Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Swimming, Crawling, Growing!

Cohen's first six months have come and gone!  Life has been flying by, but luckily I have my trusty iphone to get some of it on camera!

But first... On Cohen's six month appointment he was 27 1/2 inches tall (85%) and 18.1 pounds (63%).
I know... what???? Cohen has not grown much since his 4 month appointment.  Only 1 inch longer and 1.5 pounds heavier.  He went from being in the 90% in weight, to the 63%. I did talk with his wonderful pediatrician about this and she reassured that I did not need to worry... yet.  Yes, she added on the yet, so,  my boy may look chunky and healthy... I am going to make him healthier and chunkier!!!!

We also determined at this appointment that he does have eczema and he has been suffering from infant hypnagogic myoclonus.  When I went into the Dr. I was very concerned because there had been six times when Cohen was nursing and falling asleep that he goes into very small convulsions.  Well those convulsions turned out to be hypnagogic myoclonus.  Or in other words twitching, like most people do when they are sleeping when they know they should be awake... like in class, or in church, but with Cohen instead of being large, single twitches... they were small, and numerous twitches.  Well, I liked that answer much more than the alternative!
Other than that, the appointment went well and Cohen is a beautiful, healthy, strong, baby boy!


Now, on to the fun stuff...
Cohen is a swimmer!
No not this type of swimmer (although he does enjoy this!),






This type of swimmer... a fish out of water!




Cohen is also a crawler!
Okay, not really but he is working hard on it!
(Update: he is now getting up on all four limbs and trying to move forward, only to fall and army crawl to where he wants to be.) 


Cohen is a shark!
Look at these teeth coming in!
All 4 on top are just about there, the 2 on the bottom have been around for a while and the 2 next to them are just starting to teeth, the bumps have formed!


(Another Update: Today the top four are now all through.  And the bottom two (besides the two that are already in) are now budding white... so in a few more days he will be up to 8 teeth!) 


Eating...


Cohen, unlike Arlo, LOVES food!  Since his very first bite... until now if you put food in front of his face he will eat it.  The problem is, he will eat food and not drink his bottle.  I think that is where we are going wrong with the losing weight battle.  On days where he eats 2-3 meals he will only drink around 10-12 oz of milk, on days without food it is more like 22-24 oz (right where it should be, even with food).



Tuesday, May 17, 2011

President's Club

Congratulations to TIMMY!
Stats:  
Quarterly MVP
Rocky Mountain Division MVP
Rocky Mountain Team Member of the Year
=
Company Presidents Club

This year they sent all President club members to BEAUTIFUL.......
..........
..........
Scottsdale, AZ
(we were the only couple from AZ)


Funny? YES!
Disappointing?  HECK NO!!!!

It was an all expenses paid trip with no kids.  (Actually we had to pay for gas to get to and from and our bill was 23.00$)  How much better could it get.  I really enjoyed it because it was a great peace of mind knowing if anything happened to my kids we were only minutes away.

SO... we spent the weekend at the JW Marriott or Camelback Inn.
Here is the room...
The resort was overbooked and so they ran out of king beds... in the end it turned out all right, we had our own space and we both slept so peacefully!  Especially me since it was the first time in over 5 months that I got a full nights rest.  Although, the last half of the nights I tossed and turned because I was so full!  (Only mama's will understand that comment!)

We started our weekend with a welcome dinner where we were in a ghost town on mummy mountain and there were activities such as tomahawk throwing, cowboy golf, western pictures and a country band to keep us entertained.

The next day they provided a delicious breakfast and then we headed off to different activities.  Tim and I chose a cattle drive.  It was actually tons of fun.  Neither of us had been on a horse in years and they actually let us herd the cattle instead of walking our horses in a line.  It was more fun that I had expected!




Later that night they had a farewell black and white dinner.
When Tim and I read the announcement we both read black tie casual, thinking it meant sunday dress.  But no... what it actually said was black and white casual where you could wear anything as long as it was the colors black and white.  Tim was wearing peach and gray and I was wearing pink!
We were out of place... but we looked good doing it !-)


We figured since we got all dolled up we should take some pictures... the lighting was horrible and we were filling time...




The next morning I went to the resort's spa and was pampered for an hour with a desert nectar honey wrap and facial... it was so relaxing, the way I should wake up everyday!
While I was pampering myself, Tim was sleeping in (his form of R&R!)


This next picture I just had to post, the resort was filled with cacti (cactuses) and 90% of them were thorn free... that's right they plucked all the thorns out of them.  And look at the sizes of the plants... ridiculous!


So thank you Timmy for not only being an outstanding husband and father, 
but a stupendous employee as well!  
Keep up the good work so we can go again next year... to somewhere other than here!

