Kansas City Trip!

We went to Kansas City last weekend to celebrate my 30th.  Originally, we were going to go to Chicago and live it up, but then life happened and I had to get new brakes on my car.  There went our airfare :)

Kansas City ended up being perfect anyway.  We have been before, so it was a nice relaxing trip.  Just what we needed!  We didn’t do much, intentionally, so don’t look for anything exciting here :)

We left Friday morning after dropping Cooper off at school and the dogs off at my parents’ house.  Lee insists on driving when we go on road trips, so I feel no guilt for usually sleeping most of the way.  So, after a nice McDonald’s breakfast in the car, followed by a 3 hour nap, we were there!

Our first stop was lunch at Jack Stack.  I had asked around for barbecue places, because that was the one thing Lee wanted to do.  I learned that there are about 3 different places people swear by, depending on your taste.  Jack Stack was in the Plaza (where we were staying), and my boss recommended it, so that was where we went.  It was really good!  And I don’t even care about barbecue.

 

After lunch, we checked into the hotel and set out to shop! Lee was so good about going shopping with me.  Luckily he had his phone, and could do pretty much whatever on there to keep busy.  I think we were in H&M for over an hour and he didn’t say one thing :)  He even walked around with me for a while.  Haha. I bought quite a few (fall) things at H&M, both for me and for Cooper!  I love that they have kid’s stuff, but their sizing is strange.  I ended up getting Coop size 4-6, even thought he normally wears a 2T.  Luckily, it all fits him.  Just a bit long, but I’m fine with that.  Lee let me get him (Cooper, not Lee) some black skinnies :) :)

We shopped around at a couple more stores, then headed back to the hotel to rest up before dinner.  We went to Kona Grill for dinner.  Mostly because they had sushi.  It was very good!  We got calamari and several different rolls.  One was steak and lobster, and it seriously tasted like a whole meal in your mouth!

I wanted to listen to some live music after dinner, but we also didn’t want to drive anywhere (we stayed at the Plaza), so we wandered around for a little bit.  The weather was awesome the whole time we were there, so it was nice to just walk around.  We stumbled on these horse drawn carriage rides, and figured why not!  We had never done one of these before and it was fun!  Our horse’s name was Gerdy and she was so sweet.  When we said her name, she would turn back and look at us.  She also let us pet her.  Our driver told us that Gerdy was very popular with all of the male horses, haha!

After our ride, we just happened to hear music playing and there was a group playing right out on the plaza.  Come to find out, they were a family band that was/is competing on America’s Got Talent.  I forget who it was, but they were passing out flyers to vote for them.  We listened to them for a while and ended up at a bar for a few drinks before hitting the hay.

Saturday we slept in!  Well, if 6:30 counts as sleeping in.  Sadly, it does for us.  We got ready and walked down to the Classic Cup for breakfast.  Their Saturday breakfast is okay but, they have an amazing Sunday brunch!!  We didn’t go this trip, but we’ve had it before.  It was a gorgeous morning.

After breakfast, we headed out to City Market.  This was the hugest (is that a word?) farmer’s market I have ever seen!  I just randomly read about it online, and we decided to check it out.  We were in awe, and so jealous that we don’t have anything even remotely this big.  I was most amazed at the spices you could buy by the scoop.  It was $1 a scoop people!!  And they were big scoops. They had every spice you could imagine, including combinations like the ones below.  The picture below was like 1/5 of the spices available.  They also had several people/groups playing music.  One was a band that were playing with kazoos, washboards, and tin cups.  They were really good.

After City Market, we found a few antique stores in the area and spent a couple hours wandering around those.  There were some that we huge.  One was 4 floors.  I love antiquing and Lee was a good sport :)

We headed back to the Plaza around lunch time and ate at Houston’s.  I had the best club sandwich ever.  Seriously.

  

Then we shopped some more :)  We also went back to H&M, haha.  I basically bought everything in the store.  I really wish we had one here!

By 3ish we were wiped out, so we headed back to the hotel to relax.  We face timed with Cooper.  It was the first time he actually understood that you can just have a regular conversation on the phone.  He had a lot to talk about.

