Very Quick Update...

Cooper got his 5this tooth! The top two are coming in quick and just today another bottom one popped through. His right side. Ahhhhh. He is also crawling more and more. He likes to have his right knee down and his left foot down, so he does a little bit of a push with his foot and scoot with his knee. He is able to pull up on just about anything, but he is not balancing on his own, thank goodness.

Craig was accepted to the CRNA program at Loma Linda yesterday! He will start taking classes this next quarter and start the program in the fall. We are still trying to figure out the legistics, but we have faith it will all work out.

I made another trip to the urgent care this morning for a killer sore throat (with white spots). The dr. said she did not see any white spots and that she did not think it was strep, but I can see them, plain as day and I am already feeling better then I have in the past 3 days after just two doses of antibiotics :o)

Kylie went the whole day in underwear without an accident!

We got Cooper a birth certificate.

And we got to spend a little time getting to know Kimmy and Maya, the other new neighbors on the street.

Nico turned 1 year old!

It was a pretty eventful day for us. More to come soon.
-Natalie

Coopie has top teeth! And he is crawling!!!

Just yesterday one of Coopies top teeth, the left, popped through! You can also see the right one through the gum, so I expect that it will be through by the end of today. WOW! He has also been enjoying lots of new foods... today he tried a raspberry, he has also had carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, banana, broccoli, orange and I'm sure a few more I can't think of. We are still doing the Baby Lead Weaning for the most part, letting him feed himself and he is getting more and more coordinated with his hands and his mouth, it's fun to see. Cooper is also officially crawling, he doesn't move very quick, or crawl for long distances, but when I put him down in the living room, he can make it to the dinning room in a matter of a couple minutes. He also pulled himself to a stand yesterday at the side of our friends couch! It's so amazing to watch his brain grow everyday. He is also communicating more and more, we think he is starting to sign when he is all done, he will throw both his arms in the air and he only does it when he is eating and seems to be finished. He gets VERY upset if someone takes the toy he is playing with, he is very quick to cry when he doesn't get what he wants. And he is such a Daddy's boy! Yesterday Craig got home and Cooper saw him before he had a chance to take a shower, Cooper was so excited that Craig decided to wash his hands and come at least say hi to him. He was so excited and reaching and almost whimpering until Craig was holding him, then when Craig had to take a shower he complained until Craig got out and held him again. Daddy's Boy! Coopie loves to sleep in his stroller, what!? Yep, it's the only reason I am able to sit and write a blog right now (I probably just jinxed myself). Cooper is not a big fan of sleeping in a carrier (but he will if he has to), doesn't like to be walked (unless it is in the middle of the night) and on occasion will go down for a nap nursing, but only if he is really sleepy. Cooper loves to sleep in his stroller! He get him all bundled up, give him a little toy to hold and start walking, if he is tired, he will be out in about 3 minutes. Most days all I have to do is walk one time around the block and he is out! This is great sometimes, there are other times when it is not so convenient. For example, I am home alone with the kids, Kylie is ready for a nap, Cooper used to just nurse with Ky and they would both sleep, now I am trying to nurse Kylie and read her a story, Cooper is frantically crawling on me and Kylie trying to get the book, he is distracted by Kylie and wants to play with her instead of sleep. So I am trying to somehow entertain him, while staying quiet enough for Kylie to fall asleep. Once she is asleep we sneak away and Cooper is still ready for a nap, so now I am trying to walk him around the block, but not be to far from home in case Kylie wakes up. Once he is asleep, and I have double checked that Kylie is still sleeping, I have to leave him on the front porch where it is nice and cool, do I leave the door open and run the heater? do I close the door, but that just doesn't seem like good parenting. Do I sit out there with him and get nothing else done and leave Kylie in here alone? Oh it's not so easy. But it only lasts for maybe 30 minutes until one, or both of them are up :o)

Kylie is potty training! She has gone about 5 days wearing underpants without an accident. She seems to do better when I don't ask her if she needs to go. I just ignore it all together and she either just goes to the potty on her own (then calls for me if she needs help "I have a little bit of a disaster in here" she said to me the other day when she needed help wiping) or she will find me and ask "do I have a diaper on?" "No, you have big girl panties on." Then we are rushing to the potty. Yesterday she found me twice during out breastfeeding group and told me she needed to go, and once it was #2! She is doing so well and I am glad we are gently transitioning without a lot of messes, arguing, tears or bribes. It feels like it did when she started sleeping in her own bed, she decided when it was the right time and we just go from there. However she is still nursing a lot! Which I don't mind, but she throws a royal fit if I tell her she needs to wait, or that we can not nurse in certain situations. I am hoping she will transition smoothly when it comes to nursing too, but I am having a hard time being patient with her and find myself thinking about how and when we should wean. But then I realize how much she still needs it and how wonderful it is for both of us and I am not ready to ask her to stop. I'm sure it will work itself out someday :o)

Kylie is loving pre-school. She had her second day this week, they talked about the letter "B," blue and bats. My parents watched Nico and Cooper while Tabitha taught and I presented at a coalition meeting. The girls did great, Kylie was so proud of her art projects she came home with. Kylie has been singing the Frozen songs all the time, she recites many books and just last night we had lots of girls over playing, we found Kylie, Portia, Mish and Elly Jane all cuddled up in Kylie's bed with the covers pulled up, later Kylie and Portia were tucked in reading stories to each other, so sweet. She is really enjoying her legos and she is getting better and better at imaginary play. She negotiates very well and has the memory of an elephant, which can make things a little hard sometimes :o)

Here are a few photos...

