I Ate Enough to Last Me Until Next Year

So last Thursday was my birthday - 27 years old. I am getting much closer to 30 than I care to be. But as one of the guys I work with said last week (he's a whole 24 years old), at least I am married and have a child already! LOL

Apparently when you get older (or act older as I guess we do), you celebrate your birthday by going out to meals (lunch or dinner) with friends to visit rather than going out for drinks. As such, I ate so much that I thought I would never have to eat again. All of the meals were great and amazing, so I really can't complain but I really don't have to eat much of anything again until next year. Especially when I have to fit into a bathing suit in front of my entire office (that's another story) in a few short weeks. Oh well! Here is what my weekend consisted of:

Thursday lunch: Sushi with my boss and co-worker & Paciugo (yum!) for dessert
Thursday dinner: Salt Grass with Austin (and Cooper!)
Friday lunch: Ridiculous amount of food from Truluck's with my co-worker while tasting the menu for an upcoming dinner party
Friday dinner: Benihana's (my FAVORITE!) with Austin's family & Joey
Saturday lunch: CozyMel's with Diana & Bern and Austin & Cooper
Saturday dinner: Shady Oaks BBQ with friends
Sunday we finally took a break from eating a bit and grilled salmon for dinner so I could detox a bit. Today, I am having my final birthday meal with another co-worker and then I'm done with the eating for a little while! :)

Other than that, my birthday was great! I wanted to get a newer, smaller digital camera so I asked for money/gift cards and was able to get an AWESOME camera with the help of my family and Austin's family. Plus I had gotten clothes and scrapbook stuff from my parents, a beautiful necklace and tickets to Oklahoma from Austin, and lots of other great things. I was very blessed and loved! :)

Now if only I could convince myself that working out was as fun as going out to eat! ;)

Happy Father's Day!

Just a quick post with some pictures as I promised last week. This first one is of Cooper on his three month birthday (6-14-06). He was feeling very serious at the time although lately he is all smiles! :)



Here is one of Cooper & his daddy! Happy first Father's Day Austin! This picture was taken yesterday so not officially on Father's Day, but close enough! I just think it's hilarious since Cooper was partway in and partway out of his onesie before his bath! Hope you had a great weekend and to all the fathers, have a great day!

3 Months Old!

So, we did actually take some pictures last night to commemorate his 3 month birthday! However, I did not manage to load them onto the computer so therefore I can not post one of them here. But hopefully tonight I can motivate myself to do that so you can see how big he has gotten!

Yesterday was a really hard day for me. It was the first time since I've been back to work that I was really really really sad and missing Cooper. I mean I've been sad and missed him every day. But yesterday at one point when I was thinking about him, I almost teared up a bit, so it was a little more extreme than previously. When I picked him up yesterday afternoon from my in-laws, I just held him super tight and hugged him and told him how much I loved him. I guess what made it so hard was that it was his first "birthday" where I haven't been with him all day long. I know he doesn't really know the difference, and that he has a fun time playing with his grandmother (and grandfather when he gets home) but still. I missed him and wanted to be with him!!!!!

I'm also kind of annoyed with myself because although I've been really good about appreciating my nights and weekends and really spending good quality time with him and Austin, I have been neglecting to take pictures as frequently as I did before and that sort of makes me sad too. It was much easier when I was with him nearly 24-7 to grab the camera when he was doing something cute or sleeping in a funny position or whatever. Now I just forget! I made Austin leave the camera out on the entertainment unit so we can grab it more frequently now so hopefully I can start motivating myself to take more pictures again because I love having them and seeing them, and it helps to brighten my day when I can look through pictures of him.

That's all for now I guess. I am just so in love with my little Cooper I can't stand it. He is at the cutest stage with his "talking" and standing up and sitting up and checking out his hands and all of that fun stuff. Too cute! Hopefully tomorrow I can post a picture of his royal cuteness! LOL Have a good rest of the week! :)

Traffic

Traffic is the bane of my existence. But somehow living in this metroplex (Dallas-Fort Worth area), it is a part of my daily life. There are VERY FEW people who have the luxury of living near work or being able to avoid traffic completely. For a few months, our apartment was very close to my work, which was far from the norm. It was just coincidental when I got my job last August that it was in Las Colinas and that we lived on the edge of the area. Of course the houses in this area are like 3 or 4 times as expensive as the one we bought, and since we didn't win the lottery recently, we couldn't exactly afford to live in this area once we bought a house. So needless to say I get to deal with traffic.

