15 Months Old!

My sweet boy is now 15 months old!  I didn't get a chance to update 14 months partly because I just didn't have time and partly because it's a month that I would rather forget...just kidding...kinda...but not really.  Anyway, 14 months was a little rough for us.  After Cooper not getting a fever or really sick the 1st year of his life, he came down with 2 very high fevers, one being an ear infection and the other being a virus.  He also had some type of stomach virus and threw up a ton for the first time, and then he started choking and throwing up everything he ate, which led to him not wanting to eat anything.  It was rough, but he seems to be eating better, even though he is now extremely picky.

We went to the Doctor yesterday for his 15 month check up.  His weighs 23.6 pounds (58%ile), Height 30" (13%ile) and his head is 19.25" (93%ile).  That's right folks, we may have a little shorty on our hands.  It surprises me since neither Justin nor I are short, but hey, he is the cutest little shorty you have ever seen....and of course there is plenty of time for a big growth spurt!

Drinking: Cooper absolutely LOVES his milk.  Almost too much actually, hence his cute belly.  I'm so glad the transition to whole has been easy, but the transition to drinking from a sippy cup has still been a nightmare.  The doctor told me that he needs to be on the sippy cup now and no more bottles!  I'm dreading this since he pretty much throws a fit when he even sees the sippy cup because he gets so frustrated.  All he wants is his bottle and he can be very stubborn sometimes.  I'm pretty sure he knows how to drink from the sippy cup, but he just doesn't want to.  I think I may go straight to the straw cup since that doesn't make him as mad, but he just needs to learn how to drink from the straw.  I know he will get it eventually but I am dreading not giving him his beloved bottle.

Napping on Granna on Christmas Day

Eating:  As I said before, this has been a very rough month with Cooper eating.  I think he went through a phase where he wasn't chewing well and he would cough and gag and then throw up his food.  It happened quite frequently to the point where he didn't want to eat anything but baby food or yogurt.  He is thankfully past that and is now eating better but he is definitely more picky than he was before all that.   Sometimes meal time can be the most difficult part of our day, when before it was so easy.  Just like everything else, I know it's just a rough phase and will pass in time.

Sleeping:  Along with the 14 month curse came my perfect sleeper not wanting to sleep anymore.  I think him getting sick and traveling so much changed his sleeping habits and it has been a rough transition.  I would normally put him down to bed at 7:30 and he would sleep until 8am (I know, it's amazing) and he would take 2 pretty good naps a day.  Then after the craziness of the past month, he started waking up at 6-6:30.  This was rough on us since we are night owls.  He also wouldn't nap longer than 45 minutes!  I didn't know what was going on, but I really couldn't get anything done while losing sleep in the process.  I am happy to say that this week he is finally doing much better with sleeping.  Today he slept until almost 8 again and he took a 3 hour nap yesterday!  I'm so hoping this is here to stay...which again was just a rough phase he went through.

Milestones:  Well folks, we finally have a walker!!!  Yippee!  He has been pulling up and standing on his own for awhile and then he finally took his first steps right when he turned 14 months.  The first few weeks after he took steps, he would only take about 6 steps at a time before he fell down and would crawl.  Now he is walking everywhere and barely crawls anymore.  I'm finally able to take him outside and to the park which is so much fun!  Everyone told me that once they start walking, it gets so much harder...but I'm LOVING it.  I think it is the cutest phase in the world when they first start walking.  Since he has been crawling for so long, I barely recognize him when he comes walking in the room.  It's just adorable!  It also is so fun to see how everyday he gets better and better at walking.  The doctor also told me he has 6 teeth coming in.  They always come in at once!  It's crazy how many teeth he has.

Likes:  The Dog!  He loves the dog so much, a little too much at times.  He follows her around everywhere, sits on her, crawls over her and pets her and laughs non stop when she is around.  He is a little obsessed.  He also loves:  books, his daddy, yogurt, cheese, his bottle, car rides, walks, bath time and swinging at the park.

Dislikes:  Being dropped off somewhere (gym or church nursery), walking with shoes on (working on that one), trying new foods, sippy cup

Though the past month was rough, I sure do love being his Mommy.  He is such a blessing and is getting more and more fun!

Hello 2014

Yes, I do realize that we are well into 2014 and I actually started this blog post a few weeks ago....but December was so crazy for us that my 14 month old decided he doesn't like naps anymore and he loves waking up bright and early.  Therefore, the only real free time I have these days is in the evening which  other things come way before blogging.  So here is my attempt to catch up!

