First off, I am so frustrated! I have spent all this time on this stupid post and half the pictures loaded sideways. Urgh!!!! I would quit right now except that I know it would be another month at least before I attempted to blog again and I wanted to give the grandparents some pictures of the boys so, sideways or not, I will press forward..
So yeah...it has been a long time since I have blogged. In the end it just comes down to the fact that I am busy and blogging has been really low on the list of priorities. I WANT to blog. I love keeping track of the funny things the boys do. It is just that I don't have the time to right now. I hope to get better eventually but I don't see it happening until the new year at the earliest.
The boys are doing well. I have tons of pictures and will try to remember everything they are up to.
I have a picture of Fisher when he was two or three, coloring while watching General Conference. I loved this picture seeing how our family has grown.
A cute big picture of my biggest and littlest boys.
Tucker: He will be seven months old in a couple of days. It amazes me to think he was only 3 months old when we moved and now he is rolling and sitting and is becoming such a big boy. I get sad sometimes with how fast he is growing. He is happy and drooly and we love him so much.
No teeth yet but he has been drooling and chewing for months now. Fisher did not get his first tooth until 8 months and Cooper was 11 months so I don't think we are in any hurry this time around either. He does seem grumpy at times and does not sleep through the night anymore and has not for about the last 6 weeks. It is awful. I have always had sleepers and Tucker WAS one up until recently. It is draining the life out of me.
We think he is a chunky baby, but he is a little chunky baby. At his last check up he was 17 lbs and was in the 15% for weight, 20% for height, but a big old head in the 75%.
He divides his time between his play mat, exersaucer, rocker chair, me, his crib and the stroller.
He has become a little jumping bean when we hold him. He wants to jump, jump, jump! He hasn't figured out how to jump in his exersaucer yet but I think he will be like Cooper who was (and still is) a jumping machine.
Tucker has big blue eyes like his brothers. I see a lot of both boys in him: Fisher's head shape, eyes and coloring (they definitely take after Todd in those categories) but more of Cooper's nose and smile.
He loves to grab at anything he can get his hands on. I have to be careful walking by things because he has been known to snatch things as I walk by. He particularly loves the skin on our necks, my hair, earrings, Todd's arm hair, notes from Fisher's teacher and Fisher's face. Toys, remotes, books and blankets are accepted as well.
He has been sitting up for about 3-4 weeks and is becoming steadier all the time although we cannot leave him unattended sitting up. As soon as he reaches for something, it is straight onto his face.
I love kissing his cheeks. Fisher likes giving him kisses but will not accept them due to excessive drool.
I am so mad these picture are sideways!!!
We love our little Tucker baby awake and smiley but I have to admit it is hard not to want to grab and snuggle and kiss him when he falls asleep on my bed while playing with toys. (Sadly, I cannot let him hang out on my bed anymore due to all the rolling his been rockin' lately.)
Admit it, you want to snuggle this too...
Tucker absolutely adores his big brothers. The highlight of his days are whenever he sees any of us in the family. He loves seeing me when he wakes up, he loves when Todd comes home and he L.O.V.E.S Cooper and Fisher. It is fun to watch him constantly keeping an eye on their every move...and frightening at the same time because there is a lot of naughty behavior than occurs between the two of them.
Part of the reason I do not have time to blog (or read near as much as I was doing) is my commitment to lose weight. I lost 15 lbs of my baby weight when we were in Louisville but with Tucker being my third and all the stress that was going on around the time of our move, that was it. I got stuck with 15-20 pounds of baby weight. It doesn't help that I started the last pregnancy much heavier than I would have preferred. So I have committed to losing 40 pounds by the time Tucker is one (March) and I want to have lost 30 of it to be by my 30th birthday in January. It stinks that I have to make it through all the holidays right before my birthday but I guess I am going to have to show a little self-control. So far I am down 17 lbs and was hoping to reach 25 lbs by Thanksgiving.
Along with the Lion King, some of Cooper's favorites right now are: Planes, garbage and recycle trucks, motorcycles...really anything with a motor and wheels. He also loves balls, coloring on walls, flushing the toilet and band-aids. He goes through at least 20 a day. We find them all over his body, our bodies, furniture and walls. He loves to climb on everything, especially counters. He loves brushing his teeth and emptying the toothpaste everywhere. Spilling food and drink all over the light carpet is a favorite past time. He has a sweet tooth like nothing else and is constantly demanding egg nog and "cake" which can work for brownies, cookies or any treat. He is often told "no" which results in a deafening scream which would put a banshee to shame and then follows with hitting. He spends a lot of time doing time-outs.
