Raining Mondays and Over-tired Thoughts

It is pouring rain right now. I love this place. Josh is sleeping soundly, after his very late night out with his uncles, he is exhausted! I have been working on my writing assignment, I am doing a nonfiction article for this piece. I have decided to write about my dad. Well, it has NOT been easy. There is so much research that goes with it, and I am not going to publish it or anything, but just trying to write about memories, both good and bad have not been easy. Anyways, I am just kind of releasing random thoughts that are oozing from my over-tired, over-thought brain. :)

If you do want a good laugh, take a look at Kenni's blog: http://www.kennebecvial.blogspot.com/ It contains some of our weekend adventures with the boys, all my boys. :) We were walking into church yesterday with Chanson and Ammon and I realized how surrounded I was by testosterone. Not only do I have my two brothers, my husband, my son, but my other son inside me. All I have to say is I am totally outnumbered. Thankfully, I have Kenni around, otherwise I think I would be lost in the midst of boyness. But oh how I love them all. I love having a little boy, and I am so excited to have another one. Kenni, I hope it is a girl, it will even out the numbers a little. :)

P.S.- I will post about our anniversary when I download the pictures.

Baby Boy #2

So there is only three months left until the next baby comes. I am pretty nervous, excited, but nervous. This one is really active and really strong. Josh had his crazy moments rolling around in me, but this one is alive and CRAZY. It kicks so hard that my entire stomach looks like it is going to burst out through my belly button. :) It is really fun though and Josh loves to shake my belly and yell into it. I still don't think he has any idea there is a kid in there that is going to be annoying him for the rest of his life. :)

We have really been wondering about what to name him. We had a really hard time finding a name for Joshua, but at last we just figured Joshua was the only name that fit. So this one we kind of like Peter, but we still aren't sure. So one night we asked Josh what we should name his little brother. Without even a pause he said, "Geeb." Both Tyson and I busted up laughing and then asked him what his middle name should be. Again, no pause Josh said, "Abba." So apparently his name is "Geeb Abba." I have been trying to look those up in Hebrew and seeing if there is something that they mean so we could find a name that might fit with the meaning, but we shall see. For now, we call the little guy "Geeb," and it is kind of cute. :)

The Many Cooper Adventures

Wow, my blogging is long overdue. Let me first tell of my traveling adventures. Josh and I spent about a week in Washington with Tyson's family and we had a lot of fun. The weather was perfect and so both of us wanted to be outside almost the whole time. Josh got to go swimming in their little kid pool (we had to bring hot water from inside to put in it because it was so cloudy and coldish that day). He LOVES the water. We went to his Aunt Katie and Uncle Josh's house that they just bought. Josh loved this one closet and would hide in there over and over again. It was really cute.

We went to the zoo, and there were TONS of people there, making it really exhausting and crowded, but we still had fun. This is Josh waiting for the birds to fly over in the bird exhibit thing that we watched. I think his favorite animal though was the little groundhog things because he was able to get close enough to see them and there weren't many people there. He did find a fountain and he played and got soaked in that. I didn't take any pictures though, I was just trying to keep him from drinking it. ;)

This is him riding in the kid car. He loved this thing and from dawn till dusk, he spent most of his time in it.

This is a very blurry picture of Tyson's sister, Cassie, at her high school graduation. We were up really high in the bleachers so this is a very zoomed in shot. This is also where I first met Tyson's old girlfriend and still really close friend of the family, Angela. It was kind of weird at first but she was really nice and we talked for a long time.

Here is Mom Cooper in the hammock with Josh. I also had to zoom in on this one. If Josh saw me, he would freak out and want to come to me and not be with anyone else. It was slightly frustrating, but it made me feel loved at the same time.

P.S.- I want a yard to hang a hammock in.

Mom and Dad Cooper and Josh.

Then Josh and I flew to California to spend about a week with my family. I was really nervous about it because Josh was already pretty sick of traveling and I was already exhausted, but it ended up being really fun every day. I didn't take many pictures, sorry, I got distracted and forgot it most of the time.

We went on a lot of walks though, which Josh loved. This is Ammon and Josh (whose names I kept mixing up, I guess I am already a real mom :) ) Ammon really was happy and he loved Josh, but he had an angry face in the picture. Hehe

Here is KJ feeding the cows and Josh watching intently. Both the cows were huge pregnant, I felt like we had a lot in common.

Father's Day dinner. It was a lot of fun to be with my own dad for father's day. It has been a long time. It was sad that Tyson had to be alone without his little boy(s) and me though. It was a yummy dinner and it was Yance and Kimmy's anniversary too, so that was cool.

4 generation shot. It was really neat and I'm glad Mama had us take the picture.

I took this the morning we left to come back home. Dad really wanted me to get a shot of the two of them. It was cute how excited my dad was to be with Josh because Josh is old enough now he is fun to play with.