Pre-School

 Coopie and avocado...

 Just read them a book and they both nursed to sleep, life doesn't get better then this.

 Last night we had lots of monkeys jumping on the bed!

 We still love story time at the library.

 Kylie is getting better at counting 6-10 on her fingers.

Last weekend Lala and Papa David came to visit! It was so wonderful to spend time with them! Thank you for making the trip, we can't wait to see you all again soon!!!!!
-Natalie 

Coopie is almost crawling and Kylie started neighborhood preschool!

Our little man is growing up so fast. Cooper is 7 months old and over the past week he has been pushing up on all 4s and starting to rock a little. He will then fling himself forward and try again. On our new rug in the living room, he is getting good at digging his fingers in and pulling himself forward. He is now also able to get from a sitting position down to his belly, and back up to sitting! He has pulled himself up on a couple different items and will stand leaning against the couch. It's all going way to fast! Kylie was a very cautious kid, we never had to childproof much or worry about her getting hurt. Cooper is a totally different story, he is already in to everything and he is not even about to get around that much.

Today we started our neighborhood preschool co-op. Every Monday from 9-12 the 5 little girls (Kylie, Mish, Portia, Elly and Emerson) will have "preschool." We are taking turns at all of our houses and today it was at Rachel's.  The girls learned about the letter A and the color Red! Kylie was so excited about going to school this morning. My parents were with her since Craig and I were both working, but they said that she was dressed and ready an hour early and when it was finally time to go she ran all the way to Rachel's house.
Coloring time...

 Last week Kylie got to go to two birthday parties in one day! Her friend Hana had a party at Big Air and Ama had a dinner party.

 She insisted on wearing Coopers pjs...

 Mish and Ky at preschool today.

 Kylie trying an ice cream sandwich for the first time at Hana's birthday.

 All of our families traveled a lot over the holidays. The girls were so excited to get back together and play. this was taken about a week ago.

I left Cooper here for about 30 seconds with one book in his lap and came back to this...

 Painting apples at preschool.

 Tea party time...

 Kylie loves playing at Rachel's house, the girls have so much fun stuff! This day they all dressed up. Kylie is wearing Lilly's costume that is only about 5 sizes to big, but she didn't care. She sang Frozen songs to us anyway.

 A couple nights ago at dinner Cooper started raising his hands. Sometimes both of them and sometimes just one. "Yes Coopie, how can we help you?"

 Bath time!

 We have also been continuing with introducing different foods to Cooper. He is getting better and better at getting food to his mouth and chewing it. At this point he has had avocado, banana, carrots, asparagus, peas, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, cucumber, broccoli, apple, strawberries and oranges. He seems to like it all and we have not had any problems. It is so fun to be able to give him some food, he loves feeling like he is part of meal time.

Both kids and Craig have been sick for the past couple weeks, but it got worse over the past couple days :o( And just today I started to feel yucky too :o(  I am hoping we can kick this thing soon, it is no fun having stuffy kids that can't breath well at night. I also developed a clogged milk duct (first time ever in almost 3 years of breastfeeding). It has been 2.5 days and I have tried everything to get rid of it. The plan is to keep massaging and warm compresses and hoping for the best. I have been having Kylie nurse on that side as often as I can, I figured she would be strong enough to clear it, but no luck so far :o(

Time for bed, good night.
Natalie

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

One of my New Year's resolutions...write in this blog more often!

We had a wonderful Christmas with Craig's family and a pretty quite New Years (I was the only one awake at midnight and I didn't even notice it was past 12 until I got in bed, I guess that's what happens when you have kids, lol)

