Child Labor

First of all, look how huge my baby has become! She's almost as big as Caleb! When did that ever happen? It must have been that time when she turned one.

I love the foot up in the air.
Emily thought it was pretty hilarious too:

She tried the pose for herself.

Today was a good day. I went out for a run, got the car registered, stayed out on the playground until lunch time, didn't turn the air conditioning on until noon, and then put the little kids down for a two-and-a-half hour nap.
Everyone was in good spirits when Emily came home. I let them free play for a while; then, after being inspired by my friend Reianna's blog, decided to let them "mop" the floor. I put out a bucket of warm soapy water and gave them each a different colored rag. Elinor only wanted to suck on her wet rag but Emily and Caleb definitely got into it.

I'll give Elinor some credit. She did a little work.

I don't know how many times I heard the exclamation, "Oh! I need more water!"
I could have dumped the water on the floor and gotten the same results.

 The pictures are super dark because they show all the water the best. We pretty much had a kitchen-sized slip 'n slide going on.


I had them go over it with dry towels afterward and we actually ended up with a very clean floor! Thanks, Reianna! I will be watching your blog for more fun ideas!

PS. Emily's newest favorite baby name: Sabella Nizza (rhymes with pizza) Cooper. This is for a girl.

One Year Old!

Our baby girl is one year old today! I can't believe she started out as this teeny little bundle and now she has been with us for a whole year! We love having our happy little girl in our family. Emily and Caleb have so much fun playing with her and making her laugh.

 

The hard thing about first birthdays is that the baby has no idea what is so special about the day and by the third child the parents are about out of energy. We tried our hardest to make it a fun day though.
Joseph made a special birthday breakfast of crepes with Nutella, whipped cream, and fruit for us while I was sleeping. That was pretty delicious. Then the older kids helped him make cupcakes from scratch because I forgot to buy a cake mix. We made a mini cake with the leftover batter for our mini little girl.

She didn't really know what to think of the candle.

"Is this for me?"

I blew it out really quick when she tried to grab the flame.

Then she was pretty confused by the swirls of smoke.

I do like the expression on her face in that one.

Emily was more excited than any one else for presents. What to get for a third child who is turning one? She already has more toys than she knows what to do with, and I know I bought more clothes for Emily than I needed to. We settled on a box of Kleenex (thanks to Reianna for that idea), her first toothbrush and toothpaste, and a piggy bank.

Yeah, babies don't really know what to do with presents. 

Good thing Emily was there to offer lots of advice.
And to help with the opening where necessary.

 As simple as her presents were, she loved the tissues and the piggy bank.

It was a good birthday. We love our little El-Bel and are excited to watch her grow.
And we hope she grows out of pulling this face... all the time.

Even if she doesn't, we'll keep her.
Happy birthday, Elinor!

Almost Old

I am 26 now! I had a birthday a couple of days ago and it was a fun, laid-back day. I spent a lot of money on myself during my trips to Utah and New York so I asked Joseph to not spend money on my birthday. Poor guy - he wanted to make me feel special but couldn't buy me anything! He did a great job though. He gave me time for a good run in the morning (plus time to shower, which is a huge bonus). He made a really pretty cake for me and presented me with tickets (purchased earlier) to a couple of shows going on throughout the upcoming year. He also made dinner and cleaned everything up afterward, which I really appreciated. He's a good guy. And I am 26 now!
Here's the cake. His mom's sponge cake filled with whipped cream and garnished with fruit. I thought it was very pretty. The kids loved the fruit.

Today Caleb broke my house key. I'm not sure how it happened, but I was at the car bringing in some groceries and he came to me upset that he had "ripped" my key.

 I've never had that happen before.

At least the pizza was good.

Emily's new favorite name for the next Cooper baby: Steady Neddy Cooper. It kind of has a nice ring to it, don't you think? (fyi, we are not currently expecting.)