There was a movie theater right across from our hotel, and maybe it seems random, but we decided to go see a movie before dinner.  We normally never go see movies but I love going to the theater.  We saw The Campaign and it was funny.  No Anchorman, but not bad.  I do kind of wish we would have seen Hit and Run instead.  Here is an awkward picture of us before the movie.

After the movie, we headed to Cafe Trio for dinner.  We had seafood and steak.  And several drinks :)  It was yummy.

On Sunday we slept in until 8am!!  We never do that!  It was super late to us, but awesome that we were able to sleep in :)  We decided not to wait around for brunch at the Classic Cup, and instead just hit the road to go home.  I do regret not staying for brunch!  But, we were ready to get home and see Cooper. 

We had a fun, relaxing weekend, and I definitely could have stayed another day!  Maybe next time.

Cooper Update

I think it’s about time for a Cooper update. I feel like I haven’t done one in forever. Forgive me if this is long (update: it is). There’s just so much I don’t want to forget and it’s been too long since I’ve written anything down.      

Age: 26.5 months :)

Remember his puppy dog from his monthly pics?

I don’t know if it’s all children at this age, but Cooper is absolutely hilarious right now. He has us laughing all the time. He also knows what will make us laugh, and he will do those things all the time. Sometimes, it’s not even things that are meant to be funny, but they are funny just because he is so little, and the way his mind works just really makes us laugh. He is such a little person now.

He talks all.the.time. He repeats every single thing we say. We definitely have to watch our language now. Ahem.

We are getting to where we can take him pretty much anywhere with us. Some kids I’m sure have always been like that. Not Cooper. Outside of infancy, he hasn’t behaved in public. It was mostly (I think) that he has a very hard time sitting still, and he is so curious about everything, as I’m sure most kids are. And he lacked the self control to listen and obey us. I’m telling you, after he was 1, we just didn’t take him anywhere. The boy wasn’t even allowed to go to the grocery store. But he is doing much better now. We have bravely taken him with us to run errands for the past several months, and he has done great. Actually, when I go with him (other than the grocery store) I can let him walk next to me instead of riding in the cart and he obeys rather well. This is shocking, people. Shocking. It makes me kind of giddy :) Restaurants, we are still working on. He can be decent for a short period of time. I’m happy with that right now.

He is the sweetest boy. Ever. (not that I’m biased at all) He LOVES to give kisses and hugs (“tisses and huds”). Sometimes in inappropriate situations (hugging and kissing the bread man at the grocery store?) but I find it sweet and heartwarming. All I want for him is to grow up to be kind and loving, nothing else really matters to me, so this makes me so proud of him. He says “Hi” to everyone he sees. He has never met a stranger. He loves animals. Loves, loves animals. He searches daily for the rabbit (“habbit”) in our backyard, and when we go on walks, he asks to pet every dog he sees (“pease dod?”) Each time we go to the grocery store, he asks to see the fish (“fissies”).

He loves to dance, and has just recently stopped being as shy about dancing in front of people. We were watching So You Think You Can Dance last night, and he was mimicking some of the moves. Talk about adorable. He has a signature “head bob” and always smiles at us so big when he’s doing it. He has a book called Giraffes Can’t Dance, and they talk about doing the cha cha in it, and every time we get to that part, Cooper hops up and dances :)

I am always amazed at how much he knows. It’s like he’s been a sponge for 2 years, soaking everything in, and now that he’s able to verbalize it, things just pour out. I handed Lee a platter that was shaped like an owl yesterday. Cooper only saw it from the bottom, and he said “owl”. What?! Similar things happen at least once a day, and Lee and I have just gotten to where we just look at each other and smile. We used to exclaim “oh my gosh, did you hear him say such-and-such?!”

He loves to clean up (“meam up”). He puts my clothes and shoes away all the time. He knows to put dirty clothes in the hamper. He finds trash and takes it straight to the trash can. He still loves to vacuum, and now when he’s using his play vacuum, he will pick everything up off the floor to get under it. Sometimes I’ll go into our bedroom, and all the clothes have been put up on the chair or dresser, and all of our extra pillows are up on the bed. I know he’s been cleaning :) He also loves to clean solid surfaces with a spray bottle and towel. He will ask for is “pay bodda”, sometimes even begging with tears! He is pretty messy with it though, hence the tears because we don’t often let him do it. Mean parents.

