Cooper's 9 month pictures

I'm sure I have mentioned this before but I need to repeat myself. I LOVE our photographer. I leave a session thinking there's no way that she got any good shots and what does she do EVERYtime? Not only get good shots but GREAT shots. Once again Brittney outdid herself. We did Cooper's 9 month session at our house using the natural morning light and if you haven't guessed already I'm pretty happy with the sneak peek she posted. If you want to see more of her awesome work check out her website and blog.
www.bgannphotography.com

We had to include some sibling shots.

You wouldn't believe what all we were doing to get this shot :-)

Cooper's nursery known formally known as my office.

My baby is growing up fast!

Cooper is 9 Months!

Wow! Time keeps flying by even though I would love for it to slow down. My baby is already 9 months old. Lot's have happened so far. You and your big brother both had surgery for ear tubes on the same day. This was your first set and hopefully only set (Grayson's 3rd). Unfortunately right now both ears are infected and on New Year's Eve your right ear probably ruptured....it started bleeding. You go back to the ENT Tuesday so hopefully it will be good news. You are becoming very brave and have cruised a couple of times. You finally figured out how to go from sitting, to crawling, back to sitting. You also said momma very clear one day when you were mad. You also celebrated your first Christmas and welcomed in not only a New Year but a new decade.

Still a slacker!

Ok, so I'm such a slacker! I keep saying that I'm going to do a better job of keeping my blog up to date yet I haven't. Let's try this again....this week look for posts from Christmas, Coop's 9 month update, and more.
Happy New Year Y'all!

8 months

Wow! Where has the time gone? Cooper is now 8 months. Hmm... let's see what milestones he has hit so far...

Cooper you now have your 2 front bottom teeth. If anyone is feeding you they better watch out because you will bite. You are finally eating baby food much better but prefer to eat whatever is on our plates instead. You are trying your best to crawl. Right now you have the army crawl down and you also like to do lots of push ups. When you get really mad it sounds like you are calling for momma. You are also waving bye but only for your Nanny and big brother. You pulled up by yourself twice last week at daycare. I guess I should also note that you have had 4 ear infections and will be getting your first set of tubes next month at the same time as Grayson is getting his 3rd set. You absolutely adore your big brother. He can make you laugh like no one else can. You love your big sister but are still a little afraid of her since she tortures you so much. You really love watching the dogs and if they bark you giggle. I'm having a blast watching you become more independent. Everyday is a new adventure, I just wish I could slow time down.

Cooper-6 months

This little boy knows how to melt his momma's heart!

www.bgannphotography.com

Weekly Menu Plan

Ok, once again I'm late posting this but better late than never. Last week was VBS so we had a lot of sandwiches, pizza, etc. Quick foods :-(

Sunday- Chicken Pot Pie

Monday- Spaghetti, Garlic bread, salad

Tuesday- Frozen fish sticks and fries (kids choice...Mark works late)

Wednesday- Italian Pot Roast (never got to it the other week)

Thursday- Chicken Casserole, green beans

Friday- Eat out (gotta keep the kitchen clean for company tomorrow)

Saturday- GRILLING OUT

Cooper's 3 month pics

Lil' Man is 3 months old. Actually, he's closer to 4 months. Mommy was a little bit late with his photo session. Anyway, Brittney Gann did it again. She managed to get some great shots of my 3 hooligans. We also had family shots, but none of those were in the sneak peek.

So sit on down and take a peek of 3 members of the Stallings Clan!



Reagan and Grayson singing a song to Cooper

My smiling baby boy.

Mr. Handsome

Can you guess the title of this artwork?

I guess you could say Grayson is my budding artist.

He loves to draw.

Sometimes his sister draws with him,
although her drawings are usually on walls.

This is one of his latest creations.

You can still find it in my driveway since it hasn't rained in MONTHS!

Can you tell what it is?

How about from this angle?

No? How about a close up of it...

Figure it out yet?

Scroll down for Grayson's description or title..............

You are looking at.....
"Man standing on ladder with two bellies and boobies"

How big does a Shark grow?

Sharks grow fast.

They start out little and cute such as this one.

Then they grow

and grow some more

and hopefully one day will stop growing.

Of course with all of that growing comes bags and bags of food disappearing.

So now instead of little and cute

You end up with a large

but still cute Shark.

Menu Plan Monday

So I'm an avid reader of many blogs yet have issues with keeping mine up to date. UGHH! One of the many things I love to see is everyones menu plans on Monday. So I have decided to jump on board and try to start doing this. I'm a little late posting mine, but hey at least I have posted something :-)

Monday: Grilled pork chops, oven potatoes, corn, peas

Tuesday: BBQ chicken sandwiches, chips, baked beans

Wednesday: Grilled steaks, salad, baked potatoes (maybe twice baked)

Thursday: Skillet Lasagna, Salad

Friday: Eat Out

Saturday: Mark works all day and night so maybe sandwiches??

