Christmas at the Moose

Saturday we spent the afternoon at The Moose Lodge for the children's Christmas party. We had a blast, the only bad thing was, it was during nap time! The adults who plan this don't think of the "little" kids, but Cooper did great!

The fish pond! Cooper loved to 'fish'

He received a little John Deere tractor

Then off to face painting we went

He was so proud of his little snowman, however, he was tired so he laid his head down and it went all over mommy, so it was a smudged snowman..

Lunch time! Walking taco's....not very kind friendly but all was good. Cooper didn't mind using his hands one bit. Grandma Pat joined us for lunch.

And Grandma Linda and Grandpa Tom joined us after lunch. Grandma took Cooper over to the craft station and he had a blast. We got some new ornaments for the Christmas tree.

And off to decorate cookies with daddy.

He was more interested in the plain cookies than a decorated one..LOL

Next up, we had a very special visitor, who we had to wait in line for.

Climbing on 'baby brother' LOL

Cheese!

Almost there - we would ask "what does Santa say" and he'd say "ho ho", too cute!

Santa!! Cooper didn't really know what to think of all his hair but he didn't cry!

Bye Santa!

By this time, all the kiddos were exhausted, but we had to throw in a few pictures of an old friend, Greenlee. She's a friend from my Breastfeeding days! Cooper and Greenlee look so tired!

It's so fun watching and playing with Cooper this time of year. I can't wait for Christmas day to see his reaction to what Santa brings. He loves his elf "Fred" and gets up to look for him every morning, it's just so much fun.

25 Weeks!

How Far Along:  25 weeks - Due date is March 12th, 2014

Size of Baby:  13 1/2 inches and about 1 1/2 pounds, about the size of a rutabaga.

Total Weight Gain/Loss: About 8 pounds

Heartbeat:  150ish at my appointment on Nov. 18th

Maternity Clothes:  YES! And I'm starting to feel like a whale! The holidays are not going to help, because I know I'll be stuffing myself!

Gender:  We are having a BOY!!

Movement:  Starting to feel a lot more lately. Still can't feel anything on the outside, any day though!!

Sleep:  Sleep is great!

What I Miss: My energy!

Cravings:  Nothing really, but I have been craving beer! NA is just not cutting it.

Symptoms: My hands and feet are starting to swell. I can see my sock lines and my fingers feel like sausages most days.

Best Moment This Week:  Finding out I'm going to have a new Niece!!

Looking Forward To: Thanksgiving and all the great food. I have so much to be thankful for and I'm so happy to be spending it with my family!

24 Weeks

How Far Along:  24 weeks - Due date is March 12th, 2014

Size of Baby:  1 1/3 pound, he's about the size of an ear of corn.

Total Weight Gain/Loss: as of my last appointment this past Monday, I was up about 8 pounds.

Heartbeat:  150ish at my appointment on Nov. 18th

Maternity Clothes:  YES! I feel like I popped out a lot sooner than I did with Cooper. I did not have to buy any new clothes since I'll be having this baby around the same time as Cooper.

Gender:  We are having a BOY!!

Movement:  Starting to feel a lot more lately. Ready to be able to have Tom and Cooper feel them. He had the  hiccups the other night!

Sleep:  Sleep is good, but once I get up to go to the bathroom, if I think about anything it will take me at least an hour to get back to sleep, so I try not to think about anything, which is hard sometimes but I try.

What I Miss: Being about to Jazzercise at high impact! I can really tell when I'm overdoing it, so I have to tell myself to calm down and just get through the class. I'm trying to make it to my December 16th Glucose test! I do not want Gestational Diabetes and I'm hoping exercising will help.

Cravings:  No cravings - I really like my ice cream though and Cooper is loving that I love it too!

Symptoms: Nothing, just getting big and not being able to move as much.

Best Moment This Week:  Starting to get the big boy room started, we moved toys in there, that's as far as we got and boy does our living room look a lot bigger. Also getting to hear the baby's heartbeat!

Looking Forward To: Feeling more kicks and hiccups.

I hate the way I look in these pictures but, it's not about me, its about the baby and how my belly is growing! Boy, do I look tired or what??

Lots of things happening...

Can you believe we are almost a week away from Thanksgiving?? I sure can't! We have had lots going on and I thought I'd share a few things.