We did lots of other things too, like going to Dennis the Menace Park, I took my Mama out to lunch, I hung out a lot with Courtney which was great, Ammon Carmel and I took Josh swimming and he freaked out but loved it at the same time, we had a lot of movie nights with ice cream, we went to the beach as a family and KJ buried Josh in the sand, and then all the boys went sand cliff jumping, it was crazy. Mostly I just spent a lot of time with everyone in the family. It was a lot of fun. The weekend Ammon and Chanson are coming out for EFY this week and I cannot wait to hang out more with them.

So then Josh and I went home...kind of. My dad gave me a father's blessing in the airport parking lot before we left and it was really wonderful. Blessings are such amazing things. Then they (Mama, Dad and Carmel) walked me to check-in, then to the gate. Which I'm glad they did, it wasn't really a stroller-friendly place. It was weird leaving them as I went through security. I wanted so bad to go home to Tyson, and yet, even though I have left my family many times over the past few years, it never gets easier. But Josh and I boarded the plane and he was really good on our flight to Las Vegas. That is where I learned that I should have never complained about my flight, I had it pretty good then. Just as we were about 10 minutes away from Vegas, a freak storm hit and we had to detour to Ontario, California. We landed and waited there for about an hour, then we flew back to Vegas. By the time we got there, my connecting flight was long gone. So in confusion, I walked around the airport until I saw a flight going close to where we needed to go. So I talked to them and they told me that this flight was full and the next time they could get me a flight wasn't until the next day. I freaked. I thought of spending the night with a toddler in an airport and I wanted to collapse and die there. They told me they wouldn't pay for my hotel since it was weather, but they could get me a good deal. The lady was really nice and helped me a lot, but I still have my suspicions that the "freak storm" was all a hoax to make people delayed and have to spend the night in Vegas and gamble their money away, thus improving the economy in Vegas. :) Just kidding, kind of.

So Josh and I stayed at this sweet hotel, except I was terrified and wanted it to all be over the whole time. I refuse to ever travel without my husband, ever, ever again. However, Josh did love it and we do have some fun memories now. So here are some pictures of us at the airport the next morning eating breakfast and just being crazy.

When we finally got home the next day, I don't think I have ever been so happy to see Tyson. We have had a lot of fun since. We got a five day weekend for the 4th of July and we have been doing tons of fun stuff. We went to a safari park, Boxerwood, played a ton, went to Kip's wedding (which was gorgeous by the way, the perfect way to spend my birthday), Kenni and Chris threw us a birthday bbq. Seriously, it has been the perfect week. And next week is our anniversary so I can't wait to tell you about that. Oh, and here are pictures of us in Josh's new tent too. Sorry, this is a super long "epistle" as Tyson calls it.

Hope you enjoy, I hopefully will write again soon. :)

Traveling

So I am currently 3 thousand miles away from my home and husband and missing it terribly. I am visiting Tyson's family, and then I fly to visit my family too, then fly back home. Wow, let me tell you, traveling with an 18 month old and being 5 months pregnant is not really my cup of tea. I have vowed to never travel with children by myself ever ever again. Josh was a real trooper and didn't yell and scream or anything, but he was so wiggly and so tired and sick of being cramped in small spaces or in large airports with so many wonderful things to see that I just wouldn't let him explore. Tyson prayed that people all around me would help me and be kind to me. And the Lord was listening because there were so many people that were so nice. There were others that were not so much. These two women in front of me kept turning around and glaring at me every time Josh moved or talked or anything. And one time he reached up and grabbed her seat and accidentally grabbed a couple strands of her hair and she screamed, no joke, and then the lady next to her turned around and glared at me with a look that said "Obviously you are a single mom or a very bad mom because you can't even control your child for a few hours." Man, if I didn't love my kid so much, I would have handed him up to them and said, "fine, you take care of him if you are such experts." But then I got to thinking that maybe they just forgot what it is like to be a kid and maybe they had just been to a funeral or something and they just weren't happy. So I am trying hard not to hold a permanant grudge. :)

But then there are other people like the lady that sat next to me that let Josh play with her back pack and eat half of her bag of cheetos. She told me she had 3 kids and knew what it was like. She made the whole ordeal so much better. I'm pretty sure she is an angel. Then this other guy kept pulling stuff out of his briefcase for Josh to play with. It was so nice. I just don't know if they could ever know how much that meant to me. I hope they are readily blessed with anything they ever need.

So when I finally got here, it was such a relief to have Tyson's family standing there right past security waiting for us. Josh is loving them and all the attention, I doubt he will like going back home. He does miss his Daddy though. He woke up this morning and looked around and said "Where Da?" I pretty much bawled. I miss Tyson so much. Some people think it is pathetic I get so sad being away from him for a few weeks, but to me it feels like a million years. I am just thankful Tyson's parents don't care that I call him 3 to 4 times a day on their phone and talk forever. It is kind of fun though, I feel like we are engaged again because that was how it was then since we were apart almost the whole time. I just still miss him like crazy and really don't like sleeping without him, it is so terribly lonely. I don't know how I did it for the first 21 years of my life.

