Happy 10 Months Coop!

My baby boy turned 10 months old on Sunday!  How can it be that he will be a one year old in 2 months.  This can't be possible.  I'm so in love with this little boy, my heart might burst!

My brother wanted to get some pictures of the cousins in their 4th of July outfits together so we got some professional pictures taken.  Let me tell you, Cooper is at a horrible age to take pictures.  He won't sit still and will try to crawl away as soon as you set him down.  We didn't get any cute ones of them together but there were a few cute ones of Cooper.  These are much better to use as his 10 month pictures as I could NOT get a good picture of him.  I really need to take a photography class...though I'm not sure how much that would help with this little mover.  He just won't sit still!   So please excuse the horrible 10 month pictures below.  I even tried it on different days...hence the reason for the different colored onesies :) (and the reason why he is holding his rubber ducky)

Sleeping:  Cooper is the perfect little sleeper.  I'm spoiled rotten.  He has officially dropped his third nap (only took 9 months) and so he is going to bed at 7:30 now.  He usually sleeps 12 hours and wakes up around 7:30 and sometimes 8am.  Thank you sweet boy!  He takes 2 naps a day, around 10am and 2pm.  His naps are 1-2 hours long.  I am trying to do the 2-3-4 routine, where he is awake for 2 hours before his 1st nap, then 3 hours before his 2nd nap, then 4 hours before he goes to bed.  It has worked well for us, though sometimes I will put him down earlier for his 2nd nap before the 3 hour time frame if he seems tired.  

Eating:  I still give him 4 bottles a day, but he is definitely not drinking as much formula as before, which is great.  It seems like he is self weaning himself off of his bottles.  He has 8 oz when he first wakes up and before he goes to bed, but the other 2 times he usually doesn't finish his bottle and will eat more solids and snacks.   He loves his puffs!!  He is eating solids well and we are trying new finger foods.  He still makes a very funny face every time he tries something new.  I'm trying to get him to like avocado, since mommy and daddy love it and eat it often, but he pretty much hates it right now.  

Milestones:  He is at the beginning stages of pulling up!  He will crawl up me when I'm on the floor with him and he will pull up on some furniture but it still takes him some time to do it.  He still army crawls everywhere and everyone comments about how fast he is.  I really need to enter him into a baby crawling contest.  When he has his mind on something, nothing will stand in his way!  He still has 8 teeth but is drooling a ton right now, so I'm not sure if another tooth is popping in..it sure wouldn't surprise me if so!  

Working On:  Right now I'm really working on walking and pulling up for him.  He is such a chilled baby, and so content on his stomach, that I don't think he is too interested in walking.  I'm not worried at all, but just trying to get him introduced to it.   We are also working on Signing, clapping, and saying bye bye. We will be going to Austin soon to visit Justin's mom, and also to Wimberly with some friends, so I really need to sleep train him to sleep in places other than his crib.  I am not looking forward to this...

Temperament:  I know I'm his Mama, but I think he is the sweetest baby!  He is shy around strangers and usually stares at them cautiously.  But with me and Justin, he laughs and smiles constantly.  He is just so sweet.  He seems to be warming up more to strangers because the past few times I have been in the grocery store, he is smiling and talking at everyone who even looks at him.  He loves looking around during our walks and at the grocery store.  People are so nice to you when you have a baby!  We are also going to MyGym, which is similar to Little Gym, to a Mommy and Me class once a week.  At first, he was very skeptical and was a little fussy to try new things, but this past week, he really loved it and didn't fuss one time!  I was so proud :)  He gets to do all these fun things there and we are really enjoying it together.

The past few times I have picked him up from the church or gym nursery, he would see me and squeal and crawl frantically towards me.  It melted my heart.  I just love him dearly.  I still can't believe he will be a year old soon.  With the exception of the first 2 months, he has been a pretty easy baby.  I am so blessed to be his Mommy!  

A Day in the Life

I've been wanting to write a blog post for awhile now about a Day in the Life (an idea going around the blogosphere), but my days are so different that there never seems to be a normal day here as a SAHM (stay at home mom).  Justin does not work the typical 8-5 job, Mon-Friday....he works very long hours on the days he works, and he works different days each week.  He is also in grad school so he has to work on school on his days off.  All of this makes everyday look different for us.  Justin did work today and I didn't have anything particular going on, so it was a perfect day to document what my life as a SAHM looks like in this season.

