another crawling movie

This movie is lighter and a bit better then the other one I poster earlier. He has been a busy boy crawling today...

One of the things that makes this process interesting is that he already learned to pull himself up before crawling... he is getting into everything...time to baby proof our home

he is mobile

I am embarrassed that it has been so long since I have posted. We have had a busy holiday season. So just to fill you in Bay is seven months and seriously mobile. He has been scooting for quite awhile and then last night it clicked while at Jeff's sister's house he crawled...we are in seriouse trouble...he is really fast check out the video and you will see what I mean..yikes...time to baby proof the house...

On another note...I am working on sorting all of my pictures from Christmas out so those will be arriving in the next post...stay tuned

Emma is Here

Jeff's sister had her baby! Candace and Chad's little bundle of joy is finally here. Emma Delilah Cooper was born December 3rd at 5:30pm. She weighed in at 7lbs 5 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. She is beautiful healthy baby girl with a full head of red hair like her mom. Both mom and baby are doing well after a smooth and easy delivery.


Its so strange to have been at the hospital just moments after her birth to see such a sweet little girl knowing that just 6 months ago that was the same exact size that bay was. I am so thankful that she had a good delivery and all went well. I know that we are sure excited for Bay to have another cousin, with one on the way as well....

Sick Sick Sick...

That is the name of the game at our house this week...yuck...I spent all night sunday night in the bathroom sick it was awful...and now I guess it is Jeff's turn..I feel so bad for him knowing what he has in store for him...I just hope that Bay doesn't get it.

In other news Bay is now sitting up unassisted for fair amounts of time, and he is working on crawling...Watch out Christmas! Bay will be mobile. He can already go backwards and goes forward for a second then collapses, I bet its only a few more days until he gets it all figured out. Its sure exciting and scary all at once!

rake up nampa

last weekend our family participated in a community event called rake up nampa. All over the community groups volunteered to rake up leaves for disabled or elderly folks. The fire department decided to participate so we showed up with rakes in our winter clothes ready to go. There was about 20-25 people a total of about 6 or 7 families. Bay was well behaved the entire time in fact he slept most of the time. It was just nice to get out there with other people on the department and give back to the community...here are some photos from the event

I think Jeff's favorite part was just showing Bay off to everyone...he was so cute in his little fleece suit and the hat that jeff bought him...take a look and see what you think...

grandma and grandpa's visit

My parents were here over the weekend and it was great. We had fun watching movies,having dinner, cooking together and playing with bay. My mom and I even snuck away to a card making class at a local scrapbook class and my dad played raquetball with jeff. It was soo nice having them here. I wish that they didnt have to leave, it made me sad. Just before they left we took these pictures, they turned out great and bay was so cooperative.

Bay in his little wagon outfit, I love the hat.

the choppers have arrived

We have also been dealing with a teething baby. Yes I said teething. Let me just say that he has been miserable. Between the drooling, hand chewing, and crying it has been tough. He has been soo cranky which is not normal for him. Motrin or Tylenol have been our friends. He has his first couple of choppers as of this week. His last tooth broke through last Friday and his other bottom one came through Monday night. So we have the two bottom teeth...now I just have to worry about biting...

Happy Halloween Everyone!

We just wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy Halloween.

My little bear. My mom made this costume for my brother when he was a baby. It is over 30 years old. It fits bay just right. I thought it was sooo cute.

The skeleton costume is from my sister's boys. It even glows in the dark!

Pumpkin Carving

Over the weekend we had the chance to carve pumpkins with Candace and Chad. Candace and Chad have the most amazing garden during the summer which provided these great pumpkins. We had a great time having dinner and carving together.

No Bay is not hungry in this picture, he had just eaten.
Thank goodness for timers on cameras so we could get this shot!

Our finished products. The Owl is mine (big suprise),
next is Candace's, Then Jeff's, and last but not least Chad's.

New Toys

Bay is trying lots of new things these days, he has a jumparoo courtesy of my sister, a highchair from IKEA ( I love that store), and an activity bouncer borrowed from Jeff's sister.

Trying out the highchair, he loves it!