But anyways, the traveling part is not so very fun, but I am glad I came and I love being here. The weather is so perfect and the food is great and I love watching Tyson's parents and how much they adore each other. It is fun especially since Tyson looks so much like his Dad and I watch his parents and think, "Tyson and I will look like that in 20 or so years" and I can't wait. I am excited to spend more time with them and excited to see my family and hang out with them. And I can't wait to be back home with my Hunny Bunches again.

Josh's life, as we now know it.

Hello, my name is Joshua. This here is my mom. She is usually pretty nice, but lately, she has been acting kind of funny. She will randomly start crying, or get cranky. But the thing that bugs me the most, is her lap is getting smaller and I don't fit like I used to. Aunt Kenni also cut her hair, I think that looks pretty good though. This is me. I make the best faces in the world and I love to eat. I especially love to be outside and this is my sitting spot on our deck. Mom doesn't like me to be out here by myself, and I don't like that. I scream when she takes me in, but she doesn't seem to listen.

This is my dad. He is the coolest in the whole world. Every day when he gets home from work he chases me and finds new ways to make me laugh. On this occasion he wasn't paying enough attention to me, so I pushed him, then he chased me and "hog tied" me to the broom. That was really fun, I liked it a lot.

My dad lets me eat popcorn with him. It is my favorite food. It is actually pronounced "Paw-cawn" but nobody says it right but me.

Besides eating I love to read. My favorite book is the "Little Blue Engine Saves the Day." I drag my blanket around and read books and I am full of knowledge.

But I do other things besides reading, I love to sweep. I especially love it when my mom makes a pile of dirt with her broom and I get to scatter it back all over the floor with my broom. It is a game we play, but I don't think my mom understands sometimes.

This is a good shot of my hair before my mom cut it. It is pretty sweet, huh?

This is another way my dad chose to torture me. I couldn't move my arms, and I thought it was really funny for a little while. But then my parents made me take it off.

One day my mom was in a really good mood and gave me a sucker, the very first I have ever had. I got super sticky and my mom even let me have a lick of hers. Mine tasted better though.

I am also very social. My very best friend is Tommy. He lets me come over and play with his dog Diego. But when we are at my house, we have fun too. He taught me how to wear couch covers on my head like a hat. We love to yell and scream and chase each other. He is a great best friend.

So that is pretty much my life. I think it is a lot of fun. My mom says I am having a baby brother soon. I don't know what she is talking about, but if he is like Tommy, I think it will be okay. I just want to be able to sit on her lap again. But that is all from me for now. Have a nice day!

Oh How They Grow

So after a week of barely being able to breath, bend over, or sit without feeling my stomach was being squeezed in half, I gave in and pulled down the box of maternity clothes. It is so strange to me how much faster my stomach has expanded with this one than with the last pregnancy. But it is so much fun feeling this little person kicking and rolling and doing acrobatics at all times of the day or night. I just asked the little fellow to kick once if a girl and twice if a boy. Two kicks, so it must be a boy. :) We find out on Friday, any guesses?

My other little boy went to his first day of nursery today. It broke my heart, but he did pretty good. It felt so weird to be in Sunday School with Tyson and we just sat there, and we listened (well, as much as I could being that Tyson and I have super short attention spans now). I kept worrying about him the whole time, well, I worried about the nursery leaders more because Josh can be a little turkey. He looks cute, but looks are very deceiving. When I came to pick him up after relief society, he looked at me, stuck his bottom lip out and started bawling these huge crocodile tears. It was like he suddenly realized that I had been gone for two hours and left him to fend for himself with all those crazy kids. I still don't think he has forgiven me. But I bet he had a good time and the nursery leaders are amazing and so sweet, so luckily I don't have to worry about that at all. It is just so weird that he is old enough, and it will be no time at all before he is going to sunbeams and then driving off to college. :) I'm sure it doesn't happen that fast, but sometimes it feels like it. Oh, how my little ones are growing...it is true what they say, you never understand that feeling until you are a parent. I'm sorry Mom that I grew up so fast. If it makes you feel better, I often miss being a little kid and being able to come to you and have you miraculously heal all my pain.

Indexing

So I have had a few people ask me how to do Family Search Indexing, so here is how:

1. Go to www.familysearchindexing.org
2. Click on the right hand side of the page: "Are you new to Indexing: Volunteer"
3. Sign up and follow their directions from there

I should also tell you though, that you should read the tutorials and get the training certificate BEFORE you start indexing (it takes about an hour), it makes it a lot easier. Hehe, I speak from experience.

Now, I am not a pro at this, I just started doing it a few weeks ago and some of the handwriting can be really frustrating to understand. But it is really easy to do at the same time and it makes me feel so much better that I am actually doing something beneficial for our church, and for anyone needing family records. It may not be a lot, but it is one less thing someone else has to do, which makes me happy. Anyways, there you go. :)