Pictures Finally! Merry Christmas!

Finally posting some pictures - but blogger changed the way you upload, so I am a little lost...these are just randomly posted...... ENJOY!

B and C in front of our REAL LIVE tree. So much fun to decorate!

Sweet lil C in a fun pink ruffly outfit - courtesy of Gaga!

Remember when I found B eating Kix cereal out of a measuring cup...

Best friends!

One of our many recent trips to the Indianapolis zoo

The very active grizzly

Elephants - a favorite!

Fall Fun in the leaves

enjoying a nice fall day

B hugging his friend E

On Margie's Giraffe

Happy Baby Girl

B wearing his snow boots around the house - so proud

Merry Christmas!

What makes me smile...

• Lil C laughing from deep in her belly when we play peek-a-boo, change her diaper, or just tickle her
• B-man saying, "ho ho ho merry christmas"
• Lil C thinking that B-man is hilarious
• B-man loving the holidays and always pointing at things and saying, "Christmas!"
• Lil C totally enthralled with our dog Tucker
• B-man stomping around the house in his snow boots this morning yelling, "I did it!" (b/c he put them on himself)
• Lil C trying some baby oatmeal for the first time last night and loving it
• B-man eating dinner and in the middle saying, "Oh Yummy!" (even when we had simple Turkey Sandwiches last night - he thinks I am such a great cook - LOL!)
• Lil C and B-man being totally in to each other - my biggest wish for them is that they be lifelong friends. I think we are well on our way........

Naps ARE necessary!

(Pictures coming soon!).

This weekend we set up B's new little Toddler Bed (and wow, is the room crowded - between a Toddler Bed, Crib, Bookshelf, dresser/changing table, and glider in a SMALL room!) and he LOVES it! But is so excited that napping on Sunday was just a dream for us all. Instead, our little man decided to play in his room for about two hours. We would occasionally pop our head in and say, get in bed, but sleep never arrived. By almost 4pm, we decided to give up b/c who wants to have him start a nap then with bed time at 8pm?

Then it was 6pm. And then it was melt down time. And then lil B got himself into such a state that he could hardly be consoled. There wasn't anything I could do right or to help. And as soon as he got himself calmed down, something would get him worked up again. He didn't want to take a bath, or brush his teeth, or read books, or sit on my lap, or have the light off, or have the light on, or lay in bed, or not read books, or have me put his toothbrush away, or wear pajamas, and so on. Finally by about 7:30, he was out like a light.

I felt so bad for him and reminded myself of the importance of naps. Sleep begets sleep.

Happy Thanksgiving and then some....

Has it really been three weeks since I last posted? My apologies dear readers! A friend prompted me to get myself on track and post by saying in an email, "PS - update your blog!". :)

Anyway - things have been good in the McCool household. This is going to be a quick update - I have been sooo busy lately at work and boycotting the computer at night. Hence, no time to post!

What's new with the kiddos?
Lil C-

• Rolling over - front to back and back to front
• All fours - if I put her in position, she will stay up on all fours, not quite rocking yet....
• Sitting - C is doing SOOO great at sitting - she of course often falls over to one side, but is getting better and better each day
• Grabbing - wow, does lil miss have the grip on her - watch out hair!
• Talking - Lil C loves to have little conversations with us and beware if you are not paying attention to her, she will yell at you to let you know!

B-man -

• New Favorite Movie - how the grinch stole Christmas
• New favorite word - Stupid
• New favorite phrase - stupid stupid stupid (No, I'm not kidding! We must say stupid more than we think b/c B-Man says it ALL the time, and then b/c it is too cute, we reinforce it by laughing, though I keep telling him that my favorite word is WONDERFUL or GREAT and he responds by saying STUPID! Ahhh......)
• New trick - climbing out of the crib! And again, we reinforced this by asking to see him do it. Crib mattress is now on the floor until his bed arrives later this week.
• Favorite Animal - elephant (or as he says, Elephant Trunk)
• Favorite motorized vehicle - schoolbus
• Favorite food - Candy. Candy. Candy. Followed by a tantrum when we say no, how about an apple?

What else?
We had such a great Thanksgiving in the ville with my in-laws and family. It is so fun seeing B-man with all his cousins. They interact really well with each other! We visited the E-ville zoo, which makes that trip #4 this month to a zoo!

Just want to say that I am thankful for my family - I feel so lucky to have such wonderful parents, siblings, in-laws, etc.... you all are the best!

