March iPhone Rewind

Here's a whole lot of pictures taken at home ;)

Cooper found these turkey pajamas that I bought for Miles and insisted on trying to wear them.  They  are size 3-6 months but he managed to squeeze into them (they are very stretchy) and loved it.

He spent some time flying around the backyard

We've enjoyed lots of smoothies

This spray bottle of water has provided hours of entertainment!  First he sprayed specific letters written on the fence in chalk, but now he just sprays anything he can find outside.

We've gone on lots of walks

Taken several trips through our phonebooks

Made cookies

This was our attempt at virtual Bible Study.  I set Cooper up with some YouTube videos of his awesome teachers doing the songs they sing and the Bible story for the week while I joined my group on Zoom.  He didn't last long before he was with me pointing to everyone and talking nonstop.  But we're both figuring it out.

We played with playdoh

And sorted bears into their homes

And I got to work on some fun things as we prepare for baby brother!

What a month this was!

Cooper 3 Year Photo Shoot

Last week we took advantage of the beautiful weather and snuck away to a park to get some pictures for Cooper's birthday.  We grabbed dinner and ate at a secluded picnic table and then explored some of the fields around the park.

Cooper's favorite thing was finding sticks to throw into the pond

We also took all the balls to get some pictures.  His windup is still my favorite.

He is definitely young, wild, & 3 as his shirt says 

The reality of having your birthday during social distancing when you are an extrovert.  There were other kids riding their bikes to the playground and Cooper was just so sad that he couldn't go with them!

After we took pictures around the park, Cooper requested that we go to the baseball fields nearby.  We told him we'd go see if there was one with no people and luckily there was.  I'm so glad he requested this because they turned out to be some of my favorite photos of the night!

Pitching to Daddy

A turn at bat

This was the point when I promised him ice cream if he took a few more good pictures for me.  So he stood on home plate and sang "Take Me out to the Ballgame"

It was also a little reminiscent of his 1st birthday photo shoot.  He's changed just a little since then!

Love this goofy silly funny talkative caring almost-3-year-old

And as promised, an ice cream stop on the way home after a successful photo shoot!

Family Pictures

2 weeks ago we had the opportunity to take some family pictures.  A lot has happened in the last 2 weeks so when the photographer sent me the link I had almost forgotten about them!  Our realtor actually gifted us this photo session for Christmas but we hadn't had a chance to use it yet.  I'm glad we were able to get some photos in before the world shut down for a while.

And a few outtakes... the little guy was in NO mood for pictures.  He did finally warm up to get the few above, but this was how our photo shoot started:

It was a lot of fun getting in some family photos during our last couple months as a family of 3!  

Spring Break

Well our Spring Break ended up looking just a little different than we had expected.  It started off like we'd planned.  Monday we had 2 playdates with friends who we hadn't been able to connect with over the previous weeks.  Tuesday was a beautiful day at the Arboretum with some friends from church, a park date with Cooper's friend Sutton, and our apartment ministry.  Wednesday we loaded up and headed out to Kansas City for the Big 12 Basketball Tournament.

As we were driving through Kansas we started hearing some rumblings about things possibly changing.  The NCAA announced that their March Madness tournament would be completed with no fans in attendance and they recommended not having large gatherings at sports events.  Right around the time we go to our hotel Wednesday night, the Big 12 announced that starting Thursday (when both OU and Baylor were playing) the games would be played without fans in attendance.  So we settled in to our hotel for the night unsure of what we were really doing.  

We decided to go ahead and head toward home Thursday morning.  We found a fun park in Tulsa (The Gathering Place) that we decided we'd stop at around lunchtime to play.  We considered trying to stay a night in Tulsa but ultimately decided we'd try to stay away from another hotel night and just get home, but take an extended play break to try to "salvage" our trip a little.  We picked up lunch and headed to The Gathering Place.  It was a beautiful afternoon and this place was really cool.  Unfortunately Cooper fell and scraped his knee pretty badly walking to the pavilion to eat lunch (less than 2 minutes after we got out of the car).  Enter the only picture I took on our entire trip:

This guy was DONE.  He didn't want lunch.  He didn't want to talk.  He didn't want to stop crying. He just wanted to go back to the car and go home.  So we rushed through lunch and got back to the car.  Cooper crashed right away for his nap and we drove the rest of the way home.  Ultimately, we were glad to be home with so much uncertainty about what was happening with new closures and cancellations being announced every minute (it felt like).

Friday we wanted to do something fun to help make our Spring Break memorable in a good way,  but we were also hesitant to really go out places to play, etc.  So Cooper and I loaded up to go to Target first thing Friday morning and get some goodies.

We came home and spent the day playing soccer and golf and watching Frozen 2 (which is his current favorite)

We also tried out a new board game and he did pretty well considering he doesn't really have an attention span for that.

And since then our "Spring Break" has been extended a lot as Mothers Day Out is cancelled and church and Bible Study have both moved to online only.  So the rest of our time has included...

part of the Preschool Sunday school lesson at home (lining up all his "friends" to follow Jesus)

Some Days With Grey Breakfast invitations such as finding and coloring his name

and saving the bears from "lava"

making a countdown chain until his birthday

lunch and naptime stories with Daddy

splashing in the puddles

and a whole lot of playing at home!  It's definitely a change in our day to day and Cooper keeps saying he wants to go to school (and he keeps reminding us that we forgot to go to the basketball game!) but it's also been fun to see him rediscover toys that he hasn't played with in forever, change into 5 different costumes in the span of an hour, and go into some extended pretend play (he loves packing up and going on hikes around the house and yesterday he set up a music class for us!).  We're trying to savor the slower days, even when frustrations are running high (which happens quite a bit for both Cooper and I).  

Our last trip as a family of 3 didn't quite go as planned, but we're still thankful for the time we had together and it will definitely be something we remember for a long time to come!