A bad week followed by a good weekend!

So when I'm not being a wife or mommy, I'm at school playing teacher. This year has been a major struggle in my classroom. Let's just say my teammates and I keep saying "it can't get any worse." *hanging head in shame* It just got worse. Monday I got ANOTHER new student and this one has more issues than I could have imagined in my worst nightmare. I'll give you a small peek into my classroom - 73 kids, 11 special ed, 3 NON-english speakers, (2 speak Portugese and 1 Albanian, we're not talking espanol here people) FIVE behavior charts, 1 psych evaluation under way, a few kids with MAJOR issues and parents who refuse to accept it and move on, and 3 REALLY crazy parents. If you're not a teacher you might not get that, but we'll just sum it up with H.A.R.D. Thank heavens for my evening walks with my 2 awesome boys...they have no idea how they save me each and every night! We tried out the sippy cup last week. Levi has really been opening his mouth wide when he sees us drinking so we decided to give it a shot. He's not too sure what to do with the water but he has fun trying. :) I was trying to get a picture of the curls on the side of his head. Out of control, but adorable!

Fell asleep helping mommy cook dinner.

Then we headed to San Antonio to see Trent's family. One of his cousins was graduating from Air Force boot camp so the whole family was headed that way. Unfortunately Ashleigh got sick and we didn't get to see her, but we did get to see some of the family! We didn't do anything fancy, just old fashioned hanging out by the pool at Uncle Brent's! The water was still too cold for Levi, but the weather was gorgeous!

Grammy, plump girl, Levi and Poppy

Bad picture, cute necklace! I kept telling Trent to take pictures of me and Levi because I hardly have any with him. Fail.

But look how handsome these two are!

I love how he's looking at gunner here.

Us with Mimi

Our perfect family! (You'll have to excuse that plump girl that keeps showing up here...not sure who she is. :))

Daddy being silly. Another weekend in Uncle Brent's pool with no trips to the ER = success!

Levi getting some Mimi love. :)

So I'm definitely glad I'm starting my week with these memories fresh on my mind rather than harping on last week! I'm praying this one will go a little more smooth. And I'm SUPER praying for no more new students!!!

Spring Break Fun

It's weeks like these I am very thankful for my job! I love getting time off to be with Levi! Nana and Grandpa came down and Daddy went to Miami for work. I of course took hardly any pictures...but it was a great week! Here's a little recap.

Nana and Grandpa's first trip to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
Dinner with Cuz at Pappasitos, yum!
Shopping a LOT with Nana (who might have lost all babysitting privileges by falling asleep on the job) while Grandpa went to Beaumont.
Getting Levi's passport picture taken.
Shopping some more with Nana while Grandpa played golf.
Grandpa babysat while Nana and I got mani/pedis.
A night of cards with my parents, laughing a lot!
*There is a family story of my mom, dad, brother and me taking a trip to Ruidoso during a horrible year in our lives (I was 10 or 11.) We were playing cards and no one remembers what was said, but we all remember LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY for about 30 minutes. Last night before we started playing we talked about that night, and then almost relived it. Except this time we're all in really wonderful places in our lives!

Levi LOVES to be outside! This face shows it all, he is always so relaxed whether we are just sitting on the porch or taking a walk.

Grandpa! Tell her to hurry up with that cereal!

He gets his hair texture from me. When it's even half way humid out (which it almost always is here!) his hair gets all wavy.

Playing with Grandpa this morning. Two very happy boys!

Skyping with Aunt Holly! Notice his precious little passport picture back there, we are going to visit Aunt Holly this summer! Now I just have to take a day off to get this passport business done.

Daddy comes home tomorow!! We're so excited, it feels like he's been gone forever!!

4 month check up

We saw Dr. Clarke today for our 4 month check up. We're a couple of weeks late because I scheduled it while I was off for spring break. We made it through the day much better than his 2 month check up! I didn't cry at all, and he only cried a little with his second shot. He didn't even flinch with the first one and I thought we might skate outta there with no tears...but the nurse said the medicine in the second one stings a little. He got pretty fussy after waking up from a long nap this afternoon so we gave him a little tylenol for his little legs. He usually LOVES to stand up (well bear weight on his legs) and he would cry when we tried so we knew what was wrong. Here's what the doc said....

