Halloween 2013

Coop was a policeman for Halloween this year.  As usual, we enjoyed several fun festivities leading up to Halloween, including his preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch (Aunt Sharon came with us!), pumpkin carving, and a neighborhood Halloween party. Three of the 4 grandparents (Grandpa had to work) were here on Halloween night. After a minor hiccup of refusing to put on his costume, Cooper got into the spirit and was literally running up to houses to get candy. I'd say he thoroughly enjoyed himself.

 

Annual mountain trip

This is the second year we've taken Cooper on our annual mountain weekend getaway, a tradition Jason and I started when we got married.  While taking Cooper with us makes it a NOT relaxing experience, it is fun to bring him along and expose him to something totally different from the normal routine.  We had an awesome place this year called High Lonesome Cabin. Despite fearing for our lives getting up the ridiculously steep driveway, it was a great cabin. Cozy and simple, but had everything we needed.

We tried to strike a balance between down time at the cabin and exploring the beautiful area. Highlights were making s'mores, dancing to bluegrass music on the porch, playing games, going to a local apple festival, taking a hayride to the pumpkin patch, apple-picking, checking out the farmer's market, and walking to the swing bridge near our cabin.

Meeting Baby Andrew

We took a trip to Delaware in October to meet our new nephew, Andrew. It was also our first time up there to see Carrie and Joe's stomping grounds. Andrew is precious and we loved getting baby snuggles. Cooper was very sweet with him and just got a little concerned when he would start crying.

Saturday we had a delicious pancake breakfast (thanks, Joe!) and visited a nearby playground/park. We stumbled on a local festival, where Aunt Carrie got Cooper a very cool helicopter balloon hat. We got to be part of Andrew's first restaurant experience Saturday night at a yummy Mexican restaurant, and on Sunday we had amazing Amish donuts from the local market and went to another playground.

Carrie and Joe, thanks for hosting us and letting us take over your home for a couple of days! Such a fun visit!

Praise Ye The Lord

Love the funny stuff that comes out of a 3-year-old's mouth!

In my car is a collection of CDs that we rotate through on car rides. Most are kid CDs, but Cooper's current favorite is a mix of songs put together by our Sunday School class at church. In particular, he wants to listen to "#13" over and over again. It's a toe-tapping gospel song called "Praise Ye The Lord".

One night we were discussing the song at dinner and I asked Cooper to tell Jason which song was his favorite.  His answer? "Praise Ye Ramone"

Thanks, Cars movie, for teaching our child this sacrilege!! :)

Half-baked

The halfway point of this pregnancy has come and gone. We're almost at 23 weeks and it's flying by! It's amazing how different preparing for Baby #2 is.  Priorities are different and so much focus is on your current child, work, home responsibilities, etc. We're more focused on preparing Cooper for the changes to come than anything else.  His new room is almost ready and he's so excited about it.  Once we've moved him into his new room, then we'll work on updating the nursery a bit.  I'm certain he doesn't fully understand what's happening but he is taking everything in stride so far. Every few days I'll point to my belly and ask what's in there. He answers "Mommy's baby".  At least he's recently gotten some good practice with his 2-month-old cousin Andrew. (More on our trip to Delaware to meet baby Andrew in a future post.)

Belly shot from 21 weeks

It's a girl!

We are so excited!  We're nearly 20 weeks along and this pregnancy is flying by.  The baby looked great at last week's ultrasound. And I made sure the ultrasound tech and the doctor had no doubt about the gender...not looking for any surprises in February! Coop came to the appointment. It was our attempt to help him understand what's happening.  Not sure it did the trick but it was fun to have him there anyway.

I'm finally feeling better, with a lot less nausea and more energy.  The baby has been kicking and moving around a lot in the past few weeks, which is one of my favorite aspects of pregnancy. So far, not as active as Cooper was, but maybe too early to make that call.

We're in the process of getting Cooper's big boy room ready.  Hoping to move him in next month. He has declared that he's going to paint his walls red, and he tells EVERYONE he sees. We don't know where this red obsession came from, but have decided to overrule and paint his room blue. We'll let him pick out some red accents and hope that satisfies him.  The nursery will undergo a minor makeover to become more "girly".  I've never been super girly but it's really fun to switch gears to the cutesy girl stuff!

Just starting to go through the baby name book and get a list going.  No ideas yet.  If you ask Cooper, he'll tell you her name is Clarabelle!

Sandbridge Beach

We had our 2nd beach week of the summer with my family in Sandbridge.  We had never vacationed there, so we learned along the way.  There were 11 of us on the trip and we shared 2 condos side-by-side.  Condo #1 was the "no kids/sleep till 10am" condo, and Condo #2 was the "have a kid/wake up before 7am" condo.  Guess which one we were in? :)  Seriously, we are grateful to my parents who shared the condo with us and let us sleep in several mornings.  Vacations aren't super restful/relaxing these days, but going with grandparents who are more than willing to help out certainly makes it more relaxing! Now for the highlights:

-We stayed at a condo resort called Sanctuary.  It had some nice amenities - a few pools, balconies overlooking the ocean, and a nice big beach.  The building could use some sprucing up and I was completely lost our first 3 days there, but overall it was a decent place to stay.

-Luckily after a couple of days of rain/wind, the weather improved and it was a beautiful week. We spent lots of time on the beach and at the pool.  Cooper seemed to enjoy the beach more than he did in June. I think this was a result of (slightly) warmer ocean water and cooler air temps.  He also loved the water fountains at the pool and riding in the waves in the innertube with Daddy. He even did some decent boogie boarding in the shallow water.

  

-Since our first day was rainy, we headed to the aquarium in Virginia Beach.  Highlights of that were watching the seals and walking through the hallway surrounded by an aquarium.  Jason loved the irony of Cooper eating his goldfish snack in this spot.
 

