Hello everyone! I titled this post "Life Changes" because I saw a quote that said, "There is nothing permanent except change." Sometimes I love it, other times I hate it, but it's true. I have noticed some changes that are subtle but constantly happening over the years and also some abrupt changes that are drastic. This quote also struck me. I think with how much change we've handled, Dallin and I are pretty resilient.
I couldn't resist putting this song in here because of the title of the post.
Changes in Cooper
It is so fun and amazing to watch him grow and change. We went to the children's museum with Gianna and Luca and it was so cute to see him get excited about things. He is old enough now to interact with other kids, have clear opinions, know what things are, walk, run, climb, etc. So it's crazy to think how much can change in a year. This time last year he couldn't move at all. Now he's an official toddler instead of a baby. It's crazy. It's also kind of sad. You only get to see it once and if you blinked you missed it.
It was so cute how obsessed coop was with luc. He didn't seem to care though haha
Another change for him is that he is starting to be able to talk. He can say ball, dog, no, mama, dada, bye, hi, and sometimes all done. It's the cutest thing ever. And sometimes we can tell he is trying but it sounds like german or french lol
He goes through phases of being completely enamored with something. The flyswatter phase was a couple weeks.
The hose was his obsession for a few months but now it's simmering out.
Getting nails done is not worth it
I used to love getting my nails done. I did it religiously every two weeks for years. But now I think it's a waste of time and money. I went to this place and asked her to make them shorter. In broken english she said "no people like. it fine." I also asked for square and she left them pretty natural shaped and some were way longer than others. Basically she was just too lazy to file anything. So I tried to cut them and one broke so I went back and the guy was trying to fix it and he kept using the wrong color. I tried to tell him it was the wrong color and he said "no it right." So after an hour and a half he just gave up and said come back tomorrow. Well after two days of this place cutting my fingers up and charging money for horrible work there was no way I was going back.
So my way of fixing it was just to paint over those two ring finger nails with sparkley stuff that I had so that it covered it and looked like an accent nail. I've never written a bad review in my life but that time I definitely had to. I couldn't believe how bad they were. In the future I'm sticking to my walmart press ons because that takes me like 20 mins to do and only costs 8$ instead of 3.5 hours and 70$.
Cooper is so social
He loves being around other kids so I noticed over the summer I needed to be taking him other places often or he would get fussy and irritable. So we went to Katie's for pizza night and he had a blast. He loves trampolines so he didn't want to ever leave. Also they had a couple balloons so he was in heaven.
Our equivalent at home was taking the couch cushions off so he could climb and jump. We also blew up the air mattress and he jumped on that.
I forgot to put this picture in the last post from Hawaii. Speaking of hawaii, this kid saw the cousins playing with pokemon cards and they gave him some. This was him trying to copy what they were doing. It was funny. He would hold one up and talk gibberish baby language and then put it down and pick up a new one.
This was another outing with him. And it was less successful. I went to the mall and walked around for a little too long and before I knew it his nap time had passed so he was super cranky. This was him playing in the play place of the mall. There was this little baby girl his age that was following him around and grabbing him. She wouldn't leave him alone and because he was already tired he was crying so hard. She would grab his face and pull it was weird.
Babysitting Luna
We babysat Luna for 10 days. It was sometimes hard having two in the puppy phase getting into trouble together and also any dog in a new place forgets the rules. But Sadie and Luna were besties and they played so hard the whole time. Usually Jake just stayed away and slept. This time though he was trying to help Luna in the wrestling match.
I thought it was funny that Sadie and cooper are into the bubbles and Luna stares at them like you guys are idiots lol
They slept together every night
Everybody has their toy
Sometimes I feel like losing Josie made it so that all the love is gone in my heart for dogs in general. Like it made it empty in the spot where the love for dogs used to be. Its sad for Jake and Sadie but it's true. I'm still not over losing her and I don't know if I ever will be.
