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!!

Happy 1st Father's Day, Justin!

I love my husband.  Truly, he is exactly what I needed in a life partner.  And I am so thankful that he is the father of my child(ren).  He is such a good dad and there isn't a day that goes by that he doesn't tell me how much he loves Cooper.  Last year I did a Father's Day post when I was pregnant with Cooper (you can read that here).  I wanted to add a few more examples of how Justin has been such a great Father since raising our son together over the past 8 months:

• One benefit to Justin's job is that he has more days off during the week to spend time with Cooper.  He enjoys spending time with his son even if he can't really do much right now
• He always wants to be the one to greet Coop first thing in the morning
• He tries to get home from work before Cooper goes to sleep so he can see him.  
• He gets on the floor and plays with Cooper all the time
• He reads and prays with him
• He is very concerned and proactive about his health and well being (even more than I am :) )
• He talks about how he can't wait to take him fishing, play ball, etc with him
• Even though he works full time and goes to school, he never neglects his family

Happy 1st Father's Day Justin!!  Here is a tribute of pictures of you and Coop over the past 8 months.  Thanks for being such wonderful Hubby and Father!!

8 Month Update

Cooper is 8 months old....how is this possible??

This picture cracks me up....he was not in the mood to pose for pictures, that's for sure!  He is getting so big, I just can't believe it.  I don't know his weight since he doesn't go back to the doctor until 9 months, but he is getting chunky.  It took him awhile, but those thighs are definitely getting some rolls!

Not much has really changed this month, but here is what is going on with Coop at 8 months:

Sleeping:  Cooper is still sleeping well but not as great as last month.  Just in the past week or so he has been waking up at 7am instead of his normal 8 or 8:30.  That has been an adjustment for me since I had enjoyed a little time in the mornings before he woke up.  I have tried dropping the 3rd nap, putting him to bed later and putting him to bed earlier but his wake up time is the same 7am.  This morning he even woke up in the 6's but that is just too early so I let him play around in his crib and then he even went back to sleep for 30 minutes, thank goodness!  He takes 2 good naps a day, but they are earlier now since he is waking up earlier, and sometimes a 3rd nap if needed.  I can put him in his crib awake and he will play around for a few minutes or so (depending on how tired he is) and then fall asleep.  It's interesting how he would NOT do that in the pack and play at my parents house so I may have him practice sleeping there for naps so he can gets used to a different environment.

Eating: Nothing has really changed at all with his eating. He still has a bottle 4 times a day (8am, 12pm, 4pm and 8pm) and I feed him solid foods for lunch and dinner.  He is working on the sippy cup but so far he is not interested.  He still spits up a lot but hopefully it is dying down.  I pretty much say that every month, but it really hasn't gotten any better.  He definitely spits up more when he is active like when he's crawling and jumping in the bouncer.  I'm so over the spit up!

Look at me!!

Milestones: The big thing this month is Cooper now has 6 teeth!  He has his 4 bottom teeth and 2 top teeth.  A third top tooth will probably be coming soon.  Seriously, he is such a tough teether...he is just his normal self!  It's funny how when anything seems abnormal in your child you automatically think he's teething.  I hear parents say that all the time, and sometimes it turns out teeth didn't come for months.  When Cooper was a little fussy everyone would also tell me that he is probably teething.  And maybe he really was teething, or maybe he was just a little fussy that day...who really knows!  Overall, I haven't noticed a change in his temperament and then bam...a tooth pops through.

He is also army crawling everywhere!!  I can barely keep up with him.  His favorite toy right now is this squishy soccer ball and he just chases that thing all around the house, it's way too cute.  Once he crawls to it, it usually rolls away so he just keeps crawling after it. He is also sitting up much better now which is great.  He would still rather be crawling than sitting up.

Likes:  Going on walks in the stroller, loves when daddy comes home, crawling, playing with toys, the dog, being read to, being around other kids

Dislikes:  going in the pool, but we are working on it!  He is very indifferent about bath time.  He doesn't love it, but also doesn't hate it either.  He doesn't like big commotion and can get overwhelmed when there's a lot of people.

I had to post this face one more time....

I love this boy!!

Happy "Gotcha" Day Bella

This post is a little overdue but a few weeks ago marks one year since we adopted our sweet dog, Bella.  And the only reason how I even remember the date (or month) of when we adopted her was looking back at my old blog posts (you can go here to read about our first week with her).  We really don't celebrate our dog's birthday or should I say "gotcha day" since she was already a year old when we got her but I do have some cute pictures of Bella and Cooper I wanted to share!  Here is a picture of the first time we brought Bella home

And here is Bella now

Justin and I both grew up with dogs so we were excited to adopt her after we bought our house.  She was already house trained which was a huge relief and overall a great dog.  She can get very hyper at times but I'm thinking she will slowly grow out of that the older she gets.  It's interesting the emotions you go through when having a dog and a baby. When we first got Bella, we loved her and thought she was perfect.  Then a few months before Cooper was born you start to get very nervous about how she will behave when the baby is here.  So nervous, in fact that we decided to take her to dog training.  Not sure how much it helped, but it at least made us feel better.

Then after Cooper was born, my Mama instinct kicked in and I told Justin if she even looks at Cooper in a weird way, she's gone!  But I must say, she has been SO good with Cooper.  She really is a smart dog and she knows he is a baby.  The first couple of months we had Cooper sleeping in our room with us and Bella was sleeping in her crate in our room too.  I think that was really good because she could see Cooper as part of our family and every time I had to wake up in the middle of the night to feed him, I would look over at Bella and she would just be looking at us.  She never got anxiety about hearing him cry (which I read some dogs do) and it's like it didn't even phase her one bit.  And let me say...Cooper LOVES Bella!  She really is his first best friend!

His face will just light up when Bella walks in the room...it cracks me up.  When Cooper first started to laugh, Bella was one of the first things that would make him laugh hard.

There are even times when Cooper gets a little fussy and I can just let Bella in the house and he immediately calms down and he smiles so big!

Even this morning Coop was sitting in his bumbo and every time Bella got close to him he would reach out so hard to try to pet her.  It was way cute.  He loves to pet her and touch her and Bella doesn't mind at all.  She is so sweet with him.

Here they are playing with their toys together.  If only they would both learn that their toys are NOT interchangeable.  I'm glad that they like to share, but really?  Gross!

Of course I am still careful with them together and I still don't leave Bella alone with Cooper.  Another thing that Bella loves about Cooper is...well, his spit up.  Cooper spits up so much that Bella is right there and wanting to clean it up when he spits up on the floor.  It sounds disgusting so we always tell her NO but sometimes I just don't even care.  Cooper just has to burp and Bella will come running hoping that he spit up.  Good grief!  She is a food driven dog for sure.

I don't know what it is about babies and dogs, but they are just way too cute together.  I'm pretty sure Bella and Cooper will be best buds one day.  I also think Bella will be extremely protective over Cooper. The way she is protective over Justin and I, I'm thinking it will be even more with him since she has been here since he's been born.  We are thankful for our little family :)