Welcome home!!

My brother Adam was deployed to Afghanistan this fall; he got to meet Dexter a couple days after he was born & then he had to leave. We originally thought he'd be gone 'til this fall, but things changed & he's back now!! He called today to say he's in the U.S. & we should be able to see him in a week (or less)!!

Happy (belated) birthday Adam!

Care packages for military service members

I just learned about this today. The USPS offers a "military kit" of shipping supplies for military families:

While it can’t cut postage costs, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) does provide help to military families and friends shipping care packages overseas to their deployed service members. Since Priority Mail® supplies are the packaging of choice for families and friends preparing care packages for service members overseas, the post office has created a "Mili-kit" based on the items most frequently requested by the military. This kit is available for free to military families.
It contains:
Three (3) each of flat rate boxes
Two each of Cube boxes
Address labels
One roll of Priority Mail tape
15 customs forms with envelopes
The kit may be requested by calling 1-800-610-8734 Choose your language (1 is English, 2 is Spanish).
Choose option 1 (it states it is for Express Mail®, Priority Mail or Global Express Guaranteed® products).
When you reach a live agent, request CAREKIT04, the “Military Kit. Allow 7-10 days for delivery. Note: These are free supplies only. Military families must still affix postage to the package.

I will be ordering mine tomorrow morning.

Missions accomplished

I'm a little late in posting this, but Cooper & I went to Brookfield Zoo with my brother Adam just before he left for training for his deployment to Afghanistan.
Adam wanted to spend time with me & Cooper before leaving, and get pictures of himself riding animals (yes, himself), but I convinced him to take a couple with Cooper too.

Not sure what this face is about...

As we were leaving, Adam was my lookout for a little project I had. I recently came across this great website, The Toy Society, so I made a small stuffed animal & I wanted to leave it someone to find. You can see the post on the Toy Society site about my drop here and about the person who found it here!

Déjà vu

This is Cooper in February of 2008, wearing a onesie I bought him. It's a little difficult to read, but it says, "My uncle loves me enough to defend my whole country."

Two years ago (pretty much to the day) I was hugely pregnant (even though I wasn't due 'til late October), my sister-in-law Dayna was on the verge of giving birth, and we got news that my brother would be deployed to a war zone for almost a year.

Fast forward to today: hugely pregnant - check, sister-in-law ready to pop - check, brother going to war zone - check. Except this time it's Adam going instead of Justin.

That onesie is the hand-me-down I didn't want this next baby to have.

Happy birthday Adam!

Thanksgiving

Well, I've been negligent in my blogging; it's been a while since I've posted. I'm hoping everyone had a great Thanksgiving - I know we did. We had John's family (Granny Smith, Fred, Anna and Pat), as well as Pat's father & brother. It was a great time, although I screwed up the turkey. I decided to cook the turkey from frozen (you can do it, I swear - the FDA says it's okay). I followed the directions I found online, & even added some time to it, but it took 2 hours longer than I planned. We had to push back dinner & then serve everything but the turkey (luckily Granny Smith made ham!). The turkey was ready to serve just as everyone was finishing their meal. Oh well. At least I know for next time. Despite the problems with the bird, we had a great time.
Then on Friday it was off to my parents' house. Adam joined us Friday night, then Justin, Dayna, & the kids on Saturday morning. We had our second Thanksgiving feast Saturday (with a turkey & everything!) & the whole family hung out until Sunday.
Since Grandma & Grandpa didn't get to see the kids on Halloween, we brought their costumes. Here they are dressed up, or as Zak would say, "being Halloween":

The "adults" seemed to have a pretty good time too, looking like fools playing the Wii:

My favorite time of the day, especially with all the kids together, is bath time. I have no idea what they're all looking at here, but it must be pretty interesting.

Sunday morning everyone relaxed on the couch. Cooper hopped up on Adam's lap (okay, Adam probably helped him up), then Zak joined, & then Caycee.

... and chaos ensued.

Of course, no holiday celebration is complete until someone's wearing a lampshade, or, in our case, Caycee's wearing a basket on her head.

Can't wait 'til Christmas!

Behind again..

A couple weeks ago we went to my parents' house for a couple days. Adam & Justin & Dayna & their kids were all able to come too so we had a lot of fun & celebrated my dad's birthday a few days early.



We also attempted to do a group shot of all of us.. it didn't go well. I think this is the best one we got. In all the other ones Adam's head is completely blocking Caycee! We'll have to try this again soon.

Visiting Uncle Adam

Hanging out with Adam & a stuffed monkey

Cooper doing his best Zoolander face

Uncle Adam visits

Adam made the long trek to our house Saturday for a visit... all 3 blocks. I like teasing him about how he lives so close but we never see him, but it's really just because he's a busy man. He helped Cooper build some block towers & Cooper "shared" (handed him blocks & pulled them away immediately) some blocks with him. (I think Cooper's teeth were bothering him; he was not very smiley for the camera.)

Chic-A-Go-Go

We had a lovely Sunday. My mom came to visit this afternoon, & Adam stopped by too.

Then John's sister Anna invited us to see her boyfriend Pat's band, The Wanderers, play a show. They were doing a song for a public access show on CAN-TV called Chic-a-go-go. It was a totally surreal experience. The show is kind of an Soul Train for kids; they play (weird) music & kids, and anyone else who's there, dance. The show is hosted by a puppet named Ratso. Very, very odd. It'll be on tv, but I don't know when. They have several videos on YouTube also, so it might wind up on there too. These pictures are after the show - we went to a fast food place & Cooper was making faces & yelling at us through the window.

Weekend fun & trouble

Cooper loving the swings (at the park on Saturday).

I took this picture on Sunday. John & Adam wanted to go to the driving range, so me & Cooper tagged along to watch. Cooper enjoyed just hanging out outside & took a nice nap in the car afterwards.

This is also from Sunday. Cooper is working on new skills. He managed to stand up on his rocker toy & then pulled his left foot up the stand up even higher on the seat. You can tell from the picture how excited I am about this. Eventually he'll figure out he can do this on the stairs too, so I need to start spending nap times on Craigslist looking for gates. I think we're also heading to Babies R Us today for some outlet covers & crib rail covers.
Cooper tried plums yesterday (pureed; he's still not big on the finger foods) & loved them!
We also had a family bath. Cooper loved it & we all had a lot of fun.