Justin's alarm goes off at 5am which wakes me up and I take a peek at the monitor to check on Coop.  He's fast asleep so I go right back to sleep.  Justin leaves the house around 5:45, I mumble some type of bye and I love you and turn over and go right back to sleep (as my husband will tell me).  Then I wake up again at 7:15am. I look at the monitor and Coop is still asleep....score!!

I get out of bed and get my work out clothes on, and make the bed.  I have to make the bed first thing in the morning, it's a weird quirk of mine.  I then make my morning shakeology energy drink and sit down to read my Bible before Cooper wakes up.  I never know how much time I have as he wakes up at different times each morning.

8:00-Cooper wakes up happy and plays around in his crib.  At one point I even thought he went back to sleep, he was being so quiet!  I finish my reading and go get him around 8:30.

I love going to get Cooper in the mornings...he always wakes up so happy and he gets so excited when I go in to get him.  I play with him, change his diaper, get him dressed and then feed him a bottle while watching the Today Show.  Can I just say that I LOVE the Today show?  I feel like all the anchors are my friends

9:00- He finishes his bottle and I load him in the car and we go to the gym.  I've had a great experience at the gym nursery and I'm so thankful they have one!  This mama definitely needs to work out!

10:00-I finish my work out and we head back home just in time for his morning nap.  I'm talking to him like crazy on the way home so he won't fall asleep (all you Mama's out there know what I'm talking about). We get home and I start our nap routine:  change his diaper, read about 3 books, snuggle and sing How Great Thou Art.  I put him down awake and he falls fast asleep around 10:30. During his nap, I shower and get ready for the day.

11:30-Cooper wakes up from his nap and we play together on the floor.

12:00-Lunchtime!  I feed him a bottle and then put him in his high chair for lunch.  Today he had leftover sweet potatoes and cereal.  He eats great and then I give him some puffs while I make lunch for myself.  He is happy and content in his high chair while I talk to him and make and eat my lunch.

1:00-I let him self play in the living room.  We recently bought this little gate so he can't crawl into the kitchen.

I sent this picture to Justin and he felt so bad for Cooper...the picture really does look worse than it really was.  He crawled over for a minute to see where I was (he is in a clingy phase) but then went to play with all his toys.  Success!  I cleaned the whole kitchen while keeping my eye on him playing and crawling everywhere.

1:30ish: We go in his room to play and we read some books and then start our nap time routine again.  I change his diaper, read to him, sing How Great Thou Art and put him to bed awake.  He goes right to sleep around 2:00.  During his nap, I catch up on e-mails (and facebook), do some cleaning and laundry.

3:30-Cooper wakes up.  I give him about 15 minutes to play in his crib and then go get him at 3:45.  I feed him a bottle and then we go to HEB.  I.Love. HEB.  That's all. I put Cooper in the front of the shopping cart and it is dang hot outside.  I feel like my fair skinned boy is going to burn from walking through the parking lot.  I get some groceries since I have a friend coming over for lunch tomorrow.  Cooper did GREAT in the shopping cart.   People really are so nice when you have a baby.  He is smiling and staring at everyone and people are talking to Cooper and telling me how cute he is.  I'm sure thankful the grocery trip was a success because that is not always the case.

5:30-We get home from the Grocery Store and I put Cooper in his little bouncer so I can unload the groceries.  He plays in there for awhile but then starts to get fussy.  I wasn't sure if he needed one more nap (sometimes he needs 3 naps if one of his naps was short), so I went ahead and read him some books and put him down.  At first I thought he went to sleep, but after about 10 minutes, he was talking and babbling.

6ish-I get Cooper up (though he never went to sleep) and we play together.  I put some legs on one of his toys and try to get him to stand up.  He stands up with me holding on, but then loses interest.  Oh well, he is just happy on his belly.

6:00-I need to start making dinner so I put on a Baby Einstein video for Cooper to watch.  I really don't know how moms of multiple kids make dinner.  Isn't it always the case that at dinner time kids are the most fussy?  It's crazy how happy and sweet and content Cooper is in the morning, but in the evenings he is a lot more clingy and can be fussy.  He watches the video intently while I get dinner whipped up.  Tonight we had Low Fat Baked Ziti with Spinach from Skinnytaste.  You can find the recipe Here.