14.1 lbs - he's a little on the small side compared to everyone else but according to HIS growth he's right where he should be.
25.75 in. - he's pretty long for his age compared to everyone else
16.5 in. head circumference - again a little on the small side compared to others, but good on his growth chart...I guess he did get a Nelson head. :)

He can start on rice cereal if we want to though there's no rush. We decided we'd try it and listen to him as far as if he's ready or not. We mixed it according to what the doc said and it was a joke! It wasn't hardly "solid" at all but he handled it well. He opened up for the spoon like a champ! Of course he barely swallowed any in the beginning but he got the hang of it by the end. He also said it was ok to try and drop the 10 pm feeding so we're trying that tonight! I guess I better get in bed in case I have to get up way earlier than usual. Here are a few pics from the first "solid" meal.

He ate most of the meal with his leg like this and sucked his thumb in between bites. Silly boy.

And I caught this one right before bed, seriously is that not the cutest face you've ever seen??

Batesie visit and the Rodeo

My friend Shelly was here visiting all the way from Kuwait this week! She actually had training all week so she went home (Crane) last weekend and then hung out with us this weekend. Trent hasn't seen the Bates girls since last year's boat trip so we were so excited they came to stay with us! Leslie drove down from Brownwood, and we wished so bad the last Bates daughter would have been with us! If you know the Bates girls, you know that there is no minute you are hanging out with them that you're not laughing...this weekend was no exception

Here's Levi ready to go to Olive Garden for lunch.

Trying on Dad's shades. :)

Anxiously awaiting salad and breadsticks!

The two coolest boys in the whole world...

The love of my life.

Another treat! My cousin Rob, who I was extremely close to growing up, is an Ag teacher so he's also in Houston this week with his students who are showing their pigs. We stopped by to visit him for just a second on Saturday at the rodeo, but I'm sure we'll see him again this week!

Levi's reaction to the rodeo. I guess I should be comforted by the fact that he probably won't be a bull rider when he grows up! He was fine walking around the fair, shopping, and animals but this is what happened the minute we walked into the rodeo arena. He was SO upset! A totally different cry than he usually cries. I guess it was way too noisy in there for his little ears to handle.

Trent went to check the stroller in and by the time he got back I had decided that we couldn't stay. I didn't want to be those people with the crying kid who just sit their and ruin the experience for everyone else. Once he got back in the stroller he was ok....as long as we kept moving. Every time we stopped this is what happened...

Ok, we're good as long as we keep moving...

I really was just taking a picture of the ridiculous things they have fried, but when I got home I realized the place was called Sweet Cheeks! That's what I call Levi. But seriously, look at the stuff they fried! Oreos? M&Ms? Twinkies? Snickers? Gross. Trent tried a fried twinkie, I stuck to the trusty chocolate dipped cheesecake. Yum! The rodeo definitely does not do good things to my still-inflated waistline!

Shelly's brilliant idea. :)

The closest thing to sisters I have! (we're missing Haylea:( )

And for some odd reason Shelly felt the need to eat this. That's a frog butt people. She said it wasn't too bad until it started to taste fishy, SICK!

We had a fantastic weekend, I'm so glad we got to hang out with Leslie and Shelly. I'm on spring break next week, hallelujah! I'm so excited to spend the week with our precious Levi and hopefully get some stuff done around the house. We go to Dr. Clarke in the morning for Levi's 4 month checkup which includes shots. :( I pray I hold myself together better than I did last time and don't lock my keys in the car, haha.

Get that out of your mouth!

I forgot to add this pictures yesterday so I'll post again today. Levi has graduated from thumb sucking...to full fledged TOE SUCKING! Literally puts his big toe in his mouth and sucks on it! Gross! If he has socks or footed jammies on, the right foot is soaked. Hopefully this is just a phase because that is just nasty! I pull it out and tell him no, but so far he doesn't know what "no" means! But I love him anyway...he's still cute even when his toe is in his mouth!

I woke up with a sore throat this morning, I'm praying I don't get sick. I'm praying even harder that Levi doesn't get sick!

