February Fun

February has been a good month for us.  Cooper is such a sweet and happy boy!

He really has turned into such an easy and sweet baby.  My heart just melts with his huge open mouth smile.  Cooper also had his first Valentine's Day!

My little heart breaker

We had a low key Valentine's Day as Justin had to work and doesn't get home until 8:30 or 9pm when he works.  I cooked a nice meal and baked brownies (Justin's favorite) and we had a nice dinner at home.  I definitely enjoyed spending the evening with my 2 favorite guys!

"The ladies love me" socks

It's also the start of Rodeo season here in Houston!  I love the rodeo and can't wait to take Cooper when he is older.  Cooper is also ready for the Rodeo...

Howdy

Another fun surprise is my dear friend Staci came in town from New Orleans for a short visit so we were able to see her for a few hours

What's that over there?

Well hello there Staci

Staci with all her "nieces and nephews" 

February has also brought us some beautiful weather!  It's perfectly crisp but not too cold.  We've been going on lots of walk together and as you can see Cooper enjoys them.  I'll never forget the first few times we went on walks he cried the whole time.  Boy has he changed. Now he loves them and just falls asleep.

Excited to go on a walk!

 Cooper also started sleeping on his stomach this month.  I put him down on his back, but he immediately flips over on his stomach to sleep.  I guess I don't blame him as I don't like sleeping on my back either!  It freaked me out the first couple of times and I went to check on him a ton. I give him lots of tummy time so he is used to be on his tummy and holds his head up high so I'm not worried about it anymore.  

Tummy Time with Daddy

Cooper concentrating hard on the new toys in the bouncer

 Well, that's our February in a nutshell.  I so enjoy being a mom!

Birthday Extravaganza

I think it's funny that people joke that stay at home moms have all the time in the world or think we get bored.  I feel like I don't have much time for anything these days, so I'm behind on blogging.  When I do have free time, blogging becomes last on my to do list.  But here is a glance at my nephews 4th Birthday!  

  He had a Transformers birthday party with all his friends at the Little Gym.  The worker there was trying to recruit me to take Cooper to the Little Gym as they start as early at 4 month!  Really?  4 months?  That seems so early to me but I may look into when he gets a little older, might be fun for us to do together. 

 We also had a small family party for him that evening.  My mom has made Peyton a fun cake every year and this year Peyton wanted a shark cake.  He has been talking about his shark cake for a year now!  Last year she made him an airplane cake and the year before that a train cake.  Pretty good for never making cakes like this before.  

Peyton got 2 huge gifts for his birthday.  One was a new bike from my parents.  The other was a basketball goal from his daddy.  Pretty good birthday!

He's got skills already

The goal can lower to fit Peyton and can be raised up to 10 feet when the big boys play 

A little 2 on 2 

Uncle Justin guarding Peyton

Poor Cooper was sad to not be able to join them but he will be playing lots of games on that driveway in the future

For his 4 year pictures, Peyton invited Cooper to join him for some of the pictures.  They turned out so cute!  Peyton is so photogenic and was great with all the pictures.  That kid doesn't know a stranger!  Cooper was a little overwhelmed I think because he just would not smile!  I can usually get him to smile just by talking to him, but not that day. Thankfully, she still got some good ones of him.  

melt.my.heart.

Hello Ladies

"What's that over there in the corner?  Oh just someone acting crazy so we would smile..."

Yes, we know we're cute

Love his eyes...still can't tell if they will turn brown or stay blue

Go Texans!  Too bad they lost...Cooper is still sad by it as you can tell 

Uh..this is awkward...just take the picture please

Thanks Peyton for letting Cooper take some pictures with you.  Happy Birthday big boy!  

4 Months!!

My baby is growing so fast!!  Cooper turned 4 months old yesterday

We took him to his 4 month check up and he weighs 13 lbs 11.5 oz (27th percentile) and is 24 inches long (19th percentile).  I was actually surprised that he doesn't weight more than that, he seems so much heavier to me!  His head went down to the 66th percentile.  He is still not a huge chunky baby but the Doctor says he is growing perfectly and he is just where he needs to be.  Poor guy still spits up constantly and that is probably the most frustrating issue right now. I'm not talking about just a little spit up that you can wipe away.  I'm talking he goes through at least 4 outfits a day because he is soaked and I go through about 3 if I'm home all day.  It's a mess.  I have him wear bibs constantly so that helps a lot.  I'm so ready for the spit up to die down.

