Picking up chickens

The past two weeks have been filled with love for the Prouses!  We all stayed with my parents last weekend since we were invited to Jeff's cousin's wedding in Charleston on Saturday.  Cohen spent some quality time with MiMi and PawPaw Dave on Friday while mommy spent almost the whole day trying to find a dress to wear to the wedding that would fit over my big belly!  I also found a three piece suit for Cohen to wear to his first wedding...and it definately won't go to waste since he now says that he wants to go to another wedding! And I was one lucky lady to have two handsome dates!

For whatever reason, Cohen started off a little grumpy...

This wedding cookie cheered him right up though!

I thought he was pretty adorable...I wish I could put him  in this every day!

Jeff's mom had explained the wedding to Cohen as a party, so when we got to the reception and had to wait for the wedding party to get done with pictures for about an hour, Cohen was very confused as to when "the party" was getting started.  He and his cousins found some ways to pass the time though!

 And then when the bride and groom arrived, Cohen and his cousins really got the party started!

When the shoes come off, you know it's gonna get serious!!

He was just getting warmed up here...at first he was just mesmerized by the lights!

He was really feeling some Journey, though!

I think it's safe to say he came out of his shell!

When we put Cohen in his suit for the wedding, Jeff told him that he would definately be "picking up chics" at the wedding.  Cohen then informed my parents before we left their house that he would be "picking up chickens" at the wedding.  So besides being confused about why the party wasn't starting at the wedding, he also kept asking "where the chickens go" (that he was supposed to be picking up).  Amidst all the confusion, Cohen was able to pick up a chicken - actually the Maid of Honor went out on the dance floor and picked him up as soon as she saw his dance moves!!

And this is what happened when daddy went out on the dance floor to tell him it was time to go (I delegated that task to Jeff)...

                                        

He felt a little better when he found out that his MawMaw had snuck out this fancy glass of ice for him!

Cheers to the bride and groom!

                                           

After spending the evening at the wedding with Jeff's parents, the three of us were somehow able to avoid the Norovirus that his mom came down with when she got home that night.  It made for a stressful week making sure there was someone to keep Cohen every day that she was recovering though.  He got to stay with MiMi and PawPaw Dave on Monday, he went to work with mommy for part of the day on Tuesday and daddy stayed home with him on Wednesday.  Needless to say, it was hard to sneak in any time during the week to pick up some surprise Valentine's for our sweetie...he definately didn't go without love though!

New monster trucks can even bring a smile to  his face at 7:00 in the morning!

True Love = Cohen and his monster trucks!

This is my Valentine's gift from Jeff and Cohen...notice that I ate two before I even thought to take a picture!  It took every bit of self-control I had to not eat the whole box in one day.  I tried to rationalize eating half the box by telling myself that it was "mostly fruit!"

 Cohen's version of Valentines's chocolates = a Spiderman box of Valentine's gummies!  He brings the box to me every day and says "Cohen just wants one" - since he know that is all he is allowed to have!

Cohen also got a bag full of early Valentine's gifts from Mimi and PawPaw Dave last weekend...these were obviously some of his favorites!

Cohen's Valentine's Day also included a trip to McDonalds and Kmart with MawMaw and PawPaw on Thursday where he got (another) Valentine's monster truck and a balloon.  He also had some Valentine's in the mail from his great grandma and great aunt when he got home that evening.

Ripping into his delivered Valentine's

Proud of what he found in there!

Happy Valentine's Day from Cohen!  

We didn't leave baby brother out on Valentine's Day either!  Cohen shared his balloon and gave him lots of heart stickers and daddy made him a Valentine's Day masterpiece!!  Oh and baby brother is the only one that I shared my chocolate covered strawberries with!!

Baby brother at Week 25

Our stressful week of finding daily childcare for Cohen also included our first injury requiring Dermabond!  Thankfully it happened in a doctor's office!  I had Jeff and Cohen meet me at my monthly check-up so that I could introduce Jeff to my doctor before he saw her in the operating room in a few months.  In the two minutes between the time they made it to the waiting room, Jeff went to the bathroom, and the nurse was calling me back, Cohen had hopped down out of a chair, got his feet caught in the carpet and faceplanted into the corner of a coffee table.  As the mom of a boy, I am getting used to injuries and so I wasn't too concerned with the crying until my poor baby looked up at me with blood running down his face.  Cohen immediately became a VIP patient in the OB office and was supplied with a popsicle, candy and stickers before it was all said and done.  Before I knew what was happening, daddy was also promising him a new monster truck for being so brave while the doctor applied the dermabond to his deep cut.  I'm sure Jeff's promises had something to do with this face!

We have spent another weekend now getting the house ready for baby brother.  We need to get some things moved out of what will be Cohen's new room to actually make room for Cohen in there!  These things need to be moved to the garage, but to make room for them in the garage, we needed to clean out the garage attic.  I worked way to hard and could barely move by yesterday evening.  I took these pictures because it was so funny to me how different "nesting" is this time around.

Nesting in 2010 - my mom steamcleaning the carpet and Jeff putting together the crib

                                    Nesting 2013 - Finding a dumpster where we can get rid of all this stuff!  

