Documented: "Flying the Skies with Two Little Guys"

So often we forget the little things that seem routine. The conversations, the atmosphere...details of the moment. It has been awhile since I've recorded one of our flights --and actually this one is my first to record since Cooper has been with us. I didn't want to forget this time. :)

April 26, 2011
10:20 a.m. flight from Minneapolis, MN to Houston, TX
Purpose of trip: see family - Nolens
Carrie and Cooper: seats 20A and B
Parker: seats 20C and D (he thought he was so big getting to sit all by himself)

Before boarding: travel seat/stroller, purse, diaper bag, Parker's backpack, Parker's carry-on, Carrie's carry-on (remember to take out C and P's blankets, Parker's harness and Cooper's bunny before boarding...go through boarding order and organization in head)

Boarding Procedure: Place 2 carry-on bags overhead, put Parker in seat...harness and buckle him in, lift stroller and break down to put in window seat, attach seatbelt extender and buckle, give Parker blanket and airplane map and brochures, lay Cooper's blanket and bunny next to him, place backpack, diaper bag, cooler and purse under seats. Sit down, buckle up, breathe, pat yourself on the back. :)

While on the flight...
Parker: admiring the rain, airplanes and other activity outside the window...glancing through the airplane map and emergency instructions sheet.

Thoughts from a three year old as he flies the skies:
Grinning from ear to ear, Parker says...
"I so excited mama!"


10:40am (haven't taken off)
Parker holding his blanket and airplane brochures and material
Cooper has been asleep since 10 min after boarding the plane

10:50am still content and happy to be on a plane...Parker was in constant motion and quite the little chatterbox :)

Parker:
"Are we moving?"
"Are we there yet mom?"
"Are we moving now?"
"I think we're taking off mom."

singing ABC's...

"Are we moving yet?"

Breaks into "Itsy Bitsy Spider" rendition...followed by a "yeah yeah yeah"

"Are we going into the sky yet mom?"

Gasp! "We're taking off now!" (as he grabs on to both armrests.)



Looks that cross his face: excitement, scared, worried, brave, determination, excitement again
The pictures below (the next 4 of Parker) were taken in less than 20 seconds. He went from excitement to all those other expressions and then back to excitement...all in 30 seconds. 

You are such a brave little boy, Parker.

Stuff at my feet: Parker's backpack (aka travel bag), purse, cooler with baby food and teething rings, diaper bag

Plane has taken off and is leveling out...

Parker: "I don't like it when the plane turns like that (as he does the hand motions for it) but I a big boy and I not cry."

After plane levels off a little more...

Parker: "Are we there yet?"

smiles.

"I want my shoes off." (Picks his nose for like the 197th time this morning)

"Can I have a snack now?"

Me: "Stop picking your nose!"

Parker takes his shoes off and lets them fall to the floor.

Parker playing with the armrest and singing...something.

"Mama, do you have any fun games?"

"Are we still in the sky mom?"

"May I have a treat now?"

I move over to his seat with his backpack/travel bag and take out his new Easter chick pez dispenser...

Me: "lemon, Grape or Orange?"

P: "Orange"

I showed him how they worked...he's enthralled. Eats all the pez in 1 1/2 min.

Me: "Parker, save some for later because once they're gone, they're gone."

P: "I don't want to save any."

Me: "Ok, just remember when the chick runs out of candy, Mama doesn't have anymore.

Would you like me to read you a book?"

P: "Ooh yeah!"

Me: How about National Geographic Kids "Safari." (with a big tiger on the front cover)

P: "No. I don't want that one."

Me: pulling out another one..."Ok, we'll read the Please, Thank you Little Goldenbook."

P: "Yeah, that one!"

as I read the 3rd pg...

P: "May I have some more treats now?"

Me: "When the nice flight attendant comes around with the snacks and a drink you may have some."

P: holding the pez dispenser, "can I have some more of this?"

Me: "No Parker. No more candy. You may have snacks when the lady passes out pretzels and nuts."

P: "What else do you have in my bag?" (referring to his travel bag)

Me: "Would you like to play with your airplanes?"

Parker's face lights up.

I think, "Maybe this will keep him busy for a whole 5 min"

...hence me now getting to write all of this down. :)

A view of our seats from above:

The flight attendant adored Parker and Cooper. She came and sat down with Parker about midway through flight...and guess what she happened to have? Pez candy that the Easter bunny had brought to her...strawberry flavored. She shared. Parker was happy and enjoyed telling our family all about it.