Micayla moved into a house down the road with her friend, Megan, which means we have a room for the new baby! Actually her room is going to be Cooper's room, we've decided to keep the nursery a nursery so when we redo Micayla's room, we'll call it the big room, we will just put a full/queen size bed in there. I'm hoping to nurse the new baby like I did with Cooper and he slept with me until he was bout 4 months, until he outgrew the bassinet, so by that time, Cooper will be about 2 1/2 so we'll transition him then. However, we started this weekend, we took off the front rail of Cooper baby bed and put a safety shield so he can get used to crawling in and out of bed. He loves it and he slept just as good last night, we'll see how the next few nights go.

Cooper loves climbing in and playing in his bed.

And here he's sound asleep.

The last two nights have been good, I don't think he realizes that he can get out when he wakes up, he just sits in there and waits until someone comes and gets him and all this blankets.

Anther big thing we got this weekend was a new potty. We bought a 3-n-1 so he has a step stool as well as a potty. We were going to just go with a seat to put on the toilet but then thought he's going to need something to step up onto the toilet and I thought this would just be best. He loves to step on it to turn out the light, his new favorite thing, and he sat on it once, cloths on, but that's as far as we got. I"m not going to push it too hard yet, heck he's only 20 months (today) and I don't want my baby growing up just yet!
 

So that's what we do with the "potty" right now! I may need to move my towels because they are ending up on the floor every time he tries to "lite" (turn out the light, his new favorite thing).

And I got an early Christmas present

LOVE IT!! Tom's first text was "spoiled brat" LOL Love you honey! Now I just have to figure it out, any helpful hints, please share! Us Cellular finally got them in and it was perfect timing because my line was up for an upgrade, not that I needed it, but come on, why not??

Cooper's 18 month pictures

I can not believe I have an 18-month old already. Wow has time sure flown! I know I've been awful about blogging, it's just I'm so tired after Cooper goes to bed, I just don't have the energy to blog.

I want to remember a few ALOT of things about Cooper.

• He is still in a size 4 pamper, however I think the size 5's are coming up!
• He is the best sleeper, he fights with me something when he has to go to bed, but lately he's been good. 
• He loves to read before bedtime and play my IPad - these kids these days are so smart when it comes to operating these things, it just amazes me, but I love it!
• He talks up a storm!! He has a great vocabulary and is getting really good at telling us "yes" or "no" if he wants something or doesn't. He will point to what he wants with a little UHHH, UHHH. The other day Tom said "tell me what you want, do you want cereal" Cooper responds with "yeah, cereal" not that clear but we knew he said cereal. 
• He really loves mommy and daddy, daddy is becoming his buddy. It's so sweet watching them..

Like this picture, it's so sweet!

• He loves his bath, I'll ask him if he wants a bath and he'll say, running, yeah and run to the bathroom. He knows the routine. 
• He's a big helper. He loves to do things we ask, we just hope he continues this. He loves to vacuum, sweep, throw things away, flush the toilet (a dozen times) and just do whatever mommy or daddy is doing.
• I think his all time favorite thing to do is "cook", he will sit on the floor with the carafe of spatula's, pots and pans and just go to town! I think I know what I'm getting him for Christmas.
• Being outside..this kid would live outside if he could. He'll come home from daycare say "side" and point to the patio. We'll let him out there by himself, we do watch him, and he'll start to make his way down to the driveway to play "ball" basketball. I think we'll have a mini Jordan on our hands. Can't wait!
• He also loves to push things, anything..shopping carts, his stroller (this will be good for when the new baby arrives) his toy car and trucks too.

• He loves puppies, the one above, obviously is fake, but we recently got a new "puppy" name
  Calvin. Cooper is kind of scared yet just because the dog is very hyper and Cooper's not quite sure about him yet. But he's a good dog so far. He's a German Shorthair Pointer, cute dog.

• Cooper is not the best eater like he used to be, he's not so much picky but he's very choosy in what he wants. And he will let us know it too. 
• He had a blast camping this year, his favorite thing is the jumping pillow and swimming. We can't wait for next year with another little one with us.

Cooper has just been a blessing to all of us, he's so much fun. There are days I just want to hug him so tight and just never let go. He's the sweetest boy and if I could have a dozen Cooper's I would.

I know there are so much more I could write about him but again, I'm short on time, so I'm going to leave you with the rest of our pictures.

And a few family ones!

These were taken at a local winery here near Dubuque, it was so beautiful out there and I think the pictures turned out pretty good. We had a blast! Next set of pictures will be with our new baby boy!