Friday, May 13, 2011

Everything Is Better in Texas

Tim servered an LDS mission in Texas, and since before we were married he has wanted to go back to visit.  We figured now would be the best time to go for a few reasons; 1.  Arlo is turning two and as long as he is still one he can fly for free, 2.  Tim's second mission president is serving as the San Antonio Temple President and will soon be released.  So, on Wednesday, April 27th we hopped on an airplane and flew to San Antonio.  We were picked up at the airport by Tim's old mission companion Elder Barnwell (Jake) who lives there with his wife (Amy) and two beautiful daughters.   The Barnwell family was so sweet to let us stay with them for our trip.  We took tons of pictures so everyone can enjoy our trip as much as we did.

Day 1: We started the day off with an Easter Egg Hunt, followed by lunch at Chris Madrids and then took an afternoon boat ride to downtown San Antonio where we were tourists and visited the Alamo.  Our First day was not complete until we had dinner at Rudy's BBQ.






Tim's burger was bigger than my head!


There are so many of these beautiful mosaics all over downtown San Antonio... BEAUTIFUL!











Day 2:  Easter; Easter morning we woke up to Easter Baskets and another Easter Egg hunt.  Then Amy made us all crepes which were AMAZING! Then we went to church in our Easter best (Sorry no pictures of the boys in their Easter suits... we were running late.) and came back early to take a nap.  Arlo was so beat from no nap the day before that he slept for over 3 hours.  Then our wonderful Hostess made us a delicious steak dinner, and the grownups stayed up way to late watching movies and talking.





The end of the 3+ hour nap


Day 3:  The Mercado or market square in down town San Antonio.  We went shopping and did a little too much of it, but we had a few great finds.  I am proud to say we did not come home with a Texas star, but if Tim gets his way we will get one eventually.  After the market we got home put the kids down for a nap and got dressed up for a night on the river.  Jake is a tour guide on the river and his company does dinner tours, so we took one and it was so relaxing and wonderful and beautiful.  Downtown San Antonio is probably the prettiest down town I have ever seen, and it has so much history and charm I would recommend San Antonio for vacation to anyone.  After the tour, we went back to the Alamo to experience it at night when it was not so crowded.  It was a great photo opp... so we took lots and lots of pictures there.

What you can find at the mercado!







Day 4:  Austin (also Cohen's middle name, named after the city)  On Tuesday we loaded up our family along with our tour guide Jake and headed up to Austin to visit Tim's Mission areas.  We saw a few apartments he lived in and met up with John, a man that Tim and Jake had taught on the mission.  We also stopped at the Salt Lick which is by far the BEST BBQ in the world and then for dessert a Round Rock Doughnut (we just needed one for all of us).  Later that evening we met up with John and his wife Chris at Shady Grove and had one more delicious meal.  If you have not noticed we ate a lot in Texas, I could never live there because of all the delicious food.  Then after dinner instead of driving back to San Antonio right away we stayed to watch the bats.  Yes, you read that correctly BATS.  In Austin, under a bridge there lives one of the largest colonys of mexican free-tailed bats, 1.5 million to be exact.  And every night they all leave at the same time and you see this enormous swarm of bats flying over the river.  It is supposed to be an amazing sight.  So we called the bat hotline and it said the bats will come out at around 7:30.  It was about 6:30 when we first arrived but Arlo and Cohen had bee in the car most the day so we got out and played at the park while we waited.  7:30 came and past, we called the bat hotline again, the time had changed to 8:30, so we played some more and waited.  8:30 had come and past and we called the hotline again 9:15.  By this time Arlo was getting pretty cranky and so we left.  We did see a few flying under the bridge but no swarm, just dirty, nasty bats.  But, we did get a lot of pictures!




 The BBQ at the Salt Lick

THE Doughnut




 This is where the bats live


Down Town Austin

This last picture is the bats if you look closely.

Day 5:  We got another babysitter for the kids and Jake, Amy, Tim and I all went to the San Antonio Temple.  We met up with President and Sister Woods and were able to talk with them and see some of the Temple as well as hear some great stories about parts of the temple.  After the temple we went out to eat with President and Sister Woods at The Alamo Cafe where we ate puffy tacos and the BEST tortillas in the world!  We got home just in time to pack and get to the airport, to find out that our plane was an hour late.




I will be honest...  I went into this trip thinking, this is Tim's trip, I will have a good time for him and enjoy learning about his time here.  But as we were going home, I couldn't help but think of how much fun I actually did have.  I made a great new friend and I wish we lived closer because if we did, she would totally be one of my BFF's!  But, I had so many fun and enjoyable moments... it was a blast!  A big thank you to the Barnwell family for sharing their home, their food, their vehicle and most importantly, their time with us.  They are a great family and I would be so happy if Arlo marries Kate one day (HeeHee).