Easter 2011

It is now May and I am just realizing how far behind I have been on writing on this blog!  I don't do it on purpose, I've just been really busy (read the next post and you will see why!).  So, here is a quick rundown of our Easter and some pictures to go along with it!

My Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin arrived the night before Easter, so we had a great wake up the following morning.  The Easter bunny did a great job hiding eggs all over my parents massive house and yard.  It took Cooper over an hour to find all his eggs.  Wyatt got some fun things too, but he is still too little to do the egg hunt.  Next year though!

Here is a picture of my two little guys in their bunny ears, thanks to their Nana! :

Cooper had a great time finding eggs all over the place:

It was a great day, went by too quickly though!

BUSY MONTH!

This past month has been SO busy!  Let's break it down into the 4 weeks of a typical month.

Week 1: My family friends, Gwen and Larry, came down to Texas to visit.  Whenever family comes, we try and spend as much time as possible with them.  That meant LOTS of driving back and forth to my parents house (which is an hour away from our house).  They were here for one week.  They left on a Friday and my Aunt, Uncle, and cousin showed up that Sunday.

Week 2 and Week 3- Aunt Sandy, Uncle Murray, and my cousin Marc came down from Canada.  What a trip!  We had such a great time and stayed busy the entire two weeks!  Cooper and Wyatt got spoiled, as always, by the family!  Cooper had a bit of a hard time adjusting once they left because we stayed at my parents house for most of the days that they were here.  Less than a year and they will be back though!

Week(end) 4- Nicks parents flew down from Tennessee from this past Thursday night (they didn't get in until late at night), and stayed until lunch on Monday.  It was a short visit, but we never stopped!  Nicks brothers also came on Saturday afternoon/early evening, and left the following day.  It was a PACKED house!

Cooper is in his second to last week of school.  He is going to have such a hard time this summer not going to school because he absolutely LOVES it!  I'm a bit worried about how he will do once he returns next year and has a new teacher because he LOVE his teacher, Mrs. Holloway, so much!  I'm trying to come up with lots of fun things to keep us all busy this summer though!  Keep reading during the next few weeks to see what I come up with!  (OH!  I almost forgot...while my cousin was in town we went to a drum and guitar store so he could see for some new pieces for his drum set.  Cooper fell in drum heaven...so now we have a drum set in our living room, and a little boy who loves to go crazy on them!  Drum lessons to start soon...)

Wyatt is getting SO big!  He is 9 months old, and wearing 18 month clothing.  He is SO tall its insane!  He is in the 90th percentile on height.  Poor chum is growing faster than his little body can get used to it!  He's crawling really fast, pulling up on everything, and is completely head over heals in love with his big brother.  If he ever has a sad face, Cooper can change it in an instant by just coming close to him.  I'm not sure how I got so lucky with these two sweet boys!

Nick and I have been busy too.  We have been painting (with a brush...by hand) the inside of the new fence.  We will spray the outside, but we don't want the metal poles to be painted or have runs with the paint on the inside so we are painting it by hand.  We have about 12 hours (times 2 people) in so far and we have just passed the halfway mark!  Its not too bad though, we talk and have a good time doing it while we are out there.

Nick is still liking his job.  He is quite busy and has some of the strangest times for business calls (I guess thats what happens when he is dealing with companies all over the world!).  He is also on a men's softball league, so the kids and I have been his cheer squad over the past few weeks while he is playing.  He has been wanting to join one for a few years and finally found a team by luck and it has been working out really well for him!

I am still busy doing the typical mommy things!  I love it though!  Lots of cooking too.  I have a cooking blog that has taken off and is taking up tons of my time, but I love it and have gotten some really good compliments from it!

Wyatt is 9 Months Old!

We just got back from Wyatt's 9 month doctor's appointment.  He is doing so good!  He is already doing everything he should be learning between now and when we go back for his one year appointment!  Cooper seemed to be a few months behind on all of his leanings (probably because of his prematurity when he was born), and Wyatt seems to be months ahead.  So crazy!  (Don't worry, Cooper is up to speed now, and even advanced on certain things like motor skills).

Anyways, here are Wyatt's statistics:  He is in the 90th percentile on his height, and in the 50th percentile on his head circumference and weight.

No needles today too which was a  great thing!

Cooper came with us to the Doctor and praised Wyatt for being such a big and good boy.  Make me super proud that he's mine!

While driving to the doctors we had to drive by my OB who I saw when I was pregnant with both boys.  Cooper decided to explain to me how Dr. Sharma (my OB) took Wyatt out of my belly and how he was happy she did.  Super cute, thought I would mention it  :)  More to come soon!

Camping in April

What a weekend!  Two years ago we went camping with a bunch of friends and the temperature went down to below freezing that night.  It was my first time EVER to camp and I swore I would never do it again because of how cold it was (and we all know how much I hate the cold!).  Well...over time you forget...and when people start talking about going camping again I jumped on board and ended up organizing the entire thing!

