says you ask for it, but you moan and wail if we try to put it on you!
  • You like to have suckers. You also like jello, pudding and oatmeal cream pies. You have a sweet tooth, just like your momma, but are still a little shrimp (I think you've only gained 2 lbs. in the past six months) because you are so active.
  • You are starting to get a memory and it blows.my.mind.
I'm sure I'm missing a lot (so there may be updates) but I could probably go on & on & on. Just know that this is a very frustrating age, especially because I don't have a lot of patience. But it's so fun, because we really are beginning to see your little personality develop and it's so sweet.


Love you to the moon & back sweet boy!

XOXO,
mama



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5.22.2014

throwback thursday

Throwback Thursday is so easy for me today - my niece, Taylor, is graduating from high school tonight! It's so hard to believe I met her and her little sister, Hannah, 10 years ago. I've seen them both grow from little girls to young women.
NYE 2004

SO PROUD of this sweet girl and the women she has become. She will go so far in life!
Fall 2010


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5.19.2014

What weekend?

As I alluded in Friday's post, this was a very hectic weekend! I'm so exhausted and ready for it to be Saturday evening already!

Friday, we got off work at 1, as it was our employee gala/awards banquet.  It was a good event with great food, but a late night. We didn't leave until 10, and had an hour drive home. Ugh.


My parents kept C for us that night, so Saturday morning, we went to pick him up, after a stop at the local nursery/orchard for some apples and flowers. Hubby had let a coworker, who is moving, borrow some post hole diggers, so we swung by their house to pick them up and it was after noon by the time we made it home.


That evening, we were scheduled to be in a group of coworkers having dinner with Kevin Madden, our graduation speaker. My in-laws agreed to keep C that night, and we decided to take him to their house - 1.5 hours from our home, and just under an hour from where we had dinner. We got on the road at 4 p.m. for a 6:30 dinner. Stuffed our faces. Took some pictures. Picked up the kiddo and finally pulled into the house at midnight. Yowzers.


Sunday we sorta slept in. As in, occupied our child with a movie while we rested. After breakfast, we had a little time to play outside/work around the house, then I popped in the T25 stretch DVD to do that real quick, before getting ready for graduation. I was actually to attend our speaker's luncheon as well, so had to be on the road by 11:45. We had a great lunch, then I headed to the event venue.

I had planned to run to the grocery store to get what we needed on the way home, but hubby's phone was on silent and he couldn't find it, so I went home to help him search. We found it outside, by the swingset :) So, I made him go grocery shopping with me, and we just grabbed some Ruby Tuesday's for supper. Came home, watched The Amazing Race (Seriously, lamest finale ever, IMO) then passed out.

How was your weekend?

Oh, and guess what? I surpassed 1800 minutes of working out from April and May so far as part of the #1800minutechallenge over the weekend. Wahoo!




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5.16.2014

Randoms!

  • I'm kinda refusing to refer to today as Friday, because it's in name only. I have an employee awards gala tonight, work-related dinner tomorrow, then luncheon with our graduation speaker, followed by graduation on Sunday. #whatweekend
  • Next week won't be much better, our niece graduates Thursday night, we have a bonfire on Friday, and her graduation party on Saturday.
  • This week I began Focus T25. It's so expensive and I was on the fence for that reason, but took the plunge for a few reasons. 1 - the results I've seen are amazing! Some of them from blog friends like Tami so I know it's real. 2 - I need structure. 3 - the obvious, it's only 25 minutes. As we head into summer hours in a couple weeks, that's definitely all I will be able to give. But right now, I can throw in some abs, arms, or even a run if I have the time and need a little more burn. So far, I am really enjoying it! The main plus is that it's different every day - I love Jilly but doing the same workout for 7-10 days straight is not for me. I'll be sure to check in with my progress!

  • So far I've lost about 20 lbs since January! The biggest problem? I need new pants! Anyone have suggestions for cute but affordable work pants? I'm trying to keep an eye on the sales at Express, they tend to be my favorite. (Penneys sometimes work too and they have good sales, but a lot of their pants flatten my butt!0
  • After chopping about 4 inches off my hair in August and maintaining it, I'm ready to grow my hair out again. But I'm at that crazy "in between" stage right now and really fighting the urge to chop it again. Maybe just a trim and some layers will help?

