Fourth...

We're getting ready for the Fourth...

the fire pit is dug & loaded with wood:



the volleyball net is set up & ready for the first game:



the tiki torches are in place & filled with oil (& that stuff that keeps those darn mosquito's away!!)



I'm ready for a party!!

Faces of Cooper

The other day while Maria was in the mini pool, I propped up Cooper in the walker so I could take some pictures. Here are some of the results...

summer.... where are you??

Apparently summer has decided not to visit us yet. We've had a couple of days that crossed that 70 degree mark, but not many. Today was July 1st, and I'd be surprised if we passed the 60 degree mark today.

One thing that we have at our house that most people don't have is a hot water spicket. My mom likes to wash her car, so they put one in when they built this place so that she could wash her car in the winter and not have her hands cold.
A great dual use for this is to fill up the baby pool (because there is no way the sun would make it warm).
Yesterday my mom picked up this cute little pool for Maria and we busted it out, blew it up, and filled it up with warm water in the carport. She LOVED it. Kicking, playing with toys, picking up toys, dumping water out, splashing mommy... etc.

Spring Reading Thing wrap-up

SRT ended about 2 weeks ago.
I'm sad to say that I didn't read my whole list. There were some "heavy books" on there that I just couldn't get into. I've found that after having a baby my mind stops and I can hardly remember my name, let alone what happened in the last chapter.

Here's my Original list:
The Help - Kathryn Stockett
Rose Daughter - Robin Mckinley
Gulliver's Travels - Johnathan Swift
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Emma - Jane Austen

I ended up only reading 2 from my list,"The Help" & "Rose Daughter".

I also read "Pigs in Heaven" by Barbara Kingsolver & "The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax" by Dorothy Gilman.

This was not my first time reading "Pigs in Heaven", but it's been so long that I didn't remember how it ended, so that was a nice little surprise.
I really enjoyed all the books I read this time around. I'm interested in reading more from Robin Mckinley & Dorothy Gilman. I'm not sure I'm in love with their writing... but I'd like to read more to find out. I REALLY enjoyed "The Help", but I believe it was Kathryn Stockett's first book. I would still like to read the books that I didn't get to this time.... but it might be a while before I get to them.

Cooper : 2 Months

This update is a little late... but better late than never.

Cooper is growing wonderfully. I couldn't be happier with his progress.
As of June 11th:
Height 23.75 inches
Weight 11 lbs 8 oz.
and I cant remember his head circumference, but whatever it is, it's proportional.

In 2 months he has grown 3.75 inches & gained 4 lbs which I think is totally impressive considering the rocky start that he had. He is wearing 0-3 month clothes, and is getting close to growing out of some of them... he's tall, but still pretty skinny. The other day I was holding him so he was standing on my lap, and bouncing him, and his pants fell right off.

We're figuring this whole newborn thing out again.... it's taking quite a bit. I'm amazed at how much I've forgotten since Maria was born. I was so concentrated on his eating for so long that I forgot about sleeping... Now things are better. He's eating and sleeping like a champ. Which is not to say that I don't get up multiple times every night, I do, but in comparison to what sleeping was like for the first month, he's a total champ now.

He has started blowing saliva bubbles. I remember when Maria passed that milestone.... not exactly sure why that sticks out in my mind, but it does. He has also started smiling a LOT and "laughing". He loves it when I wiggle his legs. He also enjoys tummy time. Sometimes he'll just lay there like it's the most comfortable place in the world to be.

I've really slacked at taking pictures lately.... going to start working on that.

... rear view mirror ...

Some days are just plain hard. I had a few of those a couple of weeks ago.

Me.... breaking down and crying.

At one point I looked in my rear view mirror and saw this...

My sweet little girl, looking down at my lovely baby boy.

and I know, that I can make it through. Everything will end up just fine.... more than just fine....
Perfect.

Cows

Maria loves cows.

It's the first animal that she could identify.... even before puppies.

She would moo at the cows... and the horses.... and the llamas. She is getting better at differentiating between them now, (thanks to apps on Nana & Bapa's ipads) but at one point they were all cows.

Not too far from our house is a field that will sometimes have cows in it. They are very friendly cows. If you stop your car for a few minutes on the road they'll make their way over to check out what's going on. The other day we stopped and got out. Maria was in heaven.



She may not look totally enthralled, but she was. We had quite the little fight trying to get her back into her car seat.

the bay

We've been going out to the bay a bunch lately.

