Snow is falling all around!

Leila and our first real Christmas tree coming home from the lot!


Since Cory and I didn't really know what we were doing setting up the stand and getting the tree all set up, so Leila took the lead.







I think she did a good job, it turned out great!





These are from Leila's concert, the one of her class is really dark and hard to see, but there wasn't much to see anyway. Leila covered her face with her hands...when that didn't make the crowd disappear, she pulled her dress up over her face. The teacher wouldn't have that though and pulled her dress back down. So she resorted to crying. We really didn't know what to expect, but as I told Cory, she is my daughter so I can't be too surprised by this... My dad later reinforced my comment by telling Cory that Leila comes from a long line of hiders.





Mommy and Leila in front of our Christmas tree. This was after Leila's daycare program.



Grandma Lori and Leila decorated cookies together on Grandma day. Leila is a big fan of frosting.




Leila and I made presents for her daycare teachers. Leila's job was to fill the pillows with the rice/beans/lavender mixture. While she was loading up her spoon Cory took a picture and told her to look at Daddy. You can see she had a hard time multitasking :)

I am the luckiest...

This was the thought that crossed my mind this morning while I was sitting in my car eating powdered donettes while Cory scraped the ice off of my windows.

A Year in 10

A challenge for all of you fellow bloggers. Pick 10 pictures that tell the story of YOUR 2008. No words, just pictures! This is harder than you may think...

A stroll down memory lane

So yesterday instead of heading into the office I attend a seminar at the University. So much about the experience reminded me of my college days, and really made me feel old. The day started off with a reminder of my least favorite thing about being a student...having to walk to classes in the freezing cold. The seminar was held in the Business building, where Cory and I both spent a lot of time during our stay at the University. Cory majored in Business, Management Information Systems, and I have a business minor.
Walking around that building brought back so many memories, some good, some not so good. It was a strange experience, but I did really like the break in routine and gawking at the many students because of what they find to be appropriate to wear outside of their apartments. :)
The Seminar was called Managing Projects and Priorities. One of those things that I do to help me reach the requirements to get my Project Management certification. It was a good course, though there was a little tangent about values that I found to be kind of depressing. The speaker told us that you need to evaluate what your values are. What are the most important things to you. Once you know your values, you need to make sure that everyday you are doing work that matches your values, and once you get there, you have a legitimate claim of possessing inner peace. Huh. If I have to spend my days doing work that is motivated by my values, I am never going to find inner peace, though I am not sure anyone ever truly does.
Which brings me to my after seminar activities. So, the seminar was over at 3:30, and Leila is used to getting picked up at 4:45 so I figured this was a perfect opportunity for me to check out a store downtown that I had been meaning to visit. I will just refer to the store as, "the dream crusher." A couple of ladies decided to open this store in Iowa City. The store sells designer fabrics, patterns and yarn. They have a studio space where people can rent time on a sewing machine and classes are offered. They also have a small cafe where you can buy drinks and baked goods. The reason I have given the store such an endearing nickname is that for a several years I have had a dream to open a store that sells designer fabrics, has a small cafe, studio space and offers classes. I don't really care about yarn so I guess they have me there. Oh, and it wasn't that impressive, not nearly enough fabric selection, and I would have a place for kids to hang out and also allow for local seamstresses to sell their products too. Oh well.

So I was thinking that I should post some pictures of my baby belly, but so far pictures haven't happened, trust me when I say it is looking pretty obvious these days. Sooner or later I will get to that. As well as pictures of our families very first real Christmas tree...one of these days.

Pea in the Podcast

Not long after Leila was born, a friend of mine from my mommy message board asked me to participate in a podcast interview. I thought it sounded like fun and now Bonnie's podcast series, as well as her blog are live and available! Bonnie is a journalist in the Houston Texas area and another great momma who have I have enjoyed sharing the experience of parenting little girls with.