He is still obsessed with, we’ll just say lawn care. It’s all encompassing. Lawn mower, leaf blower, weed eater, and hose. He can’t get enough of any of it. He has a play mower and blower. They are the first thing he gets in the morning. He will have the mower out, and then say “blower next” and go get his leaf blower, and vice versa. It’s so funny. If one of these is running anywhere remotely close, he hears it and demands to see it. I was getting gas, and mean were mowing across 5 lanes of traffic and Cooper was straining out of his carseat in the closed car to see it! Silly boy.

I feel like I’m gushing with happiness over him lately, because he is just so fun right now. Lee and I smile at each other about 1,000 times a day over things that Cooper does. After an entire year of the terrible twos (I guess that’s what it was), which was basically Cooper being pissed and screaming all day every day during his entire second year of life (from age 1-2) I feel like I can finally breathe and enjoy my happy child. Haha.

Other random things:

He can get into and out of his carseat. He loves to buckle himself in(“buckuh in”), and then “jump” out, as he says.

He can climb up and into his highchair also.

He will put on shoes (his or ours) and say “bye bye”. When we ask where he’s going, he says “poppa’s” or “friends”.

Speaking of shoes, he is obsessed with crocs. He wears his every day, and calls all shoes crocs.

He enjoys going on stroller rides again, and will request to go on them. He rides for about half of the walk, and then asks to get out and walk, which he is allowed to do as long as he obeys us. He knows that when you get to the end of a street to stop and look for cars. Not that he actually understands the look for cars part, I don’t think.

He loves music and requests cd’s in the car. Currently he asks for a Keith Urban cd in my car. (He says no until I get to that one, he doesn’t request by name J )

He now drinks out of regular cups (“dada tup”) instead of sippies. He is really good at it.

Every time I ask if he wants yogurt he says “hair” (“huh”) and mimics rubbing yogurt in his hair because he did that once and got in trouble and thinks it’s funny. (see also: he never gets yogurt anymore)

He has started calling Zoe “ZoebaBY” with a New York accent and it is hilarious.

He loves books and puzzles.

He uses the potty a few times a day, but I don’t think he ready for the real deal yet.

He will not go to sleep for us without us laying on his floor with him. He’s about to get the bedtime smackdown next week. I’m dreading it. Sleep training, no matter how you choose to do it, gets so much worse the older they get.

When we go upstairs for something, he goes slow, and will say “Pooper tumming”.

He can go into the pantry, get a box of crackers or whatever, get a bowl, and pour himself a snack. Seriously?!

Okay, that is way too much enough for now. Cooper is awesome right now and this is my favorite age ever ever!

Weekend Highlights

We had a fun weekend!  On Friday, some water main broke downtown and cut of the water supply to our building. which is apparently a fire hazard, so we got out of work early!  It was awesome! 

I went and picked up Cooper, and we headed to Target.  Is this not how you all steer the cart?  Every time we go to Target, this is what he does.  But it’s only at Target!  Silly!  He also tries to sit on the little shelf thing below the cart, EVERY TIME!  That is at any store with a shopping cart.  Poor thing never does fit under there!

On Saturday, we went to our friends, Knox and Sloane’s, first birthday party!  Megan did an awesome job with the western-themed party.  We had so much fun!  It was held in a warehouse-type building, and they had tons of old arcade games.  Lee and I had fun showing Cooper the games we used to play when we were little :)  Pictures aren’t great because 1) they are from our phones, and 2) there were tons of neon lights around.

Ronald McDonald was there:

Skee Ball!  Lots of the kids were pretty good at this game!

Pinball

 

Have you ever seen a 2 year old play shuffleboard?  It’s basically the cutest thing ever! He would send the puck down the table and then pump his arm and say “go! go! go!”  Haha!

Cooper was OBSESSED with these horse balloons.  Obsessed.

After the party we went over to our friend Ava’s house to play.  They were so cute :)  Ava is such a little mama.

Sunday we just had a lazy, relaxed day around the house.  It was glorious.

Oh, and these two got a haircut :)  They are the cutest!