12 pm: Cooper wakes up from nap and is happy and hungry
Fed him until 12:50
12:50 Take Parker to potty, put shoes on him, and buckle him back in seat (he has figured out how to unbuckle the seatbelts and his harness), use bathroom, give cooper teething ring, bunny lovee and paci
Put things away and get everything in order for deboarding

1pm:
Parker: "Are we here yet? I think we are." (as he plays with his pez dispenser)
"Mommy, can I get out of my seat yet?"
"Are we here yet?"

Cooper sits contentedly.

Plane lands.

What Parker ate on plane: 2 pez packs, pretzels and nuts, water (wanted snacks the whole time)

After the plane reached our gate and people started deboarding, I gave Parker his bag to stroll down the aisle to the front of the plane where he was to wait for me (as he usually does).
I grabbed the rest of our bags, put the stroller down and started down the narrow aisle. I see Parker's bag just sitting there up front in the middle of the walkway. A pilot to my left said, "Is this your bag?" I replied, "Yes, and did you happen to see a 3 year old who went with it?" He nodded and pointed to the cockpit, "Yeah, he's up front having a discussion with the captain." The first officer smiled.

My son, the shy one.
I will never know exactly what he was telling that fellow, but the pilot listened politely and intently. Bless his heart, that man didn't have a chance to interject even if he had wanted to. ;)

Houston, we have arrived.

Pictures from Easter weekend...

Cooper was more into playing with his Easter basket grass this weekend than anything else... ;)

Parker's 1st year of coloring Easter eggs

We had a blessed weekend spent with many fabulous friends...missed our family...celebrated our Lord and Saviour, enjoyed several Easter egg hunts inside and outside...thank you to dear friends Allison and Mark for having us over for a beautiful Easter lunch after church.

Springtime inside our home

This post was written on Good Friday, but apparantly I saved it as a draft instead of actually posting it last night. :)

Growing up in Mississippi brought forth many a hot summers, crisp fall's, not-so-cold winters and refreshing spring days filled with daffodils and plenty of green to cover the whole South. Often when my brother and I would come home from school, we would find fresh cut daffodils lovingly placed around the house in different rooms by our mom...one could always spot a vase filled with yellow blooms on our kitchen table. I still remember the sweet fragrance and how it felt to walk in the house on those afternoons. Windows were kept open to let in fresh air...the curtains would breezily move about the rooms. Short dresses and white open toed shoes were brought out on Easter Sunday. (If I'm remembering correctly, quite a few weekends were spent laying out in the backyard around this time during my teen years as I worked on darkening my tan for the upcoming summer.)

Obviously, I've had to make a little climate adjustment from my childhood days in the Deep South. The view from my kitchen table this week doesn't scream Easter bunnies and daffodils. Three different mornings over the last week and a half our little area of the North has awakened to more snow. Yippee. ;)

Around the house, however, I've filled our spaces with a little decor and pictures that evoke feelings of springtime and sunny days. A springtime chick made by Parker, bunnies of all sorts, pictures of past springtime memories, a tucked away Gail Pittman porcelain egg (that Parker likes to point out almost each day like he's found a treasure that mama hid!), fresh colorful fruits in a variety of containers, and a sweet lamb adorn our household right now. One day, I too will have fresh flowers in each room...but for now, I am loving our little treasures. :)

Here are just a couple of photos of our "springtime inside the home" right now:

I had several fun Easter activities planned for Parker and me to do together earlier in the week, but the conversations went something like this:

Me: "Parker, would you like to make some Easter bunnies out of playdough?"
Parker: "No, I think I just want to play with my cars."
Me: "How about making a bunny out of cotton balls?"
Parker: "No, thank you. I think I just want to not do that."
Me: "Ooh! I know of something really, really fun that we could do! How about making Easter bunnies using paint?! We could fingerpaint some grass, trees, bunnies and all sorts of cool things! When we're done we could hang it on the refrigerator and let Daddy see it when he gets home!"
Parker: very contentedly "Um no, I think I just want to play with my trucks."

This is what I walked into the living room to find him doing later...apparantly it's a lot more fun to load up big trucks and trailers with Easter eggs and take them around and around and around and around. :)

On other fronts, this little guy has discovered that he prefers sitting to anything else...and that's the only way he wants to be. (I'm having an extremely hard time not smothering those sweet, chubby cheeks in kisses 24/7.)

Happy Good Friday Everyone!