6:30-Time for Cooper to eat dinner.  Unfortunately Daddy won't be home until late so we can't all eat dinner at the same time.  I debate if I should put dinner in the oven or wait to eat with Justin (sometimes he doesn't get home until 9:30 so I'll go ahead and eat).  I wasn't too hungry yet, so I put the ziti in the fridge and decide to wait for Justin.  I fed Cooper his dinner and afterwards he starts to get fussy.  I decide it's time for an evening walk!

7:00-we go for a walk.  Cooper LOVES being in the stroller and going on his walks.  It was still hot but not too bad.  I take him to the swings close to our house and he loved it.

He smiled and giggled he entire time, it was so cute.  I have a video but it's not uploading right on the blog so I posted it on facebook instead.  He was having fun!

7:45-We get home from the walk and I was prepared to do our bedtime routine by myself tonight...but we got a nice surprise!  Justin called and said he was 15 minutes away!  That never happens!  He got home around 8:00 and Cooper and I were very happy.  Justin was also so glad he got to see Cooper.  I would have put Cooper to bed at 8pm, but since Justin was almost home, I kept him up.  Coop and I played while waiting for Daddy to come home.  When we saw him pull in, we welcomed him by the door and Cooper was very happy to see him (as so was I).  Justin fed Cooper his last bottle while I put dinner in the oven.

8:15ish-We started out bedtime routine, we got Coop's PJ's on and then did our family devotion together.  Justin read out of the Jesus Story Book Bible and then I prayed.  We switch off who prays each night.  Then Justin put Cooper down to bed around 8:30 and he went right to sleep.

8:30-Cooper is asleep and dinner is ready!  I get to sit down with my love and have a nice meal with a glass of wine.  Perfect.

Like I said before, on days that Justin doesn't have to work, we will eat dinner earlier and put Cooper to bed earlier.  Our days are flexible!

Though being a SAHM has its difficulties and can get lonely at times, I wouldn't trade it for any job in the world.

Cooper is 9 Months old!

I say it every month, but I just can't believe my baby is 9 months old!

Justin says all the time that he is really going to miss this baby stage..and it's so true.  I feel like soon my baby will no longer be a baby.  Soon he will be running around everywhere growing into a little boy!  I definitely look forward to him growing, but will miss this sweet stage...even if it is just me chasing him around the house as he belly crawls everywhere.  He's so fun!

Yesterday I took him to the Doctor for his 9 month check up.  He now weighs 20 pounds (42nd%ile); height is 27.25" (18th%ile) and his head is 47 cm (91st%ile).  I'm surprised that he's only in the 18th%ile as he seems long to me.  But the doctor said he growing well and doing great!

Sleeping: Cooper is still sleeping great and sleeping through the night like a champ.  We did have a rough week this week where his schedule was completely off and he wasn't sleeping great, and I felt so exhausted!  It turns out he caught a cold so that must be why, but he's getting back to his regular self now, thank goodness.  He goes down to bed around 8pm and wakes up usually around 7:30, with the exception of this week waking up at 6am.  Mommy is not a morning person so that was rough.  Today he woke up at 8am so I was very thankful for that!  He naps 2 to 3 times a day, depending on the day and usually sleeps about 1 hour to an hour and a half.  It's been awhile since he has taken a full 2 hour nap.  When the nurse was asking about his sleep patterns with how much he's sleeping she made a comment on how well he sleeps and how lucky I am.  I am thankful for him being a good sleeper (thanks Babywise!).

Eating: Not much has changed in his eating...he has 6-8 oz of formula 4 times a day.  He is also eating all fruits and vegetables.  I started some finger foods and avocados this week and he is not used to the texture at all.  His facial expressions are so funny and he doesn't know what to do.  Like everything else with him, it takes him time to get used to something new and then it's no problem.

Milestones: Cooper now has 8 teeth!  That's a lot of teeth for a 9 month old.  It seems like once one pops through, another one is coming.  He is still army crawling everywhere and he can be very fast.  It's so cute to watch him go.  He hasn't had much interest in pulling up yet, which doesn't surprise me since he has always loved being on his belly.  He rolled over and started crawling very early, but now it just very chilled and not in a rush...mommy isn't in a rush for him to start pulling up either!

Working on:  Right now I'm working on some signs with him...mainly please, more, all done, and bye bye.  I'm also working on him crawling on his hands.  He will stand up when I stand him up himself to hold onto furniture, but then he will sit back down and go back to crawling.