Yesterday was sort of a hard day with Elinor. She threw up a couple of times and I really did not know how to deal with it. My kids really haven't thrown up much in the past.
The first time we were standing in front of the cheese at Randall's. Her formula and breakfast came up... and kept coming and coming. I was covered and couldn't really move for fear of making a bigger mess. Luckily a nice lady rescued me by bringing back help and paper towels. Caleb was on a mission to buy cheese. He had his little shopping cart ready and really wanted to put something in it. Since I couldn't touch anything, I told him we needed white cheese and he picked up every block of white cheese and said "this one?" until he came to the right one. Then he dropped it in his shopping cart, wheeled it to the front, put it up on the conveyer belt, and then carried the grocery bag out to the van once it was paid for. He did not seem to notice the vomiting incident at all.
The second time I was standing in the kitchen, about to open the refrigerator. Since Caleb was napping I decided to leave the puddle and bathe Elinor first and then mop it up once she was in bed. After stepping in it three times after that, I decided it was a bad plan and I will probably make mopping up the mess a higher priority next time it happens.
Then there was the doctor's appointment. Three small, restless children in a tiny little room is never a good situation. Yesterday was no exception. Enough said.
My pizza, which I had started the dough for around 1 pm, was not ready to eat until 7. It was a difficult day.
Good pizza though.

New York!

So this one time I went to New York City for a week with my sisters and zero children and I took no pictures at all. aside from this gem:

It was a great trip though. I will tell the story through internet-pilfered pictures.

Here are the pants Steph bought me at 10 pm my first day because I didn't pack pjs. That is my slim, post-baby bod.

 This is the show we saw. After listening to the CD for 7 years now, it's about time I saw it.

China town. Illegal street vendors, cheap merchandise, $5 sunglasses... what more could you want?

The MoMA. Lots of modern art that I did not understand. Also lots of great not-so-modern art. Starry Night, Picasso's Three Musicians, Persistence of Memory... lots of others.

Definitely utilized the public transportation system.

Wandered through Grand Central Station. Really pretty!

Discovered I didn't know a thing about makeup (and I'm almost 26!) so took advantage of my sisters' advice and expertise and bought a new supply

Took my time browsing in a used bookstore. It's been a while since I've done that!

Spent a lot of time walking the streets at my leisure. Simple pleasures.

Came back home to these guys (pretend that boy in the corner is Elinor. I couldn't find a pic with all four).

Alright, alright. Here she is. I do love her.

 But she has thrown up twice today and had a fever of 103 and I am going to be late for her doctor's appointment if I don't go now.

Weathering the Ups and Downs

Good news! The weather is finally cooling down here in Austin! Yesterday, Labor Day, was the perfect day to spend outside with the family and neighbors. Highs were probably in the low 90s, but after a summer of record breaking heat that felt great. We spent a lot of time outside.

Just a quick rundown for you guys outside of Austin:

•  August was the hottest month EVER recorded in Austin (breaking the record set in July of this year).
•  This summer is the hottest summer ever recorded in Austin - 2009 is the second hottest and 1925 is the third (we have been here for two of those years. Why??)
•  August 28th 2011 tied the record for all-time hottest day in Austin at 112 degrees!
•  We set a new record this year for most consecutive days over 100 degrees - 27 days from July 17th through August 12th.
•  As of August 31st we have had 76 days over 100 degrees. The previous record was set in 1925 at 69 days.
•  FYI: the average number of triple-digit days in a year is 13.5

Information found here.

Yeah, so we're pretty happy with this turn of events. Apparently, it's the coolest weather we've had since May. Now we just need some rain.

Anyway, on to other things...
Emily is enjoying school. I was hoping they would change the pre-k to half days this year because of budget cuts, but instead the school day was lengthened. Now Emily gets on the bus at 6:48 am with all the older school kids and doesn't return home until 3 pm! She comes home exhausted and slightly grumpy but she would be so sad if we pulled her out. She loves it.
The other day Emily was picking up her crayons and was searching everywhere for the last one. When I pointed out that it was in her hand she laughed at herself and said,
"That's like when I was at school looking for my backpack. I asked my teacher and she said to the class, 'boys and girls, can anyone see Emily's backpack?' and they told me it was on my back!"
I love that she can make these connections and laugh at herself when she does silly things.

Caleb is doing great. He is learning to talk and I am learning to understand him. He says Emily and Elinor exactly the same way so we sort of have to guess who he's talking about and that's pretty confusing.  A lot gets lost in translation.
examples:
Caleb: [something indecipherable]
Me: What? You want some chicken?
Caleb: NO!! Elinor's my sister!!

Caleb: [something else indecipherable]
Me: Can I comb your hair??
Caleb: NO!! Can you pick me up!!

And so many other confusing conversations. I wish I could think of more right now. He's a silly little boy who has a hard time using consonants.