 4 months is such a fun age!!  I'm having so much more fun with him and he is such a joy to be around. He has gone from my super fussy, somewhat colic baby to a happy and content baby...for the most part.  I'm always so shocked with the church nursery workers go on about how he is a perfect baby.  Really?  My Cooper?  He sure has changed! I'm so thankful as those first 2 months were rough.  He smiles all the time (but it's almost impossible to get it on camera) and loves to be talked to.  He has started to play with toys now which is fun to watch too.  He can grab them and of course puts them immediately into his mouth!

Sleeping:  Cooper has been sleeping through the night pretty regularly which is such a blessing!  He usually sleeps about 10-11 hours.  There was a week where he woke up around 5 or 6am every morning but would go right back to sleep after I nursed him.  He takes about 3 naps a day but it is still a struggle at times.  It is much better than last month and he will take one long nap but the other 2 naps are pretty short.  He is on a good sleeping schedule which is nice for me to know when his nap time is, but when he wakes up earlier than expected, it can throw off the schedule.  Oh well, I know it will get better.

Eating:  I'm still nursing him every 3-4 hours during the day and sometimes once at night if he needs it.  I still supplement to make sure he is getting enough.  The doctor said I could start him on some solids if I wanted to, now that he's 4 months old.  I was so surprised!  I was expecting to start at 6 months.  I feel overwhelmed about starting him on solids already so I will probably wait another month on that.

Milestones: Cooper is enjoying Tummy Time more and can roll over front to back and back to front, though he doesn't do it every time.  He loves to play with his hands like the picture above and has started to play with toys.  He also does this super cute high pitched scream when he is happily playing.  He'll be in his swing or bouncer and just screaming happily while playing with the toys.  Adorable!  Cooper also started something this month that took me by surprise...he is sucking his fingers!

I used to suck my fingers when I was younger, but it was on the other side.  It's actually kind of nice since he can soothe himself to sleep easily by sucking his fingers, especially if he wakes up in the middle of the night and can go back to sleep after he finds his fingers (unless he's hungry and I have to feed him to go back to sleep).  He always sucks his fingers when he is tired.  He completely stopped taking his paci now so I have already put those away.

I know every mom says this, but I so love this little boy!!  He is so cute and brings so much joy.  I love watching him develop and learn new things everyday and I am so thankful I can stay home with him.  4 months is such a fun age since he has grown out of his fussiness and isn't mobile yet....he is pretty easy right now.  I just don't want him to grow up too fast!

Some "firsts"

I am the typical first time mom that tracks all of Cooper's "firsts" and gets super excited about them!  One big one I already shared was his first smile and he really hasn't stopped smiling since!  I just love that huge open mouth grin....gets me every time.  Then around 11 weeks, Cooper rolled over for the first time!  Justin and I were both there and it came as a shock as we weren't really expecting it. We try to have tummy time everyday, but sometimes he's just not interested and puts his head down like he's saying "pick me up, now!"  But other times he lifts his head up super high and can stay on his tummy for awhile.  I remember saying to Justin that night that I wanted to see if he would roll over.  So I put him on his tummy an within 30 seconds, he rolled over!  It was so cute, I got a picture right afterwards

 Justin and I reacted like crazy first time parents.  We were so excited that he rolled over as it was a little shocking at how fast he did it!  Of course I tried to get it on video again but he wouldn't roll over again that night!  He's rolled over a lot since then, but he won't do it every time.  He gets to his side and likes to lay there for awhile.  He has also rolled from his back to his stomach but he's only done that once.

Cooper also got to meet some more of his relatives last weekend.  We celebrated Justin's cousin as she had a baby shower...Cooper is so excited to meet his second cousin soon!  They will be good buddies!  Cooper did well at the shower and only started to fuss when he was hungry.  He didn't take a nap but was still content. He has lots of smiles to go around

He got to meet some of his great uncles and cousins.  Here he is with his great uncle Robert

And here we are with the expectant couple, Jason, Anais and baby Joshua coming soon!

Family picture!!

Another first was Cooper is the only boy that has been allowed to join our small group!  Sadly it will be our last small group with all 4 of us for awhile since Katherine moved overseas...I'm thankful for these ladies!

