4th of July Fun

My cousin's family spent 4th of July weekend with us.  To simply say we had fun is a major understatement!  It was a weekend filled with laughter, fun, great food, lots and lots of playing, blackberry picking, fireworks, and good memory making.  Just what our forefathers would have wanted!

Friday we had a cookout with our neighbors that started around mid-morning and lasted until well into the night.  Smoked meats.  Mac and cheese.  Baked beans.  Salads. Peach turnovers and homemade ice cream.  Blueberry margaritas with fresh picked blueberries.  Sprinklers and plastic pools for the kids.  Lawn chairs in the driveway.  Fireworks and sparklers.  God bless America!

Saturday we took a trip to the park and went on an unplanned blackberry-picking excursion behind the park along a field.  The kids were stuffing blackberries in their mouths left and right!  I think we all had different favorite parts to the weekend, but this was my favorite.  I loved watching the daddies and boys pick and eat blackberries right off the bushes.  I also loved the excellent lighting and photo opportunities!  

 

We were able to get all four boys together for a cousin picture.  Is there anything cuter than four boys in a field of green grass on a summer day with hints of blackberry stains on their lips?  I think not!

I took advantage of the fact that Jake can't walk yet and parked his little booty in the grass for some precious pictures while the big boys and their daddies kept picking!

 

Cooper and Brady definitely have a special bond, but it looks like the two littles might have a special bond of their own! 

 A couple shots of brotherly love...my boys were over the picture taking and hot temperatures at this point! 

We closed out the day with a little taste of the town at a local brewery and pizza place where we could eat outside and the kids could be loud and run free.  

Sunday we enjoyed the beautiful morning at the zoo.  We got to feed giraffes and lorikeets and see some really neat animals doing some really neat things.  

I think by the time we got home from the zoo, we were all pretty worn out, so after some good naps and a little more socializing, we went and got dinner at a yummy Mexican restaurant, and then our two families parted ways.  It was a great weekend, and as we pulled out of the parking lot that night, Cooper immediately started asking when Brady and Paxton would come back to his house!

Summer Snippets

Summer is here, and we love these long days and warm temperatures!  Here is just a little randomness of what's going on in our home these days...

• Cooper now dresses himself...completely correctly.  Shirt's not inside out or backwards.  Two feet aren't in one leg of his underwear.  Shoes aren't on the wrong feet.  He does better than me some days!  As this was becoming our normal routine, one day we picked up a kid's meal from Zaxby's on the way home from running errands.  When we got out of the car, I gave him his bag and told him to go start eating while I changed and fed Jake.  (Jake is now very easily distracted while nursing, so we stay in his room with his sound machine on while he eats.)  When I was done with Jake, I went to check on Cooper, and my big boy who had already dressed himself that morning was at the table, and had laid out his chicken fingers and french fries, opened his sauce (without spilling), opened his juice box (without spilling), had a napkin, and was eating away!  I was so proud!  He tells me all the time he's a "big boy" now, and it's starting to seem true.  One of the perks of being a "big boy" is chewing gum.  We bought him some Bubble Tape, and a neighbor gave him a huge tube of big gum balls.  He is so cute chewing his gum and trying to figure out how to blow bubbles! 

• The million dollar question he asks a million times a day now is, "Cuz why?"  All day long.  Constantly.  And every answer warrants asking it again.  Sometimes I run out of answers and pull the grand explanation of, "Just because."  I love his curiosity, but good grief, I'm not as smart as I would like to be, and sometimes I honestly forget what we were even originally talking about!  

• We've been spending our summer days doing lots of playing.  The boys love to play together, and Cooper can get Jake laughing better than anybody.  Jake will laugh so hard that I sometimes have to intervene because I'm afraid he's going to pass out!  It's adorable.  I love when Cooper makes Jake laugh but the way Jake is laughing gets Cooper laughing too.  Karl and I will look at each other and smile, and life is so, so, so good at those moments.

• Now that the bebe is sitting sturdy on his own, I tried giving the boys a bath together one night.  They both loved it, and the splashing got a little out of control.  However, I don't think we're quite ready for that yet.  Jake kept sliding, and Cooper really wanted him to play, and it got a little too crazy for me.  

• One of my favorite times of day, and one of the most frustrating depending on the day, is bedtime.  We all sit on Cooper's bed, read stories, say prayers, talk, play a little, and then give hugs and kisses.  Normally Coop gets in trouble at some point as he does all he can to stall going to bed, but there are really sweet moments in that time.  I think Jake knows it's a big deal to be on his big brother's bed, and he gets pretty squealy and excited.  Cooper can be majorly protective of his bed, and it stresses him out some nights when we're all on there.  Especially when the little one spits up on his sheets.  Heaven help us then!

