Friday, July 29, 2011

The one in Jacksonville, PART DEUX...

As our time in Jacksonville is ending, I am sad to go (I will miss the home cooked meals, something about others cooking that tastes so good!!), but also SUPER EXCITED because Josh comes home!!!! Thank goodness my two weeks without Josh went by quickly, more so this last week. THANK YOU FAMILY. Being without him this long is hard. Even when he lived in Pittsburgh we didn't go this long apart, crazy I KNOW!

I think Cooper got to see everyone, from Great Grandparents to cousins to friends to soon to be brides! We had Great Grandpa Butch over for dinner. Grandpa Carl (aka Butch) cooked beef stroganoff that was AMAZING.  We shared lots of good laughs and stories, mainly how similar Cooper and Josh are. I am in for T.R.O.U.B.L.E. We don't call my dad Grandpa Butch. He prefers Grandpa Carl, his real name, so Cooper doesn't get too confused. Check out this picture below.... It probably won't ever be captured this well, EVER again. Both grandpa's grinnin big!


Cooper had his first beach experience this trip. The real beach, we've been to the lake beach, but even if the park guard compares the lake beach to the real beach, it doesn't at all. Cooper was so content, loved the water, sand and just being outdoors. He picked up sand a fews times and not once put it is his mouth. SHOCKER since everything else he picks up goes in there.  He is going to really love the beach when he can walk and feel the sand squish between his toes... Josh and I, not so much. This time was easy since he just sat there. Next time we will be chasing him up and down the beach. I'll never forget what a lady told me while I was pregnant. She asked what I was having and I told her a boy. Her response was "Invest in a good pair of running shoes." If Cooper is anything like his dad, which thus far he has proven to be, I will need to take that advice as soon as I get back to Atlanta. My running shoes are getting old...



Stay tuned for Germany pictures! Maybe I can talk Josh into posting the next one! Have a great weekend! We are seeing cousin Dave also tomorrow. He is back from Iraq for a few weeks! The last time he saw Cooper was Christmas, boy has he changed!

LOVE

Monday, July 25, 2011

The one in Jacksonville....

Home sweet home... It feels good to be home in Jacksonville with Cooper. But something is still missing... Joshua. Being here has made time go by much quicker, so I know Saturday is just around the corner. Cooper and I have big plans for the week!! He got to hang out at the pool on Sunday at our friends house. Coop LOVED the water and of course being around 7 pretty ladies! He even skipped his nap that day to hang out with all his Jacksonville Aunts! Ashley is still getting used to having a baby around, we are teaching her things she never knew about babies, so when it is her time she will be an expert! For example, "I didn't know babies need sunscreen!" or "OMG, he just sneezed! Is he okay?" Ashley, he is ok is just like us, only little... here's your sign!! haha Love you ASH!! Anyway, Cooper is with Grandma Karen for a few days. I saw them today, he is doing good. But I think another tooth is coming in! We will soon find out!

Josh is doing good in Germany! Including business, he is thoroughly enjoying the country and the surrounding ones. He went to Austria this past week. For those of you who are Sound of Music fans (like me) you would be soooooo jealous that he got to tour the country side of Austria where the Sound of Music was filmed. Pictures of that coming soon... The beer is getting excellent reviews as well as his colleagues over there. He is definitely enjoying his stay. He is already planning on taking me there next year for a vacation!! I can't wait!

Tonight Kelly and Jason (The soon to be Frotten's) had me over for dinner. I was SUPER happy to be there and get some one-on-one time with Kel and do some wedding planning! As you probably already know, she asked me to be in their wedding. I feel like this is a 2nd chance, to do everything I wanted to do or wish I did, but didn't have enough time to do NOW!! Who knows if she will really like my ideas, but I have been tasked with helping with the center pieces. I love shopping and designing and of course PLANNING so I am ready to begin! I have already been stalking Hobby Lobby and Michaels weekly for ideas and getting the weekly trend of sales so I can prepare to purchase!

Cooper and I have many more lunches with many more members of the family the rest of the week. AND I am taking him to the beach Thursday morning. So hopefully I will have more pictures to come from our trip as well.... here are a few!