I hope each of you has a blessed weekend with family and friends!

Monday morning surprise...

Early this morning, I received a text from my friend, Jami, telling me there was a surprise on my front porch. When I went out to look and saw this little delicious little bag of chocolate cookies (well, maybe I ate a few before I took the picture ;)) I squealed! It was the perfect break in between feeding the kids, unloading the dishwasher, hanging up a load of laundry and making a couple of necessary calls. Thank you, Jami, for my Monday morning surprise. You are the best! ;)

I hope each of you has a fabulous Monday...and I hope each of you has a terrific friend like Jami!!! If not, go out and getcha one.

5 boys today and our activities earlier in the week...

Today was a busy day with these five sweet and active boys...

From morning till evening, I experienced what everyday life is like with a 6 mos old, 2 year old, 3 year old, 6 year old and 9 year old BOY!!! I couldn't help but smile as I snapped these pictures...you should see some of the outakes! ha ha!

The downstairs play area looked like this all day. On every level of our home you could walk around every 20 minutes to find a different car, ball, tool, and action figure.
Do you see several of the boys in this picture below? Running, crawling, somersaulting, driving...aaahhh! And I LOVED IT!!! Believe it or not, this was the relaxing part about my day. They all really are such sweet guys and made this mama laugh over quite a few of their antics.

And earlier in my week....

I snapped a picture of my now 6 month old (can it really be that Cooper was born a half year ago?! No, surely not!) I chose to share this picture because just about every one I've posted shows his huge, captivating grin and I think this one is extra sweet. :)

Mater was making quite a few rescues on Parker's highway...

Enjoyed a relaxing movie night in between studies with our Small Group. "Fireproof" was the movie of choice and a hit as usual. Kathryn baked her yummy cookies and that made the night twice as nice! Parker felt special that he got to enjoy a little popcorn and a cookie just before bedtime. :)

Ok, so I couldn't resist the happy grin after all...

6 month stats:

Weight: 18 lbs, 14 oz (75%)

Length: 28 1/4" (96%)

We've caught these two like this a few times lately...
After Parker runs in our room to wake me up in the morning, he'll run in to Cooper's room to talk to him if he's awake. He'll just climb right in and make himself at home. Sweet, patient Cooper. He loves his big brother so much ;)

And saying farewell one last time to this sweet family...we'll miss you guys so much and wish you the best in Chicago!!

Missing my hubby and waiting for his last call of the day...it's time to head to bed now. I think I might actually pass out before my head actually hits the pillow tonight.

He dressed himself today...and we went to the park!

What you don't see in this picture is his big boy Mater underwear on inside out and backwards. ;) Since he usually has me get his clothes out and on for him, I tried to be very optimistic about the situation this morning. I asked him if he wanted to take his Mickey Mouse pajama top off and put another long-sleeve shirt on, to which he replied, "No mom, it's cold outside. I need my long sleeve pj's underneath dis one." He wanted to wear his shirt with the big truck on it..pj's or not his mind was made up. One khaki sock. One navy sock.

"All right! Let's load 'em up!" I wasn't in the frame of mind to argue with my 3 year old this morning. Plus, I thought it was kinda cute.

This is Cooper in his high chair. This is how he looks when his big brother is making him laugh from across the table.

So today, it was warm enough to get out and go to one of our favorite parks. Yea for no snow!!! I went all out with quilts, blankets, a picnic basket filled with fun toys for Cooper, snacks and a few other goodies. As soon as I unbuckled Parker he made a beeline for the playground. Cooper and I enjoyed watching him and the other excited kids while playing with some fun toys on our quilt. Seeing my littlest one in bright colors and Parker's navy floppy hat literally made me giddy for summer and warmer weather! How cute those little chunky legs and chubby toes will look in bubble suits and sandals.

One thing that did catch me off guard today was getting emotional watching Parker play on the playground...2 specific climbing spots that only last summer I was having to help him with he just took off towards and climbed them like an expert tackling Mt. Everest from top to bottom in record time.

Wow.

Parker came to this playground before he could even walk. He was literally crawling up the steps his first summer/fall. Seeing him out there today brought back many memories of the last several years.

Have a Happy Weekend! If it's nice out, might I suggest a trip to a nearby park? :)

big boy boo boo's and a trip to the dentist

Saturday, the boys and I were out doing a little shopping when we needed to stop for a "potty break." Parker was having a little too much fun standing underneath the hand dryers happily bouncing up and down saying, "Aaaahhhhaaaahhhh" when I heard a bump....then his cries. I knew immediately what had happened.