Cute story too - this morning I had to take the kids to daycare b/c PJ had a trial. Well, I forgot and got up late, so was running around trying to get us all ready this morning. B-man made the decision that getting dressed was out of the question, so I had resigned myself to the fact that he would be spending his day at daycare in his jammies. In the midst of all this, he announced he was "nungry" so I started making him a waffle. Then he got really quiet, which is never a good thing with a two year old. I looked in the pantry to find him on the floor, surrounded by Kix cereal, eating out of a measuring cup. It was precious. How could I not laugh, then call work to announce I would for sure be late. Then I swept up the Kix. Fun fun times.

No I'm not

Brennan's new favorite phrase:
No, I'm NOT!
(to which we must reply with a smile, Yes. You. Are.)

And often I remind B-man of my FAVORITE word of his. Yes. And I tell him how much I love to hear him say yes, hopefully encouraging him to say Yes more than he says no. And so far so good!

Other common phrases/words:
What's that? (repeat repeat repeat repeat - must be his version of why???)
Where's Daddy? (insert Mommy, Campa, Tucka)
Wow.
Elepant. Elepant. Elepant! (in response to - what did you see at the zoo?)
School bus!!!!!!
Stop Stop Momma (in response to me singing!)

And counting - lots of time is spent counting. And singing (but only when I am not listening).

B loves to sing the Clean Up song (oh, he must take after his mother!) while picking up his toys (smile), Twinkle twinkle little star, and the ABCs. Though once he notices me listening he starts yelling the song.

Recent convo B and I had on the way home after work one day.
B - Mommy - Candy candy candy
Me - First we have dinner, then you can have candy
B - No, I'm Not.
Me - Yes, you are. First dinner, then Candy.
B - Nooooo - I'm NOOOOOT!
Me - okay. Then no candy.
B - Candy!
Me - First dinner, then candy.
B - No I'm NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!
Me - Okay. Whatever works for you. But no candy without dinner
B - Look, School bus. Where did school bus go?
(Imagine Raffi in the background playing too)
And little C, just silently riding along.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!Getting ready for the big night of trick or treating.

Rest up - lots of walking to do later!

Uncle Brennan cheesing with the jack o lantern (the squirrels had some too!)

Lil Punkin'

Scary Costumes!

Mr. Bones!

Trick or Treat!
Daddy - check out all my candy!

Bath time
Ready for bed after a long day. :)

We had a great time trick or treating last night - it was great to spend the weekend with Aunt Nae Nae and Uncle Brennan!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

On Friday, PJ and I celebrated 5 years of marriage. Wow - here is a look back to our wedding day ~

We went out last night to celebrate. Spent too much money, drank too much wine, and ate too much amazing food. The restaurant (Capitol Grille) made it special for us - complete with rose petals on our table and a Happy Anniversary dessert and a handwritten note. We appreciated it sooo much!

Comedy night at home though - our friends babysat and the kids did great. But then C woke up 10 minutes after we got home and stayed up till midnight. Then she woke up again at 330, 5, and 7am - not interested in nursing or a pacifier or sleeping. This while B slept thru the night (shock!), yet he woke up bright and early at 6am. Hmmm - needless to say, I am a tired momma today, but it was well worth it for a great date!

Some recent cute pics......

Hi All - here are some recent fun pictures of the kids!

Question - as much as I love sharing the pictures, I find uploading them on blogger to be a hassle. Does anyone use Flickr or Picasa and do the web upload? Is it faster? Better? Easier? I need a change! Let me know in the comments section - maybe you'll help me and a few other bloggers!

 Lil C and her paw paw - loving life
We got the exersaucer out recently for Lil C b/c she is all about being upright, but b-man has found that it is enjoyable for him too! Here you can see that he is taking a call..."Hi Mema!"

My brother, who used to live in Mongolia, had an opportunity to come visit us before he moves to Korea next week. We'll miss you Uncle Patrick! My brother LOVES the kids - he gets b-man CRAZY and loves to love on lil C.

Lil C thinks her Paw Paw is a pretty funny guy!

Hi Mom - look at me! I have great back strength!

Does anyone remember Brennan's chubby little feet and toes? Here is the opposite! If I recall correctly, b-man always kept his second two flexed and was always up on tip toes in this things. Lil C is a little more relaxed with her feet and they are SKINNY!

Check me out - I love seeing the world in this thing!

Love it.

Another photo op with Uncle Pat!

So now that Lil C has a lot more strength and prefers sitting upright, I have given up on using the baby tub. Instead, she often "sits" in the tub with b-man (of course I am holding her the entire tim). But he things it is great and she gets a kick out of watching him play. I love this!

