March 2017

Happy Birthday Aurora! Holy goodness I have a SIX year old. I feel like I say that every birthday... but seriously. It is so fun to see your passions come alive and learn every day about who YOU are and who you are becoming. My favorite way we have seen this lately is in your music taste. Currently your favorite artists are The Beatles and Tom Petty. You found both these artists on your own and loved them because they spoke to you not because your Dad and I have played them for you. Keep being you girl, you are amazing and I am blessed to be your Mama :)

Nanny and Grumpa came to celebrate Aurora's birthday. She was so thrilled that they made a special trip just for the day just for her birthday :)

This year we decided to forgo the "friend birthday party" in favor of two super special surprises. Her first surprise was tickets to RAIN which was a Beatles tribute concert put on by the Denver Center for Performing Arts. It was fabulous and Aurora was over the moon. It was also fun to see all the older women at the show just loving that Aurora was rocking out to all the songs!

Her other special surprise was a trip to the new Great Wolf Lodge in Colorado Springs. She has asked to go for her birthday almost weekly since we were at the Dallas location last year. Even though Connor basically refused to go in the water, all the kids all had a blast. Cooper enjoyed toddling around after everyone and watching all the other kids there.

We started demo on the new house!! Joe, our contractor, says we will likely finish up towards the end of the summer but that feels like an excessive amount of time. It has been really fun to see all the old stuff coming out of the house. And the best part -- the house doesn't smell anymore! It's amazing what a different removing the heavy window coverings and old carpets makes.

Connor and Cooper have a new favorite song -- Rocket Man. It is so funny driving around in the car listening to them. Connor loves that they repeat "Rocket man" twice in a row because he can always nail the second one and Cooper just shouts "MAN!" over and over again.

There is one other family at Logan that lives in Cherry Hills Village and they invited us over for a dinner party to get to know some of their neighbors. Roxanne and Quinn are super sweet and it was fun getting to know them a little better plus we liked all their neighbors.

-- Cooper --

Cooper has started running. It is hysterical and looks like he has a peg leg, but he clearly has no interest in being left behind so off he goes!

He has starting to want us to read longer picture books rather than just board books. That boy clearly inherited his sisters love of reading.

He is no longer happy to sit by at activities like gymnastics and swim, wants to be in the action!

He is talking a TON but is still mostly unintelligible. I can often only figure it out by asking him to show me, so he ends up pulling me around and pointing a lot.

He used to point to himself and say Mama, now will point to me and say Mama and then point to himself can say Cccc (just the hard C sound for Cooper)

He will point to his head, nose, ears, toes, fjngers, and belly button if you ask him where those parts are.

Has found a love for trucks just like his brother. "Guh!" When he sees one on the street or pointing to his shirt when he has one on.

We have this cute little routine when he gets up after he nurses. I say "where are Coopers toes?" and then unzip his sack. He sticks out his feet and says "Toes!!" And holds them up for me to kiss. Then he holds up his hands and says "gungas!" (Fingers) for me to kiss. So so precious.

I think Cooper must be doing some major teething because his sleep completely fell apart for almost two weeks. First he was inconsolable at bedtime unless in bed with me and even then couldn't properly settle.  Then it turned into screaming in his crib unless I was in the room (sleeping on the floor by his crib is pretty miserable) and now finally I think we are getting back to easy bedtimes. Thank goodness.

February 2017

Aurora had her first Expo at school! This is a big deal people. Each kid at Logan gets to pick their own individual unit to study for the majority of the year and Expo is when they present to everyone what they have been working on. Aurora has been studying Greek Gods and Goddesses. She loved presenting to everyone that came by her station and did a fabulous job. So proud!!

We rearranged car seats in the Escalade. I have been debating switching Connor to a forward facing seat for a while and finally did it. He is now in the very back with Aurora which frees up one of the bucket seats. It is so much easier now for the kids to get in and out.

We started doing an online art school called Artventure, which has been amazing. Aurora historically hasn't been very interested in creating her own art (just coloring) is now fascinated with all the things she can make. I hope it sparks her creative side and encourages her to take some risks with her art.

Wyatt's poor eyes are getting worse. They had started to look better for a while but recently he developed "cherry eye" which is when a dog's third eyelid gets inflamed and "pops" out. Fortunately we were able to treat is and let it settle back in. Let's hope it stays that way.

--Cooper at 16 months --

Cooper is developing quite the opinion about everything. He knows what he wants and isn't afraid to let you know!

He is definitely starting to understand what we say to him. I am constantly reminding him that he cannot walk if he doesn't hold my hand. He doesn't want to usually but once I explain that if he doesn't I will have to carry him he is quick to comply ;)

He has the most adorable head nod, which isn't a head nod at all because he bouncing his whole body to say yes.