Sunday: Italian Pot roast with carrots & potatoes, green beans, corn bread, and some sort of dessert. Maybe Death by Chocolate

I will let you know how well I stick to my menu plan :-)

The Kiddos and Mother's day crafts

The kids are making mother's day crafts for all of their grandmothers. I needed a picture of all three of them together for one of the crafts so we headed outside. I think this pictured turned out great to have 3 kiddos in it, I just wished I had angled it better so that my garage wasn't in the background. I will try to post pictures of them making their crafts and the final products on Sunday. Can't reveal the surprise in case of prying eyes.

As you can see in the above picture Cooper is a growing boy. He is officially 7 weeks old today. I can't believe it! Time sure does fly and I DON'T like it! He is staying awake most of the day with 2 naps and maybe a catnap here and there a day. He's a great baby unless he's hungry. Cooper sleeps most of the night just waking up once to eat. I'm getting ready to introduce a bottle to little man. This should make Reagan very happy! She's been wanting to give him a bottle since he was born. It should make me happy also to have a break, maybe a pedicure. Ok, I will leave you with another good shot from today. This time Coop wasn't happy. Reagan wanted a turn to hold him.

The many faces of Reagan

Picture of the day!

Brownies

The kids had a pretty good day today. Grayson was disappointed that his swimming lesson was cancelled due to the weather. So, we ended up having a nice day at home (after driving to Ringgold for swimming to have it canceled). Grayson and Reagan requested spaghetti for supper so of course Mommy complied. We also made brownies. I let the kids "make" the brownies. They really thought they were doing something. Here are a few pics.

1 month

Cooper is one month old , actually he's 5 weeks but since I'm a little behind schedule on this post we will pretend he's one month :-) At his one month well visit he was in the 75th percentile for weight, height, and head circumference. He weighed 10lbs. 11oz. Needless to say he is a little pig. He wants to eat all the time. I don't think he's hungry I believe that he thinks Mommy is a good paci. Just like his big brother and sister he is a squeaker when eating. No discrete nursing with this guy. Cooper is a strong little fella. He likes to hold his head up by himself until he's too tired to do it anymore. He also likes to do push ups when doing tummy time. At times he reminds me of a bobble head. The jury is still out on who he looks like. At time he looks more like Grayson than Reagan and vice versa. I guess he's just going to have his own look. Cooper is staying awake more during the day which makes it a little more difficult for Mommy to get stuff done. He likes the swing but has decided he could take or leave the bouncy seat. He also is beginning to smile more often. I can't wait to see how his little personality develops. Right now I'm enjoying every day of his babyhood knowing it won't last long and that more than likely this will be my last one (tubal).

Mr. Cooper

Happy Easter!

Welcome Cooper Alexander!

Conversation with Grayson

I walk into the living room and this is what I hear.....

Grayson: Hey Mommy, I'm screwin....

Me (doing a double take at my son): You are?

Grayson: Yes!............................................ When I get big I'm going to be real good at screwin!

Me (trying my best not to laugh): I bet you will be.


Now to clarify what was going on, Grayson was helping his daddy put batteries in Coopers bouncy seat. He was using the screwdriver trying to unscrew the screws. He was so serious about being a good "screwer" that I could hardly keep a straight face.

Preparing for Cooper

Cooper is arriving tomorrow morning! Yes, this is a week ahead of schedule but apparently he and my body thinks he needs to come on. Sunday I had another gallbladder attack...this one the worst yet! I was at a baby shower (not for me) of all places. Thankfully it was at my cousins house so I was curled up in her bed when I wasn't in the bathroom. Two of my other cousins decided they needed to call the dr and he told me to go on to the hospital. Turns out that was a good idea as the gallbladder attack triggered contractions. So, I got a nice overnight stay at the hospital so they could do an ultrasound on my gallbladder Mon. morning. The only thing it showed was Cooper kicking my gallbladder. Wednesday I went and saw my dr. and I didn't even have to bring up moving my c-section date. I had my gameplan ready to beg and everything :-) Today has been very busy. We had pregnancy pictures planned for tomorrow but fortunately our photographer was able to move them to today. Hopefully, she will have a sneak peak available soon.

So here I am the night before #3 is to arrive. The other two kids are at Nana's and Papaw's for the next couple of days. I need to be in bed asleep instead of blogging but you know how that goes. In a few days I will post some pics of the newest member of our family. So now to bed with everything running through my mind. Surely I have everything packed :-)