I'm not sure how this happened, but somehow it's 2014.  December was so busy that I blinked and it's now January!  How did this happen?  We went to Austin for Thanksgiving and after getting back, it has been pretty crazy.  It started with Cooper getting another very high (103) fever, his second fever in just the past 2 months!  He was miserable for a few days and so was I (it's so hard seeing your babies sick).  We were also trying to get everything packed and ready for our Colorado trip, decorating the house for Christmas and buying Christmas gifts.   Shortly after he got better, we went to Colorado for our big family ski vacation which was wonderful.  Cooper got a little sick there, and his entire eating habits changed and has yet to come back.  Then I got a horrible 24 hr stomach virus the day after we got back from Colorado.  Thankfully Justin was able to stay home from work because there was no way I could have taken care of Cooper as I was in agony and could barely get out of bed.  Then it's Christmas!!  Thankfully we were all better by Christmas and had a great time spending it with my family.

We went to the Christmas Eve service and then came back to the house to open some gifts, eat dinner and lots of yummy dessert.  My mom is the best of making the most delicious Christmas treats and desserts.  Cooper was just adorable!

His 2 big gifts were the Pottery Barn chair we got him and the fun car my parents got him.  He loves it!

It was definitely a fun and relaxing Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to spend with family.

Then the weekend after Christmas, Justin's family had a mini family reunion.  It was really fun to see all of Justin's family and spend time with everyone.  

Cooper also had fun with his little cousins..they are just too cute for words

Then Justin's mom stayed with us for the weekend and we enjoyed going to church, walking around Old Town Spring, relaxing and had a nice dinner.  The day after Justin's mom left was New Year's Eve.  Unfortunately Justin had to work New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, but it's a trade off since he was off for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I went to my parents house and we went out to dinner and then came home to watch the Aggies play in the chicfila bowl!  WHOOP!  Justin got home at a pretty reasonable time and we waiting to watch it with him.  It was a GREAT game and we had a lot of fun watching it.  Cooper slept horrible that night so I was pretty exhausted on New Year's Day.  Thankfully my parents helped out by watching Cooper so I could sleep some more.  And then before we knew it, December was over, and it's 2014.  Phew!

2014 has started out a little rough with Cooper not sleeping well or eating well anymore, but more on that later (he is 15 months old today! EEK).  I'm thinking it's just a phase and hopefully he will go back to his happy self sleeping until 8am, napping great, and waking up happy :)  I sure miss it and didn't realize how good I had it!

I'm looking forward to what 2014 has for our family (oh, besides the fact that Justin has to go part time in May to finish up grad school, but don't want to be a Debbie Downer...womp, womp)  Happy Belated New Year to all!!

Colorado Family Vacation

We just got back from a wonderful family vacation to Beaver Creek Colorado.  My brother won the trip through his work and he graciously chose to take our whole family along.  It really was a dream vacation, staying at a ski in/ski out resort where everyone treats your like royalty.  The weather was absolutely perfect...sunny days, not too cold and beautiful!  It was also Cooper's very first time on a plane.  I was a little nervous going into it because I didn't think Cooper could sit still in our laps for that long, but he did so well!  Our first flight was to Dallas and he slept the whole time.

Our 2nd flight was the longer flight and he was super fussy until we finally took off and then he fell asleep again.  Phew!  We finally made it to our resort and were able to take in the beautiful view of the mountains from our room.

That evening we went to dinner in the hotel and tried to get to bed early since we were getting up early the next morning for skiing!  My parents were so nice to watch Cooper so Justin and I could go skiing together.  We started out the first morning taking a private lesson together since it had been awhile since I've skied.  Justin definitely did not need a lesson but he was sweet to take it with me.  

The greens were a lot harder greens than what I was used to, so it took me awhile to get back into it again but it was still a lot of fun being out in the snow!

We met my brother and nephew up for lunch as they also took a lesson.  They had lots of little restaurants and shops and an ice skating rink at the bottom of the slopes where you can walk around for a break.  

Justin skiied the rest of the afternoon while the rest of us went back to the hotel.  Cooper did not sleep well the night before so he was pretty fussy and tired off and on that day.  Though he was tired that day, he sure LOVED playing with his cousin!  Cooper loves playing with other kids and he is constantly hugging Peyton.  It's so cute to see them playing together and Peyton was such a good big cousin to Cooper.