Exploring
Lunch time at Bono's!
Photo time with Granna and Grandpa!
Laughing at mommy's funny jokes!


LOVE

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The one where I'm a "single" mom...

Props to all the single mothers, the mothers who husbands travel all the time and the mothers who husbands don't help! I have a new appreciation for Josh. This single mom business is TOUGH!! I am completely beat and it's only Wednesday. Monday night dinner with my friends was rough. We waited almost and hour to be seated so by then Cooper was totally over the place and super cranky. When Josh and I are together, we take turns holding him if he gets that way, take turns eating, etc. Only Monday night, I felt so scattered brained and all over the place. Josh wasn't there to help. Luckily I have amazing friends who offered to help so I could eat. I know it doesn't sound THAT bad, but when you are used to tag teaming the kid, its rough. I come home that night and get Cooper ready for bed. As I take his diaper off and I am reaching for the wipes, I feel something wet and warm down the side of me... YUP he peed on me!! He hasn't done that since his first few weeks here. Coop and I are both out of our element.... He slept decent that night.

Last night, the neighbs invited me over for dinner, which was awesome because they have a 2 year old so the kids just entertain themselves. PLUS Cooper loves new toys. Anyway, I got in bed around 9, thinking YES finally some peace and quiet and some good sleep. Boy was I wrong. He woke up every 2-3hours screaming bloody murder. The first time, I let him scream it out since he just ate 2.5 hours ago. The 2:30 and 4:30 awakening I got up. Partly because I may have been sleep walking. Anyway my point is, this kids SLEEPS THROUGH THE NIGHT, when Josh is here. He must wake wanting his Daddy!!! Thank goodness I am going home, so he can scream for his grandparents :)

Monday, July 18, 2011

The one with the sunflowers

As we are on our way to my company picinic Saturday, we passed the most beautiful field of flowers I have ever seen.... Hundreds and hundreds of sunflowers one after the other!! GORGEOUS! Of course I begged Josh to stop. We noticed people in the field so I knew you could pick your own. I kindly asked if he would pwetty pwetty please stop at the gas station so I could get cash.... AND $23.50 later, I had walked through the field, took beautiful pictures and picked my own sunflowers! Of course I had to fight the bees for them, but they are totally worth it sitting on my kitchen table.



That was my "thing" I picked to do that day as a family before Josh left.... you know what his was???? GUESS??? Get some good beer (shocker) and have a crab boil (another shocker). Two of his favorite things, next to me and Cooper. So thats what we did. Had good ol' crab legs before Josh set out on his Journey.

For those of you who don't know. Josh will be in Germany for two weeks. He made it there safely and has already hit up a few beer gardens. He absolutely loves it there. The people are super nice, laid back and walking everywhere. It's our cup of tea especially mine being as though some people call me "Earth" :)  Hopefully we get the chance to go again next year, since we just couldn't make it work this trip.

We miss you Josh!!!


LOVE

Friday, July 15, 2011

The one where I am searching for the secret....

So if you have it, I need it. I am in search of the secret that stops Cooper from growing!! I know he is only 8 months, but I feel like he should be just as little as the day he was born. What happened to those sleepless nights, or the days where Cooper curled up in my lap to eat his bottle, or the day you could lay Cooper on the bed and he would just look up at you instead of it taking 2 of us to change his diaper... I really started thinking of all this from few indicidents.... Inicident number one: I am sitting on the couch watchin TV and Cooper crawls to me, talking in his own language and reaches up to the seat cushions and pulls up, yes that means he is standing all on his own! Not only does he stand, he is walking holding on to the couch!!! It just blows my mind. Josh may be right and we may have a walker sooner than later. Indicent number two: I am feeding Cooper bananas for dinner and since I don't go quick enough he starts slamming is hand on the highchair indicating "more, more, more"! Anyway, I thought I'd share those few moments with you along with a few pictures from the week!

Look mommy, one hand!




As I was writing this, Cooper walked to the coffee table, pulled up and started pulling things off of it. He got real close to my wine glass! Time to get serious with this baby proofing.

LOVE

Monday, July 11, 2011

The one with the SURPRISE!!!

