Cooper: 5 months

Love this face!

Height & Weight - 
Height: 26"
Weight: 16.6 lbs.

(He is the same height as Noah at this age but has two pounds on our first born!!)

Love wearing this little guy when we are out and about!

Eating - Cooper loves food. Like seriously, there is not enough milk in the world for my boy. I am 99% sure that my milk supply is going down so we are supplementing a lot of his feedings during the day with a little extra breastmilk in a bottle if he still acts hungry. This usually adds up to about 6oz. of bottle milk each day on top of a handful of nursing sessions. Before bed he GOBBLES 8oz. of formula. It is rare that he will turn down a bottle! 

Smiles all the time!

Solids are another story. We have tried oatmeal and pears and he pretty much acts horrified the entire time I try to feed him. He turns his head away from the spoon every single time! I am sure that if we offered him solids every single day he would probably start to get used to it but we aren't very consistent (poor second baby) so it will likely take longer. I'm not feeling any pressure or concern and know that we'll get there in time!

Seriously, mom?! Where's the bottle?

Sleeping (naps) - Progress! I made a commitment to get serious about this while Scott was out of town and I had my mom here to stay with him for all naps and it was like he knew and just magically started taking hour long naps in his bed! No crying, just did it. I think being able to sleep on his belly made a big difference here. 
 

We'll still cheat and have some snuggles from time to time. That face is too precious!

Sleeping (night) - We're getting there! Since our return from vacation we have settled back into a nice routine of one wake up a night (he sometimes tries to get up at 3 but a paci and some back rubs and he'll go back to sleep until 4/4:30). With his aforementioned monster daytime appetite he absolutely does not need to eat in the middle of the night! When he nurses it is for about 1 minute before he starts popping on and off and after putting his paci in he goes to back to sleep. We just need to get tough and do a few nights of crying and we will officially have two boys who sleep through the night! I kind of can't wait. Monitors are hooked up, just need to commit. Hopefully by our six month update there will be a lot of great sleep to report.

Happy boy waking up!

Clothing - We are solidly in six month clothes and even some 6-9. He is also already in size 3 diapers (Noah wears a 4!)!! I mentioned his noggin in my last post, but he is wearing hats meant for 1.5-2.5 year olds!

Thank goodness he fit into his Cardinals onesie! Unfortunately it didn't bring us enough luck though :-(.

New this Month - Rolling over from back to front. He discovered this shortly after our return from Tahoe and has not stopped since. He made his first roll in the middle of the night and definitely surprised himself (and me when I went to get him out and found him on his belly). BUT, it only took him about one night to realize that is his preferred sleeping position. He immediately flips to his belly and seems to be sleeping much more soundly than before. It is also fun to watch him roll around while he plays and pop his little head up to say hello! He gets a bit frustrated whenever he rolls to far and finds himself against a piece of furniture though ;-).

I left him on his mat with the closet door closed (he likes to look at himself in the mirror). I went and switched the laundry and came back to find him like this. Rolling and apparently opening closets now!

Cooper Likes - People. Toys are fairly interesting, but he loves nothing more than to have people talk to him. He also adores Noah! One thing we have mastered this month is the ring sling. We love it. Coop rides along happily and has even zonked out on a number of occasions!

Snuggled in his sling at Kristina & Nick's wedding.

These two...not really enough words for how they fill my heart.

Cooper Dislikes - Being hungry. This is really the only thing that makes him upset! He is the happiest baby ever!

This is the face he makes when he is hungry. He starts sucking his bottom lip as a subtle indication that a meltdown is coming if he isn't fed soon!

**I swear Scott still exists! Not sure why we didn't get any pictures of him with Coop this month but I plan to rectify that in the coming weeks!

wedding tour 2014

Look at me! As promised, I am actually going to recap our vacations! We packed two cities and two weddings into 14 days...

Our trip to St. Louis was originally planned based on Katie's wedding. It turned out that it was also Cooper's first trip back so we got to make an extended vacation out of it. This meant that I got the "opportunity" to fly out to St. Louis alone with both boys (Scott joined us a week later as we stayed for 10 days).

My crew and our luggage. Scott helped me get it in the door ;-).

The flight actually went ridiculously smooth. Noah is a rockstar flyer and Cooper apparently is already following in his big brother's footsteps. The most entertaining part was probably when all three of us got to journey to the airplane bathroom together!

Now picture this in a teeny tiny bathroom!

Snack and an iPad...the keys to airplane success!

And this guy...he's just always happy!

Once we arrived we wasted no time filling our schedule! We had two sides of the family to introduce Coop to, plus lots of close friends to see. This trip to St. Louis was extra nice because both of my parents are now retired so we got to spend a ton of quality time together.

Coop and his Great Grandma (my mom's mom)

And with my dad's mom. How lucky are my boys to have two Great Grandmas to snuggle them?!

Playing chase with Grandma!