That evening we had reservations to go on a sleigh ride to the top of a mountain to eat at a nice restaurant.  It was so fun...and cold!  The ride up the mountain was beautiful looking at our resort and the city at night.

The restaurant was beautiful and the food was A-mazing!  It was a very fun experience.  After dinner we rode the sleigh back down the mountain and then sat outside by the fire roasting marshmallows.

The next day Justin and I went for day 2 of skiing by ourselves.  I knew this would by my last day skiing as I wanted to spend time with Cooper the next day and give my parents a break.  We skiied out of our hotel and skiied across to the main Beaver Creek area.  It was fun skiing together (even though I may or may not have had a small panic attack at the very end of the run where there was an extremely steep drop off..ugh, this was not a GREEN folks) (I did survive and made it down thanks to my patient hubby).  All in all, it was a fun and beautiful day of skiing!

After skiing we met the rest of my family for lunch.  These Texans may have gone a little crazy bundling up the 14 month old....this was his position in the stroller, poor baby couldn't move his arms!

 It reminded me of The Christmas Story when the mom was getting her son ready to walk to school and he couldn't move his arms.  I think it was clear to everyone around us that we are the Texans...people were even pointing and laughing at sweet Cooper all bundled up.  I'm not sure if the laughing was due to his absolute cuteness or to our absolute craziness.

The next day Justin decided to take advantage of skiing one last day and I stayed with Cooper to take him to play in the snow.  It wasn't quite what I imagined it being in my head of Cooper playing in his first snow as he really didn't want me to put him down, but hey we still got some cute pictures of him in the snow!

The weather was so great that we even got hot in all our layers.  We really didn't even need a jacket with the sun out.  On the last night, we had reservations to go to a nice dinner at the resort.  We wanted to get some good family pictures in too since the hotel was decorated so beautifully for Christmas.

We decided it would be more relaxing for everyone for my family to eat first at 6 and then Justin and I would put Cooper to bed and then we ate just the 2 of use after my family came back.  It was perfect since Cooper is pretty unpredictable at meal time and we were able to have a nice date night.  After having a nice dinner, we went outside to sit by the fire for awhile and then came in and sat in the hotel lobby.  I enjoyed a chocolate martini, which reminded me of our honeymoon when I had one almost every evening.  It was a very nice evening!

And then before we knew it, after 5 days and 4 wonderful nights, our vacation was over and we were on our way back to Houston.  It was such a fun family vacation and I am thankful for my brother who worked hard to win this trip and to take us with him!  We were very blessed :)

Thanksgiving in Austin

For Thanksgiving this year we went to Austin to spend it with Justin's family.  We left Thursday morning since Justin worked late on Wednesday and there is much less traffic on Thursday.  Here we are on the road...

Cooper did pretty well on the road and slept off and on the whole way.  He would get fussy from time to time so I would hand him snacks which always helps :)

We made it to Austin and Cooper LOVED being with his cousin Alayah.  It was the first time for us to meet her and it was so cute watching them interact.  Cooper is in a major hugging stage and wants to hug every kid in sight.  He really loves being around other kids.  He also loves to give open mouth kisses, which I'm not sure if the other kids appreciate it as much as I do :)

Annnnnd another one of them hugging....

We did what pretty much most people do on Thanksgiving, eat and football!  Here is a good picture of Justin and his brother with their kids.

I'm really not sure how I managed to not get in any Thanksgiving pictures, but that's how it goes!  We also took the kids to the park one day and Cooper enjoyed the swing, playing on the slide and crawling around everywhere to explore.

Some of Justin's cousins and their kids also came over to visit on Friday.  It was great to see them and Cooper loved playing with the other kids.

Of course he also loved tackling them and hugging them!

Cooper is still having trouble sleeping anywhere else but his own crib/room.  He had to cry for awhile the first night but after that he did well going to sleep.  The problem is, he is such a light sleeper that he wakes up when we go into the room for us to go to sleep.  After he wakes up, he has trouble going back to sleep especially since we are in the room with him.  We tried co sleeping for the first time ever and he did pretty well one night and the other night was terrible.  We didn't get much sleep and are still trying to catch up.  I don't know how you co sleepers do it but we were all happy to be back in our own roooms/bed again!  

Cooper with his Uncle Nick

Reading Together

I am very thankful for my husband who is such a gift from the Lord and my sweet little boy that makes me smile everyday.