This weekend was cuz Jason's surprise party. He thought he was having a nice romantic weekend with his girlfriend Laura in the North Georgia Mountains cabin... however she was planning for 20 of his closest friends to be there to surprise him Saturday. She did a fantastic job organizing it and getting everyone there, and we all did a fantastic job keeping our big mouths shut for a month!! No one spilled the beans and everyone was there on time. They went horseback riding that morning so we all had to be at the cabin pretty early to be there when they returned. Laura blind folded Jason when they left that morning to each of their destinations. Surprises are the funnest, especially when the surprisee isn't expecting it!! Needless to say Jason had NO IDEA!! We got him good!!! That day we hung out in the river, ate lots of food and doin what mid 20 year olds do best... corn hole and brewskis. It was such a blast and a great change of scenery. Josh and I are thinking of renting this cabin out again when family comes in town. It was gorgeous, 2 stories, 4 bedrooms, hot tub, kitchen, huge porch.... I mean this place had it all, right on the river.

Hubsters got him good! Happy Birthday Cuzo


Grandma Kay and Captain were here Thursday thru Saturday morning. We had a great time with them.... eating lots of great food and drinking lots white wine! Their stay was short but sweet. We had some quality family time with GK learning the secrets to marriage! Thank you for sharing your wisdom :) They also took us to babies-r-us and got us all the goods to baby proof. Cooper is all over the place, so we gotta lock up those kitchen cabinets now before anything happens!!

Story time with GGK!!
Josh leaves this weekend for Germany so we are trying to get in some quality family time.... as usual tonight was Mexican Mondays!! I'm starting to rethink this though.... I always eat wayyyyyyyy to much. I can't stop eating those beef tacos. Maybe more than one prego craving still resides in me!

Have a great week y'all! LOVE

Thursday, July 7, 2011

The one with the little visitor....

So I walked outside the other morning to water the flowers and plants (shocker) and I noticed we had a little visitor, a turtle!!! He was so darn cute. I wanted to keep him as a pet for Cooper. He brought back memories of my childhood when I found Mrytle. Mrytle was my turtle I found in our front yard when we lived of Lamarshaw Rd. I kept him and took him in, well my parents took him in. I fed him on occassion but you know how cleaned the cage :)  Anyway, we let him go some time after in my grandparents lake. I begged Joshua to keep him, but he said, well you have to take care of him and clean the cage.... I said forget it, so who knows where our little visitor is now... Maybe he's the one eating my flowers.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The one where we play catch up....



uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I've been a bad bad blogger again!! Shame on me! We've had so much company in a out lately it has taken me forever to sit down and write. Cooper is already walking it has been that long!! Ha, got ya, but he is actively crawling gaining speed and just this week has learned to pull up on things. Josh says he will be taking a few steps by the end of the month. He is probably right, Cooper is 8 months old today. OMG where has the time gone? I swear I was just preggers! Maybe I wish I was preggers so my weird mayo craving would make total sense. For some reason that is the only craving that stuck with me!

So, let's see, a lot has happened over these past few weeks... My mom and dad and grandparents came to visit while I was off a week (unpaid, blah!!), we had Curt and Diane's just married partayyy, Aunt K and Uriah came to visit, Erin and Ben came for the 4th and Grandma Kay and Dick are coming tomorrow. We've had lots of company to keep us busy. If yall weren't here, we would be there, so it's a nice change to have family and friends here.... We love entertaining, so who is next??? Just bring your own sheets, so I don't have to do any more laundry!!! JUST KIDDING. I just hope I can get a little caught up before the weekend so you folks still tune into my blog.




We are always working on small renovations to the house. Currently our "new" thing is to restore furniture by recovering and painting. My grandparents gave us a piece similar to a buffet table that we have been working on. We kept the original stained top of the table, but sanded and painted a kind of a vintage look to it on the legs and will be adding new knobs. I think it really pops on the green wall and adds a different dimension to the downstairs.


What do you think of the table?? The rest of the photos are from the weeks past. I was selective with the photos... we've taken around 300 pictures, so I tried to get a few of my favorite ones! Please enjoy.















Now this is what you call some family bonding time!!! 


LOVE