The one where my fairy tale ends...

For the past week, my dear sweet angel has been waking up at 6:30AM. This is a huge change from his 8:30 era, which seems to have come to an end. When other moms used to ask how Cooper slept, their jaw practically dropped when I told them. It was such a gift. So, I began using a rule I learned from my neighbor in Georgia. If your night light is on, you should still be in bed. If you're night light turns off you can come wake up mommy. It's like he has an internal alarm clock that goes off at 6:30. And these past few mornings, I have walked him back to his room, given him a few books and of course his car keys that go everywhere with him and he is content. It's wild how his sleep habits changed. Hopefully this is just a phase and he will get his daddy's genes back quick on this one!!!

It has been such nice weather here. We hit up the beach yesterday. It's very relaxing, more than I thought it would be. Since Cooper is such a cautious kid, he doesn't travel far from my sight, so I literally sat down the whole time while he played in the sand and chased the birds. Yeap, I am one of those people who let my kid chase the seagulls towards the other folks on the beach. I remember hating that has a teen! LOL.  Cooper is scared of the water so he doesn't even venture that way. Every time the water rushed on shore he said, "Mommy, no water, no water!" We were only there for a few hours before we were both worn out! He and I both had a good 3 hour nap yesterday. I've really got to take advantage of nap time right now, since in about 5 weeks, I won't get much sleep!

LOVE

The one where we celebrate a new year...

Happy New Year everyone.... can you believe it's 2013??? We have 6 more weeks before Addison Kate arrives. Cooper would have been born NEXT week in the count down. So lets pray she bakes a little longer. We just started her nursery. Well, we at least picked out the fabrics, the crib is set up and the closet is organized! Which are all huge steps. The holidays got the best of me, so did work. But now that I am a stay at home mommy, I am able to accomplish more throughout the day, like blogging and picking out paint chips and teaching my son how to go pee-pee on the potty! Yesterday was a HUGE milestone, he tinkled in the potty twice! I've been letting him run around without a diaper on for an hour or so in the morning and an hour in the afternoon and putting him on the toilet every 15 minutes. AND finally he went. We did it all last week and I got 2 messes on the floor (thank goodness for hardwoods) and this week I got 2 in the toilet!! It's so funny how times change and what I get excited about these days.

Like Christmas, we hosted New Years Eve at our house. With Cooper, its just easier and all our friends got to see the new casa. We had a huge turnout, more than we thought, close to 30 people. Lots of friends and their parents came along and my parents and Josh's mom. It was tons of fun, Josh smoked his famous pork butt on the egg. We had pulled pork tacos, lots of dips and lots of deserts... any pregnant girls dream! I even stayed up til 2 AM!! We have a flatscreen on the deck so the party stayed outside most of the night by the firepit and glued to the bowl games. We even got to see the ball drop at Times Square underneath all the stars. Didn't get to see any fireworks like I thought. We are only a mile or so from down town and for sure thought we would be able to see. But we got nothing. Thats okay, because we had our own sparklers :)

Hope everyone's new year is treating them well. Blessings and good fortune to all, until next time... Here is Cooper wishing everyone a new year.

LOVE

The one where Santa comes...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! Hope the holidays are treating everyone fantastic! We surely had a wonderful Christmas. Lots to be thankful for this year. Our health and family close by, our house sold, we moved into our own place and baby Addison is growing by the day and still cooking (always a good thing in my book!) AND we finally have heat. Our realtor when we moved in told us there was no gas that needed to be set up.... well he was wrong, the first cold night of the season we found that out with no heat! Thank goodness for the fireplace and space heaters. We survived. It's on and cozy in the house now.






Santa came to our house this year, like he does every year. Cooper was an excellent boy all year long, despite not wanting to actually sit on Santa's lap. Santa still knew exactly what Cooper wanted! He brought and assembled Coopers very first trampoline! Boy, did Cooper love it. Its like a baby sitter for mommy and daddy. AND it wears Cooper out!! Perfect right before nap time. Santa was also good to me. I received lots of wonderful gifts from jewelry to a lovely pair of boots to TV trays!! Ha-ha I know it sounds funny, but I LOVE them. We usually sit in front of the TV like millions of other Americans, so what better than TV trays!? LOL I got several photos of our Christmas day, so enjoy!

hmmmm... What's in there???



Guess what he is running to?



 

Chef of the year!

Happy New Year Y'all

LOVE

The one where we sell our home...

Today is bitter sweet. We are officially NOT homeowners anymore, we have sold our beautiful home on Lansing Lane to another family. Closing took place this morning and the keys were handed over. I hope they were huge Georgia Bulldog fans because we sent them our Florida Gator key!!! hehe!! While purchasing the house was one of the most exciting times, I think the 2nd most exciting time is finally selling it off, even though we loved it so much. So we say goodbye to our brand new home, granite counters, hard wood floors, the mancave, the perfect neighborhood, spacious 4 bedrooms, the mountains and all our Georgia friends and family. BUT we say a BIG hello to San Marco, just in time for Christmas and the new year, "home", parents and grandparents, a cozy home built in the 1940's, sunshine and warm weather and a quaint lil nieghborhood with tons of Character and awesome people!

Thank you lord for answering knee mail!!!!



Good-bye Lansing Lane



The one with the move (and everything else!)...