When my mom, step dad and brother came to visit, we went to this really fun event called PumpkinFest - just a local farmer who allows people on to his farm to play. It was so great - low key, non-commercialized, and fun!

Here we all are in front of the homemade donut shop. Yummy!

Mema and Grandpa Rick had a GREAT time visiting with the kids recently. They got early wake up calls for sure, but they thought it was well worth it!

I love this shot of b-man . He is totally in to the experience.

Our happy family of four (can you see Lil C ? She is snuggled up next to me in the carrier).

Riding the "horsey"

Thanks for the ride Mema!

Uncle Pat and Lil B navigating thru the corn maze.

b-man riding the train. He was not interested in going at it alone, so the conductor allowed us to walk along and hold his hand. B thought it was so much fun we rode it twice!

Daddy and B-man checking out the scene.

We feel so lucky to have such great family! Just about every weekend we are visiting with other family members. This weekend is our five year anniversary (wow - long time - and we have been together even longer - more than 10 years give or take...!). We are appreciative for our good friends, Amand and Nick, who will babysit (this is our FIRST non-family babysitting experience!) while we celebrate this weekend. Then we look forward to Aunt Nae Nae and Uncle B coming to visit over Halloween. Followed the next weekend by a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Hunt. We hope to see Gaga and PawPaw in there sometime too! I guess living 3-4 hours away from everyone has it's perks b/c they all come to visit and we get lots of quality time! We're going to miss Uncle Patrick for sure though. It was fun seeing him and being with mema and Grandpa Rick. Love you all!

Mr. B. Bones

So I am getting really excited for Halloween. Initially B was going to be a racecar driver, but the outfit is too small. And C was going to be a peapod - again, same problem. My kids are long.

Sooo after much deliberation and thinking (and figuring out how to make a costume b/c I am too cheap to buy one!) this is what we came up with!

C is going to be a pumpkin - got a great pumpkin sleeper for $8 and already have a pumpkin hat. Perfect.

B is going to be a skeleton! I bought him a black turtleneck, black sweatpants, skeleton gloves, and a black hat. Then I found these things at Michaels got Transfermations - they are iron-on printer transfer sheets. Then online (I love the internet) I found cut-out bones. So tonight I am going to start the iron on process. Yay! And I also an doing the same outfit for myself. :) Heee hee. All in all, I would say that for the three costumes, we spent LESS THAN $30! How great is that?

We also went to the Pumpkin Patch this weekend - will post pics soon. My mom, step dad, and Brother were with us. Brennan had a great time - it was a great place too. Family owned, small, non-commercialized - just easy. Lots of families, not a lot of lines. Music - corn boxes (instead of sand boxes), animals, train, hayride, a cool slide for big kids, face painting, yummy food (and the best kettle corn ever!).

Side note - my apologies for the previous post being posted on this site. I intended it for my "Girl Kyle" blog, but posted in the wrong place and am too lazy to deal with moving it (not that it would really be hard, but you know).

Continuing to hope the kids stay healthy - confirmed case of H1N1 at our daycare (and there are only 7 kids! Though the one who got it also goes to preschool 3 days a week). Argh - thank goodness for breastmilk.

Oh - one more thing - I have been trying to teach B our last name - McCool. So we practice throughout the day (and as with everything - B yells it!). So we'll go, Mama McCool, Daddy McCool, Tucker McCool (our dog), and then his name and his sister. It is too cute b/c he cannot say McCool, but rather just yells Mama (pause pause pause) COOOOOOL! Daddy (pause pause pause) COOOOOOL. Campa (pause pause pause) COOOOOOOL! and so on. Love it. Love love love it.

Our Family Bed

As most of my readers know, our kids sleep with us. For safety reasons, my son sleeps with my husband at night, and the baby sleeps with me. Occasionally (like last night b/c my husband was sick), both sleep with me. I am more comfortable with this now that C is almost 4 months old, but still very aware. Needless to say, last night was a sleepless night for me unfortunately with two that I was thinking about and making sure both were safe.

As a mom, my internal reading is at its most comfortable state when my children are next to me sleeping. When they are not, I am constantly worried - are they breathing, are they hurting, are they upset, are they awake? The questions go on. But when they are next to me, I can sense their warm bodies, feel their breath on my face, and we both get a better night sleep overall. Nursing an infant throughout the night can be a tiresome job, but with bed-sharing, it is easy! I just latch on the baby and we both comfortably fall back asleep. No getting up, no messing around, no patting her back to sleep.