We load up the car, get some firewood and some fixin's and spend the evening around a campfire.

We LOVE it....

Marco LOVES building and tending the fire... it makes him feel like he's camping, but I get to stay in my own bed at night...



Once we had a bunch of visitors...



... because Marco and Maria were feeding them...



Here's Maria tossing some bread to the birds... it lands about 6 inches away from her feet.



Here's another one of Maria chasing the birds.... she's REALLY into animals these days.



One time we brought the extra booster seat for her campfire seat... she buckled herself in all by herself.



Nana & Bapa have been joining us on our little excursions... in fact today we took the bikes out and went for rides... It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

Here's Nana & Cooper



I've got a great one that I took of Bapa & Maria today, but it's still on the camera which is outside in the car and I don't feel like going out there and getting it because I'd have to put shoes on because I don't want to walk on the gravel barefooted plus I'm tired and I want to get this blog up and go to bed.

Here's another one of Cooper.... check out his "receding" hair line... he looks like a little old man.



Maria loves to hold hands when we're driving down the road... normally it's my hand but sometimes Cooper will get in on the fun (if he's cooperating and willing to grab onto a finger.)



This little girl loves chips.



and chocolate... not such a big fan of the marshmallows though.

This is our A-MAZ-ING red polka dot table cloth.
i LOVE it!!



and because I can't resist... here are a few more quick shots that i got of Maria.



I'm looking forward to when Cooper is a little more mobile. Right now I hold him a lot of the time which doesn't make it easy to take pictures.

I'm enjoying this "summer" so far. I'm hoping that we'll get out to the bay at LEAST once a week. Maybe this year I'll get a tan!!

crafty inspiration

In May we made a trip down to Oregon to visit my dear ol' bro and his family. They live it this adorable little house that has such great character. It totally matches their little family.

One reason I love visiting them is I always get struck with inspiration while there. Rachel is really crafty and she has this style that I'll never be cool enough to have.

She had this jewelry holder that I was totally jealous of....



I actually took a picture of it cause I wanted to see what I could do to replicate it...

So today my mom and I, with kids in tow, headed over to a local fabric shop and I saw some material that I kind of fell in love with. So this afternoon I got out an old picture frame and whipped this out...



Now, there isn't any jewelry on it yet.... it seems as if I've lost one pair of every earring I own. So that just means I'll have to start collecting all over again, now that I have a place to put it.

It was pretty simple to make.

I used the cardboard back that came with the picture frame as my mounting board. I cut a piece of batting, and a piece of material slightly larger than the cardboard and stapled them to the cardboard.

Then I cut ribbon, stapled that.

Then I wanted to add a place for stud earrings to go so I got that counted cross-stitch hoop and (with my mom's permission) used part of her wedding veil (which she is in the process of retro-fitting for my sister) to make a place for those to go and "secured" it with some upholstery nails (which didn't really work so well, so I added a bunch of hot glue).

I love it and I can't wait to get some jewelry up on there!!

... the world spins madly on....

I'm back... hopefully.
This past month has been full of drama.... which I don't really want to re-hash, so I'm not going to. Here's to moving forward.

..........................................................................

Yesterday might have just been a random Wednesday to most folks, but to me it was May 26th... the day I got married. So for the first time in quite a while I put on lipstick & shoes that weren't flip-flops, and went out to dinner with my hubby sans children (thank you mom & dad!!)

We went over to Anthony's down by the bay for a lovely dinner. The children had a great time with Nana & Bapa, and we got home in time to put them to bed. I really couldn't have asked for more.

In way of updates...
Cooper:up to 10 lbs 4.5 ozholding his head up really wellwe're figuring out the sleeping & eating thing (it's amazing how much I've forgotten.He's smiling & cooing & stealing my heart.

Maria:
is such a big girl... today she said "go find bapa"... a 3 word sentence. I was flabbergasted.
she's sleeping thru the night
she wants to help all the time
she loves giving cooper hugs and kisses and wants to hold his hand
she wants to hold my hand when she's in her car seat.
she loves to dance, and bounce, and swing, and walk, and the tractor... oh how that girl loves the tractor!!

Me:
getting a little more sleep... which makes me happy
a little jealous of everyone else that gets to play with Maria when I really want to. I miss the days when it was just us and she was all mine... now we have to share each other, we're adjusting, but sometimes it's hard.