Everyone had to come with when Cooper got a bath lol
Another children’s museum with swim friends
We went to a different museum with Mia and Huxley
We had fun. He loves places like that.
We loved the change in the weather!
The monsoon season this time around has been awesome!! It’s cooled us down for almost a month off and on. We have loved being outside more. And of course I love rain so the humidity is worth it! This summer has been significantly cooler than last and it has rained way more.
I made a rainy day video since I got PicsArt premium and that was fun. Coop loves playing in the rain
Health changes
The health changes have been intense. We were going to every kid museum and hanging out with everyone we knew and then out of nowhere-WHAM- I’m suddenly sicker than I’ve ever been. I couldn’t eat anything. My stomach hurt so bad I couldn’t do anything but sleep. And sometimes I couldn’t even do that. I couldn’t take care of Cooper and we had no help and Dallin was working. So the house was filthy and cooper was running around getting into trouble because I couldn’t even stand up. I cannot even put into words how horrible it was. I wasn’t eating because immediately after eating I would have such terrible stomach pain. But yet still somehow I was having to run to the bathroom so frequently because of urgent #2. I had heart burn and nausea and fatigue. After 3 or 4 days of it I finally went to the urgent care and the doctor felt the outside of my stomach and said it seemed like an ulcer. He gave me ulcer meds and within a day or two I felt so much better. It was miraculous. I had taken my health for granted so when I got it back I felt brand new and so grateful. One of the ulcer meds I have to be on for 3 months. Anyways while I had the ulcer cooper got hand foot mouth disease, and this is him with that…
Right after we got over the ulcer and hand foot mouth we all got a nasty cold. We were wondering if it would ever end but it finally did. I realized after that how much we take our health for granted and how dependent we are on it. When we’re both sick we don’t have anyone to help us so it’s really really bad for Cooper. I was so grateful to be able to function again.
We love AZ
This was another rainy day
Taking advantage of the cool weather
We went to the park on the golf cart and enjoyed the cool weather! It was glorious because it was overcast and like upper 70s or lower 80s so to us it felt perfect.
We watched Arizona suns in the nba finals and then a lot of the players from that team in the olympics! That was really cool. Coop loves to sit and eat a popsicle and watch basketball
My hair is finally long enough to put in a French braid. I cant wait for it to be long again though it’s rough having to curl or straighten every day.
I went through my clothes again and pulled out what I want to donate. Since I can wear professional clothes to work now I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed. So I got to buy a bunch of new school clothes and that was fun. When I was going through my clothes I found this old shirt. I got it in 8th grade and it still fits haha I will probly never get rid of it even though I never wear it just because it’s sentimental.
Annual power outage
It wouldn’t be Arizona without a power outage. I don’t know why it happens so much here in the summer (but we also get a lot of lightening and thunder so maybe that’s why) but this summer it’s only happened once so we consider ourselves lucky. It freaks me out when that happens so this time we finally went to Home Depot and bought a generator so that next time that happens we will be okay. By the time we got home the power was back on luckily.
Double Date night once we were functioning again
It was so nice to finally get back to normal after the horrible 3 or 4 weeks we had of sickness. We went with Raeanna and Dylan to a comedy club and then out to dinner after that. It was so nice to have a babysitter put cooper down. Before we were trying to do our date nights after he was already in bed and that was nice because then we would have the babysitter clean, but it meant that we had to go out later. We have found the two most incredible babysitters and I love them so much. Cooper loves playing with them and they are so good at getting him to bed and we trust them so much. They are teenagers in high school and they’re sisters. It has made such a big difference in our date nights because we’re not worried about cooper.
Anyway here’s pictures at the comedy club. It was Raeanna‘s first time ever going. It was a really funny place!
Happy birthday Jakey!!!
He’s over the hill now! He finally turned 10 so he’s officially double digits. This is apparently now a 10-year-old dog celebrates… LOL I can’t blame him if I was 70 years old I’d probably sleep a lot too.