He is also starting to turn into a mama's boy :)  He still has never cried when I have had to drop him off at the church or gym nursery, but if I'm in the room and he's around a group of people, he has to be near me.  He will crawl over to me and start to pull up on my legs when he wants me to pick him up.  It's sweet.  But hey, he's only 9 months old so I'm not too worried about him being a Mama's boy.  Now, if he's 30 and still a Mama's boy, I may start to worry...but I sure don't mind for now :)

4th of July Weekend

We had a really fun and busy 4th of July weekend.  It started off by spending time with family and going to my Aunt and Uncle's house who live in Katy on the 4th.  We had some yummy food and they have a pool so we took Cooper swimming again.  Here are our 4th of July somewhat matching outfits

The truth is, Cooper's is the only real 4th of July outfit that I had picked out in advance.  I mean, it's like an unspoken rule that you have to put your child in something patriotic on the 4th of July.  So then I wore a shirt I recently bought that happened to be blue and white.  Then Justin had on a completely different shirt, and me being the dorky mom that I am, looked for his only navy blue shirt and asked him to wear that so we could get a cute family picture!  So that is how this picture came about :)  Thanks honey for your participation :)

The sun was a little too bright by the pool for my blue eyed boy

So then we changed in our swimsuits and tried to take Cooper in the water again.  He was not feeling it at first.  He was getting fussy so I decided to take him out.  He played for a little bit and I gave him a bottle and then we tried again to take him in the pool. This time, he loved it!  He was smiling and just happy go lucky.

After he was in his floaty for awhile and we were pushing him around, I could tell that his eyes were getting very heavy.  I told Justin that it looked like he may fall asleep.  So Justin pushed him around which was apparently relaxing, because sure enough he fell fast asleep.  It was SO cute!

And let me just say, this is NOT normal at all for my son.  I used to laugh at all the moms who would post pictures of their children falling asleep in the most random places because Cooper would never do that.  He only sleeps in his crib, or in the car while it's moving.  That's pretty much it.  He would never fall asleep on the floor or even in my arms.  I was so shocked that he fell asleep like that.  But I knew he was tired so I'm very glad he got a little nap in.

It really was a great day and he was so good!  I'm just glad he was happy enough to where we could stay most of the day.

Then on Saturday was Paul and Beth's wedding!  Justin was the best man so it was a busy weekend for him.  I didn't get to enjoy the wedding as much since I had this cute little man with me...

The church has a nursery open so we played in there for awhile.  I just love this little outfit on him...I can barely stand the cuteness!

Too bad I didn't get a picture of the bride and groom!  I didn't have the heart to ask them to pose for a another picture after all the pictures they had been taking that day.  But it was a beautiful wedding (at least I heard it was) and we are so happy for them!!

Pool Time and our New Ride

We took Cooper to our neighborhood pool last week and had so much fun!  It was Cooper's 3rd time to get in the pool, and the only time he didn't cry...success!  The first time I took him in the pool with some friends from church and their kids and he pretty much cried the whole time.  The 2nd time we took him to my parent's country club pool on Memorial day, and he hated it!  I really think it was because of all the people there and he definitely gets overwhelmed by huge crowds of people and sometimes needs time to adjust.  I love his cautious personality :)

Our neighborhood pool was the perfect place because we went early and there were only 2 other people there.  We started him off in the baby pool with his floaty to ease him into it.  

He was just checking out the floaty and didn't seem to mind it....

He got a little fussy so I gave him a toy and he was chewing on it and holding onto it for dear life!  I even tried to take the toy away from him so I could get a good picture, but he was NOT happy about that so I gave it back to him and he didn't let go of it the entire time.  He is never this clingy with a toy...

Then Justin took him into the main pool without the floaty and he did great!  I really do think it was because there were no other people around and he was more comfortable.  

But of course he would not let go of his toy...

Justin was even spinning him around and he was smiling and laughing

Then we put him back in his floaty to enjoy the rest of pool time.  He did so good!  I'm a proud Mama! 

 Happy Boy!

On another note, we bought a new car this week!  It was a loooong process of looking and searching and calling and dealing, but we got a new Honda Pilot and love it!  My 2000 Honda Accord sure treated me well...it was a good 13 years with Sheba, but it was time.  I sadly don't even have a picture with it.  I will miss that car, but not really.

We are very thankful for this much needed car!!