His last first was that he went to the church nursery for the first time!  Justin and I are starting to visit churches in our area and so far he has done great in the nursery.  I always think they will have to page me, but they said he did great and that he is just "precious".  It always makes Mommy feel better to hear that.

Like everyone said...he is definitely growing up fast!

Cooper is 3 months old!

Cooper has hit a big milestone in my book...he is 3 months old!

For some reason, I have been waiting for the 3 month old mark with excitement as everyone would tell me "the first 3 months are the hardest."  And it's true...it really does get easier.  Here's what's going on with Cooper at 3 months:

Eating: I am starting to transition him to a 4 hour eating schedule instead of 3 hours and that makes a world of difference for me!  I'm nursing him about 5 times a day instead of 8 so it saves so much time.  He sometimes wants to eat at 3 hours but so far he is doing well with eating every 4 hours.  It still takes him 40 minutes to nurse and I'm still waiting for him to get quicker at that.  I still struggle with low milk supply but I'm not near as stressed about it as I was at the beginning.  It is true that some women just don't have as much milk and without getting into too many details, it's obvious that I don't have as much as most women.  I have tried EVERYTHING to help increase my milk supply..including nursing him around the clock and nothing has helped.  For any other women who struggle with low milk, please don't feel guilty or bad if you have to supplement!  I felt badly for the first month and it made me way more stressed which is not what I needed at the time.  I'm thankful for the moms who reached out to me at the beginning with their struggle with breast feeding/low milk and it was so encouraging!  My doctor told me that two thirds of his moms have to supplement and if I didn't supplement, Cooper would have to go to the hospital to get an IV (since he was losing weight).  All that to say, some women have to supplement and it is OKAY!  :) 

Sleeping:  Cooper is sleeping so good at night!  Last night he slept a record of 10 hours straight...yay!  He usually averages about 8 hours a night but the past week he has been sleeping about 8-10 hours so he is improving.  I'm hoping by the end of the month he'll be sleeping 11-12 hours...maybe wishful thinking :)

Napping: Cooper is a horrible napper!  I guess it's a trade off since he's sleeping so well at night.  His naps usually are not longer than 30 minutes.  It gets very frustrating and discouraging to me since I really can't get anything done since he doesn't nap well anymore.  I have tried putting him down later, putting him down earlier, letting him cry it out, going to comfort him...pretty much anything I can think of, but he just won't go back to sleep after he wakes up.  I always put him down well fed, and changed so that couldn't be it either.  Sometimes, he doesn't even seem that tired.  I'm at a loss...any moms have suggestions to help him nap longer??  

Temperament:  Cooper is the sweetest baby!  He is so smiley and seems to smile every time I talk to him.  He is so happy in the mornings when he wakes up and smiles so much when I start talking to him after he wakes up.  He just melts my heart!  He is not near as fussy as he was before...he mainly fusses when he's hungry (which he is hungry a lot).  And then after he eats he is back to smiling nonstop.  He still has acid reflux and is taking medication for it, which seems to help.  He spits up non stop which is the most frustrating part, but it doesn't seem to be bothering him like before.  I still pray everyday for healing from this reflux.  Sometimes I think that is what wakes him up from naps as he has spit up all over him, but not sure why that wouldn't wake him up during the night?  

Size: Cooper is just starting to grow out of his newborn clothes.  Yes, I know he's 3 months old, he's just not a huge baby...yet :)  He is wearing 0-3 and 3 month clothes now.  He is also wearing size 1 diapers.  I didn't think I would be as sad as I felt when I was packing up his newborn clothes, since I've been waiting for him to grow out of them for awhile...but I was sad :(  I couldn't believe these clothes he would never wear again.  My baby really is growing too fast!  

Likes:  Going on our daily walks (unless it's rainy or too cold), nursing, being read to, being sung to, watching the TV, being talked to, car rides (for the most part), baths, Aggie football!!  

Dislikes: The Swing, napping, being left alone for too long, being hungry (but who does like that?)

Milestones:  Cooper rolled over this month! He was 10 weeks old and it was way cute.  He also went to the church nursery for the first time and did great!  I hope to do another post on some other small "firsts" of Cooper's :)  

We love our sweet boy SO much and are thankful for how much joy he brings to our lives!