This was them eating their celebratory doggie ice cream
Hugs for the birthday boy
Speaking of Jake- on my first day back to work he murdered a bird in front of Shelly and cooper in the backyard and Shelly was traumatized. He snapped it’s neck and it was spitting blood everywhere. I was like 70% horrified and 30% happy for him because he finally achieved his life-long dream. I definitely dont let him lick my face anymore though.
After that we went to the dog park cuz Jake loves that. Sadie was petrified.
Meanwhile Jake was having the time of his life
He's so big now. the pic on the right is dallin's favorite pic of him
One new teacher told me about magnetic eyeliner and magnet eyelashes so I tried it. I looked great I just didn't think I would want to wear it every day because it took me a long time to get it on and off.
This was cooper and Sadie’s first time ever at a dog park. Coop seemed to like it but Sadie absolutely hated it.
Pretty much right away after getting there Sadie was chased by a medium sized dog. The other dog was super friendly and just thought that they were playing. But the whole time Sadie was running from him like she was running for her wife. She was screaming the whole time she was running and so the whole dog park was staring and the owner of the dog chasing her felt so bad. But it wasn’t aggressive at all so he was just freaking out. After that she was even more panicked and would not relax and was hiding under peoples legs.
This was Sadie hiding under a lady from all the dogs. We felt bad for her but didn’t want to pick her up because we want her to get socialized and get used to being around other dogs.
If we zoom in on that picture you can see poor Sadie under there thinking, “I’m going to die in this horrible place!”
New rug!
We like it but Sadie seems to think that’s her poop spot now so that’s nice
August mantle
Movie for freeeeeeeee!
Lexi had some free movie passes so we went with them and josh to see black widow. I thought it was really good! Trenden said I’m just like the sister in that movie. Which I kindof thought was a compliment because she was funny. I used all of these cool features in PicsArt to make this picture visible because it was so dark in there.
I had a bad idea to paint my weights cuz I’m crazy. You all know I’m like allergic to color. And the weights are under the the caddy in the living room and everything matches except the stupid weights stuck out like a sore thumb because they were hot pink, yellow, green, red and purple. It bugged me so much I tried to paint them black. But then it made them so sticky every time I picked it up it turned my hands black. It looked like I had tar on my hands. I have painted a lot of things and I've never seen that before, so I looked it up online and apparently if you spread baking soda on it that should fix it. So I did that and did two coats and then also put acrylic paint on top of that and then also put polyurethane on top of that and still one pair ended up sticky so we threw them away. The whole thing was ridiculous.
A change I'd like to see....
I did this by editing a photo on picsart. I really want to redo the front yard to look like this. Add a courtyard with pavers and a gate and then add turf and low plants in front of that. We got a few quotes from landscapers and they were all so high it was really discouraging. So who knows what will actually end up happening with it. All I know is the exterior of our house is not cute.
Shelly and I have been watching making the cut on amazon together. We just call each other and watch it at the same time. This was coopers reaction to the funny looking "high fashion" clothes hahaha
He saw me coming to take the candy away from him so he hurried and shoved a ton in his mouth and made weird faces at how sour it was hahah
Back to School training with someone I used to date...
ALA hired Clint to come speak and he did great. Everyone was super inspired. It was definitely weird seeing him speak and perform for like 800 people and everyone was talking about him like he was some celebrity when I know him as a guy I dated in college. He was always really good at making his presence impactful and seeing the best in people. Anyway it was cool to see that we both got what we wanted out of life. I remember him saying back then that he wanted to be a motivational speaker. Talk about "life changes!" It's so weird how fast that 9 years went by since I dated him and how different our lives are since then. Dallin and I were both saying recently we're happy we're not in that phase anymore because it's hard being in college and dating and trying to figure out what you're going to do with your life. But wow what a blast from the past it was seeing him again.
