Breakfast time.

We emailed this to my Mom (Frumpy of the infamous Frumpy & Grumpy duo) as forewarning of mine and Cooper's impending Oklahoma visit. Thought I'd post it up on the blog too...

Paying respects to the Great Pumpkin with our Linus...

The pumpkin patch frenzy is in full effect in Boulder County. The pumpkin growing business must be good around here, as the patches are constantly full of people. It has surely helped the turnout that we've had a tremendous run of impeccable weather lately. 70 degrees, blue skies and no wind have been the norm for us in the last several weeks, and it has not been lost on me.

While my work travel is tiring and grueling at times, it does have its benefits. One such benefit being that I don't tend to work much on Friday afternoons, plus the remote weeks I get I can dictate my schedule quite a bit. This allowed us to get to the pumpkin patch down the road from us during non-peak hours.

Here are some assorted pics from our last visit to the pumpkin patch.


Cooper went straight to the posing spot to get his picture taken

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

Then off to the hay maze with his two chosen pumpkins

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

The to visit the goats

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

And promptly gave this one a kiss

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

Some more posing

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

Her Highness upon her throne

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

Then some time in the jump around

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

From Cooper at Pumpkin Patch

Picking up Pooker

For some reason, when Cooper refers to himself it comes out as "Pooker". The funny thing is that he has gotten in the habit of announcing himself after he gets up in the morning or from naps, exclaiming "Super Cooper" and he says Cooper fine when prefaced by "Super".

Last Friday, Jill and I dropped Super Cooper off with Aunt Sarah and Reese for a sleepover so Jill and I could go to dinner and a movie. Well the dinner got off to a slow start as I spent the first 15 minutes standing outside on the phone with a client who was having emergency issues. I hate working at night and loathe working on the weekends, but I'm a sucker for a client waving the white flag and can't seem to ignore my phone. After the call, I got to the table just in time to see our dinner delivered to our table. I promptly switched off the phone to enjoy the rest of the evening with my wife. It felt strange to eat a meal without having various items of food smeared on my shirt...

We headed to the theater to catch "The Town", which would be our 2nd movie in the theater since Cooper was born. After that we headed home to a quiet house.

The next morning we decided to meet up with Sarah and the two kiddos in Boulder to go hike and to pick our offspring. A nice Fall day meant lots and lots of hikers out, so we opted to the less traveled NCAR parking lot for some hiking. We got in a nice out and back hike on a tough trail.

Pictures from said hike....

Cooper with his custom walking stick

From Mesa Trail Hike with Sarah & Reese

Which he quickly decided was a bat.

From Mesa Trail Hike with Sarah & Reese

There is a fair skinned baby somewhere in there

From Mesa Trail Hike with Sarah & Reese

Quick stop to ride the log

From Mesa Trail Hike with Sarah & Reese

Cooper loved this old tree, crying when we made him leave.

From Mesa Trail Hike with Sarah & Reese

The sky is just a different shade of blue in CO

From Mesa Trail Hike with Sarah & Reese

From Mesa Trail Hike with Sarah & Reese

Up we go

From Mesa Trail Hike with Sarah & Reese

Third time is the charm...

From Baby Girl

The big news from our house is we're going to have a baby girl sometime around Valentine's Day. We had a 20 week checkup about a week ago, and got the good news and determination of the baby's sex. Cooper doesn't really seem to understand totally yet, but I think he'll be excited and surely a little jealous when #2 (code name Jens - as in Jens Voigt the hardest man in pro cycling) arrives.

And now the story behind the story....
This isn't a story we've really talked about much, only telling a few immediate family matters, but we've had some bumps along the way getting Cooper a sibling. It all started well, we are an apparently overly fertile couple, but then it went bad. We were off for a Labor Day weekend vacation in Portland to see our friends Chris & Molly get married. Jill got real sick after a hike in Mt. Rainier National Park and a couple days later told me she didn't feel pregnant anymore. A couple days later the doctor confirmed our fears and we had lost the baby.

It was a tough time for us, but I deferred to Jill on how / when to talk about it and we got through it. After some time to let everything get normal again, we started trying again and immediately Jill was pregnant again. We took it very easy, although we knew it was nothing we did that caused the first loss, but right about the same time we lost the first baby, Jill once again told me she just didn't feel pregnant anymore.

One was tough, but the second was even tougher. Now doubt had started creeping in that we would be able to have another baby at all. How many more times could we put ourselves through this? To make it even more of a trying situation, we had a major scare with Jill. In an attempt to avoid a surgery, she was given medication to help her pass the lost baby. She was lightheaded and hardly coherent late one night (it was the lightheaded symptom that made me realize this wasn't normal), and I quickly got Cooper up out of bed and loaded everyone into the car to go to the ER.

At the ER, they wouldn't let me take Cooper back with me so I had no choice but to get Jill admitted and then go back home. Its after midnight, Cooper and I headed back home and I put him back to bed. I stirred around the house doing anything I could to keep from chewing my nails down to my knuckles. Finally after 3 or 4 excruciating hours, Jill called and was ready to come home. That ordeal took years off my life...

Despite this setup, we had Cooper, so we were optimistic about the chances so we decided we'd give it another go and you guessed it....instantaneously pregnant. Our 3rd try since Cooper we were quite cautious with everything, including telling anyone that Jill was pregnant. As we passed weeks 12 & 13 our fears started to subside and now at 20 weeks things are looking really promising. We're thrilled to have Jens on the way, and be able to get Cooper a sister.

I have completely deferred to Jill on this topic, remaining silent on the matter for the most part. Now Jill has decided it was time to share our great joy with Jens as well as give the back story as to why we've maintained such radio silence on Jens.

Kids say the darnedest things...

Jill was getting some video of Cooper saying "Go Pokes" when she also caught some great video, warms a Daddy's heart...