Cooper loves dancing to the Beatles with his brother and sister. He especially likes "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and totally rocks out.

He takes his shoes off in the car all the time and it drives me nuts.

He is eating pretty well. He has been cutting down on his reliance on yogurt and is more willing to try new foods

He loves coloring especially with markers, but I ended up taking all the markers away because Cooper was eating the tips off... yuck.

January 2017

Happy New Year! We had a really quiet new years this year. I think Matt may have been the only one that stayed up....

Aurora and one of her friends at school, Harry, wrote and acted out a play based on the book Beast Quest. Matt and I went to school to watch it and it turned out really well!

We closed on the new house! It is amazing. Going from the postage stamp size yard we have now to 2.5 acres is going to be incredible. We are currently trying to finalize the scope of work so we can get going on the remodel. I just want to be moved in!

The kids started ski school. Thankfully Connor was pretty easy going about it, and Aurora has skied enough to be excited. This was the first year we haven't had any tears before drop off.

Matt went to Special Friends Day at Paddington and spent an hour playing and doing a craft project with Connor. I don't think Connor wanted to talk about anything else that day besides how Dad had gone to school with him :) So precious.

Aurora has discovered a love for The Beatles. She learned about them in her Big Book of Who and asked to hear their music. It was love at first sound ;) She is only mildly obsessed. And Connor doesn't disappoint with the amusement factor when he sits in the back of the car and sings (very loudly) "We all live in a yellow summaveen a yellow summaveen..."

After a year and a half of violin lessons with Nico we have finally found the time to do something with the kids outside of lessons. Tara and I took just Aurora and Nico to dinner. The pizza place was doing a kids night with balloon animals, face painting and arcade games. What a blast!

-- Cooper at 15 months --

Cooper loves the plasma cars! They are technically for a much older kid, but I guess watching Connor zoom around on them has given him a leg up. He can totally keep up with siblings on that thing.

He is walking everywhere now. He still walks with his hands up in the air for balance but he has it figured out.

He is getting really tired of being carried in the ergo. He will cry and fuss when I put him in because he wants to walk on his own. If he even sees me put the carrier on he will start crying and run away.

Cooper is obsessed with closing doors. It comes in handy when we come in the front door, but now he wants to close every door that is open.

Cooper loves the freedom he has at the new house! He has stairs to climb (carpeted and very padded), rocks to climb and a huge yard to run in.

He has cut down his nursing to once a day in the morning. Any other time of the day I don't think I could force him to nurse even if I wanted to.

December 2016

Connor's intellectual curiosity is starting to come alive. He usually comes home from school talking about something he learned that day - "Mama do some animals sleep through the winter?" or the other day when I was getting dinner ready he saw the bag of buns and asked what was keeping the bag closed (a plastic tab) and how exactly it worked.

Connor's birthday party was a lot of fun. We had a proper party for him this year because I expected he would really want one after seeing his sister have parties... but it was too funny because when I asked him who he wanted to invite he said "only Sloane" who is his best buddy at school.

Christmas was a blast this year. Last year was almost embarrassing with how many presents found their way under the tree, so this year we were purposeful in keeping it more minimal. I think the kids enjoyed it more and so did Matt and I. We just got the kids each a National Geographic Kids Encyclopedia, a few fiction books, and tickets to The Secret Garden which we will take them to in May. They got plenty of other toys from their aunts and uncles and grandparents.

We flew to Scottsdale to visit Nanny and Grumpa the day after Christmas which was really fun. Keeping a minimal Christmas in mind I love that Aurora asked me why she didn't get a present from Nanny and Grumpa under the tree and then quickly corrected herself and said "Oh yeah! Going to Scottsdale is the present!"

Connor had his pediatrician appointment and he is finally growing! He was about 25% for height and 35% for weight. I hope he is filling out a little in preparation for a big growth spurt!

For Connor's birthday we got him tickets to see Rudolf the Musical. He said he wanted Aurora to be able to go too, so the four of us went and it was so awesome. Our seats were in the first two rows and he was memorized the whole time. Magical :)

The kids have been having a blast singing all sorts of Christmas songs and my personal favorite is when Connor sings "We wish you a merry christmas tree…” ;)

-- Cooper at 14 months --

At the beginning of the month Cooper was just starting to choose to walk between things! He was able to take a few steps, regain his balance and walk a little more. And now by the end of the month we had a full time walker!

He is starting to following simple directions -- please put that back in the bin etc

He loves climbing on things! Especially stools and chairs... you know things that hurt to fall off of ;) His favorite right now are the kids chairs at the kitchen table. He will crawl under the table to push them out so he can climb on them.

He had been sleeping really well... well until we traveled to Scottsdale. Then it all totally fell apart. I hope it was just the new location and things will get back to normal once we are settled at home.