Yeehaw!!!

After living in Houston for 3.5 years, I am still amazed at all these city slickers trying to go country for these 3 weeks of the year! I'm serious...it's crazy! These people are kookoo over the rodeo! Today was "Round Up" Day at church. We LOVE the music at our church but today the Eleven Eleven band was turned into old school country, complete with a banjo, steel guitar, and beards. It was pretty awesome, felt like we had jumped inside O Brother Where Art Thou. Not that I'm a cowgirl or anything, (I'm totally not) but I grew up pretty country and all these city people dressed up like cowboys is hilarious! Our church is HUGE (something that took me a lot of time to get used to) so there were a LOT of wanna be cowboys running around today! :) Either way, it's a blast!

It was a beautiful day, here we are taking a walk to Auto Zone. Yes, I said Auto Zone. Daddy needed to change the oil. :)

He loves to take walks! He's always so relaxed in his stroller.

This week we are throwing a girl at school a baby shower. I've been dying for a reason to make cupcake toppers so here's what I did! She totally stole my girl name, but I love her anyway!

"This is boring mom, can we go play?"

We were trying to come up with ways to do this shower "easy" without doing the typical grocery store cake after school. Someone brought us cake balls when we had Levi, and honestly I wasn't too impressed. BUT, they seemed like a pretty easy solution for a shower. Since I've never made them before I thought I'd try them out first. We went to dinner at a friends house this weekend so I made St. Patty's Day cake balls to test them out. They were pretty good! Not my favorite, but easy and cute! I love just about anything I can dye to be colorful. I made blue mashed potatoes once. :) They'll be pink for the shower of course.

Not too much excitement in the Coleman house this last week. Just some allergies and such. I'm pretty sure Levi has allergies. He's got that annoying little cough and runny nose again. One more week until Spring Break! Now that's exciting!

Seusstacular Day!

Today is Dr. Seuss' birthday! I loved Dr. Seuss as a kid, but found a whole new love of him when we started reading to Levi while I was pregnant. Now that he's here...he loves his books too! So to celebrate I thought we needed a picture of Levi with his wocket that Mimi got him for Christmas. Sometimes Levi has wocket hair. :)

Today I was wishing I taught kinder. They were walking around the school in their hand made Cat hats, they were so precious! Most 4th graders are so over Dr. Seuss and on to more important things like Captain Underpants.

It's also Texas Independence Day! Yeehaw!

4 months already?!?

How can that be possible?!? Levi is growing like a weed and brings a new joy to our lives each and every day!

He makes a dolphin sound when he thinks we're funny, but he's starting to actually chuckle every now and then.

He holds his head up really well when he's on his tummy now and rolls over to his back! We have video of it, but I'm still trying to figure out how to post videos to the blog without it taking a year to download.
He loves to grab his toes and can now get them all the way in his mouth, it makes his diaper changes pretty hard!

Just last night we noticed him really looking at a toy and trying to grab it, if only he could get those fingers to do what he wants them to!

We recently got to hang out with Grammy, Poppy, Uncle Brent and Lisa. I have a couple of pics but left my camera at Uncle Brent's so we'll have to wait until I get it back! Levi loved hanging out with his family and showed off his grinning skills. I'm pretty sure he's going to be a heart breaker!

I'm still trying to settle in to being a working mom, it's a lot harder than I imagined! The house is messier than usual, I'm more tired than usual, and dinner pretty much stinks…but hopefully soon I'll get the hang of it. Trent and I have started P90X (last night anyway J) so hopefully I can get rid of this baby weight! We're going on the annual Bates family lake trip in a couple of months and we don't want to be fatties! I always feel like I'm too exhausted to work out, but I sure am tired of my clothes not fitting! But like I always say, Levi is worth every inch and every pound I gained!!

Regardless of how fat and tired I am, or how messy the house it, or how long my to-do list is I thank our God each and every day for this amazing little boy and his wonderful father. Last week was filled with way more tragedies than I like to hear about, but they serve as a reminder to not take a single minute for granted and to praise the Lord for my healthy family each and every day.

I'll try to be better about updating!