Errr...one of my biggest fears has always been that my children are going to knock their teeth out. Thankfully, we were only looking at a chipped tooth, but I think my heart was more devastated then his. Ironically, I had already set up his first dentist appt for that upcoming Monday. Well, with little blood and only about 30 seconds of tears, we decided to continue on our little outing. Other than him constantly rubbing his tongue along the edge of his rough tooth, you would never know that he had just chipped it.

That afternoon, when the boys woke up from naps, I decided an outing to the park would be refreshing and fun. We hadn't been there a half an hour when Parker took a (very small) fall...but a fall that managed to bust his lip up pretty badly and severe the connecting point between his inner lip and gums. Blood...everywhere...looked a lot worse than it was. We left the park pretty quickly to head home and clean up. Though a little upset about the accident at first, by the time we got home, Parker wanted to know why he had to go inside. He was stalling going into the house as long as he could.

I made "tough boy" pose for a few photos...after all, this is his first big boy boo boo...well, his first major boo boo anyway.

He was up...

...then he was down.

Bedtime came early that night. Poor baby. Sadly enough, I think later I cried over it more than he did.

By Monday morning, Parker was excited to go to his first dentist appointment. His special job was to hold the suction wand...and he took the responsibility very seriously I might add. :) The dentist ground down his tooth a little to smooth it out. Parker truly did amazing the whole time. (and his daddy got extra kuddos for snapping the great pics for me!!!) Mom and Dad felt like they had major bragging rights the rest of the day after hearing the raves from the dentist and dental assistant on how terrific the little man was. :)

"Carrie, you'd better put on your big girl panties, cause it's only going to get harder as they get older."

(sigh.)

our little Cooper

Over the last several days I have been holding this one extra close to me. Despite my best efforts to keep him "my little baby," Cooper continues to grow daily at almost breakneck speed...and that makes me sad.  (...maybe a little happy too, but mostly sad; I'm not ready for him to get big! I'm such a sap!)
Ma ma ma ma ma and Ba ba ba ba baba are his favorite babbles right now.

He loves when his big brother talks to and plays with him; it makes me so happy to see his face light up when Parker walks in the room. He is completely mesmorized with Parker and watches every move he makes. And he likes to be everywhere family is...right in the middle of it all...just like his older brother...well, unless it's naptime or bedtime. When he's ready to sleep, he's ready to sleep.

Cooper is so expressive and happy. He is a busy little boy exploring with his hands and eyes. He has learned to roll more versus just rolling from one side to the other and staying in that position. For awhile now, Cooper has amazed us by his big scoots across his quilts. He is sitting up more confidently although he still needs assistance sometimes..we're still laying more than sitting.

He is drooling everywhere, so it has been hard for us to not keep a little drool rash under the chin. We will not be surprised if some teeth pop out soon as hard as he's working those little gums. His big brother started teething early, so we'll see if Cooper follows suit.

We're still working on the hair...I think his little fuzz is adorable though and wouldn't change it for the world. :) 

He had enjoyed quite a bit of carrots prior to this day of the picture... :)

Cooper makes us so happy. I love that he is a part of our growing family. I am trying to not miss a thing, because the days seem to fly by soooo fast. I love him so much and could just squeeze his little chub 24/7. Clay laughs at me because I'm constantly planting kisses on his chubby cheeks and body; I tell him that I have to kiss my boys as much as I can while I'm still "allowed" to and while they still cherish that from their mama.

Ok, I've been staring at his pictures now for 45 min....time to turn in for the night. This sweet, little cherub is struggling to stay asleep through the evening hours...teething, gas, hunger, cold/hot, constipation, swaddle to no swaddle, stuffy nose, itchy, dry skin..you name it. Lately, it's always something. We'll figure it out. He likes to sleep waaaay too much to keep this up much longer. :) For the time being though, his bathroom is stocked with 2 types of Orajel, tylenol, suppositories (did you know they make an infant kind?), lotions and creams, nose bulbs...we're armed and ready for action. Now if I could just function a little better in the wee hours and not be half asleep, some of these methods might be a little more efficient. Rest well, friends, because I sincerely doubt I will be.

Who needs sleep anyway? Not me. ;)

Update: Ok, so my little man did amazing last night!!! He ate at 10pm (right before I got in the bed), 2:30 and 6:30am. Not a peep out of him in between feedings!! Yea! Go Coop!