He is also rolling like crazy, no more putting him on the bed or couch much, he is way to mobile. He is pushing up on his hands, the crawling is not too far away at this point, oh when that comes I will be in serious trouble...I will love it but man it will be exhausting

Like Father like son.
Jeffs sister calls the kitties his pussy cat dolls

Growing Up

Its been awhile since I have posted and we have been up to a lot. We have spent time with Jeff's parents, his sister and brother in law, and some friends on the fire department. Its been a busy few weeks. I have quite a few pictures to share with you all.

Debbie Gerry and Our family

Bay and Uncle Chad

Overall things are going well, I have worked a few shifts already at work and things are going well. Its a nice break to go and have interactions with people other than a cat and a baby. Dont get me wrong its awesome being a mom and hanging out with Bay especially since he is growing like a weed, but I crave the interactions with adults now and then. I may be joining a mommie and me group next week so that may be fun too. Overall we are doing well and loving watching this little guy grow. We miss you all....

Bay in his Jumparoo

We Are Back....

I am embarrassed that it has taken me this long to post again...but we have been really busy. First of all we just returned from our quick trip to Montana to visit my sister Mindy. We left for Montana on Tuesday and came back late Thursday. I wished so badly that we could have stayed longer but Jeff was offered overtime at work and that allows us to make lots of money for a short shift. We got to see this amazing building that they bought called the straw house which walls are made of bailed straw. It was really neat and I cannot wait to see what it looks like after they do the remodeling for the dental office and they get all moved in next year. We also got to see their amazing house, I will defidently say that her house is one of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen. I loved every last detail that she did in the designing processes. Here are some pictures from our visit as well as some cute ones of bay...

Bay playing with his Monkey Gym

Jeff got this hat for Bay in Montana. He also bought some Smartwool socks for him as well. The hat and socks are the only things that Jeff has purchased for Bay since he was born...sweet huh?

Daddy and Bay

Bay and his oldest boy cousin Kalvin. Kalvin loved dancing and playing with Bay...he was always trying to make him smile. It was fun to watch him interact with Bay

GROWING UP

It is official Bay is growing like a weed. He had his four month appointment this week(even though he is already four and a half months already). He officially weights 15 lbs and 5oz,at least at the moment he was weighed. He is 26 inches long and is in the 75-90 percentile in length and 50th in weight. He got his next round of immunizations which went well at the dr office but once we got home it was a bit of a different story. He was a mess for much of that evening and has continued to be out of sorts off and on for the past few days .

I have decided to blame his bad moods and crabbiness onJeff since he is working at 72 hours shift...yeah I know he's nuts and boy am I excited that he is coming home in the morning. That long with a baby no matter how good of a boy he is , is tough work...I am ready for a break. I dont think that I will be taking bay in for shots by myself if Jeff is working a shift that long again.

Now on to the pictures...these were all taken in the last week..I thought they showed his personality and they were funny or cute...

Teaching Bay How to Pet Whiskers

Daddy Kisses

The next two of these need explanations as they look a little odd...This first one is of bay playing with a teething ring...he picked it up and put it on his own face like this and proceeded to leave it there for about 2-3 mins like that...it made me laugh

This one is of bay and whiskers snuggling but bay got a little crazy grabbed whiskers by the nape of the neck and well as you can see he has a good grip on her fur and skin. Luckily she didn't seem to mind all that much, she just continued to lay there next to him and yes he did let go.

Well that is all for now...Jeff my sister in law Candace and her husband Chad are coming over today to can tomatoes which should be really fun since neither of us have done it before. I will get some pictures of that because it could be really amusing or not bad...I guess we will see.

Moved in.....at least sort of...

He is growing up so fast...

Alright so all of you know that we are here and we are settled of sorts. Things are going well, we are busy trying to get unpacked while still trying to manage a baby and periodically look at houses to buy. I am not sure why we are so willing to look at houses as the economy is such pooh these days and we may not even be able to get a loan but alas, we are still looking around with hope that someday soon we will have a place to call our own.