So over a month later, I am back on line. Sorry I have been MIA. Being a full time mom, wife and professional has really taken over ME. The good news is, we sold our house. Yes, FINALLY! It's been on the market since July and last month we finally got a contract on the house. All your prayers and knee mail really worked. Josh kept asking me what I want for Christmas and I kept saying, to sell the house. I just need ONE buyer, that's it! And it happened. We are so thankful, its a huge weight off all our shoulders. Closing is set for tomorrow. We are trying to get everything done via mail. I am still waiting on all the documents to come through though from the attorney. This is such a stressful process!

the lil guy's smile helps take the stress away

We are mostly settled in the new house. It is taking a while to unpack everything. Mainly because the home is so much smaller, I am having to unpack to re-pack boxes for the attic. We chose the smaller home for the character and the location. We are right in San Marco, a highly desirable area, just a block from the Square, where there are restaurants and shopping. All our neighbors are wonderful. 2 of the ladies (next door and across the street) are also pregnant! Tons of kids in the neighborhood too. Cooper has already found another 2 year old, CeeCee to romp around with! We are very happy to be in our own place again! It seems like forever that it has just been me, Josh and Cooper.


San Marco Home

 The official day the lil bambino comes is February 22, 2013. We have picked a name: Addison Kate. It seems to stick with both of us. Even Cooper can say it :) He is saying a lot these days. His vocabulary has sprung wide open. He's putting together sentences, you can understand him so much better and he's getting more comfortable around people... Well most people. We took him to see Santa last night, thinking I would get a solo picture of Cooper with Santa, oh no. It was Mommy, Daddy, Cooper AND Santa!! haha Luckily Santa sits on a couch these days, so I didn't have to break his leg by sitting on his lap! Ashe, Coopers cousin did so good with Santa! He's only 8 months though, give it til next year and he will be screaming! Why is Santa so scary????

The one with the 2nd birthday...

Happy Birthday to my handsome baby boy!!!!!!! I can't believe you are already 2 years old and talking, walking, running, feeding your self, giving us big hugs and kisses, sitting on the potty, watching movies, enjoying the zoo, having water gun fights, playing basket ball, asking us questions and the list just goes on. You really are the light in all our lives! Each day I can't wait to see that smile and hear that giggle! You are just the cutest, smartest and funniest little 2 year old I know! 2 years ago today, we were moving in our first home and today we are selling our first home. A lot has changed in the last 2 years and it's all been for the best. We are back in Jacksonville now which is key to building a strong family for us. So we are happily house hunting (again)!

Josh took the day off to spend with Cooper. The weather is pretty nasty and rainy. He had such big plans for he and Cooper but all involved out door activities. So they are doing Coopers 2nd favorite thing, watching cartoons! One of my personal favs as a kid, Scooby doo which is equivalent now to the Criminal Minds for adults. I could watch both all day long!

We had a birthday beach bash for Cooper and his lil dudes and dudetts on Sunday. It is probably the last nice (warmer) weekend in Florida for a while. It was beautiful, 80 degrees sunny, no clouds. It was a perfect day. I think there were about 9 kids total running and crawling around. Our youngest addition to the group was 13 days old! I had pizza, subs, goldfish and cupcakes for everyone. Hardly any left overs. It was so nice to see everyone. So strange that everyone that was there, Josh and I went to high school with and most had children. Definitely a change from our Atlanta family. Cooper has other kids to keep him occupied and fight with over toys. I bought all the kids buckets, shovels, bubbles and squirt guns. Everyone had their own and the toys were scattered all around us, but as you can imagine the kids would fight over whatever toy the other was holding. Almost wrestling at some points. At least it was sand. They have to learn to share, right? Why not the hard way? It was such a great day. I know Cooper had a blast. Almost instantly on the way back home he fell asleep in his car seat.

Happy Birthday COOPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Family love

Flying Cooper's new Kite, Thanks Ash!!

Thank you all for the wonderful pressents!

If you noticed, I typicall don't smile at the camera (or even look at it!)

Most of the Group!



 
 LOVE

The one with the SPOOKY week....

Happy Halloweenie!!! Hope everyone had a safe and spooky trick-or-treat night. Cooper actually had 2 trick-or-treat nights. For those who don't know, he was a fireman! I bought his costume last year after Halloween for super cheap.... so I am actually headed out during lunch to see what kind of steals I can find for 2 costumes next Halloween!

  

Sunday night we went to Spooktacular at the zoo with Karen. Cooper did great. I was pretty nervous because he gets "spooked" quite easily. Heck, he even got spooked while we where carving our pumpkin at home! And no it wasn't anything scary, just the standard jack-o-lantern with 2 eyes, a nose and a mouth... But he was a great sport and was along for the ride, he stayed in his stroller the whole time. To boot, he likes wearing his fireman jacket and hat. Which is impressive, to me anyway. We didnt' see many animals out, but they sure did a good job decorating and entertaining the kids. There were dance parties, cotton candy, bounce houses, popcorn, haunted houses, lions, tigers and bears (oh my!) walking around in costume and TONS of kids dressed up. Its so cute seeing all the little ones.

Halloween night, we went over to a friends house where a group of us parents rallied all the kids together to head out door to door. What a crowd. We didn't leave the house until almost 7 and the kids did great. A solid 1.5 hours of trick-or-treating. Again, Cooper preferred to sit in the wagon. He is a little on the timid side when he isn't sure of things. We did walk up to some doors with him, but when he saw something spooky, he didn't go on his own. Nor could we get him to talk. Nothing. He was mute. But once he discovered it was chocolate these strange spooky people were putting in his pumpkin, he tore right into some of it. With the help of me of course. He tried to bite the candy with the wrappers still on!! The funniest thing, Daddy pulled him in the wagon up to most houses, since folks sit in their driveways, and when Cooper was a little unsure/ scared, we think that he would fake asleep. NO joke, we would get up to the houses and he would lay his head on the side of the wagon and not move. The funniest thing ever and the first time I had seen him do that. You know we got a picture!!



Daddy and the Kiddos

Handsome lil fireman

Getting into the candy before Mommy eats it all!!!

Quick, play opossum so they can't scare me!  

Happy November!

LOVE