-On the last day before heading back to Richmond, we checked out the Back Bay reserve that is at the end of Sandbridge, not far from the resort.  There isn't much to "do" outside of enjoying nature, but it is a neat spot that has protected beaches, walking paths, and wildlife.

-Other than that, it was just the usual stuff - playing with cars and trucks, having temper tantrums (wish they would take a vacation!), watching the "Cars" movie for the 50th time, iPad/computer time, getting ice cream, and family time.  I will never forget the memory of my entire family reenacting the tractor tipping scene from "Cars" at Cooper's demand request.  If only we had taken video!!

So long, summer!  Till next year...

Baby Boom

It's been an exciting week for our family.  There is a sudden baby boom!

First, Jason's sister Carrie and her husband Joe gave birth on Wednesday, August 7th, to Andrew Daniel.  Since they live in DE we haven't met him yet, but through Facetime and photos we have gotten to see how adorable he is.  Jason and I are happy to become an uncle/aunt, and Cooper now has a cousin.  Hooray!  Congrats, Carrie and Joe! We can't wait to meet baby Andrew soon.

In other baby news, last weeks we shared the news that we're expecting.  Baby Huffman #2 is due in February 2014.  Even better - this baby has the same due date as Cooper (he was due on the 12th but born on the 7th).  Even better than that - my little sister Amanda is due to have her first child 2 days after us.  So February is going to be a really wild month for our family if all goes as planned.  We are so excited!

Despite Cooper's silly face, he really is excited too :)

OBX 2013

Our annual OBX beach vacation with the Huffman family has come and gone.  I love that every year is different in its own way, even though it's basically the same beach, same activities, etc.  The highlights:

-We stayed in a house that we affectionately called our sea shanty.  It was a rustic little place - but you couldn't beat the oceanfront location in Southern Shores. 

-We got to spend time with Carrie, who is having a baby in August!! 

                           

-The water was FREEZING.  We got in a few times and splashed around the edges but man was it cold.  The nice part was it was pretty calm and a couple of times we just hung out in inner tubes.

-Coop wasn't quite as impressed with the beach this year.  He wasn't afraid of the water but didn't love the hot sun and sand, enjoying it in short spurts.  We were able to keep him interested longer by digging big holes he could jump in, riding his "surf board" (i.e. boogie board), building sand castles, and hanging out in the inner tubes. He also discovered the thrill of being allowed to pee in places other than the toilet - such as the woods and the ocean. Oh, and he woke up before 6:15 every day - lucky for us!

-We hit up Grave Digger on the way down, and several of our group rode the big monster truck.  Coop didn't know what to make of it at the time, but he talked about it the rest of the week - so we'll call it a win.

-We enjoyed dinner in a few nights plus a few delicious dinners at Mama Kwan's, Barefoot Bernie's, and The Black Pelican.  And had a couple of yummy breakfasts at Duck Donuts and the Nags Head Pier. I don't remember having more delicious food than we had this year.

-We enjoyed simple pleasures such as eating ice cream, going to the dunes, throwing snap poppers, going for a nature walk scavenger hunt, throwing water balloons, going to the park, seeing 2 deer in our back "yard", and seeing a beautiful rainbow.

  

-The week ended on a high note with visits from extended "family" - the Rimells and the Browns.  Good times!

The Potty Train!

We've been potty training for almost a month now.  After attempting last summer and quickly learning Cooper wasn't ready, we were cautious not to rush into it again.  This time around, things are clicking much better. That said, this is still no cake walk!

Here are some things that worked well for us:

1. The week before we started talking about the potty and counting down the days.  We picked up some new Thomas the Train underwear from Target.  (Side note: Cooper originally picked out Dora underwear. It was bright pink and clearly marketed for girls, like all Dora stuff...which makes no sense since the show is fairly unisex.  Anyway, I was going to let him get it but practicality won over when I realized the set included just 1 pair of underwear and a tank top.  As another side note, I later googled "Is Dora appropriate for boys?" - there's a lot of good discussion about this on the internet!)

2. We went on lock-down for about a week.  Didn't leave the house except to play outside.  I don't know how Lara did it for 5 days (Mon. - Fri.) because I was going out of my mind after the 2-day weekend!

3. We went straight to underwear (no pull-ups except for naptime) and set the timer at 20 minute intervals.  I knew Cooper would start to get annoyed with the frequency, so I tried to come up with something to make it fun, which turned out to be...

4. Food coloring!  We put a few drops of food coloring in the toilet.  This was a big hit.  I let Cooper help with the process.  It was a little messy but the goal was to keep his interest while establishing the habit - and it did.

5. M&Ms after every successful potty trip.  Candy is definitely a motivator for Cooper.  Sticker charts don't usually work for him because he just wants to pull the stickers off.  I had a basket of reward toys ready to go, but he wasn't very interested.  M&Ms were it for us.

6. We pulled out the iPad or laptop a few times to keep him on the potty longer than 3 seconds.

Now for the things not working so well...we've still got a lot of work to do in the poop department - he simply doesn't want to do it in the potty!  That leads to a whole other set of fun issues. We're also still doing a diaper for nighttime and naps. 


Overall, we're really proud of Coop's progress and and happy to have this milestone underway.

P.S. Can I tell you how NOT fun potty training is when a porta-potty is your only option? Or when you are spending the afternoon at King's Dominion?  We have done both and lived to tell about it.

Mother's Day 2013

We had an awesome Mother's Day weekend!  I got pampered on Saturday with 4 hours at the spa - facial, massage, manicure, and pedicure.  It was heavenly!  Sunday we went to the Chesterfield Berry Farm with the grandparents, minus Allen who had to work.  Per tradition, Cooper ate a million strawberries while we were picking.  They sure were yummy this year.