St. Louis is full of amazing places to take kids. We opted to visit the zoo and Museum of Transportation this time around but I look forward to adding to that list as both boys get a little older. Noah loved both experiences. He was especially excited to see the elephants at the zoo as San Francisco doesn't have any and we have been promising him elephants for months! Every time I go back to the St. Louis Zoo I am seriously impressed by just how amazing it is. Again, so excited to keep taking the boys as they grow.

Watching the seals with Papa. Two peas in a pod!

Seriously, best zoo ever.

He couldn't be bothered to take his eyes of his beloved elephants!

Museum of Transportation. Noah was really excited to get to climb in a caboose (and I love hearing him say it!)

He and Jillian are amazing friends and playmates. They pick up right where they left off no matter how long they go without seeing each other.

We tried to go apple picking. Noah freaked out about a tractor and we ended up picking exactly zero apples.

Of course, taking two boys out of their routines and home doesn't exactly mean that we were all super rested this vacation! Noah travels really well and adjusts to the time change pretty seamlessly. Cooper was a bit of a different story. I know one day he'll be easy peasy but this trip left me waking up a time or two extra a night and him needing to be held a lot. Luckily there was time for extra naps with all the extra hands on deck!After a week of bachelorhood, Scott joined us in St. Louis for the main event...Kate's wedding! Katie and Chris got engaged on Christmas Eve and we have been waiting for this day ever since. All of the festivities were perfect (I expected no less with Kate in charge) and it was such a fun weekend celebrating an amazing couple.

My very hot date!

Right before the ceremony! Kate looked stunning!!

The newlyweds!

My and my momma!

After a night of partying like we were in college again, it was time to head back home. We loaded up our ridiculous amount of luggage and boarded our flight home...thankfully with an extra set of hands this time (although both boys delivered another great flight).

A new Ducati toy, just like Papa's, also makes flights go off without a hitch!

Seriously, who packs this much?! And my parents really have almost everything we need at their house already!

We landed late Sunday night and pulled a few necessities out of our luggage but left 98% of our bags packed and strewn across the house as we were off to Tahoe on Wednesday...

All of this went in the car. Plus all four of us. The angle is bad but that is 4 suitcases, two pack n plays, golf clubs, two coolers, a Boppy, and a handful of misc. smaller bags!

Somehow we packed a ridiculous amount of luggage (seriously, how is it possible that two small people require so.much.stuff?) into the car with zero room to spare and hit the road. We lucked out on traffic and made fairly good time. We had to make two stops, one for food for the big people, and one for food for Coop, and by the time we made it to Truckee everyone was climbing the walls of the car.

Something about a trip to Tahoe makes In N Out a necessity. It is the only time I ever eat fast food and it is sooooooo good!

Really glad I had the whole fam with me for this pit stop. It was a little eerie!

Guess what, Grandma & Papa were there! And thank goodness they were. I really don't know how we would have managed the logistics of this wedding without them. I was a bridesmaid, Noah was a ring bearer, and Scott was the officiant which kept us pretty busy. We kicked of the festivities almost the moment we got there as the bride-to-be bunked with us on Wednesday night.

We made it! Could the lake be prettier?!

It was pretty much mandatory to get pre wedding massages!

Noah and his two favorite people on earth! I am good for snuggles but these two deliver all the fun!

A little fun at the lake on Friday morning.

Coop caught a few zzzzzz's.

Nervous Noah sticking close to Grandma.

Once again, we celebrated an incredible couple who mean the world to both of us. My brain and eyes are tired from the length of this post so I am going to let the pictures continue to speak for the amazing weekend we had.

Friday night we were treated to a pre-pre-wedding dinner at Sunnyside. Noah was obsessed with all the boats.

Coopie in his new hat. I brought a bunch of his hats with me and not a single one fit!! I had to run out and grab this one and it is sized to fit a 1.5-2.5 year old. Love my boy and his big noggin!

The welcome dinner the night before the wedding was at the incredible Martis Camp. Kristina and Nick organized all kinds of fun games for the guests as you can see above!

Scott and his Mama.

Look at this matchy family! I intentionally dressed the boys the same...it was seriously just happenstance that Scott & I matched too!

Kristina and Nick thought of absolutely everything and pulled off an amazing wedding in an unbelievable setting. We had so much fun the entire weekend!

Ah the life of a breastfeeding bridesmaid!

Noah spying on the set up below. Those suspenders are just too much!

The beautiful bride and me!

These two pretty much made all of these weddings possible for us. Not to mention it was just great to celebrate with them!

Sillies with my boy!

"Hold hands, Mama". The mantra of his life right now.

They had so many adorable details.

Oh that face.

Our wedding family.

Finally, it was time to pack up our family and head home and get back to our normal routine. We actually managed to make it all the way home with zero stops!!! It definitely feels good to be home but I still can't believe the weddings are over. It has been so much fun planning with these ladies and it was so special to be a part of their big days.

Until next time...