So here are some quick updates...Over the past couple days Cooper has started waving. He waves his whole arm, his left arm! He has also started pushing up to all fours, ahhh. He does this plank move and sometimes puts his knees down, then he looks around to see if anyone was watching, so cute. He is really enjoying food, we are offering him things from our plate and he is enjoying experimenting. There have been a couple times when I have blended something up in an attempt to spoon feed him so there is not a huge mess. He simply won't let me put the spoon in his mouth, he wants to do it himself, so there are many meals where Cooper is feeding himself and I am spoon feeding Kylie so she will eat, just so silly. Coopie has also started "talking" more. Just about three days ago I was telling Craig that I didn't think Cooper was as verbal as Kylie was at this age, "maybe it's just a boy thing." By that afternoon Cooper was talking more, it was like he heard me and wanted to prove me wrong. It is so fun hearing his little voice. He communicates so well, just tonight he was chewing on some asparagus and I took the old piece from his hand to offer him a new one. When I took it from him he looked at me with this mad face and started to cry, I felt so bad. Cooper is an "everything goes in the mouth" kid, I don't remember Kylie being this way, it's a whole new experience for us. And boy does he get mad when you take something away that he was chewing on. He is also the type of kid that we will have to baby proof for. Just today I sat him on the bathroom floor while I took a shower. I put an entire basket of fun toys in front of him and jumped in the shower. Not two seconds later he is pulling the step stool over to himself, he pushes and pulls enough to tip it over. Then he turns around and realizes that if he leans far enough to his left he can reach the knob on the drawer below the sink. After opening and closing it about 20 times, he uses the drawer and pulls himself closer to the sink, close enough to reach the cupboard door. Opens and closes that about 20 times then starts to empty the cupboard, out comes the shampoo, body wash, lotion...all the time his toys sit untouched.  Guess it's time to baby proof!

Kylie is a joy (as always). Her make believe play is so fun to watch. She tells us about Don and all the kids, and after seeing Frozen for the first time over Christmas, she often includes Ana and Elsa in the stories. She still insists on hearing one day when she is eating, but every once in a while we can get her to tell us a story instead. She always picks out her own clothes and lately she found a drawer where I had been hiding summer clothes. We are planning a trip to hawaii so I didn't want to put all the summer clothes away, just wanted them out of her drawer so she didn't think they were an option when it is 50 degrees outside. But she found them and has been insisting that she wear them, I told her they were for Hawaii and now she asks us everyday if today is the day we get to go to Hawaii. A couple days ago I got her a calendar. We have been putting all the fun things we have to look forward to on the calendar (including Hawaii). Every night before bed we cross off the day on the calendar and talk about what we have planned for the next day. Today was Ama's Birthday and tomorrow is Hana's Birthday Party and Ama's Birthday Party, Kylie is so excited! When Kylie is done with a meal she say "So I think I'm pretty much all done." Which means I will eat a ton more if you feed me, but I am done feeding myself. She has also started saying really sweet things like "mommy, your a good mommy," "I love you," "make a happy face for me" (she often says this when I am upset at her for some reason and she doesn't want me to "have a sad face anymore"). And of course she is adding in a lot of "like," "you know," "like whatever," sometimes I think I am talking to a teenager.  She also surprised me today by singing all the words to "Rudolf the red nosed reindeer," I had no idea she knew the whole song! She can carry on a whole conversation and is even good at keeping it going. We were eating together the other day and I was not being super talkative, Kylie kept prompting me "so mommy, how's your day going?" "mommy, what should we talk about?" "you know I was thinking about..." Between the two of us, poor Cooper and Craig might not get much in :o) Kylie has officially learned about sweets, desserts, chocolate and all good things. We are trying not to fall to fast down the slippery slope, but it is hard when you have parents with a big sweet tooth. Kylie has also recently started playing more board games. She really like "Guess Who" but we got a few for Christmas so we are hoping to start a family game night so we can look forward to playing games every week.

I'm sure there is more to say, but time for some photos...

We went to visit the girls next door and Kylie got to taste her first candy cane. She loved it, needless to say. We let her have little bits at a time and tonight she finally finished it (only about two weeks after she got it).

 Bubba hanging out with Coopie while we were all out to lunch.

 Home made tree ornaments, we made them at breastfeeding group with all the babies foot prints, they came out cute!

Christmas morning.

 Christmas Eve, sleeping in their new pjs.

 Little boy in a big bed.

 Christmas Eve with Craig's cousins and their kids.

 "Good morning Baltimore!"

 Showing off her new Giants sweatshirt.

Today the girls played dress up at the big girls house.

 Late night performance time, she made up a whole song about hugging the Christmas tree. It's times like this when Craig and I are so tired, we wish she would just to go sleep like other kids at a normal time, then she starts to come alive and perform and all we can do is smile.

 They both seem to sleep better when they are together, so cute.

 Just today (after he got in to everything in the bathroom) I put him down for about 30 seconds and come back to this...

 Loving to chew on empty edemame pods.

 Lego time. The girls were so happy to see each other after all of us were gone for Christmas.

 This little guy actually falls asleep in the stroller!

 Super Cooper!

 Photos from our trip to Portorville. Dolly had 8 puppies, just two weeks old!

 Cousins Christmas.

 Putting candles on the cake for baby Jesus.

 New Christmas pjs and books. I just love their faces, it's like they saw Santa.

 Christmas morning.

 Coopie and his Ammy.

 Christmas!

 Gingerbread houses with the Worthley's. Kylie opened the white elephant gift of Barbie with two little barbies hot glued to her boobs. Kylie and Coopie having nannies at the beach, made us all laugh so hard. Kylie loved it!

 Coop, Ky and Madelyn Drew.