It was hard going back to the school after a summer of not thinking about it and seeing the new dance teacher and the people who wanted me out of the dance program, and I was feeling frustrated with being back to square one with teaching. It's like I'm a first year teacher all over again and I don't know what I'm doing at all with teaching technology and I've never been a floater before. But one of the things that Clint said was that kids don't even care about the subject matter you teach. And it's true, when you think back to your favorite teachers you don't remember the subject matter of what they taught, you remember how they made you feel and the good times you had in their class. So when I thought about it that way it made losing dance less sad. Dallin also reminded me the other day that there are pros and cons to everything so I have to quit missing dance as if it was the perfect job because it wasn't always. They were looking for a cross country coach again and it made me realize that I do have it good right now because I have more time with my family and friends. Some days being a floater is hard and other days it's not as bad as I thought it would be. I definitely have more prep work and grading now than I did before. But the kids seem to like technology so at least I'm not having to get them to be motivated.
This was my first day of school picture and the annual letter from dallin on the first day. I means so much to me that he recognizes what I'm going through stuff.
This was one day during training when Tommy left so I had nowhere to go and nothing to do. So I went to Marni's and played with the kids and visited Cooper. It was really good for my mood because I was feeling really negative and overwhelmed about my job. So it kinda got me out of my funk. And it was cute seeing Cooper play with his friends.
Cooper’s bestie and partner in crime right now is named Dan. They’re the same age and they go around knocking down towers, ruining stuff, eating other kids food, or getting into things they’re not supposed to. Lol so he has the time of his life. It’s so funny that they stick together all day though. Marni says it should be called the terrible ones not the terrible two’s because she says it’s always like this when they’re his age and then they get easier for her once they’re two.
Our mud room is complete and its AMAZE-BALLS!!!
lol I'm such an adult now that I get that excited about a mud room. This most recent Reno change to the house is my favorite!!
Anyways my dad and shelly came up and finished the mud room area. I am once again indebted to them in gratitude. They have done so much to my house it's incredible. Anyways my dad is so sweet and thought through everything and built it at home and then brought it here and installed it. It was a ton of painting and taping and sanding but I looooooove how it turned out.
Cooper can climb the ladder now- he figured that out while we were working on it. Shelly and I went dress shopping for Danielle's wedding on the weekend when they were here and we went to lunch at this really cute french bakery place.
Coopy swimming with grandpa
We have to stuff pillows in the ballisters because the dogs want to go upstairs and we don't want them up there. I caught Jake weaseling himself through the pillows one night while we were working on the mudroom and it was hilarious. I caught him half way through so he froze hahaha
he was desperate to get away because the nail gun is so loud he gets scared. Poor kid. He's also not used to not being able to go up there because his whole life before we got Sadie he was allowed up there.
this is the finished product! Isn't it wonderful!!! It's right by the door to the garage so it's going to be so functional in the future.
We're old and we've been married 7 years now
No "7 year itch" for either of us. I can't imagine life without him because he makes everything better. We went pretty hard this year because it felt like a big year. We had an anniversary weekend where we celebrated like 4 days in a row. We got a massage, then the next day we did dinner at this amazing sea food place and then after that we did presents. We got cologne and perfume so now we both smell great! and We both got clothes and stuff.
He's practically a grown up
besides the fact that he can't do what he wants to be able to do and he can't really express himself. So because of that he gets frustrated and does this annoying scream whine thing. I need noise canceling head phones just to survive this phase.
He is super into climbing
He pushes the dog food canister around like a shopping cart and then uses it to climb up on whenever he wants something up high. So that's nice. Yesterday dallin said he grabbed a knife off the counter and started running around holding it toward himself! aahhhhh 😱
He's going to break the curtains, curtain rod, tables, chairs, pretty much this whole house has no hope of surviving.
He got into the dryer this morning and thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. He was so happy until I took him out. Then it was a huge tantrum cuz I'm so mean.
Yesterday I got my hair done and then went straight to dinner with dallin and josh so my hair was still wet but we had such a good time. The restaurant was this Italian place in tempe and it was soooo good.
I guess that's it for now!
See ya next month!