• Speaking of the baby, he's been doing lots of growing up too.  He wants to crawl.  Oh how he wants to crawl!  He's not there yet, but if practice makes perfect, he will be the perfect crawler very soon.  He reaches, sometimes flips himself over, and mostly just ends up flat on his belly flailing his arms and legs around.  If he could fly, this technique might work.  

• He also sits in the grocery cart now.  The first time I put him in there to sit was hilarious because the whole time, he kept tilting his head way back and was staring at the lights.  I guess he's used to being able to see the lights at the store, and he didn't want to give that up!  He'd look at me kind of confused, and then tilt his head back again, and then look around with a concerned look on his face!  

• We have lots of big plans for this summer, but thankfully we won't be nearly as busy as last summer.  Coop is in swim lessons for two weeks, and then in July he'll attend "Summer Fun" at his MDO.  It's a cross between MDO and a super awesome vacation bible school.  His main teacher from this past year is his teacher this summer too, and several children from his class will be there too.  He's excited, and I am too!  It's hard getting out too much and too far during the day since Jake is still nursing, and plus, it gets expensive, so this will be something fun for him to do and give me a chance to clean the house and do that boring stuff that is hard to do with both boys here.  

• Our garden is starting to grow as well.  We have two tomato plants, an okra plant, three different kinds of bell pepper, lots of strawberries, and jalapenos.  We also have basil and mint growing in pots.  It's been rainy so far this summer, but hopefully it won't rain as much as last year.  

• We had to get a new grill.  Karl had been wanting one, and long story short, a mouse nested in our old grill, so now we have a new grill.  And the mouse went to Heaven for trying to eat the peanut butter off the mouse trap a few days later.  We have been doing lots of grilling lately, and our new favorite is this recipe for grilled shrimp .  We've found it's great leftover the next day on salad as well.  We also learned a couple weeks ago that picking up take-out and sitting in the driveway eating dinner on paper plates with our neighbors is one of the best ways to eat dinner.  Hopefully there will be a lot more of those dinners this summer!

Jake~8 Months

Our little buddy is now a whopping 8 months old!  Although it doesn't seem possible, he's getting even sweeter with age.  His personality is really starting to show, and I'm constantly amazed at how different he and Cooper are, yet how well they go together.  Like salt and pepper or peanut butter and jelly, I guess.  They bring out the best in each other, and I love their interactions.  Jake adores Cooper, and everything Cooper does has the potential to make Jake laugh.  Cooper loves to make Jake laugh, and the sound of their laughter together is pure music to my heart.  One thing that's become pretty apparent recently is how easily embarrassed and shy Jake is.  He loves to tuck his head down on my chest when people talk to him.  He has a cute little grin he shows at that time, but you can tell he's a little embarrassed about the attention he's getting.  If he's going to stay this cute and sweet, he better get used to that attention!  He loves to give hugs and kisses, and trust me when I say he gives the best and sweetest kisses in the world!  He pulls you right to him, holds your face or neck, and plants a big slobbery kiss right on you.  If he really loves you, he'll keep 'em coming too!

As for our little milestones this month, Jakey has sprouted two little teeth on the bottom.  He sits very well and loves to play with his toys while sitting.  His favorite is probably to play with one of his balls or his tool set (do I have another tool man in the making?!).  He also loves his little tractor with the animals.  Balls are definitely the favorite toy for him right now.  He has now said mama, mmmmm (for milk), and dada, but I think "mmmmm" is the only intentional thing he says.  He isn't crawling yet, but he wants to.  When he tries, he either ends up flipping himself over while he's reaching or he just belly flops and flails his arms and legs around.  He does very well scooting and rolling to get what and where he wants for now.  Another milestone worth mentioning is that we finally ran out of the huge container of Dreft baby detergent we had bought for Jake while I was still pregnant.  I was sad to see it go (love the way it smells), but it'll be nice doing all our laundry together now.

He's still nursing, and we've reached the point where it is getting hard again.  He's curious and easily distracted and doesn't really want to waste his precious wake time nursing.  I know it's hurt my milk supply, but I'm pumping every other night to hopefully help with that.  He nurses pretty well when he's tired, unless he's so tired that it ends up putting him to sleep immediately.  We're working on it though.  If there is one thing I've learned about breastfeeding it's that it's a constantly changing challenge that requires a lot of patience and perseverance (okay, maybe that was several things that I clumped together to sound like one thing)!  He does okay with baby food.  He's a little picky about it.  We are trying some table food.  He loves bananas, toast, and rotisserie chicken.  He sleeps through the night most nights but occasionally needs a little snack during the night, which I can deal with.  My chunky monkey's weight percentile has dropped a lot in two months (down to 10-15th percentile...I'm having flashbacks of my feeding struggles with Cooper as a baby now!!!), which of course has me panicking, but the doctor assures me he is just fine and not to worry.  Easier said than done.  Especially when you're strictly breastfeeding.  I have no idea if he's getting enough milk from me or if I'm making enough at this point.  He told me he'll eat when he wants to eat.  I know he's right, and I know if Jake was hungry, he would let me know, but I worry.  It's what mamas do, right?!