If you are pregnant, thinking about becoming pregnant or the mom of a small child you may learn something from Bonnie, so check her out here:

http://www.peainthepodcast.com/blog/

And as a special bonus, if you listen to the pod cast's you will get to hear my interview!

A conversation over dinner tonight...

Leila: Daddy, did you make this macaroni and cheese for me?
Daddy: Yes I did
Leila: Mommy, did you make anything on my plate for me?
Mommy: Not this time, Daddy made everything on your plate.
Leila: Oh, Thanks Daddy, you are the best!
Daddy: You are welcome Leila, YOU are the best.
Leila: I'm not the best, I'm the sweetest. You're the best Daddy!

No!

I am writing this blog post a week removed from the day of incident. As I sit here now on the couch I am under a blanket I am sharing with Leila while I blog and she watches Sponge Bob. Right now, it seems kind of stupid to rehash in my mind a day when I felt a lot less impressed with my daughter, but then I think...I made this blog to share the good, the bad and the ugly, so get ready for some ugly.


Every Tuesday Cory works in Cedar Rapids and Leila and I are on our own for drop off/ pick up at daycare. Last Tuesday when I walked into Leila's classroom she greeted me with the usual giant hug and beautiful smile...the highlight of my day. From there it went down hill.
Mommy: Come on Leila, lets put your coat on and go home.
Leila: No
Mommy: Leila, Daddy and Zoey are at home waiting for us, we can't go until you put your coat on.
Leila: No!
Mommy: Do you want to go to see Baby Sawyer tonight?
Leila: Yes!
Mommy: Ok then, put your coat on.
Leila: No

Next came me leading Leila out to the main hallway at Love-A-Lot and trying to force her coat onto her arms. She threw herself on the floor and cried and kicked and screamed. I picked her up and managed to force her arms into her coat. As I held her in my arms I had never been so angry at her. Now, I know that some people spank their kids, and if that works for you, fine. We are not spankers, though at that moment I have never wanted to spank her so badly in my life. I got her into her car seat, where she stiffened up her back and refused to let me buckle her in. I slammed the door shut, got in the front seat and called Cory. I didn't expect him to do anything about it, but I really wanted to bitch about the situation, and Leila wasn't exactly good company at the time. By the time I got off the phone Cory had diffused me a little bit and as it turns out, Leila had calmed down as well. She said, "Mommy, I am ready to go now, buckle me." I got out and buckled her in, and as I pulled away from school I started to cry, and I cried all the way home. I hate hate hated the way I felt toward my own child. Thinking about it now still makes me really sad, especially as I see her sweet, calm little face sitting next to me. As we were driving home and I am crying Leila says to me, "Why are you sad mommy? I will give you a hug." That only made it worse.

The terrible twos are exactly that. Couple that with a mad case of pregnancy hormones, and the fact that Leila seems to inherited my temper and things are rough going at the Coobs' House. You should all feel very bad for Cory.

Halloween! I am behind posting this, are you really surprised?

We didn't take any pictures Halloween night, but here is Leila testing out her "black scary kitty" costume. She was very frightening, just ask Cassie.
Halloween afternoon we drove to Champaign, IL to visit Cory's brother and family. We got there in time for Uncle Evan to give Leila a lesson in trick or treating, and then we took her out around their neighborhood.
She froze up as soon as we would get to the door at nearly every house we went to. As we approached she would say, "I am going to say trick or treat!" and then the door would open and she was like a deer in headlights. Better luck next year, and she still managed to get plenty of treats!
She was so funny though, when we saw people dressed up in scary costumes she would say, "That's not scary, that is just a fox." During our whole trick or treating adventure she kept repeating it. "That was a nice fox we saw, he wasn't scary." The nice fox she was referringn to was a pretty mean and nasty looking wolf, but she worked very hard to convince herself that he wasn't scary :)








The next day we went to a tailgate and then to the Iowa vs. Illinois football game. Leila enjoyed the tailgate. As you can see from the pictures she tried to take a little rest and she also stuffed her face with grapes. She was terrible during the game. She and I watched it from the concourse because she refused to sit in the bleachers.

