waaay behind

Well, I officially survived my first road trip alone today with the 2 kids and they were awesome! It was an easy trip and we made it in 8 1/2 hours.  I am so behind on the blog and I just keep putting it off...it's the weekend goal!  We have been gone the last 10 days on a Thanksgiving tour of the midwest...and by tour, I mean driving a lot on interstates 35 and 70 while seeing all the family we love and adore.  A million things we are thankful for especially our fabulous families, 2 healthy children and a car with a dvd player that makes those road trips bearable and possible!  Also, so thankful that Adam has a job that allows us to visit family for more than just a couple days!!!!

Can you believe this...I didn't get ONE picture of all four of us or even the two kids on our trip!  My camera died on day 7, guess that is part of my excuse :).  So, not even one picture to show right now :(!  

Hope you all had the happiest of Thanksgivings!

Thanksgiving Feast

Dad, Laney and I were so excited to join Cooper at preschool for their Thanksgiving feast.  Nothing like a 10:45 lunch ;).   We are so thankful for his wonderful preschool and loving teachers for making events like this so special!

Coop was pretty happy to have us visit!  Don't you love his pilgrim hat?  And, check out the cute placemat and they had made place card turkeys, just melts this former teacher's heart.

Coop got to skip out early on preschool to meet special visitors at the airport...

Yep, we caught Grandma and Grandpa on a layover at DFW en route to Maui!  A plus to living in a big city close to a major airport!!!

Coop talked Grandpa into a few rides on the escalator :).

11-11-11 at the zoo!

Yesterday was a once in a lifetime, 11-11-11 and we had a great day!  We went to the Ft. Worth Zoo with the Fimmens.  From the moment Coop woke up until we got in the car, he said "mom, let's go to zoo," probably 213 times.  Of course he was most excited because he got to go see the Fimmen kids!  The weather was absolutely perfect, 70, sunny, and all the trees were so pretty as the leaves are just starting to all change colors.

  

 You should know that supermom Carolyn got these kids all looking at her for a picture all by herself!  She graciously took Coop in the zoo so I could feed Laney in the car, so thankful for that!

 cute kids, pretty background!

 Laney Faith slept almost the whole time, she looked so cozy in her carseat.

 This guy was playing hide and go seek with that burlap sack.

Pretty sure Cooper was licking the glass...awesome!

We were walking around the zoo for over 3 hours, can you believe none of these kids came home and napped????  They got very short naps in the car and that was enough for them!

Colored Rice

Well, I have discovered Pinterest and have fallen in love!  I can't tell you how many times I have found a great idea online and weeks/months later searching for it again only to never find it!  Pinterest is perfect and a great activity to do while nursing late at night.  There are basically a million ideas I would like to do, but am just on idea #1, see it here.  I thought this colored rice would be perfect for Cooper to drive his trucks in and use his diggers and dump trucks.  He had so much fun making it with me even though it was sooo simple.   I only had 2 food colors, (where did the rest go?) so we did green and yellow.  We made in the morning and I told Cooper the rice had to dry and we would play after nap.  The first thing he said after nap was, "go in garage and play colored rice."  He thought it was the greatest thing he had ever played with, for 30 minutes anyway.  

A fun DIY activity and so easy!

You will be happy to know that poor shaggy shih tzu finally got groomed today (after taking her sedatives to calm the nerves, but that is another post).  She had to go back inside soon after this pic because she kept eating the rice.

So, the only way I got this half smile was to get him singing, "baby, baby, baby, oh"  We have some serious Bieber Fever in this house.  I even asked Adam to buy his Christmas album on iTunes.

Playdate for Laney

While Coop has been at preschool the last couple weeks, Laney has had her own playdate at home!  We have been watching Matt and they have had so much fun playing together....ha, not so much!!!  Matt has had fun playing and checking out all of Coop's toys without the big kids interrupting and Laney either slept, ate, or watched him from my lap/bouncy seat.  Matt was putting the moves on with lots of open mouth kisses and Laney wasn't objecting :).  Cooper loved this too because he got to ride home with his best friends Tom and Meghan and "ride in backseat of Miss Carolyn's van and be silly," his words.  In fact, he was quite disappointed walking out of school today when he realized he was riding home with me instead...boring Mom!  

By the way, 2 babies 1 year and younger = busy, I can't imagine!

l-o-v-e

Coop is still loving his little sister, but very rarely asks to hold her, like maybe once every couple weeks.  A few days ago we were playing upstairs and out of nowhere he said, "Mom, I hold Yanee (Laney) on my knees and rub her belly." And, so he did and she seems pretty happy about it too!  I love moments like this...makes me forget about some of those other not so glamorous ones.

Happy Halloween!