So there has been a few benefits to having Jeff move all of our stuff early. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I didn't have to re-arrange any of the furniture or how he set up the kitchen. Instead while he is home and watching bay I have had the time to unpack my clothes and all of our food, so now it looks like we have some things to eat. Well I realize that this is not the most exciting post but at least there are pictures of what our place looks like inside. I will post more exciting things later....

master bedroom

family room with dining room in background

master bath

extra bedroom

dining room

Bay's room

It offical we are in idaho

Alright so we have officially moved back to Idaho....We got here late Saturday evening. Things are going well so far . Today was the real test..the test to see if I can survive 24 hours without any help from anyone with the little guy. I have to admit I was kinda scared for this day to come, and I really don't like not having my family close in case I need them. I am lucky enough to at least have Jeff's sister and some friends on the fire department that I would feel comfortable calling in a pinch so that is a good thing. I have been pretty lucky as Bay has slept a good part of the day, hes been so tired he has taken lots of naps between his little bouts of fussiness. A sleeping baby is such a beautiful thing especially for a mother.

It has been a really hard adjustment moving back. I am already lonely while Jeff is gone. I love the house we are renting, but I miss having girl time. I hope that I can re-connect with old friends here and develop some good friends to spend time with and do the girly things again.

Hope you enjoy the fairly recent pictures of bay that I have posted, he is officially 4 months now, my how time seems to fly when you have a little one.

Moving Update

Alright so we are already on the move, well one of us is (along with all of our belongings). Jeff decided last moment that he wanted to take the plunge and just do it. He had his dad fly in early this morning (Friday) and we rented a u-haul. They packed up our stuff from the storage unit as well as our stuff at the house and off off Jeff and his dad went. As of now they are in Pendelton Oregon going to stay the night since they are exhausted and its raining cats and dogs. They hope to get up early in the morning and head out to the house and get unpacking.

I swear that our cat is the most curious cat on the face of this planet. She notices every change that ever occurs in a room. She has been going nuts re-examining all of the furniture and how it changes over and over again as new boxes emerge and move around, its pretty funny. Yesterday I caught her hanging out in the dresser, it was soo funny. Well that is about it for us for now, well will keep this updated as things change.

It never ends

So lets just say that it has been a banner week for us. Jeff was not able to come home (its been 2 weeks now since we have seen him), we had leaks at the duplex and now we have a fire to add to the mix. Yes I said fire! Jeff called me Sunday afternoon and says do you want to know the really bad news or the worser news, yes those were the exact words. How do you respond to that? I just said tell me the worst news first then maybe the bad news would not sound so bad. Basically it was a grease fire that caused a couple thousand dollars worth of damage. The good news is the homeowners insurance, the bad is we have a deductible that has to be met. So life continues to be an adventure .

So we (Bay and I) had a good weekend except for the fact that I miss my husband like crazy. My sister and her family were in from Montana. We went up to Portland to Chapman school to watch the swifts. What are swifts you say? They are small little birds that make their home in this chimney each fall. Check out the video. There are hundreds of thousands of them that swirl in a tornado like fashion into the schools chimney each night to roost.

I took bay to his first aquatic center...no I did not put him all in the water, just his feet and he loved it! He got so excited his chin began to quiver, it was so cute. He liked the warm water on his feet. I can't wait until he is old enough to go in the water more next summer.


We also had a family treasure hunt that my parents planned that was awesome. We had all the grandkids in town and it was hilarious! My dad buried a treasure chest in the woods and my mom did all the hard work of putting the whole thing together and buying all of the awesome props and toys for the kids. What a fantastic idea.

Bay...My little pirate

Arrrg! Shiver me timbers

Kira, Xander, Grandpa, Bay, Kalvin Matt and Talmage

Bay also had his first lollipop. Okay so not the real thing but he gummed up the wrapper really good it was sooo funny. He is grabbing everything all of the time, he is such a good baby. I just cant wait to see what Jeff thinks when he sees him, he will be amazed at how much he has changed in the past 2 weeks. We sure are.

Bay-b-blue

I was just looking through my "older" pictures and even though this was taken a month ago I love this picture. I took it on the cyanotype setting so that it why it has the bluish tint. Just thought I would share it with you all.