First Day of School

Technically, he didn’t have a summer break, but Cooper started a new school today.  The school he goes to now follows the schedule of a typical elementary or middle school and the kids all move up to a new class in August of each year.  So, they were all starting in a new class today.

While I am sad that he had to leave his friends at his old daycare, I know that this is what’s best for him.  His new school is actually a private Christian school that has programs for infants through middle school.  It is structured much better and they seem to be much more organized and focused on learning.  He has an awesome teacher and I know he will love it.

{He refuses to wear anything other than his crocs :/ Choosing my battles for now :) }

This sign would have been a better idea if he would actually stand still

 

Some outtakes:   

He cried when I left, but a minute after I left the room he stopped.  I hope he has a great day!  When we went to meet his teacher last week, he tore the room up playing with everything and we had to force him to leave after about 30 minutes, so I think he will have a good time :)

Weekend Recap!

Nothing like a weekend recap 2 days before the NEXT weekend, right?

Cooper woke up super early (surprise!) and was pretty restless, so as soon as it was Acceptable Time to Get Out on a Saturday Morning, we headed to the donut shop.  Cooper wasn’t sure at first.  We tried to get him to pick out a character donut, but he was being shy, so I got him a plain one.  Then a few minutes later he suddenly perked up and selected a Patrick star (from Spongebob).  I don’t even need to say that he loved the donut.  Duh.  It’s a DONUT.  They are pillows of delicious sweetness.

Coop greeted everyone that came in to the shop with an enthusastic “HI!!”

Then we headed to a local farmer’s market and picked up these super delicious peaches.  So good!

He loves to put on my shoes.  He actually can walk well in all of my heels!

We went to the fabric store, where Cooper found a display of stuffed animals.  He kept picking one out, then he would run SCREAMING “Mommy!!!” down the center aisle of the store and find me to show the animals (Lee was with us, so he wasn’t alone).  There was a long line at the cutting counter, so we were there for a while.  I’m pretty sure everyone was ready for us to leave.  Honestly, I thought it was kind of cute, but no one else did.  Whatever.  At least it kept him busy.  When we left, he got to pick one out to take home, and of ALL the animals, he picked out this creepy squirrel.  It also makes a creepy squirrel noise when you press his tummy.

Sunday we went to the grocery store.  Where Cooper now requests to see the fishies.

Oh, and I turned 30 :)

 

We didn’t do much.  Just went to dinner and had ice cream cake with my family.

 

The real celebration is a trip to Kansas City.  Just me and Lee!  Yay!!  We’re not going for a few weeks though.

Seriously, WHY is he so big?

With Uncle Tyler

With Nonnie and Poppa

   

Clearly someone was worn out from the weekend :)

 

Girly Birthday Celebration…and a Sickie

This weekend I celebrated my birthday (early) with my girlfriends and it was so fun!  We went to the Melting Pot and had a slumber party :)  It was perfect!

They had the house decorated all cute!

Love these girls so much!

No lie, we drove to dinner in a minivan :)  It was pretty awesome.

Dinner was SO SO good!  We got the flaming turtle dessert fondue which was chocolate, caramel, and pecans and it was amazing.  I literally ate it with a spoon, ha!

After dinner, we went over to Jenny’s house to spend the night.  We stayed up and chatted for a few hours, and then Jenny FELL ASLEEP, so we decided it was time to head to bed.  I think we slept in until 9 or 10 the next morning.  I seriously don’t know the last time I was able to sleep in that late, it was awesome! Then we had mimosas and bagels :)

 

But…While I really did have an amazing time with the girls, I wasn’t able to entirely enjoy my evening because Cooper wasn’t feeling too hot.  He threw up several times over the weekend :/

AND the ironic thing is I had just been thinking that we have been lucky that he hasn’t had any type of stomach bug.  And then we were getting ready to leave the house Saturday morning when he threw up all over the bathroom floor :(  Luckily it was on the tile so no carpet vomit. He actually seemed fine after.  I went ahead and left for Jenny’s late that afternoon, and even though he was a little clingy, Cooper seemed okay. 