Jake got to celebrate his first Father's Day with Karl this month and his first trip to the lake!  It was another wonderful month with our little sweetie!

Jake~7 Months

Our little buddy is now in that super adorable baby stage and is so interactive and fun!  Our months are starting to run together in my head, so it's hard to remember what's new and what's old (especially since I'm very late with this post again...), but one thing is for sure, I am so in love with this little guy!  He takes cuteness to a new level.  And sweetness.  Have I ever mentioned how sweet he is?! ;)

He is sitting on his own better and although he still tilts himself over, he can sit for longer periods of time before that happens!  We're practicing though!  He isn't army crawling yet, but he wiggles and rolls to where he wants to be pretty well.  He love his exercauser and would hang out in that thing all day if I let him.  He "talks" to it, bounces, lays his head back and rests, spins, plays, you name it.  I'm glad he likes it because Cooper didn't.  It's nice to get our money out of it now!

He's started making that adorable funny face that babies about this age make.  He squishes up his face and breathes hard (almost a snort).  I love it!  He loves to make his funny face for Karl, and Karl encourages it by doing it to him every time he sees him.  It's just one of the little ways he is becoming more and more interactive and fun.  He calls for Sadie by yelling, grunts for others to pay attention to him, laughs and squeals constantly at Cooper, and babbles to me when he's eating.  He likes to have his family close by for sure, and while he's still hesitant with people he's not familiar with, he warms up fairly quickly.  He's not outgoing, but he is social.

As much as I love the older baby stage, I'm not a fan of the baby food stage.  It was not fun with Cooper and also led to him weaning.  It has not been fun with Jake either, but for a totally different reason.  He doesn't like it either, and he prefers his milk for sure.  And then there's the whole break-out-in-hives thing. I'm going to make a llllloooonnnggg story short, and just say that after having an "allergic reaction" to carrots by getting red welts on his arms on Easter, he got worse welts, which some might describe as hives, after eating peas (which is the only food I absolutely will NOT eat and think is terrible,  and now with good reason :)) on a Friday evening, which happened to be the night before I was supposed to go out of town for my best friend's baby shower.  We called the on-call nurse to see how much Benadryl would be appropriate for him to have in case the "hives" got worse.  FYI-Don't say that h word to a nurse over the phone or she might make you go to the Children's Hospital After-Hours Clinic.  I overreact to everything when it comes to my children, but even I knew this wasn't that big of a deal.  Clearly he was having a reaction to the peas, obviously I wouldn't be giving him peas after that for awhile, and more than likely I was going to take him to the doctor on Monday to discuss this welt/hive reaction he was having to his food.  Well, we got sent on a Friday night at 9:00 to the clinic with all kinds of sick kids.  And low and and behold, it was just a reaction to the baby food, and after two long hours, I finally was told how much Benadryl he could have should it get worse.  Which it did not.  And I didn't even end up giving him any Benadryl.  Sigh.  It was exhausting.  The next day I talked to the pediatrician's office, and they said to hold off on everything he's had a reaction to and not to give him anything new for a month.  For whatever reason, he just wasn't ready for real food yet.  After continuing to get eczema-like spots on his arms and legs despite not having any new baby food for a couple weeks, I took him back to the doctor, and he said it could be heat related (which is what I was thinking), and that I could slowly start re-introducing new foods.  Thank goodness, we have not had any more hives!  He doesn't love his baby food and gets upset after a little while because he really just wants to nurse, but we're making progress.  He has baby food for lunch and dinner, but just milk in the mornings.  By the time he's done nursing and has played, he wants a nap, so I haven't pushed getting him to eat anything then.  As far as napping goes, he takes a morning and afternoon nap, and probably a late-afternoon nap 70% of the time.  It's short and sweet if he does take it, but some days he needs it to get through dinner and to bedtime.

Overall, this was a big month for our little guy.  He had his first Easter, first trip (and hopefully last trip) to Children's Hospital After-Hours Clinic, first beach trip, and we had our first Mother's Day together.  It was a busy month, and our little buddy just makes every single thing in our lives better than it ever was.

We are so thankful for this sweet baby!