The four of us drove to Oklahoma on Friday morning.  We drove directly to Greenleaf State Park and spent Friday night camping by ourselves...in the cold...and wind...a day after the tornado's swept through Oklahoma.  Did I mention the temperatures went down to the low 40's in the night?  Or that the wind was INSANE!  We thought our little tent would take off!  We had 3 paper plates in the bed of the truck with dinners crumbs still on it.  This brought a night of chasing off silly raccoons.  We would chase them away, and they would come back.  It went on all night!  Anyways, after we woke up the next morning I had a case of the grumpy's because I couldn't warm up! 

Around 10 that morning our friends Chad and Danielle from college showed up with 3 of their friends.  The fun began!

There was too much happening to be cold!  We all had a few beers while sitting around the campfire.  We roasted hot dogs for lunch and then everyone except Wyatt and I went down to the pier to go fishing.  I stayed with the baby because he was napping.  Danielle and Cooper came back a few minutes later.

We had a fantastic day, and the weather did warm up to a nice sweatshirt weather.  Around dinner some more of our friends came.  Hugh is Cooper's age and so the boys went crazy playing around the campsite.  They played and ran around until we all went to bed at 11:30.  Wyatt and 10 week old Henry did so good!  Luckily the temperature didn't get very cold on this night.  We all slept well and had a great night.  The next morning we had a great breakfast of breakfast burritos cooked by Nick.  He was the chef all weekend and boy did he do a great job!  We had coffee cooked on the campfire, breakfast burritos (filled with eggs, sausage, salsa, cheese), and breakfast burritos.  SO YUMMY!

Around lunchtime we all packed up and headed home.  It was a great weekend and we have already started planning our next trip!  Take a minute to scan some of the weekends pictures!

 

The 4 of us in front of our new tent!

 

Nick, Cooper, Danielle G, Chad, Danielle L, Brian, and Curtiss fishing off the pier

 

Cooper showing us his minnow!

 

Chad and Nick taking care of the fire to keep us all warm

 

Nick and Cooper flying a kite

 

Jessica throwing the ball to Hugh while Nick and Cooper play outfield.  They all had a blast!

Finished Fence!!!

I am so excited to announce that our fence is complete!!!  I hated that fence before we even bought our house...and now it is GONE!!!  I can't stop smiling because it is SO beautiful!  Nick and my Dad worked So hard to do it and it looks amazing!  Nick figures it took about 60 hours worth of work to finish it and I would have to agree with him.  Another 3-4 cases of beer...a tractor...a 3 year old doing his best to help...a few cuts and scrapes...and here is what you get:

The Before

The After!!!

The before

The After!

Here are a few more of the finished fence (we still have to stain it...but I wanted to show it off regardless of it having the stain on it or not!)

COWS!

I just realized I forgot to post about Cooper's cow!!!  My parents got two Mamma cows, and two calves a couple of weekends ago.  They let Cooper and my niece Kacie each name a cow.  Kacie names hers Macie, and Cooper named his calf...Reba.  As in...Reba McIntyre.  As funny as it is, its sort of smart since the cows are red!  Anyways, here are a couple fun pictures of the cows!

They were following my Dad and Coopy for dinner!

This is Tilley and her calf Macie

Tilley and Cooper.  (Tilley is the friendliest out of the Mamma cows.  Reba's mom, Trixie, is a bully...and poor Reba is still really nervous around people).

She is SO cute!

Since I wrote about the silly cows, I might as well add a picture or two of the horses.  Cooper is in love with the farm animals (he is suddenly terrified of dogs though...so strange!).

Cooper and Sunny.  He loves the horses!  Sunny is the king of the castle.  He doesn't want any other farm animal or horse to get any pets or love...crazy horse.

Here's Midnight and Sunny running around the field.

Cooper's Finger

What a month for hands at the Middleton household!  First was my hand getting the blood infection after having an IV removed/inserted poorly, and now Coop!  After mom and dad helped with the fence on Saturday they wanted to bring Cooper back to their house (not sure who wanted it more, my parents bringing him to their house, or Cooper going to their house).  Anyways, on Sunday morning Dad went to the store and Mom was cleaning her bathroom.  Cooper tried to shut the double doors leading into the bathroom to block the dogs from coming in and got his poor little thumb pinched in the doors.

I was shopping when I got the call from Nick telling me I needed to go pick up Cooper (an hour away at my parents).  I called and the poor little guy was a mess (not to mention my Mom who is terrified of blood)!  I was at Target so I picked up some bandages, cleaners, gauze, and tape and made a dash to Argyle (where my folks live).

When I got there Dad was still gone (he didn't have his phone on him so he had no idea anything was happening), Mom was calming down, and poor Coopy was asleep on the couch...finger/hand/cheek from brushing his face full of blood.  Not to mention the soaked paper towels and blanket his hand was resting on.  He woke up a few minutes later, still shaking pretty good.  :(

Here are a few pictures of the hands at our house!  Luckily my swelling has diminished, but poor Coopers is still a mess.  I still have some pain, but not enough to need any painkillers or such.  Coopers still needs to have the bandages changed and cleaned over two hours or so...it continues to bleed if touched 3 days later!  (His finger bled nonstop for a good 12 hours after his accident, poor chum!)

How gross are my hands?

Poor guys little thumb when I got to mom and dads...

This is a little while after we started to clean it up...

Two days later...  Its black and blue still.  It continues to bleed if touched wrong  :(