March iPhone Rewind

Can't believe we're finishing out another month!  Here's a look back at pieces of our month.

Cooper always loves playing at his Nanny and Pappaw's house!

Cooper has been taking off his pants most days during naptime and I came in one morning and he had tried to take off his pajamas, but this was as far as he got.

One of Cooper's favorite things to say is "I so tall!" and climbing at the mall provided the perfect setting to be tall

We had a great time at the zoo with my mom, brothers, and niece.  Cooper rode the carousel for the first time and seemed to have fun!

We took advantage of the beautiful weather and walked to dinner one night.

Cooper found my Lillebaby carrier and asked me to pick him up.  We've been working on getting him on my back in the carrier without help and we've about mastered it.

Fist bumps and high fives were a little out of sync when we said goodbye to our friend AJ after a fun playdate!

A date night at Dave & Buster's was one of the things we drew from our date night jar this month.

We enjoyed a walk and a picnic at the park with our McCullough friends!

Chase was the bat boy at a local High School baseball game, so we went to cheer him on.

We got to celebrate a birthday for Cooper's friend Avonlea.  She and her sisters had a "royal ball for all" and while Cooper doesn't know much about royal balls, he was a big fan of the sword he got as a favor.  He loved running around with the big boys playing swords.

All dressed up on Rangers opening day eating Chick fil A for breakfast.

Cooper's 2 year pictures

A couple weekends ago we went and had pictures taken for Cooper's birthday.  He is having a "ball party" this year, so I made him a shirt for pictures and the party.  He actually did better than I expected posing and smiling for the pictures and we grabbed a few spring family photos too!  Can't believe this boy is almost 2!

What's Up Wednesday

Well since I really haven't managed to update much at all this month, I thought I'd do a little what's up Wednesday to share some of what's been going on around here.

What we're eating this week

A lot of leftovers and eating out.  We've been busy working on stuff around the house and I didn't do a great job meal planning so I've been pulling stuff from the freezer (like leftovers from this roasted pork shoulder that I made a few weeks ago) and we've been grabbing food out.  I do have plans to make some sheet pan chicken fajitas and some pizza with homemade sauce from the freezer. 

What I'm reminiscing about

Every day notifications come through from my Amazon app showing me pictures from that date in years past.  So when all of these pictures from last year show up it's hard to believe how much Cooper has changed in a year.  And maybe I'm reminiscing a little about the days when he would just sit on a blanket while I worked on things outside instead of digging in the mud and turning on the hose and climbing all the things :)    Especially after yesterday when I was cleaning the pool while he played in the yard and I heard his little voice say "I got in!" and I looked up and he had found a spot in the pool fence where he could squeeze through the bars.  He was so proud of himself, but it was a little scary for sure.  He's still a lot of fun now, just a little  more active than the little guy who was barely walking a year ago.

What I'm loving

A few weeks of nicer weather that have allowed us to get outside more!

What we've been up to

Getting our house ready to put on the market!  We found a house in our current neighborhood that we love and it has more space that what our current house has.  So we've been working hard to get our house ready to list so we can make an offer on the other one.  It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks for sure!

What I'm dreading

The home-buying and selling process.  As exciting as it would be to move, trying to sell a house is kind of stressful.  I'm dreading trying to figured out our schedule with last minute showings and all of that. But so far things have gone well, so we're continuing to see where this goes and it would be a really exciting opportunity if this house worked out, so trying to focus on that!

What I'm working on

Other than packing up all of our stuff to get our house ready to sell, I'm also trying to work on a few things for Cooper's birthday.  His party this year will be pretty low-key, but I've got a few things I want to do and I'm also trying to compile videos and pictures from the year for his 2 year video.

What I'm excited about

Cooper's birthday.  Springtime.  Possibly a new house.

What I'm watching/reading

Cat in the Hat is a current favorite around here.  Cooper requests it daily so I feel like I read it a lot.  I'm also finishing up a book for my book club.  Nothing I've read recently has been too noteworthy really.  And we've been watching a lot of college basketball with a little bit of This is Us sprinkled in.

What I'm listening to

Cooper music (as he calls it) like The Veggie Tales CDs that have "Sunday School" songs on them and the Ask me Whooo albums with catechisms.  Also some podcasts here and there-- one of my new recent favorites is the Daily Grace Co podcast.

What I'm wearing

This is the month where it feels like we're wearing all the things-- shorts and pants and short sleeves and jackets.  I've been enjoying a few new tunics and lots of leggings.  Also spending lots of time in sweat pants while cleaning out our house.

What I'm doing this weekend

Going to see David's sister perform in a show this weekend.  Also maybe listing our house for sale (eek!)

What I'm looking forward to next month

Some certainty about what our next step is for our house.  Hopefully next month we'll know if we got the other house and have offers on ours or if we're staying put a while longer.  I'm really open to either option and the unknown of it all is a little crazy.

What else is new

I started a new (very part time) position at our church this month.  I am helping coordinate volunteers for the baby hallways on Sundays and I am really loving getting to know some of the volunteers and families!

Pi Day

So our "official" March holiday is Pi day.  We've never really celebrated Pi day, but since we tend to love numbers and we always love pie, it seemed like a good year to start!

