Snowy Morning

We heard the news there was going to be snow through the night and today and we laughed it off like we always do. It was so fun to wake up this morning to see that the weather man was right! It is a beautiful snowy morning and both Fisher and Todd are home from school. I will be drinking a lot of hot chocolate today (or hot cocoa as Fisher likes to call it) since it is the perfect day to stay warm and bundled up with a book, my Snuggie (another one of my favorite gifts EVER-thanks mom & dad Church) and many mugs of hot chocolate to go around.

Of course, now that I have actually registered and paid for the mini marathon the snow has now fallen 3 times. We made it all winter with no snow. Then I buy my cute little jogging stroller and all of a sudden it turns frigid cold and snowy and wet...go figure.

I was so sad when I went to do this post and realized I deleted a bunch of pictures off my card. I am so sad. They were Fisher ones, too, which is extra disappointing since he doesn't let me take pictures of him very often compared to Cooper.
The past few mornings we have woken to Fisher going into Cooper's room to play on the Rock Band/Guitar Hero drum set. This morning made my heart do one of those warm fuzzy things as I heard Fisher in there talking to Cooper and then all of a sudden there is a lot of heavy breathing into the baby monitor and a big, muffled "I love you Mama!"
He is learning how to start the day off in his favor.
Smart kid.
Todd went in to go check on them and found that Fisher had climbed in with Cooper and was reading him books again.

Cooper woke up at 4:45 this morning but the four mornings preceding this one he slept through the night. There is light at the end of my sleepless tunnel. I can feel it in my weary, sleep deprived bones.
It helps that we FINALLY moved Cooper into his own bedroom. Crazy that it took so long and so different from Fisher who was in his crib at 2 weeks old.
Also, we had a huge breakthrough last night. Cooper actually ate a few bites of rice cereal. We've mixed it with my milk, formula, fruits & veggies and he has refused to unlock that stubborn little jaw of his. However, when I finally mixed it with a little bit of water....

Cha Ching!

Jackpot.

I know you all will be so relieved (ha ha) to know that I finally went out and bought myself a bookshelf for all of those sad little books living under my night stand. It makes me so happy to have them up off the floor. I am sure it makes them happy as well. The top two shelves with the empty spots are a lot of the ones I have lent out at the moment. My problem is that if I buy any more books (which I will...oh yes, I will) then I am back to no room on the book shelf. Hmmmm....the dilemma.

I am now off to play memory match with Fisher (by HIS rules, of course) and to drink up my hot chocolate.

A good day.

Seasons

So you might have noticed I have been having some fun editing photos lately. As much as I love pictures of my boys, my favorite pictures are of scenic things. I was looking through old pictures and found different photos of our backyard through the seasons and thought I would share what we are able to look out at every day. This house really has been the perfect little starter home for our family. (They look better when enlarged.)

Oh, how I long some days to take a photography class...

Buddies

Cooper is at an age now where he loves to follow Fisher around. They play together and roll around on the ground and for the most part are best buddies.

They spend a lot of time playing together through the pack n' play.

Both of them take turns smushing their faces into the mesh.

I would hear others talk about their kids playing together in the crib and I would always think how the day would NEVER come when I could trust Fisher alone in a crib with Cooper. I mean, come on, this is Fisher we are talking about here.

Now I love seeing Fisher read to Cooper in his crib. It is one of their favorite things to do together.

Fisher shows Cooper all the ropes on playing with toys.

And helps me monitor Cooper when he starts to get into the DVDs.

"Oh no! Mommy, Cooper is playing with the DVDs again."

"No, no, no Cooper!"

Fisher loves Cooper so much he even shares his Transformers.

Now if that isn't brotherly love then I don't know what is.

The Fisherman

I haven't been writing down any of Fisher's funny quotes lately, which makes me sad since he says some pretty funny things.

He's had horrible eczema this winter- especially on his face. Thank goodness for Aquaphor.

We haven't had much snow this winter and the few times we have, Fisher has been sick. This is one of the few times we let him outside to play in it.

Catching up on some heavy reading.

Fisher showing me how big he is.
"Look Mom! I am bigger than Optimus."
He is also rocking my birthday present from my mom- the most comfortable boots EVER!

We've spent a lot of time playing with friends indoors while waiting for spring to come around so that we can go back to wasting the day at the park. It is so funny watching the little boys dress up in their superhero costumes.
Fisher & Cohen were showing me their muscles.

Having a giggle with Anthony.

Taking a walk out back.

Fisher has done a lot of growing up this year. Maybe it is just having Cooper around and so now Fisher seems so old, but he is doing a lot better in the behavior department. We had his parent teacher conference last week and his teacher was pleased with his progress. But heck, when a couple months in to starting school he is on probation about to be kicked out of pre-school the only way to go is up right?

His big annoying phase right now is that he learned the word "hate" and he HATES everything. The clouds, his mom, cereal, his mom, socks, his mom, showers, his mom....get the idea? His mom is not fond of this phase. I have tried different approaches. What happens is that I have a mental breakdown like I did the other night.

