Life Lately

Here's what we've been up to lately:

Cooper kisses Daddy bye bye in the morning

A trip to Kentucky so J could play in a golf tournament.

Playing with Dub Dub's sunglasses while mommy is furniture shopping

Splash Pad at Dub Dub and OG's

I made the leap and finally got a food processor.  My first thing to make: Black Bean Brownies.  And they were seriously good!!!!  I will be making them again.

Yummy goodness.  Poor J didn't get to eat many...

The weather has been amazing lately- especially for July!  So we have spent plenty of time outside this week.

Blue sky and white clouds

My first cantaloupe was finally ripe!

Apparently, the crack indicates that it's ready to eat!

Juicy and Sweet!

I also made another loaf of bread this week.  I tried a new recipe, as we were wanting something more sandwich like.  I modified this recipe, and it turned out great!  (I added flaxmeal and chia seeds, which I think gave it good texture.)  It still wasn't as airy as store bought bread, but this recipe is definitely a keeper!  I will have to get some more loaf pans so I can bake more than one loaf at a time.

Ready for rise #1

Ready for rise #2

Ready for the oven

Ready for consumption!

Since the weather was so great, I took Cooper to the zoo.  A friend and her little boy met us there.  We fed the giraffes!  It was so much fun.  One of them came out of nowhere and just started taking the lettuce out of our hands.  It took Coop a few minutes to warm up to the idea, but he fed the giraffe a couple of pieces.

Giraffes coming for us (and the lettuce!)

Not a carousel fan

Making friends with the sleeping panda

Watching the penguins (his favorite)

It licked me!

Cooper found a stick and would.not.let.go.

Mommy's little gardener

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Excuse the greasy hair- it has sunscreen in it. :)

Clothes: 12 months & 18 months, although I have put away some of the smaller 12 months already!

 

Growing Up: Cooper took his first steps!! He definitely still prefers crawling, but he is slowly getting there.  He is also able to stand up by himself, but he has only done that a couple of times and still likes to use something to get to standing.

 

Likes: kitty cats, pointing, handing you something, pulling books off the shelf, being on his knees, seeing daddy come home from work, watching people, frozen yogurt (not the ice cream like stuff; I literally freeze baby yogurt), cantaloupe, watermelon, peaches, quesadillas, playing chase, riding in his red wagon, putting things through the gate, climbing the stairs, closing and opening doors, clicking his tongue
 

Dislikes: "No", having his diaper or clothes changed, being cleaned up after eating, getting teeth, mommy walking away, walking (he'd rather crawl), riding in the car for longer than 15 minutes, taking something away from him, being still, hot water in his pool

Schedule:  

This is our basic schedule, but it changes depending on how well he naps and when he wakes up

7:00 - up for the day!
8:15 - breakfast

9:00 - nap

11:00 - play
12:15 - lunch

2:00 - nap

4:00 -snack
4:30 - play

6:15 - supper

7:00 - bath

7:30 - bedtime

Moments: He had ice cream for the first time (at Red Robin for Daddy's birthday).  He gets a couple of bites if we have some, and he LOVES it!  He fell off the deck stairs... his first real fall.  He was fine, but it took longer for us to get over it.  Coop also went to bible class for the first time.  He was great both times, but the second week he got really tired during worship, and we had to leave.

He is at such a fun age!  He is soaking stuff up daily and is such a joy (usually.)  He keeps us on our toes and keeps us smiling and laughing.

Video Dump

My phone ran out of memory, so I dumped some videos. These are in no particular order. But most of them are pretty cute. :) 

Homemade Bread

So over a month ago, I made homemade bread.  And I'm just posting about it.  But it is really good!  I used this recipe, but I have a couple more to try out before committing to it for good.  I need to figure out how to make it more sandwich bread like, then I won't have to buy bread anymore.  J isn't sold on the idea as this homemade bread doesn't have the sugar that we're used to in store bought.  It will take some getting used to for sure.  It does make really good toast and french toast though!

Ready to rise

It rose!  I had never used yeast before, so I was scared it wouldn't work.

Read for a second rising

Read y to go in the oven

Fresh out of the oven

It did take a good bit of time to make, but it was kind of enjoyable.  Although if I start making it more often, I might knead (ha!) to invest in something that will knead for me.  It was a good workout though.  I will probably be baking another loaf soon.  Maybe next time I won't take a month to post about it!

Mauve No More

It only took us a week, but we finally finished the guest room!

We sanded and painted the trim.  Painted the walls.  Painted the closet and trim. Installed new electric outlets and light switches and covers.  Installed a new ceiling fan.  Hung curtains, mirror, and some pictures.

We still need to paint the doors and ceiling.  That will come.  One day.  In the not near future. :)

Before the room was mauve, but thanks to the lovely light fixtures, there are shadows galore, so it's hard to tell.  Now, it's Dancing Leaf green. 

Closet Before

Closet After (We were able to unpack 3 boxes that had just been sitting around!)

Before

After- much better!

The closet was sort of a beast.  The closet was all beat up and had old water stains everywhere.  I think I had to patch and caulk more in the closet than I did in the rest of the room AND Cooper's room.  I ended up just painting it the same color as the trim, which made it pretty easy since I didn't have to be so careful.  (Cooper's closet is blue, so if we ever repaint his room, we will need to repaint his closet.  Not so in here.)  We also only put back in 3 shelves on the right.  6 was too many!  And the shelves didn't have caps on the end, so they were very sharp.  I even cut my palm putting them back in.  So be careful if you ever need anything from the closet!

Before

After

Before

After

Donezo!

Up next is the guest bathroom.  We are painting it Dancing Leaf, too.  Otherwise it wouldn't be next.  We aren't going to do anything other than paint for now.  The ceiling fan and old light fixtures will stay until at least next year.  We haven't started doing anything to it yet, so maybe by September it will be done. ;)  It will be our first room to paint with crown molding, so it will probably take even longer (for some reason, only the bathrooms upstairs have crown, but downstairs it is in every room except the laundry.)

Birthday aftermath + other pictures

Here are some pictures from the day after the party and just a couple of random days. I have intentions of redoing the guest room and Coop's bathroom in the next couple of weeks. We will see how that goes... :)

Crawling over the gate

Having a few grumpy moments :)

Exercising

Doesn't everyone kiss brick?