Then during dinner, Lee texted me that Cooper had been sleeping on the couch and started running a fever and refused to take any medicine, which is odd, he usually loves medicine.  So naturally, I worried about him most of the night, but Lee eventually got him to take medicine and he went to sleep.  He threw up again Sunday morning, so I headed home, instead of going to the pool like we had planned. 

Obviously I would rather be with my sick kid than go to the pool. but the timing of it all just kinda sucked.  I was glad I went home, because Lee said he had been asking for me and all he wanted was for me to hold him.

But, he perked up a little later and we were able to enjoy our afternoon. Lee even put up a porch swing that my dad gave us.  Cooper LOVES their porch swing, so he wanted him to have one over here too :)

That evening, Cooper got progressively grumpier, and asked for a bath at like 6pm, so we did that and got him ready for bed.  He kept crying and saying owie about his mouth.  He is getting his 2 year molars, all four at once of course, so it’s got to be hurting.  Then we fought with him to take motrin, and he never did end up taking any.  He woke up several times, and finally around 10, we got him to take some.  I bribed him with Bob the Builder.  I also tried honey and ice cream which usually work, but he didn’t want anything in his mouth.

Sweet boy wanted us both to sit with him :)

This morning I had to wake him up to go over to my dad’s, and he went right to sleep when he got there, so hopefully he is catching up on his sleep.  I think this is all related to his teething.  I am ready for those suckers to come in already!

Wednesday Randoms

Work is S-U-P-E-R slow right now.  I should enjoy it because come late August, it will get crazy, but really it’s just annoying.

I stopped consuming aspartame this week.  Mostly because I thought it might have been causing me to crave sugar.  I know there are other harmful things it does to your body, but honestly I’m too freaked out to google it.  I like living in denial.  I had horrible headaches the first 2 days, but today I haven’t had any issues.  And I do think I’ve been craving sweets less, and just not AS hungry in general.

I’m opening an Etsy shop!  Hopefully sometime soon.  I was all gung ho about it, then realized that I needed to actually MAKE a few things that I will be selling, so now I’m in the process of doing that.  Here’s what I (think) I’ll be selling: wreaths, nursery letters, and picture frames.  My friend Katie created a logo for me and I love it!  We’ll see how it goes.  I’m scared that it will be a big flop and then I’ll feel dumb.

Cooper is the funniest thing ever these days.  He says the most hilarious stuff, and is always doing things that make us think he is so smart.  This age is just amazing to me.

I joined a gym last week.  It is WAY too hot to run outside in the evenings (it was still 100* at 9 last night), and I was no longer getting up for my 4am runs.  I have major mommy guilt about getting home an hour later on the days I go, but I feel so much better when I work out that I’m just making myself let it go.  Right now, I’m only going twice during the week, and then once or twice on the weekends.

Speaking of runs, some co-workers and I are funning a marathon relay in November, I think I’ve mentioned it before.  Here is the map.  There are 5 legs, the first and last being the longest.  I have never, ever run before.  I’ve never even made it to the end of couch to 5k.  And I would really like to run the last leg of the race because it goes through my college campus, but it’s also the longest leg, so I’m not sure.  We aren’t running this for time, our goal is just to finish and have fun, so I need to remember that I guess.  That, and the fact that the last leg is mostly all downhill :)

Cooper went to the grocery store with me last weekend, and he was really not wanting to ride in the cart.  Luckily we were there at the crack of dawn, so it didn’t really matter if he was running around.  But then I remembered when I was little I would ride on the front of the cart, so I showed him how and he loved it!  Heehee :)

 

August is my birthday month :)  Lee and I are going out of town for a little while, by ourselves, and I can’t wait!  I’m going to sleep in past 5am!!  I am counting down the days.

Our cable bill was $30 more than usual last month, and when I called to find out why, I wasn’t surprised that it was because an “introductory offer” had ended after a year.  So, I said I wanted to get rid of something because I was not going to pay that much.  After about 10 minutes on the phone, they added all of the premium movie channels and LOWERED my bill back down to the original cost.  This makes NO sense to me, although I know that it happens with our cable company all the time.  Now, mind you, I will have to call and do this whole thing again in 6 months when THIS special runs out.  So stupid.  Just charge normal prices for things.  Oh well.  In the meantime, we’re enjoying the movie channels.