This morning

I woke up to Leila standing by my bedside. I said to her, "Leila, Barack Obama won, he is the new president!" She gave me a high-five. We rolled into work, and even though it hadn't rained there was a rainbow in the sky. No, I am serious, ask Cory. Today I am so proud of America, proud of Iowa and just down right giddy. God Bless America.

Baby Coobs' film debute

A couple of Leila tidbits

I have have written about this one before, but just in case...Everyday when we drive home from work we go by a construction site. When Leila sees it she always says, "Look at that mess! They need to clean it up!"

Last week I made a butternut squash, call it a weird craving, but I just had to have it. So we have squash for dinner and Leila wanted nothing to do with it. I tried to convince her to try it by telling her about how she used to love it when she was a baby! Ever since then she occasionally breaks out with this, "When I was a little girl, I used to eat squash!" I think it is so funny to hear her say, as if she isn't a little girl anymore...what a funny little sweetheart she is.

The Shack

So my sister Andrea convinced me to read The Shack, and in the process ruined a whole day for me.
I started it on Monday night and cried like a baby... I can't think of anything more awful than what happened in that book. I pretty much had to skim most of it because it was so unbearable, and even at that I sobbed myself to sleep. It was very icky.
So Tuesday night I decided to further punish my hormonal mind by finishing the book. Day two was better, I still cried, but there was a lot of good stuff too. I like to read about people's interpretations of God and of the afterlife. This one felt pretty true to my own thoughts and I liked that. I just wish the author had used a less horrifying example of loss to help make his point about grief. It was too much for me, and therefore it was very difficult for me to get to the good stuff. Some things that I did get out of the book that I appreciated:
1. God has hopes and plans for us, but we have free will and he won't stand in the way of our decisions, even if they aren't the best.
2. God loves all of his children, but he gave us this earth and now we have to learn to share it, and if we can't get along, too bad.
3. Even when the really bad things happen, trust in God's love for you and know that when it is all said and done, you will live in heaven, where there is no evil and in the meantime God will do his best to make good come out of bad as long we are here on earth.

All interesting points, but for me personally, it wasn't worth going through this man's experience of losing his daughter in such a violent way. So the gist is, I don't recommend it unless you have a high tolerance for sadness or are easily able to separate yourself from characters in a book. I am not one of those people.

In fact, I am pretty much unable to separate myself from people I work with, people I read about in the newspaper, people I have befriended over the internet, or just about anyone else in this world. I have been this way for as long as I can remember, but I have to say that having a child makes this so much worse for me. Compassion is a good thing, but whatever I have goes a little too far. I read the book to help me feel better about some things that have been causing me sadness. I didn't really get that but I am working to trust in God to take care of those that I don't know, but I know are hurting so I can concentrate on counting the many blessings I have. This is very hard for me but I am praying for strength and guidance to let go.

Mortality

I saw a commercial for this show once, I don't remember for sure what the show was called, but the scene stuck out in my mind. A woman asks a man, "Why do people have to die?" and his response is, "To make life valuable."
As a Christian, I know that I am supposed to look at death as a gift. A passport to a world that is better than earth, where you don't read everyday on cnn.com about pain and suffering, but instead spend all of eternity in God's presence with no regard for the work you have to get done and the deadlines you have to make. It sounds pretty good, but then, why is death so hard to deal with?
Heavy topic for a mommy blog I know, but unfortunately this topic has dominated my thoughts all week. I don't really want to get into the sad details of why that is, but suffice it to say that I am having a hard time dealing with the question, "why do people have to die?" I know very well why death seems so sad and scary to me. It is permanent. No more hugging your babies, no more reading them books. No more late night conversations in bed with your husband. I don't understand how someone could choose to give that up. But it happens, and it makes me incredibly sad.
Even sadder is not having a choice. Either way death is hard, and life can sometimes be harder. I am grateful to be be able to see how valuable life is.
I think this world is the sad place that it is for a reason, I believe that the sadness and trials of earth are here to help us do a better job as angels someday. I hope I am right.
I wish I could heal all of the hurt and then turn off my mind for a while.

