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!

Just the 3 of us!

No more Nana and no more Mimi?!?! I need LOTS of prayers tonight. Well actually I think we should all be praying for Levi. He's spending his first day with the baby sitter tomorrow. This is definitely a true test of my faith, but I know God will protect him. The last two weeks Nana and Mimi picked up all the slack around here. Not only keeping Levi, but doing all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. I pretty much crash at 8 when we put Levi down, so it should be an interesting week getting into the groove of things with just us 3!

We had a good weekend despite the fact that I had to work on Saturday and missed my family's game night. I was SO excited about it because my extended family doesn't get together too much these days. My cousin Samantha had this wonderful idea to do a game night every other month at her house. My cousins and I were all very close growing up, I hope this will be a way that all our kids can be close too! Stupid KISD....who makes teachers work on a Saturday? Oh well...mark my words...we WILL be at the April game night come hell or high water!

Sweet baby laughing at his mom. :)

We went to visit our new friend Luke! This was our best attempt to get Levi, Luke and Ella all in one pic. haha. Luke and Ella belong to our friends John and Nikki, Nikki and I used to teach together.

And I made some time for MYSELF Sunday! There are a couple of projects I've been wanting to do for a while, including this spring wreath. The other is my "Countdown to Summer" calendar. I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday to get the rest of what I needed to make it, but of course realized once I got home that I needed more. Maybe next week it will get finished. :)

There is this girl that went to our high school who is a COOKIE GENIUS! I LOVE reading her blog (www.sweetsugarbelle.blogspot.com) check it out. I'm fascinated by that art! Anyway, I'm a horrible cookie decorator but it sure is fun trying! (At least the first 6 cookies are fun.) I made these for my co-worker who is having Baby Chloe is just a few weeks! They match her nursery. Hopefully since she's 37 weeks pregnant she'll forgive me for the way they look and just enjoy the sweetness. :)

Signing off in the Coleman house. Goodnight!

LOVE

Well I survived my first week back at work! Mimi left yesterday and Nana is on her way today. I'm so thankful that Levi's grandmothers are keeping him these two weeks so I can get adjusted to being back at work without worrying about him! I was reeeeeeally exhausted last week but I'm hoping it will get better. We had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed the beautiful weather!


Levi's getting better with his head and does pretty good in the bumbo chair now.
We visited our sweet friends from church this weekend. They have a new baby girl they've just adopted. She and Levi are only about 2 months apart and I'm sure they'll be good friends! Here are the proud Papa's.

Susie and Levi enjoying the playmat together.

We cooked ourselves a nice Valentine's dinner and Levi joined us at the table! He's the best little valentine :)

yum!

The 3 of us went for our first afternoon at the park. It was BEAUTIFUL today! It was still a teeny bit chilly and windy but we were so glad to get to leave the house with Levi!

Playing with Mommy

The scratch on his nose is the result of his thumb sucking...I can't keep those nails short enough!

James 1:4...

"But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."

I'm clinging to this today. I pray for patience in many ways, but mostly with my students. I seem to have even less of it since returning from maternity leave.

It's been a rough couple of days for me, but I want to start on a good note. Last week was the crazy wintery weather. Houston SHUTS DOWN when it drops below freezing. You'd think it's the end of the world, literally. So Trent was off work on half a day on Thursday and all day Friday. That was great for Levi and me because we miss him when he's at work! But...Dad gets kind of bored at home. The result: cleaning out the attic space. Everything but the kitchen sink! Oh wait...there's even a kitchen sink in there!

By the way...it never snowed.

I started back to work on Monday and I could never have fathomed how hard it would be. I cried just a little on Sunday night, and not at all Monday morning. Mimi is here staying with him this week so I know he's in good hands. Monday night was a different story. I forgot how hectic the life of a teacher is and the realization that I now have NO time for myself and just a couple of hours a day with Levi hit me like a brick wall. My first day back we went on a half day field trip. Now, that might sound fun....but field trips are NUTS. Throw in having to sit in a cold, dark, maintenance closet while pumping and we'll just sum it up with it was a BAD DAY. They cancelled school the Friday before I came back because of the "snow," so they announced teachers would have to work on SATURDAY the 19th. So now they're telling me that out of 12 DAYS I will get to see Levi for ONE??? Have they lost their minds? I think so. My students were a huge challenge to me before I went on maternity leave and not much has changed. They are, by far, the most difficult group I've ever had.

I didn't have too much morning duty with Levi before I went back to work, Trent always got him up and fed. Now I'm dying to get up there and get him out of his crib in the mornings! He smiles so big at me first thing in the morning and is very excited when I hand him over to Daddy for his breakfast! It breaks my heart to have to walk out that door!

On a lighter note....my funny student quotes from the last two days.

Monday - (about my "backpack" my pump is in) "Mrs. Coleman is that like your lunch box?" hahaha. I just said "kind of" even though it's really Levi's lunch box. :)

Tuesday - Me: "Can you not see well with your glasses?"

Student: (shakes head no)

Me: "Make sure you let your mom know that your glasses don't seem to be helping your eyes enough."

Student: "I told her and she said to drink carrot juice, but I don't really like carrot juice."

Brrrr!!!

OMG it's cold!!! I planned on being lazy this week anyway, but the weather is making it very easy! Yesterday Levi turned 3 months old, holy cow where does the time go? Trent and I laid in bed last night talking about how in some ways it has flown by, but in others it feels like an eternity ago when we were in the hospital having Levi. Either way, we are blessed beyond belief! His personality is totally starting to show and I can't wait to see the little boy he is becoming.

I finally got a much needed hair cut yesterday, but there were some pretty funny moments before we left the house.


I'm sure you're thinking "what is that and why did she take a picture of it?"
Well...it's a heaping pile of laundry that Levi created in about 7 seconds.
I was laughing, but there was no one else here to laugh with...so I took pictures. haha.

On a routine diaper change, Levi decided to pee just as I took his diaper off. This used to be an every diaper change event, but it's been a while since he peed on me. By the time I could get my hand in the way of the high powered hose it was everywhere! On the wall, in the laundry hamper (which had JUST been emptied), on his pajamas and the outfit I was about to put on him, on the mirror above the changing table, and of course on the changing pad cover. Then he looked up at me and grinned like it was the funniest thing that had happened all day! I got a new diaper on him and laid him in the floor so I could finish cleaning up the mess and I immediately heard him pooping! I'm just glad he had the diaper on!

"Hey everybody! I'm 3 months old today!"

He's wearing his first 3-6 month outfit!

He's getting better at his naps, thank goodness.

He's starting to grab onto his toys and try to put them in his mouth of course. He still doesn't have good control of his hands, but I can see it won't be long!

Yesterday he put weight on his legs for the first time. We'll see if he can get the hang of that!

It's a shame this picture isn't focused, it would have been really cute! We were playing peekaboo (in order to get some smiles) and I accidentally focused on the blankie.

So this is what happens when I make him put a hat on. Such a shame...hats are the only accessories boys can wear and he HATES THEM! But it was cold out yesterday so I just had ot let him scream.

"No mom, my hair is so beautiful and no one will compliment me on it if you cover it up!"