After all the hard work yesterday, today was mostly about resting...although it would appear from this picture that it was these guys who did all the work instead of me!

Just wanted to end this blog with a sample of Cohen's singing.  He has been interested in music for at least a year now, but in the last few months, he turns everything into a song.  Most of his "songs" have the exact same tune, just different words.  This next video I have posted before...but if you watch it until the very end you'll hear a clip of Cohen's go-to song.

Your listening him for sing "Howard, Howard" at the end.

Much to my dismay, our little country music fan seems to like all Toby Keith songs.  One of his favorites is "Red Solo Cup," which he is always asking me to sing.  When he asked me to sing it while he was at work with me this week, he must have really been listening because he hasn't stopped singing it since.  Oh well...at least that means I don't have to sing it anymore!

Cohen's heavy

After asking Santa exclusively for John Deere tractors and receiving what I have to imagine to be almost every John Deere tractor ever made, Cohen has already moved on to bigger and better things...as in monster trucks.  Jeff and I are just happy that we realized this before we spent lots of time working on a John Deere bedroom for him, including a Jeff Prouse-original tractor bed.  He has about fifteen monster trucks which he collectively refers to as "Monster Jam!"  His favorite, Gravedigger, came with a video that has footage from the real Monster Jam of lots of other monster trucks.  Since he watches the video on the trips to and from Jeff's office every day, in addition to the daily monster truck competitions he watches on TV with his Paw-Paw, it's safe to say that he can name almost any monster truck he sees.  Luckily, he does take occasional breaks from "Monster Jam" and is always interested in doing anything that involves mommy's belly or "my baby" as he calls it.

Coloring a picture for his brother

Who didn't see this coming?!

I can almost guarantee that an internet-search would produce crayons made just for drawing on pregnant bellies - we improvised with Cohen's bath crayons.

Measured in Cohen units, my belly at 23 weeks could hold six blocks!

While I have never been the biggest fan of winter in general, I was very excited to get a whole weekend of snow to finally get a chance to take Cohen out to play.  I was so proud that Cohen didn't complain much at all about wearing all of his snow clothes...when we were finished dressing him, he did inform me that "Cohen heavy!"  (He always talks in the third person.)  Unfortunately, no one warned me how difficult it would be to put on snow boots while wearing snowbibs at 24 weeks pregnant, or how much I would sweat while trying to put mittens on my child.  I won't say that either of these were successful on my part, but at least we did make it outside!

Baby snowbunny!

This is Cohen's chapstick face...he likes to get "medicent" on his lips, but it seems to prevent him from opening his mouth - even when he tries to talk!

Cohen and I were both excited to make a snowman, but unfortunately we did not get the right kind of snow. In my defense, I did give it my very best try.  We took a few rides on the sled, but Cohen preferred to spend most of his time working!

The primary objective was to fill up the dump truck with snow...

and then dump it out!

Upon further review, I think he may actually be trying to just get rid of the snow instead of really playing in it!

My snow angel

Cohen and the polar bear!

Since Cohen spent the last 5-10 minutes we were outside just eating snow off of his mittens, I decided it was time to go in and warm up - while we ate more snow.  As hard as it is for me to believe, I have never had snowcream!  So I found a recipe so Cohen and I could both try it for the first time - his face speaks for both of us!

Since I am pretty sure that the primary reason I went out to play in the snow when I was growing up is so that I could come in and have hot chocolate with marshmallows, I was surprised at how creative I got with snow treats for Cohen.  We also made some REAL snowcones that were pretty good as well.

Jeff got to play in the snow with us on Saturday, so I was ready for some serious sledding since we would have some muscle to push us!

Unfortunately, Cohen got tired of sledding before Jeff and I did!

Snow Patrol!

Cohen was not much interested in snow activities on Saturday.  He was very much over the mittens that he could not keep on his hands and was more interested in getting out his summer toys including his jeep and lawnmower.  He asked for his bike at one point and also kept requesting that Jeff get the riding lawnmower out of the building.  I'm surprised he didn't ask for bubbles too!  I can't say that I blame him - I do prefer summer too!

Evil mittens

You know there is grass under here guys - it's not going to cut itself!

This kid was not ready to go in...I think winter is his favorite!

When we came inside, we made Cohen another snowcone that Jeff and I helped him finish.  That was after we both had hot chocolate with marshmallows...and before we ate homemade vegetable soup, bread and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.  Good thing it doesn't snow very often!  Even though our snowstorm only gave us dumpy powder snow, we made sure that Cohen got to make a snowman anyway!

Pregnant ladies gotta eat!

   

And I just want to document that even though we still haven't decided on a name for our poor second baby boy, we are getting ready for him!  We spent Sunday trying to organize and rearrange to make room for our new addition.  To give me better access to all of the baby supplies, we had to pull everything out of the attic and rearrange it.  This allowed Cohen to do some reminiscing!!

When I ask him now if he is going to take baths with his baby brother, he says "yeah in the baby  whale tub!"  That's gonna be a tight squeeze!  His fun with the whale tub was short lived on this day, however.  He was apparently trying to lift it into the actual bathtub and busted his lip.  Could this have been our first signs of jealousy?

We treat busted lips with popsicles in our house

 

Fudgesicles go straight to your hips!