The 4th of July

We headed up to a hill right across from Six Flags Fiesta Texas to watch the fireworks.  Julien used to have this serious fear of fireworks but last year he decided he liked them.  This year he was more than excited!  Jonah has always liked them.  Rich loves the 4th so he gets the kids all fired up about it.  It's really cute.  He made a huge bowl of popcorn to bring.  That's about the extent of our celebration this year.  We did enjoy the fireworks and Cooper was fascinated too!  It's so fun to see the kids get so excited and create these memories. 
To the left- couldn't get a smile out of him:(.  It's crazy he is wearing these shorts that the other boys used to wear when they were already walking! 

                                    In p,j.s having fun!  We have cut Jonah's hair since, no worries!

                                                                   Pooped out baby! 

Hope you all enjoyed your celebration!     

Julien turns 6

I'm already almost a month behind on this post, but didn't want to leave it out.  I can't believe I have a six year old.  Julien is changing so fast.  He is really tall, has his second loose tooth, he reads, he helps me around the house, he is just with the program.  The kid grew up way too fast!  He had a special memorable birthday this year.  He spent the day fishing with Rich and my dad.  I wish I had been there.  It was just the three of them so it made it super special for Julien.  No little brothers, just feeling like the big kid with dad and grandpa.  Luckily my dad snapped a few pictures.  I wish I had one of the 3 of them.  When they got back he opened presents. Jonah had been touching them and talking about the presents the whole time Julien was gone.  Later that night we went to Bill Miller BBQ (Julien's pick) for dinner and came home and had dessert.  He was so sweet because he kept thanking us all day, "thank you for making my birthday so special!"  We love you Julien!  Happy 6th Birthday!!

My baby with many names

I once read an article about how children feel loved when they have many nicknames. I don't know if that is true or not, but if it is, my Cooper boy has plenty. I'm sure many parents come up with the weirdest nick-names for their babies. One day I will look at my baby and a name will come out of my mouth and I have no idea where it came from but it ends up sticking. It's weird because around other people only their real names come out, but at home my babies have silly names.
I used to call Julien "Ham" and I'm sure I had more names but the memory has faded.
Jonah was "Nonah, Nonah," and (still is) "Hampton" and when I'm in a weird mood and talking to the kids in "that" voice I will often say "you're mommy's Hamptonite!" SO WEIRD, I KNOW! But I can't help myself.
Now for my newest little squishers, here are the names I call him. ( Again, don't know where they come from and I am fully aware that they are strange and so am I).....

Bootsy-Boots

Bootsy

Booshkins

Kins

Cooperton

Coop

By next week I could have more

Notice his sweet little fingers stuck in his blanket?  Awe, I love that, it happens all of the time:)!  This was taken a couple of weeks ago before church. 

Love him, I do!

6 months!

My baby turns 6 months tomorrow. He is the little light of my life! He is so happy and so patient. My, oh my, I love him.

The little cutie is still not sleeping through the night yet. He wakes up about 2-3 times a night (with a lot of stirring where I just pop his binkie back in). Luckily, he eats and goes right back to sleep though, so it's not so bad but I look forward to sleeping through the night again someday. The blanket on him in these pictures is the one that Rich's grandma made for the kid's blessing day. I ended up using it a lot with Cooper because he pulls blankets over his head a lot so I used this one because it has holes in it. He still manages to pull the whole thing over his face in a pile and I wake up in panic every night because he struggles to breath once he does that and can't get it off. I tell ya. I tried to just dress him warm the other night so he wouldn't have to use a blanket and he cried and cried and I couldn't get him comfortable. Finally I just put this blanket back in his crib and he gave me the cutest smile and snuggled it and went right to sleep! So he is already attached! I love watching him sleep.


I started him on solids this week.

Mmm, avocados!!

Snuggling with Dad.

Making progress!

Lately I've been finding new ways to get my picky eater, Jonah, to try new foods. Here is what I tried today:

The kids and I were at the health food store this morning and they had samples of grapes and had tooth picks to pick them up with. Jonah use to eat grapes a while back but has refused them for quite a while now. Oh but not at the store...way too fun to eat them off of a stick! So we got home and they told me they were hungry so I said I had a special treat for them and sent them into the other room while I prepared it. So as you can see in the pictures, I used the same concept (not that I hadn't seen that before) and crossed my fingers that Jonah would get a little brave and try some more fruit. At this point in time, the only fruit he will eat whole is an apple (and grapes at the store). The only way I can get fruit in him is to make them smoothies everyday. Anyway, the kids definitely enjoyed making these. Jonah was only willing to put strawberries on his, but that was okay. Again, this is another food he use to eat but has refused for a long time now. He stacked them as high as he could and once he was done I was still hoping he would actually eat them. He did, and finished the whole kabob, and then stacked another one half way and finished it off. So progress! Although it wasn't exactly a "new" food, it was a breakthrough and by the end he said, "I just LOVE strawberries!" It was funny watching Jonah too because he was so into this activity and stayed at the table long after Julien had run off to play and kept on eating! Slowly, but surely, we will get there!