Aside from all the exhausting traits that come with being a two-year-old, Cooper is FUNNY. He has a huge personality and loves to laugh. He loves his Mr. Potato head, robots, his blankie (Beedee which we are trying to wean him from), his brothers, especially Fisher and he LOVES his daddy. He likes to giggle and wiggle and jump and throw himself all over the place. He loves to run and torment his brothers that he adores so much. He loves to blow raspberries, eat off everyone else's plate and to wear shoes that are much to big for him. He likes to pick out his own clothes and I have shown up to pick up Fisher with Cooper in some very interesting ensembles. I don't try to keep his face clean anymore or have him wearing cute clothes because it leads to big tantrums and don't have it in me to deal with any more of those than I have to.
(Still bugged about all the sideways pictures)
Fisher had a school carnival at...you guess it! His school.
We took the boys and the had a blast. Todd and I did not have near as much fun as they did but it was good to see them happy. One of heir favorites things of the night was the face painting. Cooper loved his rocket.
Cooper insists on sitting at the big table and eating with big utensils even though he makes mess. I wish I could have kept him in his high chair forever.
When his food is not all over the floor, it is all over him. Hands, face, clothes, hair, feet. Eating is a whole body experience.
Cooper loves playing with play money. We have a little McDonald's register that he loves to take orders with. You can tell he had way too many play dates at McDonald's (I miss you Mich & Emily!!!) while he was a baby and growing up because he absolutely knows what to do. :)
A bat in Cooper's hand is a terrifying thing. Even Fisher has learned to agree.
We have to barricade Cooper from different areas of the house. He knows how to pull the gate down but sometimes it does deter him form going upstairs when I want to keep him down. We have the fridge locked with reinforcements. We cannot leave him alone for any time at all without him doing SOMETHING that could damage the house, hurt him or someone else. It has been a while since Fisher was two and I forgot how BUSY they are.
Watching the lawn being mowed.
And some of my favorite pictures which are sideways which makes me angry are of Cooper in time out.
This kid is such a rotten little stinker sometimes but he makes us laugh so much. And this is nothing important other than I have learned that Cooper and Fisher are not built like each other. Fisher is really husky and Cooper has his ribs poking out even though he eats more than all of us. I have pulled out all the 2T pants that Fisher wore and while they fit lengthwise, they fall off at the waist. I could not remember when Fisher's huskiness became apparent but it must have been around two.
Fisher and Cooper fight like crazy which is annoying because they can be the best of buds at times. Cooper is a willing audience for anything that Fisher wants to teach him.
Eating together.
Sharing Fisher's blue day rewards together.
This sweet little scene ending with fishing poles being poked into eyes and used as swords and fish being thrown everywhere and the screaming...so much screaming. But isn't is a cute moment?
The boys LOVE playing with suit cases. They were taking books on a trip. Later, Fisher was in a suitcase while Cooper jumped on it and the trip was cut short while time-outs ensued.
I finally unpacked the puzzles and the boys had a fun time playing with them for a few days. Now they are all unpacked and have not been played with for a while. It is hard to want to unpack everything when we are only here for one year.
Playing with cars and racetracks will keep them occupied until they fight over who's turn it is.
Fisher went on a puzzle marathon one day. This is just a few.
Fisher had a rough start to Kindergarten but the last two weeks things seem to have just clicked. He went from notes home that I had to sign and send back, trips to the Principal's office, and being separated from his class to his own table to having perfect days for two weeks straight. His teacher said he is taking pride in doing well and is doing awesome. They sent home a note that he is classified with a higher learning ability so we will see what that is all about at his upcoming parent/teacher conference. It makes us happy to have him doing well after a lot of the behavioral struggles he has had.
Some of Fisher's favorite things to do and home and school are art projects. He loves to color and paint and use staplers and tape and cut things, etc.
He LOVED his face painting from the night of the school carnival.
Fisher has earned a lot of rewards for doing so much better in school. One of his favorite is his Angry Birds game. He loves playing games, loves anything Scooby-Doo, reading books, playing on the computer, art projects, hanging out with his family (aside from Cooper who drives him crazy right now), playing on the monkey bars, school and receiving fun things in the mail from his grandparents. He is approaching his sixth birthday which is so hard to believe. We look at him, though, and see how independent he becoming- getting himself dressed, teeth brushed, pouring his own cereal and milk, being able to reach places where we hide things from the kids- and it is easy to believe. He has opinions on his hair and socks and whether or not they are cool enough. Our little guy is growing up. He informed me that a girl kissed him in a secret place yesterday but she got in trouble and had to move her card to yellow but he was able to stay on blue since she chased him. I hope he continues to be bothered if a girl kisses him. :)
Well, that is it for now. It has taken me practically a whole day to finish this so I hope at least one person makes it to the end.