  • Hubby and I finally caved and flipped the air on last Sunday, after it had been 80+ in our house for about a week and we just felt miserable at that point. Well wouldn't you know, we've had a bit of a cold front come through and it barely hit 70 in the house yesterday. Considering flipping the A/C off again until we hit another heat wave. {We are cheapskates and keep our heat/air off as long as possible to save $ to put towards paying off our mortgage early, etc.}
  • I'm doing a great job on my May goals but really need to start running again to hit the 30 mile mark!
  • Oh and I have to say, I think I'm rocking a return to blogging! I was so sad I didn't have a lot documented when I went to put together our family yearbook in December, so I'm trying to do a better job. I've blogged more this month than I have in awhile and I'm enjoying it! It's therapeutic...
Happy weekend to those of you who get it :)


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5.14.2014

Baby No. 2 Bucket List

I feel like ever since C has been born, we've been asked when we are having another kiddo. Which is kinda crazy to me. My family has a 3.5 year difference between my older brother and I and almost 5 years between myself and my younger sister. Cooper is just now 2.5.

Anyhow, in addition to wanting  3-4 year age gap, I've had a bit of a Baby No. 2 Bucket List in mind. Since we are coming up to the time that we do need to decide if we do want another and such, I thought it would be fun to take a look at the list (especially since I think I'm running out of excuses!)

  • Have my car paid off before we have another daycare bill. (It's set to be paid off in either October or November, depending on how much extra I can funnel toward the payment each month.)
  • Potty train Cooper, I only want one in diapers. (We're working on this. Hopefully will be done in a few months?)
  • Run a 10K. (Done last weekend!)
  • Be in better shape before another pregnancy. (I'm about 12 lbs. under my starting weight with Cooper's pregnancy. I'd love to shed another 5-10. But since I've been working out regularly, I see no problems continuing this through another pregnancy.)
  • Have the basement finished so it can be used as a guest room. (Working on this. Still waiting on the builder to come do the patio.)
  • Go on a fabulous vacation with the hubby. (California - done!)
  • Take a family vacation with Cooper. (We've done some weekend trips, and I'd love to do a long weekend this summer. Still waiting to hear when the babysitter is planning to take time off to decide for sure.)
EEK! It looks like we are on track to have another!

So moms of two, what do I need to add to this list?



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5.13.2014

California {Final Day}

Our flight was to leave California just after noon. We knew LAX was a busy airport and were advised to arrive 2 hours early, so we wanted to get to Enterprise to return our car a little after 10. It was supposed to be about a 15 minute drive, but after Monday's fiasco I didn't want to risk traffic making us late so I insisted we leave around 9 a.m. from the hotel.

We got up decently early (by California time) the entire vacation. I don't think we slept past 7 a.m. at all (which was 9 a.m. Missouri time, which we NEVER get to do anymore!) so we decided to hit the beach for another morning run, knowing it would be our only opportunity to get in a workout! My knee was still a bit out of place and achy from the previous day, so I did a run/walk combo.



After our run and cooldown, we headed back to the hotel to shower, eat breakfast and finish packing. We were on the road just after 9.



Google maps was pretty on point with the time it took us to get to Enterprise, believe it or not! Probably because we didn't have to get on any interstates! We went through Marina del Ray and it was so pretty! We returned the car and got on the shuttle to the airport with no problems. (Although we did find out the flight was delayed by about 20 minutes ... boo!)



Once we got to the gate, we figured we should go ahead and get some lunch. Airport food is waaaaaay too expensive. But oh well.

The entire flight home was pretty uneventful, other than some crazy turbulence. J and I mostly slept.



Once we landed in STL I was SO HAPPY to get off that plane though. When we got to the baggage claim we went ahead and called our hotel to pick us up. Over 30 minutes passed and still no shuttle - we were pretty much the only ones left! So we called back and the driver was there in less than 10 minutes - apparently they forgot to tell him to get us! (So between the flight delay and this, we were about an hour behind "schedule.")

We decided to just get on the road and not pull over for any supper until we needed to use the restroom, and to save time, stopped at a Burger King about halfway. At this point, it was looking like our arrival back at my parents' house to pick up Cooper would be past 10 p.m., so I told Mom to just let him go to sleep when he was ready. I got a text he fell asleep about 15 minutes before we arrived. Stupid delays.

By the time we rolled in, thankfully, my mom had everything more or less ready to be loaded up. We visited briefly and then went to get my little man. He was so tired but I could tell he was glad to see us. We got in the car, headed home, and went straight to bed.