Letters to my children

Haven't you heard every mom say "kids grow up too fast!" We all hear that! That's because it's so true, sniff, sniff. Raising kids is such a constantly changing experience that it's easy to forget different stages that you think at the time you could never forget. (That is the main reason I do this blog, so I can remember what happened with all of these pictures and stages...instead of hoping to one day scrapbook them and hopefully remember the milestone, the story, the details, etc.....ya know, years down the road when I actually make time to scrapbook). In addition to this blog and my personal journal (which I need to get on the ball with keeping up on), I have baby books for all of my kids. I haven't been perfect at keeping up on those, but I do try to record most of the milestones; keep a little sample of their hair from their first haircuts (yes I do!); and fill out as much as I remember to. Today I was in the boys room and for some reason the thought came to me to get out Julien's baby book (since he was the only one in there with me). He is a pretty sentimental kid so he sat there and oohed and awed with me. He loves when I tell him stories of when he was a little younger. So as we were going through his baby book we came to a page with an envelope labeled, "a letter from Mommy." We opened it up and although it had been 4 years since I wrote the letter, I wasn't surprised to see how long it was. I had written a 4 page (2 pages front and back) letter to my little 2 year old. I don't know how to write a short letter (kind of like I don't know how to write a short post)! I asked him if he wanted me to read it to him and he said yes. As I read the letter I began to swell up with tears. I had written things about Julien at age 2 that I haven't thought about in so long and would have probably forgotten if I hadn't read that. Oh the memories! Then Julien looked at me and hugged me and said, "Mom, I'm sorry for growing up." I went from teary to saying loudly, "NO!!! Don't ever say that!! I love this big boy Julien as much as I love that baby Julien! etc." Then I felt bad that he felt bad for growing up! I tried to explain to him that all mommies and daddies get a little sad about their kids growing so fast, but that doesn't mean we are sad that they are growing up and that we DO want them to grow up and we love them just as much! Reading those memories just reminded me how fast life goes by and how quickly these little babies grow up; it's bitter/sweet and I could not hide those emotions while reading that to him. Anyway, moral of the story: take time to write my kids more letters and record the little things they do, because no matter how much I think I will remember all of the little things, I probably won't. Geeeesh, I love being a mom!!!!!!!!

My Aunt's visit part 2

While my aunt was here (see post below), she wanted to get the boys matching outfits to take some pictures. So we went and found these at Kohl's. I love the outfits. So our first attempt to take pictures at a park lasted about 2 minutes. I was bummed cause I really liked the setting. We got eaten alive by mosquitoes and I think Cooper got bit right away because before I even set him down he was screaming crying. So there we were trying to get the kids to ignore the mosquitoes that were attacking them and sit and smile....yeah right. They were just as annoyed as us adults were at the bugs. And then we tried to take a few shots of all three boys but the Coop-man was not a happy camper. We promised the kids that if they were good for the pictures (sitting still, smiling, no whining, etc.) then they could play at the park. Since the mosquitoes were so bad we ended up leaving that park and Jonah was soooo crushed, but we ended up at a school and finished the photo shoot there and then they played. We were losing light fast and the kids were not sitting the way we would pose them (you know how it goes) so between my aunt and I we just snapped as many as we could without caring about angles all that much. So considering how "non professionally" we shot these, we ended up with a few good ones and lots of funny ones, so I am very happy with them. I love my handsome dudes! And again, Rich was away working his little tail off for us, so no family shots this time. I loved this one of Julien. Just ignore Jonah's shirt in the bottom corner there, I didn't want to crop Julien's head just to edit it out.







I'm pretty sure that Jonah is holding a mosquito bite in those pictures above. But what a sport!






Would have been perfect if Cooper was happy! Notice the mosquito on Cooper's shirt!



These ones crack me up! This is them wanting to get out of there, away from the bugs! Jonah was trying extra hard because he wanted to play at the park so badly!

LOCATION 2





How do you get three squirmy boys to all smile at the camera at the same time????





