Santa's Little Helpers

Baby + Santa Hat = Cute Picture

So I realized a few weeks ago that I have gotten REALLY behind on the blog. During the month of November, the kids and I were all sick with that junky sinus stuff that doesn't seem to go away. John had the flu last week. Add Christmas shopping in to the mix and the blog is wayyyy down my list of priorities.

So anyway, I was trying to figure out what to do to update the blog because I feel like I am so behind. I haven't even put my adorable Halloween pictures up yet! John suggested that I start with what I currently want to post and catch up on the stuff I missed in November and early December when I get a chance. I like that idea, so here are a couple of festive pics. I LOVE the pic at the top of the post. There are so many comments or captions that I could put on that pic.

Two Peas in a Pod

A Growing Boy

So, Cooper is now 7 1/2 months old. That is CRAZY! He is growing up so fast! I forgot to put info up about his 6 month check-up. He is still in the 90th percentile for height but has bumped up to the 75th percentile for weight. I think it is because of the formula and solid food he is eating now. I am still breastfeeding, but I give Cooper one formula feeding a day to replace an evening feeding so that I don't have to pump my milk at work. (You should see the reaction my students at work used to give me when they asked me what I was doing in the closet while they were on break. I had one girl say, "Oh my gosh, that is so gross!" Teenagers!) As far as solid food goes, his favorite food is sweet potatoes and he loves Gerber wagon wheels. His stomach does seem to be more sensitive than Gracie's was, so we really have to watch what we give him.

Cooper has been sitting up for a while but is not crawling yet. Gracie didn't crawl until 10 months, and I wonder if Cooper will be the same way. He gets held and carried around a lot, so I think that he doesn't feel the need to crawl. Cooper is definitely a momma's boy right now. When anyone else holds him, he looks at me and whines. When I come home from work (even though I've only been gone for about 3 hours), when he hears me come in, he starts fussing. It seems like once he realizes that I had left him, he gets angry! Out and about, every one talks about how mellow he is, but at home he definitely has his "high maintenance" moments.

He has no teeth poking through yet, but they are definitely bothering him. It is amazing how hard he can bite down on my finger even though he has no teeth. Cooper is such a sweet little boy! I am excited to see the wonderful young man he will grow into.

I LOVE this picture!

"Excuse me?"

How to Assemble and Install Your Brand New Graco Nautilus 3-in-1 Car Seat

How to Assemble and Install Your Brand New Graco Nautilus 3-in-1 Car Seat

Step 1 – Turn down your husband’s offer of help because you kept him out until 11 pm bargain hunting (even though he is limping in a boot with a torn Achilles tendon) and you feel guilty for asking him to do one more thing.

Step 2 – Allow your husband to leave the house with the only other correctly assembled and installed carseat.

Step 3 – Get the kids ready for church.

Step 4 – Pull massive car seat out of box and remind yourself that you are a perfectly capable woman who lived by herself for 2 years before you got married and therefore don’t need a man’s help to complete such a simple task.

Step 5 – Open the instruction manual and begin reading.

Step 6 – Check to make sure you got the English Manual and not the Spanish one, because even though the words are in English, you can’t seem to understand what they are asking you to do.

Step 7 – Obtain a degree in Mechanical Engineering and/or Rocket Science in order to understand the assembly instructions.

Step 8 – Resist the urge to call up Graco customer service and cuss them out, reminding yourself that you must get the car seat done so that you can go to church and repent.

Step 9 – Ask yourself why your husband has to work media team this Sunday, which therefore means he can’t leave church to come help you.

Step 10 – Text your husband out of frustration.

Step 11 - Resist the urge to also call up your husband and cuss him out when he texts you back with smiley faces and reminds you that this whole thing was your idea.

Step 12 – Remind yourself that you really have to get this thing done so you can get to church and repent for Step 11.

Step 13 – After 30 minutes of grinding your teeth and mentally cursing out Graco (all the while reminding yourself you must get to church), you rejoice because you have completed assembly.

Step 14 – Receive a call of encouragement from your husband.

Step 15 - Take car seat out into the garage and attempt to install it in the car.