Sooooo, Mom...Dad....I am so sorry for the times I told you I hated you. It sucks. I don't like it. It makes me feel like poop (as Fisher would so fondly say.)
That is his other phase. Every other word is "poop."

Don't little boys rock?

(They do actually. I love my little boys.)

Just like his daddy, Fisher is a rock star deep at heart. He likes to do primary songs "Fisher style."

After the performance is over.

The piggy bank he is so into these days. We spent the other day counting his money and teaching him about how much everything is worth. Fisher wanted to use all of his money to buy gumballs in his gumball machine. I talked him into saving his money.

Every day Fisher builds new things with his trio blocks. They have been one of the best purchases ever when it comes to his creative side. This was one of his "super shooter guns."

We have been growing his hair out mostly due to the fact that he won't let me touch his hair. (From the top/back)

The problem is that he won't let me touch it to wet it down and comb it either.

(From the front.)

There have been many a week days and Sundays where he has gone to school and church rockin' this hair-do.

And this is totally gross so sorry if I just made you upchuck but Fisher has an ear infection and I am pretty sure this is one of the results of it. It was before we knew he had it. So disgusting, but I was proud of myself for cleaning it up without puking myself.

7 Months- just a couple weeks late.

We had a major breakthrough today. Cooper took about TEN bites of carrots from a baby food jar. This is about as close to a miracle around our house as you can get. Up to this point the little banana and sweet potato baby puff things have been all that we could get him to eat.

Let's see. Cooper is still happy but also still somewhat of a monster baby. No teeth yet, but we are fully aware of their evil little presence.

The little guy is everywhere. He can easily maneuver from sitting to army crawl to propping himself up on all fours and back to sitting no problem- and not in that particular order.

Although he still tends to army crawl everywhere he has spent a lot of time hanging out on all fours. Sometimes he'll even get onto his feet so that he is in more of a bear crawl position.

I had to bust out the pack' n play for a few reasons:
1- Cooper really enjoys getting into EVERYTHING.
2- Cooper is not the only busy one in this household (Ahem...Fisher) and so I cannot keep my eyes on him at all times like I would prefer.
3- I have not kept my floors as spotless as I would like (see post below about me going crazy.)
4- Cooper likes to put everything I have on my floors into his mouth which I don't always see since I am also watching his brother.
=Pack n' play is just about my most favorite thing right now.



There is still a lot of droolage going on.

Part of that might be the tongue wagging we constantly see and some of it might be those evil little teeth that are turning our sweet baby into a sleepless, screeching little monster at times.

Another drool picture.

And a close up of of his spittle since it looks like a little diamond that I thought was cool. (How mom am I when I start getting excited over a picture of spit??)

Everything goes into Cooper's mouth.

Nothing is safe. He should have a fantastic immune system when he is older.

Due to his little army crawl where he drags himself along on his belly, both sides of his stomach have these rashy looking callouses on them. It is weird. I won't mind when he decides to start crawling on all fours even if he is really fast at his current method.

Some of Cooper's favorite locations are the DVD's, the baskets that have our Wii stuff, Fisher's bedroom, Fisher's bathroom (throw-up in my mouth), under the table, and today our bedroom has joined the Cooper destination get-away club.

He is starting to pull himself up to reach things and has especially developed a fondness for Todd's receiver which has pretty blue lights on it.

He pulls himself up onto just about everything he can. Today he pulled himself to standing in his crib which looks like we'll be dropping it soon.

He had been pulling himself up in his pack n' play bassinet which is why we nixed that sleeping arrangement finally.

We tried one of those mesh bag things for fruits and veggies since he seemed to hate the jarred foods. No luck, although he did like playing catch with it.

This is a very common sight seeing him go after something. His favorites are my books & book marks, remotes, paper, and Fisher's toys. Oh- and I don't think I have mentioned yet that while he hates baby food, he loves to eat paper. Big chunks of it. I am often surprised when changing his diaper with what color of paper he has eaten that day.

He will be sick of Transformers by the time he is Fisher's age.

The green little toy he is holding are these trio building blocks that Fisher loves which are great teething toys. Cooper prefers them to all of his teething rings. Stubborn kid.

He loves his blankets, especially chewing on them, and he likes attacking his stuffed animals. Cooper is very physical.

He talks a lot still saying his "ba, da, wa, ma" gibberish. He also likes to talk "grunt" with us. If he grunts he expects up to do it back.

Here is this cute little shirt I found that I surprised Todd with.

This is often the look I get when I pull out jarred foods.

"Have you not learned yet Woman??"

Balloon...one of Cooper's biggest loves. We constantly are raining on his parade and taking them away. Also, the kid is next to impossible to keep shoes & socks on. This Sunday was a first. He made it all the way to the car ride home before losing a shoe.

We don't have him on a particular nap schedule yet, which sucks. He has spent so much of this winter sick that any hope of schedules have gone down the drain. Maybe come spring.

Despite the fact he is a stubborn little monster baby at times, he has the cutest smile that warms our hearts. We still love him even if he wakes up multiple times during the night and refuses to eat anything.

Sorry for such a long post. If you made it to the bottom then props to you!