May the best [regionally themed] breakfast win!

Tomorrow at work there is a breakfast cook-off competition where the winner gets a free vacation day...I'm game!  As part of a bigger effort within my group, I was assigned an Italy themed breakfast.  Wait, what?!  I'm pretty sure Italians just have espresso and cigarillos for breakfast!  Time to get creative...

I started trying to dream up some sort of breakfast pizza then remembered my friend Chelsea and her mom Lisa make this really great fruit pizza.  Not exactly breakfast but I'm playing for a day off and I'll take my cheap shots where I can!

Yes, this IS a sugar cookie crust!

Note to self and others, use a cookie sheet with edges for the love!  I thought this would help my presentation and I ended up with burnt cookie in the bottom of my oven!

 The final product!  Wish me luck!

Little talks

Some of my most precious moments with Cooper are on our rides home from school. Today's conversation went something like this:

(As I'm buckling him into the car...)

Cooper: Mama! It's Tuesday!

Me: Yes! What did you do at school today?

C: [silence]

Me: Did you eat your lunch?

C: [silence]

Me: Did you play outside?

C: [silence]

Me: What did Cassidy do at school today? (If you don't remember, Cassidy is his girlfriend at school. See post This is love!)

C: Cassidy eat lunch. Cassidy play outside. Cassidy play cymbals. Cassidy eat goldfish. Cassidy say more goldfish! Cassidy jump super high. Cassidy has a tricycle. Cassidy drink agua. Cassidy say more agua!

This is what I get. Random facts and all of the details of Cassidy's day. At least I know how to get it out of him! Precious boy.

Other recent gems:

When asked how old he is: "I'm two! I'm three! I'm four!"

"Dada, do push-ups!  Good job Cooper!"

"Look at Cooper!  Sooooooooo tall!"

No pic to go along with this next one but after we ate dinner tonight a song came on Pandora that said "Goodbye my almost lover".  Cooper repeated "Goodbye alligator!"

I love this age.  

Les Mis...funny recap!

My friend Taryn and I took a Mommy afternoon off last weekend and saw Les Miserables. It was great! The lady next to us also thought it was great and was les sobbing and les singing and les conducting an imaginary orchestra through the WHOLE movie. Les ugly crying to be exact. Highly entertaining.

I saw this hilarious review some guy had written as a Facebook status and had to share!

Too funny! Happy weekend!

The birthday boy!

Happy Birthday to Cooper!  I can't believe my little man is 2!  

Everyone says "it goes so fast"!  I'm not so sure I totally agree with that (especially on the days with a 5am wake up call!).  I think its that life is constantly changing around you and there is not much time to enjoy each step.  Either way you put it, it's amazing how far we've come in 2 years.  Just 9 short months ago Cooper started walking and this morning he was riding his new scooter around my kitchen!

So happy birthday to my Cooper boy: lover of running "super fast", swinging, grapes, blueberries, lima beans, Mr. Potato Head, anything to do with "agua", jumping, reading books, making music, Little Einsteins, "riding" Kona, making coffee, playing chase with Daddy and doing pretty much everything else with Mommy.  (Sorry Kyle, you know he's a total Mama's boy!)  

Here's to whatever you have in store for us at the next turn.  We love you!

The one with the first bump pic!

Yea, the bump is here! I'm finally past the "you look like you ate too much ice cream " stage!

Still not quite sure how I feel about the fact that in the not so distant past (ahem, last winter) this sweater was actually a sweater dress! Hopefully it is just temporary "repurposing"!

Pablo Cooper

a.k.a. Picasso, no?

It takes every ounce of my "type A" body not to help him out and just let him PLAY! My dear friend Chelsea is a little twitchy right now looking at this picture, I'm sure! I'm not so much of a neat freak but oh how I love order and routine! And just when I think my little Pablo Picasso is helping me channel my inner-spontaneity, I watch him do something like spy a coaster that is on my nightstand and watch him march it back to where it was clearly supposed to be in the living room! Ah, my boy!