When I looked at pie activities for toddlers/preschoolers I only found a few things.  But one of the ones I found was making mud pies.  I figured with a toddler boy that would be a pretty good activity. 

After it rained yesterday I scooped up some of the mud from our flower beds and filled a bucket with it. Then I put it all in a tub with some plastic spoons and forks, disposable pans, and a few kids gardening tools we'd gotten at Chick-fil-A.

Honestly, Cooper wasn't all that interested in it.  He played a little, but much preferred just running around the backyard.  He only played with the dirt for about 5 minutes total.  I had fully intended on this plus a bath being our morning activity, but he didn't need a bath afterward since his play was so mild.  But it was beautiful weather to spend some time outside exploring in the backyard!

I had every intention of making one of our favorite Shepherds Pies (I make it with a mashed cauliflower topping) for dinner tonight.  But we ended up at a last-minute Dr appointment for Cooper this afternoon and I took dinner to a friend who just lost a family member, so by the time we got home to make dinner for us it was getting late.  So we decided to go out for tacos and then come home for pie.

Instead of making pie,  I "cheated" and bought a couple of different single slices of pie from the freezer section at the store.  David's favorite pie is apple pie, but I just made an apple crisp last week for my book club and he got to enjoy that, so we decided to try a few different ones today.  So we had Key Lime and Oreo pie.

Cooper mainly liked eating the whipped cream off of the Key Lime pie.  Which made us a good team because I don't really liked whipped cream. 

I think he was a fan of Pie Day!

I also had plans to do some work/activities based on the number 3 throughout the day, but Cooper wasn't feeling well.  So we basically watched Daniel Tiger most of the day mixed in with our little trip outside to play in the dirt.  Maybe next year we'll add in some more things.  But this was a pretty good start for our first year of Pi Day!

Dr Seuss Day

Dr. Seuss' birthday seems to be something that is celebrated in a lot of schools these days.  And it actually wasn't our planned extra holiday for March, but when I started seeing ideas come up I thought it could be fun to do a little Seuss themed morning.  I actually put it all together on Friday morning while we ate breakfast and played.  Cooper's favorite book of the moment is Cat in the Hat, so I thought he'd get a kick out of a few Seuss-themed activities.

I found a playlist on Spotify that has several of Dr. Seuss' books being read aloud (I also found a lot of them on Amazon music after I looked).  So when I started the playlist it played Green Eggs and Ham and Cooper heard it and wanted to go get his books.  So we gathered up all his Dr Seuss books and carried them to the living room.  Then he dug through and found Green Eggs and Ham.

A lot of our morning looked like this-- Cooper sitting in my lap while I read books to him.  He requested Fox in Socks several times, so I read it a few and then found a funny fast version on Amazon.

After Fox in Socks we moved on to Hop on Pop.  This has been one of Cooper's favorites in the past and although he's now moved on to requesting Cat in the Hat more, he still remembers a lot of the words in Hop on Pop.  So we read through it and then tried out a game to go with it.

I'd seen this idea to do Hop on Letters and decided to try it with colors.  So I would tell him "hop on red" or "hop on green" and he'd find the color and hop on it.  Cooper really isn't too in to colors, so I wasn't sure how well he'd do, but figured it would be fun to try.  He actually surprised me and found every color I named.  

He loved hopping on each of the colors!  After a few rounds, I told him to pick the color and he'd hop on it and I'd ask him to name it.  He did some of them and not others.  Overall it was a pretty fun toddler game that required minimal prep (I grabbed different colors of construction paper from the office and laid them on the floor randomly!)

About 5 minutes before snack time I got on Pinterest to see if I could come up with a fun snack.  I saw these hats for Cat in the Hat made with Strawberries and Bananas.  We didn't have bananas, so I made some with string cheese and a couple with marshmallows.  Cooper loved it.

And added bonus, it became fine motor practice taking the food off the toothpick and then he wanted to try to put some of the strawberries back on.  Cat in the Hat was not on Amazon or Spotify, so I found a read aloud version on YouTube and we listened to that while he ate.

We finished the morning with a few Cat in the Hat activities.  We started with this putting red and white pom poms in a Cup decorated like Cat's Hat. We didn't have Red disposable cups to cut a hole in, so I used a styrofoam cup and added stripes with a red Sharpie.  

  He also loved picking up the cup and seeing all of the pom poms underneath it.

The game lasted less than 5 minutes before he was over it and just wanted to wear the "hat."  But he did just say "all done pom poms" and get up, our last several pom pom activities he would throw and dump them all over the floor, so this felt like a major win.

Since Cooper had had so much fun with snowman bowling with Styrofoam cups last month, I decided to add in some Cat in the Hat bowling.  So we had 3 white cups decorated with sharpie and 2 red plastic cups I added masking tape to.

He loved it!  He practiced throwing, kicking, and rolling his ball to knock the cups down.  

And then he tried stacking them all back up in different forms and seemed to like them all in one big stack to knock over.

Overall, it was a fun morning trying a few themed activities.  The Dr Seuss books really are so fun and I love that he's been getting more into them lately.