June 12, 2010

I have a lot on my mind that I've been meaning to post about, so please forgive me for what is about to become a very long post. I've included some pictures in video form so you don't have to scroll down the page to see them all. I just couldn't pick and choose which ones I wanted to share. Please forgive any misspellings you may find, as it is late and I claim mommy/pregnancy brain.

You know, it's interesting to realize what your brain is picking apart and thinking about constantly. I can always tell by the dreams I have. I remember when I first learned how to use PowerPoint in a useful way in my 2nd grade classroom and I started dreaming in PowerPoint. Then I learned about the SMART Board, and once again my dreams started becoming SMART Board slides and activities that I couldn't wait to put together for my students. Now it's the garden.

Cooper and I have spent a lot of time in the garden lately. We've been planting and weeding and watering, and now we've even done a little harvesting. We've been able to eat some rashes, swiss chard, and bell peppers already. Our dinner tonight was a fantastic one of mostly home grown veggies and noodles. I felt like I could eat a bottomless bowl of it. By the way, if you're not a fan of fresh radishes, try roasting them - they taste so much different! I love them that way but Steven likes them fresh, so we do a little bit of both.

We went to the Boulder Farmer's Market today, and it inspired me to continue working on our garden. I feel like I'm such a garden nerd. I'd love to learn about saving seeds to store them for next year, but I haven't found any good books that fit my needs. Any suggestions out there?

We've also spent some of our time lately at nearby parks, and a lot of time at the nearby reservoir swim beach. I've been sunburned a bit, but I've been really good at keeping sunblock on Cooper, so he's enjoyed the fun without too much sun. He is so fun to watch while he plays on the beach, and even though the water is still quite chilly he couldn't care less. He loves running in it!

I'm into the third trimester now with baby number 2. We've settled on naming him Ethan Stuart Biles. That is, we've settled on that for now... I don't think we'll change it, but we weren't even considering those names until the night we decided on them. I've been feeling healthy and great. It's the hormones that are the kickers sometimes. I couldn't find my keys this morning and if you could have been a fly on the wall, you would have thought that my world was over. That started the water works, and though I've leveled off emotionally my eyes have been tearing up all day. And I still haven't found my keys.

Steven is working hard and playing hard these days. He's been doing some work for DIA so he's been putting in long working days, but at least he gets to come home at night instead of being out of town. He's also enjoying playing Magic the Gathering weekly at the local gamer store.

Cooper is growing up faster than I know how to deal with. It's like he learns a new sign every day. Just for fun, let's see if I can name some of the signs he's mastered (though I'm sure I'll forget some): eat, drink, water, milk, hot, up, down, change (diaper change), daddy, music, pain, more, all done, stop, airplane, help.
Some of the words he says include: dad (not mom yet), dog, cheese, please, more, hot, ball, car (which he said one million times today I'm almost sure).
He can also tell you what the dog says (woof), the bird says (tweet tweet), the fish says (kissy lips noise), and the chicken says (boc boc).
One of the things he loves most of all right now is lotion. Because I've sunburned my feet and put lotion daily on my belly we've gotten the lotion out a lot. He sticks his little fist over to me so I can put a little dot on the back of his hand. Then of course I have to put another little dot on the other hand. Then he uses his fingers to rub it around, eventually rubbing his hands together, and then he rubs his hands on his shirt. I'm not sure why he rubs them off onto his shirt, but my best guess is that he's copying me because I rub lotion on my belly.
He always gets this goofy open mouth grin when he's happy or excited about something. I had to post a picture I had of it as the main photo for the blog.

He consistently has gotten up at 6am when Steven does for quite a while now - since our Utah trip I think. Just the last couple of days he's started sleeping in. First it was 7, then 8:10 (I went in that time to make sure he was still breathing because he hasn't slept in like that forever), then 8:30. That was three days in a row. Each day also sported a continuously longer nap, by himself in his own crib - which was a big thing because for the longest time he'd wake up after 30 minutes and cry himself into a complete fit if you didn't pick him up, but then he'd inevitably fall back asleep right away on your shoulder. Anyway, nap time went from an hour and a half to two and a half hours over those three days. Yesterday though, day number 4, he was up again right at 6 and had trouble napping, but today he slept till 7:40. I hope he decides that sleeping in is a good thing, and that naps continue to be longer rather than shorter. I always nap when he does so I can make it through the day, and I certainly enjoy sleeping in!

I'm sure there are more things that I wanted to share with everyone, I keep thinking about all the great new things happening around here and want to post all about them. Usually I'm tired by the time Cooper goes to bed so I do too. Tonight Steven fell asleep right when Cooper went to bed (7:45) so I had a little time to post. Now being after 9pm it is my bedtime. I don't know how people with kids still stay up late =-)