And then comes this...

2 year old abstract art!

Literally, the most annoying thing...

...is the word literally. Literally. According to Kyle, that is.

Kyle can't stand when people say "literally" when they mean "figuratively". It's one of those funny little quirks about him that just tickles me and I just can't help pointing it out and noticing it all the time.

Example: I was so mad, my head was literally about to explode.

Really? Spontaneous head combustion?!

If you watch the Bachelor you'll catch this all the time. Just another reason, in addition to the cat fights and high drama, I love tormenting Kyle with that show! Payback football season!!!

Mr. Manners

I never thought I would think twice about Cooper saying "please" so much. He's always been a big time talker but at almost two, he's really started to grasp the meaning of words and manipulate!

It all started with "thank you". His teachers at school were so impressed when at 19 months Cooper would tell them thank you all the time. Only Kyle and I knew that in Cooper speak, thank you meant "give me that" or "take this from me"!  He would yell it at us as he would shove a no longer wanted toy into our hands! But, he says it to everyone who hands him something too, so who are we to complain?

And now with the "please".  This is one word for which he knows the EXACT MEANING!  We taught him to say it and reinforced it by giving him pretty much whatever he asked for when he said the "magic word".  Now, we don't know how to cut it off! How do you teach a 2 year old that you have to say please to get what you want but you can't always get what you want when you say please?!

While "share" is also a seemingly nice word, he now yells it at anyone who has something he wants to have.  Our sweet little neighbor friend got a not so sweet "SHARE" when she apparently took too long on the slide today.

Manners are so complicated.

Pink or blue?

From the moment I found out I was pregnant I knew I wanted a girl this time.  I already have the perfect boy's boy who is a total Mama's boy, too. Why mess with perfection? Plus dance recitals and the mother-daughter bond sounded pretty appealing!

That is, until I saw the Dick's Sporting Goods commercial and balled my eyes out!

After that, how can I not want a little brother for the Cooper boy? One that idolizes him...and pouts at his games when he doesn't win...and gets his hand-me-down glove???

Funny how a commercial can change a pregnant woman's attitude but I've officially gone from "Team Pink" to on the fence! (All prefaced by healthy baby first, of course!)

Stay tuned, baby #2 gender TBD beginning of February!

Big fish and New Years Wishes

Happy New Year!

We spent a wet, cold one down at the coast!  There was still plenty of swimming in the pool (by Kona) and tons of fishing off the dock (by the boys).  My job?  I sat inside waiting and watching for my opportune Kodak moment and boy did I get one...Cooper's first fish!  

I love Kyle's ear to ear grin and Cooper's shocked look realizing what had been tugging at the end of his line!

This might be one of my favorite pics of all time.  Kyle's proud Daddy moment.  Cooper reaching out to grab the fish.  Kona doing her part to make sure we held on to it?  HA!  Didn't see that one until I uploaded these!!!

We keep asking Cooper whether he caught a big fish or a little fish and 99% of the time he says "little fish"!  He hasn't quite gotten the hang of the big fish story yet!

While we couldn't control the weather, we did have great friends and good food in our back pocket.  Everyone was ringing in big 2013s with one couple getting married in March and the other expecting their first baby in June!  

Since I celebrated with food instead of wine I am welcoming the omnipresent "Eat better, exercise more" New Year's resolution.  That one really never goes away, I just make myself feel especially guilty about it in the month of January!

I always try to pick at least one more attainable goal for the year.  Kyle says just set your expectations low and you'll achieve more!  This year: closing cabinet doors and sorting the mail.  Laugh all you want but I drive Kyle crazy with the cabinet door thing.  I don't know if it's my lack of an extra hand these days, the speed in which I have to prepare a snack or my pregnancy brain but for some reason whenever I am done with the kitchen there are about 4 doors still open.  The mail one is for me.  Much better to do every day then every week-ish...right?!

Hope you are all enjoying ringing in your New Year!