Elinor is probably the cutest little baby ever. She is working on talking and will say hi and bye pretty reliably, along with a cute little wave. Her very first "word" was "I did it!" and she still uses this phrase a lot. She also said quesadilla repeatedly the other night. That was pretty sweet.


Here is a picture of my first diaper to arrive in the mail. On one of Joseph's textbooks.

And here is our rollerskating princess. She loves rollerskating. And she loves beautiful costumes! What a perfect day!

Nice.

As I was perusing the blogs today I saw this shirt featured on Beginnings New.

The caption on the side says "Who has time for homework when there's a new Justin Bieber album out? She'll love this tee that's just as cute and sassy as she is."
I should probably order one each for Emily and Elinor. What a great life philosophy!
Way to go, JC Penney.

Diaper Dilemmas

Okay, so the first problem happened when someone brought Caleb to me from nursery during church and I realized I had packed an entire (fairly large) diaper bags with ZERO diapers or wipes. Yeah, I don't know how what filled that thing with. Good thing Caleb decided to go number two TWICE that day. The first time I borrowed a diaper from a friend and the second time I just kept him with me until the end of the block. I ended up with Caleb, Elinor, and Emily all together in the class I was teaching.  All of us together with four other kids in a teeny tiny (very stinky) classroom. Good times.


And... you might want to skip this part unless you have some sort of interest in cloth diapering.
The second diaper problem occurred when I decided I wanted to give this cloth diaper thing a try. I had decided earlier to try it once I got my own washer and dryer - schlepping all that stuff to the laundromat every night or every other night just seemed like too much - and I have had my own machines for a couple of months now. Buying those was really exciting. It is the first time we have had our own washer and dryer since getting married almost seven years ago!
Anyway, once I decided it was time to look into cloth diapering, I started researching it online. I did not anticipate it taking every spare second of my day plus more! There are so many helpful websites, but so much stuff to consider when choosing a diaper! First I had to figure out what all the different words mean - all-in-ones, all-in-twos, pocket diapers, prefolds and covers, fitteds, and contoureds. Then I looked at the different brands and read reviews and then I looked a little bit at fabric types. I also did some research about washing the diapers and taking care of them.  Of course I was keeping price in mind as well, and that always has a big impact on the final decision.
 I ended up buying six Fuzzibunz pocket diapers because of a good deal I found plus a smattering of other brands - a BumGenius, a Kawaii, some prefolds and Thirsties covers, a Baby Beehinds fitted, and a Rumparooz.  (If I ever start a cloth diaper company I think I will steer away from the cutesy names.) I'm thinking if we fall in love with one of these we will order more. Whenever I go to a cloth diapering site to check on something I'm curious about I find another brand I want to try and am so tempted to order just one more. But the whole point of this is to save money, right? Helping the environment is a nice side effect, but honestly, at this point in my life, saving money is more important. :) I have had some friends and neighbors who have used cloth diapers, but whenever they started telling me about them I felt overwhelmed. Now I have passed that on to you!
Seriously, though, I am so excited to try this. I sure hope it works out! If you have any thoughts or advice about this I would love to hear from you.

And here is a random silly picture I found on my phone.

Double time out dealt by Dad! Happened while I was out of the room, so I was surprised by this scene when I got back.

The Main Event

Back to our Utah trip...
The main event of our time spent in Utah was Joseph's sister Nancy's wedding. We were all so excited for her and enjoyed being able to see Nancy looking so lovely and happy. The nice weather and gorgeous temple grounds made the wait outside very tolerable.

Joseph and Caleb right before Nancy and Diego came outside:

 Here they are coming out of the temple (pic stolen from Steph and Nathan's blog).

A picture with the nieces minus Holly:

Emily was so delighted to be holding those flowers. She loves all things beautiful. Beautiful is probably the most frequently used word in her vocabulary.

And a picture with the nephews minus Tyler and Derek (also stolen from those Rushin' Coopers' blog):

Diego is an only child so the nieces and nephews were all from the Cooper side.

And the lovely Nancy:

Congratulations, Nancy and Diego! We are so excited for you guys!

Snapshots of my Sister

Courtesy of my phone.

Sort of reminiscent of a Madonna and Child painting, no?

Good times.
I do like my yoga-loving, marathon-running, baking soda-shampooin', stubbornly vegan sister.
And I love my other two sisters too. Really. I just don't have pictures of you guys.