cheese!!!

I think I have the cutest boys! Enjoy these pictures!

 {WARNING: the picture below is not flattering. Not even in the slightest bit. I worked a weird schedule - Saturday 2pm-1130pm and Sunday 6am-4pm. So I am EXHAUSTED here.}

 He's so big and no longer needs me to cut his sandwich into bite size pieces!

emotions?

Woman are very emotional.

It's just natural.

So when I go from being content to crying my eyes out ... it's pretty normal.

However, when both my boys go from smiling to screaming in half a second...that's not very normal to me!

Crew will be quiet as can be then out of no where he's screaming! not crying, not whining, just screaming. he's always better after a full bottle and some cuddling. {cooper as a baby always whined and made noises before he started to full out cry or scream - this is very new to us}

Cooper will do the same thing...only with a teeny tiny bit of warning. but he's also starting that whole "terrible two's" stage so it's a bit more expected :)

So what's the deal with emotions? Or should I say hormones?

All I know is ... I don't like them.

Fun things!

Cooper giving Crew kisses without me asking!

 Crew 2 months - loving his bath

 Not even close to potty training but he's getting used to sitting on the potty

 snuggle time with daddy!

 Crew's adorable smile

 he started giggling and I LOVE how he scrunches up his nose!

 coloring

 our new diaper bag! We had to upgrade to a larger one

New Words

I still can't get over how fast Cooper is growing!! He continues to talk non stop but we are finally able to understand more of what he's saying. Here's a little list of his new words:

- bubble

- star

- thank you

- baby

- sweetie (so cute! I went to crew and said "hi sweetie" and he went up and goes "hi seetie!"

- Brad (pronounced Braid for Brady)

- Suzie (sounds like Suz - my friend from work)

- football

- color

His physical ability is pretty much amazing. His most favorite thing is to spin in circles of to stand on one foot and kick the other. We went to a large area with several soccer fields for him to run around on and he ran for an hour STRAIGHT! He did not stop and did not walk. Not.even.once. When it was time for bed we knew he'd be upset to get in the car so he and I walked home (it's really like 2 minutes away from home). He was a little upset to go inside of course but at least we didn't have to strap him in his car seat! He's also amazing at kicking the soccer ball! 

Cooper is so much fun! He is a wild child. He was having a difficult time in nursery on Sunday so I stayed with him. I went home in tears because of how different Cooper is compared to the other children his age. He was far more (and I mean WAY WAY WAY more) wild than the others. He's always been this way but it's still difficult for me to handle. I think he just gets bored with things. And come snack time he shoved the food in and was done before the other's even ate a few bites! He did pretty good with music time but I think he got bored towards the end because he was running around like a mad man. It is very overwhelming for me to try to get him to sit down and listen for something. We even have to tell Cooper to look at us just to get his attention so he'll listen for a second. I've talked with several mother's and 2 pediatricians. They have all said he'll eventually grow out of it. Oh I sure hope he does some day! But until then we will be struggling with quiet time activities.

Milk

Ever since I was pregnant for Cooper I wanted to breast feed our children. There are so many benefits from breast feeding and it's so good for the children. Well, when Cooper absolutely would NOT latch on (even with a shield) we ended up having to give him a bottle. I pumped for little over a month but of course eventually went down to nothing. I was an emotional wreck over it...

Crew is a different story. We tried for a full week to have him latch on, which he did successfully a few times but was extremely frustrated all the others. Then he went to the NICU and just refused so we tried a shield. The shield did the trick and we've been successful ever since. Now that I've started up work again I go two days in a row without breast feeding Crew. I'll go without pumping for a full 8 hours at times because I usually can't take the time to pump at work (horrible huh?). Crew went through a growth spurt over the WEEKEND and was eating every 2 hours...well I wasn't there to nurse him so my milk production is about 2 oz too low. We've been trying to get it up for over a week now and I am still not making enough. I've tried different milk producing supplements and drinking LOTS of water. It's still not getting any better. And trying to nurse Crew every 1 to 2 hours is not so fun with Cooper running around!!

So with that said... we are going to formula :( I am pretty bummed about it but our baby needs to eat! Now the trick is to find a formula that works for him. We supplement with Nutramigen and that stuff is ridiculously expensive. I guess we will see how it goes.

to my crafty mother!!

Mom - go to this link and take a look!

Way Cute!

"side"

Since the weather has been pretty comfortable (in the 80's) I've been able to have the windows open! YAY! With that Cooper wants to be outside more. So I hang out in our bedroom with Crew and let Cooper play out in the sun and water on his own - I go out and play when Crew's napping. We have been going "side" after breakfast and after nap time. Well, last night around 11 Cooper woke up screaming. It's very unusual for him to do this so we ran in and got him up. The first words he said was "side?" He so desperately wanted outside from 11 pm - 1:30 am. He cried and cried for hours! We ended up opening our living room windows so he could look at the stars and he was content with that. But by then he was hungry so we ended up feeding him some yogurt then he FINALLY went back to bed.

Some cool things happened during those few hours. It was one of the first times he's actually spent time with us in bed! He has never slept in bed with us since he was 1 week old and we have been anxiously waiting for a time when he would calm down enough to cuddle. Unfortunately he didn't cuddle but he did pretend to sleep :) It was also nice to have Brady up with us. We really do miss him. Also, Crew slept through the night for the first time!! YAY!! He didn't even mind Cooper's screaming!

Back to Cooper - his sleeping habits have been horrible. extremely horrible (compared to how he was). Last night he went down around 8:30 because cream of wheat takes forever to cool down, he cried until 9:00ish. woke up at 11 and was up until 1:30ish. He woke up again around 6 hungry so he got a bottle (grr), and was up again at 8:30. He's been up and playing and has refused to take a nap. I tried to put him down at 1 but he cried/screamed for an hour and so we got up, had a snack, and played for a bit then tried again at 3. He cried for about 15 minutes. Oh and he's still banging his head - ugh. Seriously?? I really hope this stage passes quickly!

We are all very tired.