By the time Halloween arrived, I felt like it already passed with our busy Halloween week/weekend.  But, we carried on and did the mandatory Halloween things and it was a beautiful day/evening for it!

 family pics...so bummed I didn't have a neighbor get one of all 4 of us :(

Laney was along for the ride, literally.  We stuck her car seat in the wagon and she happily tagged along.

 Trick-or-Treating the neighborhood.  This costume really slowed the kid down...he moved at the pace of a snail and drug his candy bag the whole time.  Of course Dad and Mom were not allowed to touch!

 He was trick-or-treating with neighborhood friends, but his snail like speed put us at the end of the pack.  After we circled our block, Coop and Dad sat outside and handed out candy.  We think he liked this part even more than trick-or-treating.  Our neighborhood was swarming with kids...we ran out of candy embarrassingly early!

His bag at the end of the night after dragging it down the sidewalk.  He walked in, handed it to me, the candy spilled out and he said, "uh-oh."  Then proceeded to pick it all up, just to have it empty as fast as he was putting it in.  He could have cared less, totally over it!  Funny thing is, he didn't seem to make any connection with the candy and eating it.  He just liked going door to door and collecting it.  He maybe had 2 pieces.  I am sure it will be a totally different story next year!  What I didn't eat, I donated to the local elementary school, they were doing a candy drive for less fortunate kiddos.

Hope you all had the happiest of Halloweens!  Now, onto turkey time!

Halloween Parties

Coop was in his costume several times the week before Halloween.  He wasn't too fond of his costume and I usually had to bribe him in it with something.  Of course his teachers said he put it right on with no complaining when they dressed him for his preschool parade.  We definitely got our wear out of this Mickey Mouse costume...thanks to the Visceks for the hand me down, 2nd year in a row.

 First party of the week was with our neighborhood's mom group...doesn't Cooper look thrilled?  

 Mickey found Minnie, how sweet is she?

 Cooper's class starting the parade

 He was so excited to see Laney and I there!

As a teacher, I sympathize with Miss Selena and Miss Jenn as I remember dreading party days.  The kids were always c-r-a-z-y and a lack of routine is never good at school!  But, these little Ladybugs were just in awe of the parade/candy and were sooo excited they got to ride the elevator. :)

 Our neighborhood had a Halloween parade that ended in the culdesac with a bounce house and party.   The kids stopped by houses to pick up candy. The streets were blocked and the kids just ran wild!  Coop and his buddy John brought up the caboose of the parade, miles behind the big kids.

Cooper stopped by his own house for candy :)

Hands in Mouth

Laney Faith has found her hands and really working hard to get them in her mouth.  She occasionally succeeds but mostly her hands win, not her mouth.  I am adamant about the pacifier as I don't know if I can handle breaking 2 kids of thumb sucking, I feel like the 1 is going to be next to impossible.  Even though I swear one of the reasons Coop has always been such a good sleeper is thanks to that calloused right thumb.  

Driveway Picnic

This driveway picnic (from a couple weeks ago) was originally to be a picnic at the park...but, we took a longer walk than planned and then a certain 2 year old took about 30 minutes to put his Lightening McQueen car back in the garage after playing with it on the sidewalk.  So, the driveway it was and just as nice.  We are trying to soak up all the outside time we can before we closed in that house due to cold weather, booooooooo!

 Grandma was able to visit for the weekend while Dad was out of town :).

 Checking out the sky

Laney was my only cooperating subject :)

Tiresome Two's

Well, the terrible tiresome twos arrived in full swing at our house last week.  I hate to call them 'terrible' because he really isn't terrible and I feel it's a right of passage for every kid (right??) and I just feel so lucky and blessed to have a healthy 2 year old that can be ornery.  So, I have nicknamed them the 'tiresome 2's' instead because that is how we feel...tired.  Nothing that a glass of wine and some Halloween candy can't fix though ;).  It arrived in a few different forms...telling mom and dad 'no' quite often, hitting mom and dad (thankfully no one else), throwing toys for no reason, a strong attempt at talking back (is that possible at this age?), and not wanting to go to bed.  So, there has been lots of timeouts and many a toys taken away.  Currently his basket of balls is on the top shelf of my closet because he thought it was funny to throw them at the tv...awesome.  The worst part of all this, he is not threatened by Adam or I one bit!

We have made some progress since last week, the biggest is Coop is staying in bed and going to sleep right away instead of screaming for mom and dad.  So, we are staying strong and being consistent and trying to remember that when he's 16, we will wish for those 'tiresome 2's' back again!

Here he is one of the first nights with the gate up, clearly not happy!

***We had Cooper's 2 year check-up.  He weighs 28 lbs, putting him in the 28 or 38%ile (i can't remember :)).  He's 36 1/2 inches tall, in the 85%ile.