In reality, unless you live less than a mile or so from work, you are going to hit some sort of traffic. You just can't avoid it. There are just too many people in the area driving too many cars on too small of roads. I asked Austin yesterday if we could get a flying car for me when it's time to trade in my Mustang! :) I only wish!!!! In Los Angelese, they have six lanes on each side of the highway. Granted, their traffic is even worse so that all six of their lanes are packed. But if we could get six lanes each way here, traffic should in theory flow fairly smoothly. Or maybe they need to start assigning times when you are allowed to get on the road so that there is a set number of cars on each road at each time of the day. That would take a LOT of planning though so probably not the best idea.

It take me about 40-45 minutes in the morning to get into work, and 45-60 minutes (usually on the 60 minute side) to get home in the afternoons. It sometimes makes me sad because I think about how I would love to have that two hours back to spend with my son and husband. But it is what it is, and for now, I just have to buck up and jam some tunes in the car! :)

Other than that, not a whole lot going on. We had a great weekend last weekend even though it was busy with running errands and laundry and cleaning the house since I'm not home to do any of those things any more. But it was still great because we were all together and had fun still even though we had to do some things that weren't quite as fun! Tomorrow is Cooper's 3 month birthday - can't believe it's already been three months since that little guy arrived, but I love him more and more every day. He has discovered his hands now which is so cute when you see him staring at them and he is trying to figure out how to get them into his mouth now too! Too funny!

Hope you all have a great week, and I will try to post more frequently! :)

Officially a Working Mom

So I have survived the first two days back to work and am starting in on my third day. So far so good! Even though I miss Cooper TREMENDOUSLY, it has gone more smoothly than I imagined. I'm sure there will be some days when I'm having a tough day where I just want to leave and go snuggle with him, but for the most part, I'm managing okay. I try not to think about the fact that I am away from him during the day, and I've been pretty busy since I got back with the interns starting and all so that has helped keep my mind focused on other things and makes the day go by quickly.

We had a great weekend last week. Cooper was super happy and we laughed and had a great time. We even went swimming again on Sunday, and while it's not quite yet his favorite activity, he is slowly warming up to it. He loves his baths now, so if we could get a heated pool, I'm sure he would be fine. I think the cooler water is just a shock to him. He is growing like a weed and is so strong. I can't wait for all the fun times ahead with him, and I appreciate my time in the evenings and weekends with him even more now that it is a little more limited.

Other than that, not much to report. My birthday is two weeks from tomorrow so that is something to look forward to (I guess!) even though I'm getting older now! Sara and Jay will be in town not this weekend but the next so we'll get to see her and meet Jay which should be fun.

Well better get back to work - enjoying my new office (they did construction while I was gone and redid the breakroom and expanded the recruiting office so I could share it with the other coordinator. So it's nice especially since she and my boss are out this whole week until Friday. :) Hope you all are having a good week!

Quick Post

Just wanted to write a quick post to let you all know that we had a great time in Florida and all arrived there and back safely. I am trying to enjoy these last few days with Cooper before I go back to work on Monday. I'd be lying if I said that I was excited about going back - I love my job and will enjoy having more adult interaction again, but at the same time I am definitely going to miss seeing this little guy all day long. But we will have our nights and weekends, and I can appreciate those even more at least! So just wanted to say hi and that's about it for now because I want to spend every moment I can with Cooper! I'm sure I'll post next week - Monday might be busy with it being my first day back at work and the interns starting the same day too. But both my boss and my co-worker will be out next week (except Monday morning) for a national meeting so I should have some time on my hands and can hopefully write more then. Hope you all have a great weekend! Ttyl alligators! :)