The END :)

(I've had a lot of people ask so I thought I would add - Cooper was SO HAPPY to see us the next morning! He woke up and we heard him heading down the hall - he doesn't exactly pick up his feet so we hear him walking - then peeked into our room. We said "Hey, Buddy," and he ran in, jumped into bed and started wrestling with us. It was a great moment)


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5.12.2014

Weekend wrap up!

Gosh, I feel like this weekend just flew by!



On Friday night after work, I picked up our packets for the 10K on Saturday. We had intended to run around the portion of the route I hadn't yet, but never got to it, so we decided to hop in the truck and head back to town to drive the route. That's always such a big help for me, to know where I am going and visualize it beforehand, as well as whether there are any areas like water puddles, pot holes, etc. to watch out for.

Once we got home, I heated up the leftover spaghetti. We totally believe in carb loading prior to races, even though we aren't marathoners or anything like that. I popped in my yoga DVD (stretching for the win!) and we tried to make it an early night.


Saturday morning the alarm went off at 6. Ugh. Once I drug myself out of bed, I got to work drinking water and making egg burritos for breakfast. Our niece arrived around 7 to watch C which gave us plenty of time to get to the race site, stretch, use the restroom, etc.

The run was great! We had read the map wrong so the course went a few different directions but overall was very good. There were only 12 people doing the 10K (6.2 miles). It had been storming the previous night but the sun came out, so I decided to wear sunglasses instead of a hat. Not a good idea - it was pretty muggy, so I kept fogging up my glasses! We also had a good bit of wind - thankfully, we hit it in the beginning and middle of the run. When I hit it in the middle, I told myself to get through that mile and it was all easy from there!


I was proud of myself because the entire run, I didn't focus much on my time, just the distance. The mile markers on the course were off from my app, which threw me a bit, but oh well! It wasn't until after I crossed the finish line that I realized my time - 53:25. Holy geez. My first goal (before training, when I was just putting in 3 milers) was to do it in under 54. Then I got a couple of 4s under my belt and realized that would be waaaay too much of a push and didn't want to pressure myself so decided to aim to finish it in under an hour instead. So the fact I was able to do that was very, very humbling. (Side note: My Map My Run app said I only went 6.08 miles. So I'm not sure if the course was a little less or my GPS was off, but I'll take it either way!)

I ended up being the second girl to finish and fifth overall, while hubby was the second guy and third overall. The top finisher was a marathoner, so she doesn't count :) We both ended up with first in our age divisions.

 

Our friend, Chad, just started running a couple months ago and came out at the last minute, and ended up being first to finish the 5K. We're trying to get him to do a longer distance with us next time!


Needless to say, after all that, we were sweaty and exhausted, so we went home and got cleaned up, then took naps. Once we got some food in our bellies, we played outside a bit then headed to town. At this point, I didn't have any food out for supper, so we decided to stop at a pizza buffet in town (I did load up on salad beforehand! Don't want to eat my way through workouts).

That night we played outside, chilled around the house and watched TV.



Sunday morning, per usual, we woke up to the sweetest little face. Hubby and C let me sleep in a bit while they got breakfast going. We had bacon, eggs and hashbrowns - my fave. 


The boys got me a "Bwoon" Mickey card and flowers. Perfection.


Once hubby cleaned up, we went outside. We still had some flowers to get planted in our front beds, and we let C run around and play with his toys and even set up the sprinkler for him After a bit, we went inside to get cleaned up.

 

For lunch/dinner we went to a restaurant we've been wanting to try and have heard good things about! I got a bacon-wrapped fillet and it did not disappoint! Hubs and I also shared the caramel brownie with a scoop of homemade ice cream for dessert!

After that we made a couple of stops, picked up the groceries we had to have and headed home. We spent more time outside playing washers, and then had a small dinner (I just had a protein bar!) and called it a night.


Perfect weekend :)


And this week's menu plan! Not as "clean" as last week, but still good!
Sunday: Out
Monday: Beef stroganoff (new recipe, and I'll omit the mushrooms and onions), green beans
Tuesday: Pizza (I'm going to do frozen for the boys and make one with spaghetti squash crust for myself!)
Wednesday: Ham & beans, cornbread
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Out (work gala)
Saturday: Out (work event)

It's definitely an easy week, and I like that!




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