What a week!

As most of you know Jeff is in Idaho and I am in Oregon...well jeff was set to be here this week during his 4 days off but needless to say that did not happen for a variety of reasons. Remember how I said there was a project for jeff at the duplex, well it ended up being a series of awful projects that he has had to take care of singlehandedly this week, all of which are costing us lots of money. So to make a long story short we have a leak in our water line that goes from the street to the house, sounds like an easy problem find the leak fix it, not so much. Turns out the leak we can't find exactly where it is and its saturated the whole side of the yard. So Jeff is putting some ind of clamp on a leak that he was able to find and see what happens, maybe that will be it, or maybe its a much bigger one somewhere else who knows, anyhow if its a bigger leak we have to hire an excavator to come and dig up the yard since that will be the only way to fix it. Sounds expensive right...yeah gross huh? To add to this fun stuff our tenate called to tell us his hot water heater was out the next day, yup you guessed it it had to be replaced. I don't even want to talk about how much that cost us. So needless to say we didn't get to have Jeff come to oregon and spend his weekend with us, we now have to wait to see if we can figure out something for next week.

On a lighter happier note we got the keys to the house today, we will not be moving in for a week or so but we have the keys, jeff did a walk though and said it was great and that I would love it, I cant wait to see it and get settled for awhile, we need some peace and normalcy to our lives right now.


Finally I have to explain this picture, my mom asked my dad to pressure wash the front porch so he did only he left a message in the stairs, I just love to see him do the funny little things that show my mom he loves her, its neat to see as they have been married for over 30 years. I had to snap this picture before he goes back to erase the message and finish pressure washing the steps.

Sweet Boy

I have decided that there is nothing sweeter than a happy baby, except for a sweet sleeping baby Bay has been kinda a handful for the past few days, I am convinced that it is because he misses his daddy. Its been an entire week since we saw him last and may be even longer with the new developments
I got a phone call from one of our tenate's telling us that he had a soft spot in his lawn near his A/C unit. Basically we are thinking that there is a leak in our main water line up to the house. This could get expensive. Jeff was going to come "home" to oregon tomorrow but since he has to check things out with the duplex it may be two weeks

A place to call Home

alright so lets just say that the last few weeks of life have been miserable in the sense that we are house hunting or looking for somewhere to live. Jeff has been working and is running calls through the night so he isnt exactly excited about the thoughts of looking at a million apartments all over the place (and I completely understand). So to make his job easier I have spent an insane amount of time on the internet scoping out all of the places that may be worth his while. Alas no luck but one apartment close to the mall which had no openings until the end of the month. The price per month was alright but by the time we brought little whiskers into the picture and added the extra money for a deposit we would have to practically sell our firstborn to pay for the large lump sum due at signing. So we kept looking and he kept talking to co-workers and found us a place in a house.

When I say he found us a house I don't mean a little shack I mean a nice house take a look and you will see what I mean. The pictures above are from a website about the house. No that furniture isn't included unfortunately but we have some old stuff that will do the trick! So we are getting this for $50 dollars less a month, we have no deposit, no set or determined lease, and we dont have to rent a storage unit to store all the stuff that wont fit. This place is 150o+ square feet. A guy that Jeff works with is selling the house and is having no luck in the poor market, so since he has no-one in the place he is willing to give us a deal so he has some money coming in to pay for the mortgage. The only drawback is that if he sells the place before we are ready to move out we will have to move again...its terrible to say but I hope that house does not sell! So we don't have any dates or anything figured out for moving that is all in the works but we have a place I think to actually call home.

Oh on a side note it has some extra bedrooms so anyone that is wanting too can come and stay with us, we have plenty of room now. Come one come all.

Milestones

Bay is growing up so fast! Its so exciting to see him do new things but saddening that hes not the little baby he once was. We cannot believe all of the new tricks that he is up to these days. Since we went to the coast just a week ago he has learned to bat at toys and reach for them (often grabbing them) he has learned to put pressure on his feet for an extended amount of time, and has once or twice even laughed.