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 :-)

An update....

We have a big girl! Reagan slept in her big girl panties the whole night and no one was flooded out of the bed! The only reason I let her sleep in them was to keep her from making a stinky in a pull up. Yes we have #2 issues and she only wants to do it in her pull up. Looks like I can hide the few left overs we have and go undies from this point out. Keep your fingers crossed this works.

I'm officially on maternity leave now. The doctor wanted me to start a week earlier than I had planned. I'm not complaining too loudly as I was to the point I wasn't able to do what I needed to be doing in the classroom. I already miss my class!! They were so sweet and good. When you have a class that was as good as mine you don't want to leave them.

Cooper is scheduled to come in 2 weeks. Yes, I only have 2 weeks to pick up any last minute items needed, clean my house from top to bottom (or at least make it presentable), run any errands I need to do for me, and finish Easter bunny stuff. Plus, I want to take each of the kids on a date without the other....not sure what we will do so if you have any suggestions let me know. I'm already tired thinking of it.

Progress

Progress was made tonight in Coopers room. Mark and Samson carried his bed downstairs, moved the rocking chair, and armoire into the room. Reagan and I emptied some gift bags and dusted. The only downside is that after the furniture was moved in I figured out that Reagan's old changing table is 4 inches too big to fit. So, now I'm trying to see if I rearrange I can make it fit. Oh well! Now to get the bedding on the bed, curtains finished and to find pictures to hang we will be finished!

Cooper

So, we have chosen Cooper as the baby's name. Of course, the kids and I are still calling him Sharkey...it's a hard habit to break :-) We're still working on a middle name, so if you have any suggestions that start with A be sure to let us know. I went back to the Dr. yesterday. I now know what is calling the rash, but the stomach issues are not related. The rash is some LONG name I can't remember but the abbreviations are PUPPP. From what the doctor said and the research I have read it only occurs to 1% of pregnant women. Most of these are first time pregnancies, pregnant with multiples, etc. None of which apply to my situation. Pretty much what this means is that I'm not reacting well to the male DNA of Cooper....Marks contribution :-) It should go away after the pregnancy. The rash can leave scars, but I'm hoping not. Right now the Dr. is treating it with steroids. I don't know if I will take these for the rest of the pregnancy or just for now. Back to the stomach issues the Dr. wouldn't commit to a diagnosis but the look on his face when I asked if it was gallbladder lead me to believe that is his line of thinking. Due to the rash and stomach issues I bypassed going to the Dr. every 2 weeks and now have to go every week.

March 25th can't get here soon enough :-)

Baby Sharkey

Ok, so I have done a horrible job keeping my new years resolution. I'm not in denial so I can admit it. Let me try to catch you up on what's been going on in our world.

First of all baby Sharkey. Yes I am 32 weeks pregnant with a boy and he still doesn't have a name. Poor #3 is already neglected. I think Mark and I have narrowed it down and may actually have one selected but I'm not ready to commit just yet. Anyway, back to the name Sharkey. In October we took a trip to the beach. Somehow on that trip Grayson decided he wanted to name the baby Sharkey Fish Stallings and it has stuck. I think that is part of the reason we have been so slow on picking a name. We have called him Sharkey for so long it seems as if he has a name. Mark's cousin, Samson, painted the nursery yesterday so now I'm ready for the boys to move the furniture in there and start getting it ready. The bedding came in last week. Grayson is disappointed because he had picked out one that was polka dots with animals. The one I went with is polka dots but no animals. I told him he could help me pick out animal pictures to put on the walls. We'll see what we end up with :-) On Friday we took the kids to see an ultrasound with us. Grayson was very excited...Reagan not so much. Grayson really thought it was funny that Sharkey kept showing us his weenie. We really didn't get a good look at his face. His hands and his feet were in front of his face. I guess it will have to be a surprise who he looks like.

The pregnancy has been pretty uneventful until the past month. I have a HORRIBLE itchy rash on my forearms and belly and it's not getting any better. In addition to that every 5-7 days I have had some major stomach issues...to the point I have to miss work. I won't go into details but I bet you can guess. Not fun anytime, but especially when you have a huge belly. Last week the Dr. took about 1/2 my blood to run some tests so I'm hoping when I go back tomorrow he has some answers. I'm tired of itching and making bathroom visits. Keep your fingers crossed that I find out some answers.

I'm going to go for now. I will post again soon and give you more updates about what's been going on and hopefully some pictures!

still lacking in the blogging world

Ok, I know I said I was going to blog a lot over the weekend but I'm having technical difficulties. Our router is not working properly and needs to be replaced. Hopefully this will be done by this weekend. I hope everyone is staying warm!

Neglect

My poor neglected blog. I did so well maintaining it for so long but not lately. I guess my new years resolution is to do a better job. The next few days will be a hodgepodge of posts, not in any certain order. I hope that all are doing well!