Step 16 – As you attempt to put the car seat in the car, resist the urge to cuss out Dodge because they failed to install car seat anchors in your car.

Step 17 – After 10 minutes, you realize that you have the seat in but can’t tighten the seat belt because of the seat belt locking clip that you have to use because of the lack of car seat anchors in your car.

Step 18 – Resist the urge to cuss out Dodge again.

Step 19 – Give up and ever so humbly call your husband to inform him that you and the kids are not coming to church because you can’t get the stupid car seat installed.

Step 20 – Resist the urge to cuss out Graco again and remind yourself that you can repent at home.

Step 21 – Go out to the car and try installation again.

Step 22 – Resist the urge to cuss out yourself because you still can’t get the seat properly installed.

Step 23 – Put in Veggie Tales for your toddler and hope that missing church won’t permanently turn your child into a heathen.

Step 24 – Vent about it on the blog because for some reason, it just makes you feel better.

Step 25 – Laugh at yourself and realize that God gave you a lesson in humility and you never even had to set foot in church to get it.

:-)

There's a Snake in My Booty!

I hope this clip brightens your day as much as it does mine. We were sitting around the dinner table after lunch last Sunday and for some strange reason, Gracie started quoting lines from Toy Story. Woody says, "There's a snake in my boots!" Gracie yelled, "There's a snake in my booty!" (That sounds more like some line from an adult film called Boy Story, but I digress...) Now this in and of itself is pretty funny to us, but for some reason Cooper just started laughing at her. This went on for about 5 minutes and I pulled out the video camera to catch it. John was crying he was laughing so hard. I hope it gives you a chuckle too.

Singing in the Rain

Rain. Princess umbrella. Enough said.

Fun in Tennessee

In early August we were blessed to save up enough money to get away for a couple of days. I've been itching to go to the beach and I know Gracie would love it, but we really didn't want to put the kids through a four or five hour drive and have to do it again the next day. We decided to go somewhere close and ended up going to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Our main stop was at the Aquarium. (By the way, we think that the Chattanooga Aquarium is soooo much better than the Georgia Aquarium. The layout is so much better for little kids.) Gracie loved it and the whole time kept saying, "I want to see the SHARKS!" She ran through most of the exhibits looking for the sharks, but she seemed to enjoy everything. She also liked the penguins. One of the coolest things about the Aquarium is that they have all these different pools and man-made streams (I guess that's what you would call them) that kids can play in outside. I think Gracie enjoyed playing in the water more than anything else.

This is how Cooper spent most of his time in the Aquarium.

Here's Gracie and Daddy taking a break.

So, we were getting ready to leave the gift shop when I saw this cute little otter statue. I had to get a picture of Gracie with it. I am so glad I stopped to get this picture. It cracks me up. The otter reminds me of something out of The Chronicles of Narnia.

One of the highlights for Gracie was that we got to stay in a hotel room. She LOVED the fact that she got to sleep in a different bed. When we got to the hotel room, she started jumping on the bed. I actually let her since she had spent 3 hours in the car.

Gracie's excitement spread to Cooper, and they both were all smiles playing on the hotel bed.

We went to Rock City the next day, which was so cool. I've been there before, but still think it is neat. Can you imagine the awesome game of hide and seek that you could play there?

Have I told you how much I LOVE my Snugli baby carrier? Cooper usually goes to sleep in it once I start moving around. Thanks to it, we can boldly go where no stroller has gone before! The Asian tourists at Rock City got the biggest kick out of Cooper in the carrier.

John's parents joined us on our trip. It was nice to have an extra set of hands to help, and we enjoyed their company too. Gracie dragged "Papa" running through most of Rock City.

After Rock City, we went back downtown and let Gracie play in the water again before we headed home. There was this awesome staircase on the other side of the Aquarium that had water running down it. I think I would have sat down in the water if I had a bathing suit. John and I did walk around in the water with her and it felt great on my hot, tired feet. There is a really cool looking kid's museum next to the Aquarium that we had originally planned on visiting, but we ran out of time and money. I figure that we can go next year or sometime in the future when Cooper is walking and can also enjoy it. It was awesome to get away, even if it was only for a couple of days.