This morning, on the Today show, they cited a new study that indicated bed-sharing was more dangerous than babies sleeping in a crib. Video located on the Today show website under Parenting and Relationships. But when proper precautions are taking, is that really the case? I need to read more on the study that this headline was derived from. If the mother is the primary one bed sharing (especially with a newborn), and are not obese, drunk, on other inhibiting medications, in a water bed, and cautious of covers - how could you roll over on to your child? That would be like rolling on to a HUGE ball. And as I always say, we are aware enough in our sleep to not fall off the bed, and therefore in tune enough with our children to not roll on to them!

Today a Dr. Sears article also referenced bed-sharing - basically they cited the following, "if 65 cases of non-accidental SIDS death occured each year in a bed, and about 4250 cases of actual SIDS occured overall each year, then the number of accidental deaths is an adult bed is only 1.5% of the total cases of SIDS".

Interesting. Dr. James McKenna of the Notre Dame Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Lab also does a lot of research on bed-sharing and co-sleeping.

Peeeeas....

Lil B has found the magic word - peeeas (please) and loves to say it about everything.....
Recently heard (yes, notice how he loves to ask for food or tv):
Mama Cars TV watch peas
Fruit snacks pease
More elmo peas
milk peas
tv peas tv tv tv (imagine an increasing voice)
chip peas

Or everything is mine!
Elephant MINE
McQueen MINE
Bottle MINE
Phone MINE
(and yes - he yells mine each time!)

And last night B really had found his voice - he happily yelled all night long. PASTA PASTA PASTA (for about 10 minutes) and then continued to yell and babble. He yelled before dinner. He yelled during dinner. He yelled while Campbell napped. He yelled during bath time. But finally during story and snuggle time, he calmed down. We continued to remind him that we prefer to use inside voices at home to which he responded by going shhhhhh and saying "whisper", but then he would YELL "WHISPER SHHHH"!

Such an independent little man. Makes me smile.

What's Campbell up to these days?

My little girl is getting sooooo big!

I noticed that whenever I put her in the bouncy or in her carseat, she was trying to sit up - sooo....we got out the exersaucer and she LOVES it! Here is a picture i took of her with my phone sitting in it! I have some better pics on my camers, but haven't uploaded them yet. (Brennan loves the exersaucer too and wants to show Campbell everything on it and play with all the toys himself! Such a good big brother).

Then last night I laid Campbell down on a quilt while I was putting some clothes away, and when I turned around, she had rolled from her belly to her back! I almost started crying (but instead started squealing and being so excited and yelling for PJ to come see!). She is just growing up so fast. I even have to put her in 6 month jammies b/c she is so long! And all this time I was thinking she would never get past the NB and 0-3 month size!

Campbell loves to talk and smile and laugh. Sometimes she acts bashful too, especially when her daddy is oggling over her - I love it!

Yesterday was a rough day for us all though. I returned to work full time this week and just was having a hard time with it. I got to daycare last night to learn that Campbell refused the bottle until about 1:30 (I last nursed her at 7am!). That was hard. And she didn't sleep well, though I think it had to do with the fact that she didn't always get her paci, but we think that is resolved (she is such a paci girl!). She slept like a ROCK last night though her nursing has increased at night over the past few weeks (which I expected - reverse cycle at it's best!) and the 10-4am stretch we used to get is gone. She now goes down around 8pm and then nurses every two hours until morning, when I have to wake her up to get her ready to go! But since we sleep next to each other, the nursing at night is easy and I hardly feel tired at all! She did sleep in her moses basket until midnight last night which was good too!

Oh and Brennan is the best thing ever as well - he LOVES his baby sister and missed her a lot while we were gone last week in San Antonio for a conference. He is talking so much these days too - stringing words together and really grasping a lot of concepts. It is amazing to see how fast he learns!

Check out these great pics!

We are so thankful to Brooke and Dan Brand of Brand Photo Design for taking AMAZING pictures of our family! Check them out (and their blog - where you can see even more fantastic pictures!)!

Oh, my sweet little Campbell - she is so smiley!

Don't you just want to eat up cute baby feet?


Brennan playing peek a boo with Dan - he is so fun!

Ooooh - this is SO my favorite picture of Brennan - I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!

Family picture - I love it!

Having fun in the yard!

My precious nephew Cooper - Happy First Birthday Cooper!

Cooper loves his new walking skills - I love how this shot includes mom and dad too, but just their legs (my sister in law Jessica and her husband Bryan - check out their blog)!

Ashley, Madison, Baz (hanging), and Ian

They belong to my brother in law - Jason and his wife Angie

Max, Quinn, Finn, and Izze

They belong to my brother in law Chris and his wife Tiffany

And these are just a snapshot of all the great pictures - Thanks Brooke and Dan!