After the boys ran off to play we snapped a few more of Cooper...






I'm so happy it's summer! Not excited about this heat, just excited to be able to do more with my kids. My sister and her family fly in tonight and we have a fun week planned. Can't wait to take some pictures of my beautiful niece!

My auntie came!

My aunt Kathy from WA came to visit us for a few days. We really love her and enjoyed the time together. (Rich had to work the whole time and missed out though). She is so much fun and we didn't want to see her go. She took care of me a lot when I was little and now it's fun to see her interact with my kids. They love their great aunt Kathy! She gets right down at their level and plays with them. She wants to be a grandma so bad but isn't one, so she likes to treat my kids/my sister's kid like her grand kids. We are going to miss her! Between her and I we took a bazillion pictures this past week. Before she left I uploaded all of her pics. Here are just a few, but next post there will be a ton more.....

And on a side note:
Cooper can roll over both ways now and sits up on my bed for a minute before falling over. He continues to be the sweetest baby ever!

Can't get enough of him

My little Coop-man is just the best baby ever. He is so sweet! He smiles as soon as you make eye contact with him. He is so kissable and squeezable too! He is growing so fast. He recently started to say, "mama mama mama," as he cries. Julien and Jonah are still crazy about him too. Every time we get in the car they say, "I get to sit by Cooper!" Of course they both can't sit by him, so one of them ends up crying or getting mad. He is just such a joy and we all can't get enough. He is really fun to take pictures of because he gives the cutest looks. I decided to make some collages since I had so many that I wanted to share. Cooper still has a bit of a rash on his face and head so some of these pictures he looks a little greasy from ointment and the scratches on him are from his little nails (he scratches in his sleep). If this is not overload enough, I also finally took the time to teach myself how to make my pics larger...sorry if it's overkill.




Cooper has finally started to try to roll over. Is this baby huge, or what?! These next pictures really show off his chub!

Cooper is also working on another skill....sitting up all by himself.....(we practice on the bed to cushion the fall).



Yep, I could eat him!
Just chillin' before church....

Cooper is also an amazing example in our home....

Always reminding us to read our scriptures:).
I hope you enjoyed my most gigantic post ever!

Sea World

Rich got some free tickets to Sea World from work (pretty cool, right!)! So we definitely couldn't pass up the opportunity! Our kids have never been to an amusement park before so they were very impressed and beg me everyday to go back. They went on their first roller coaster. Of course it was just a kiddie one but they went on it at least 7 times. Cooper was a total angel and did not fuss once until we got in the car, and then he fell asleep shortly after. Within minutes of being in the car all the kids were sound asleep. They had a blast! Jonah tries his hardest everyday now to get me to take him back. He still looks at the Sea World map and dreams of going on the big rides. I now use this to my advantage. When he cries about not being big enough to ride the big rides I tell him he will have to eat lots of healthy food to grow bigger. Anyway, it was lots of fun and totally exhausting with three kids, but definitely worth it. Oh, and the last time Rich and I were at Sea World was on our 1 year anniversary in Sept. 2002. We brought baby Julien with us (he was a couple of months old) and we dressed him in the same outfit that Cooper has on in these pictures (Cooper barely fit in the shirt!). It was weird to go back with now-3 kids!

Here is a little video of Cooper while at Sea World. He is just smiling away until he hears another kid cry and looks away with a concerned face, then goes right back to smiling.
P.S. I have a picture overload coming of my little lover boy (Cooper) coming as soon as I find the extra time.

School Program

Julien had his first school program last week. It really hit me how old I am getting. I clearly remember being in school programs. But there I was with THREE kids, watching MY little kindergartner. He did a great job. They said to dress in church clothes, so he got spiffed up in his suit. Rich wasn't able to make it because of a mandatory meeting at work, but my dad and Carolyn came. Thank goodness they did for my sake too because Cooper got startled by the loud noise and was inconsolable for quite some time. I had to take him up top to calm him. Luckily I could still see Julien, but wasn't able to get any pictures or videos. But again, thanks to my dad, he was able to do that for me. Jonah was also a monkey the whole time and kept my dad very busy as I held Cooper. All in all, it was still such a great night and I am really excited for Julien to be finishing up his first year of school. I can't believe he is almost six and will be a first grader soon! It's been a great year for him and he has learned so many things and made a lot of friends. We are really proud of him. Julien in front of his artwork.

They got to go on the carousel before the program, it was held at a local church.

The kids with Carolyn.

Julien with his teacher. I hope he gets a good teacher like her next year!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com
I have a few more post coming sometime this week.