Pumpkin Time Fun!

My wonderful family. I am so blessed.

The cutest pumpkins in the patch!!


Tasting the apples!


Uncle Steve's job was manning the apple picker

Daddy and Leila walking through the apple trees

Andrea and Sawyer getting settled in for the walk around the orchard


Leila and Sawyer enjoying the picnic from the back of the Equinox :)

Kellie's wedding

Two weekends ago we made a trip to Lincoln, NE for my cousin Kellie's wedding. We had a really nice time. I think Leila had the best time of all. Not only did she get to swim in a hotel swimming pool but she also got to dance the night away at the reception.
When we got to the wedding she immediately noticed the cake and had to take a look. I think while we were waiting for the wedding to start Cory had to carry her over to look at the "birthday cake" three or four times. We had to keep a close eye on her or she would have attacked the thing I am sure! The grooms cake had fish on and Leila said that it was a big scary shark.
So we sat down in our seats and Cory was explaining to Leila what we were about to see. He told her that when you get married you get a ring and he showed her his ring, and I showed her mine.
So the wedding gets started and Leila is standing on her seat and she says loudly enough that all of our row could hear her, "I am going to get married and then I will get a ring right here!" As she held up her hand in the air. Too funny.
I wish that I could figure out how to get my video's to upload without taking FOREVER so I could show you Leila dances moves, but for some reason our internet doesn't want to work very fast for me so you will have to settle for pictures!





On our way back home on Sunday we stopped in Tabor to see our Howard family. My Aunt and Uncle had a house fire on Friday afternoon. I didn't take any pictures of the house, but the fire was devastating and this week the house will be torn down to start over. Thankfully a lot of their belongings were salvaged, including most of the family pictures. I will be thinking of them as they start putting everything back together and begin moving on.

Leila and Grandma made Daddy a birthday cake. She was SO excited about it!!!

Walking with Aunt Dani. Leila has the best Aunts.

Running around in the grass at UNI with aunt Cassie. Have I mentioned that Leila has some of the best aunts in the WORLD?!?!

She was REALLY proud of the tall tall tower she built!

Leila decided that really liked Brina's bunny, so she took it and brought it home with her :) We did return it...sorry Brina!

Leila and Daddy playing wheelbarrow :)

I have been a bad bad blogger. Partly because life has been so hectic lately, and partly because I am spending a lot of time on all things political. I know that most of my readership disagrees with me politically, so I am keeping my trap shut for now. :)

Potty training is still going on...the kid won't poop on the potty chair to save her life. I am thinking about just calling the whole thing off for now, she will eventually get there and I am beginning to believe the potty pressure is causing some of her behavior issues lately, the kid is frustrated and so are we! We have a sticker chart and we all clap and cheer every time she goes, but it doesn't seem to be enough...I really think it is a control issue because she has been staying dry at daycare, she just loves to punish the ones that love her most.

On the baby front, things are going well. I have only had a net gain of one pound, and at 18 weeks along, I will take that! I am feeling the baby move, which is neat, but I feel guilty to say that I still don't feel all that connected to this little one. That may make me seem like a bad mother, and maybe I am, but I try to be honest with myself here. I know I will get there(I assume?), but for some reason, I just haven't fully accepted that I am having another baby. I have another appointment on Monday where we will be scheduling my ultrasound for somewhere around the 20 week mark...I will be 19 weeks on Monday so I will assume sometime in the week or two following that appointment we will get to have a peak of our little on. You can count on my posting pictures, but don't expect to see the gender, we will be telling the tech not to show/tell us so we can have a the surprise unveiled at the birth.

I do have some pictures to post from when we went to Cedar Falls to visit Dani on family weekend at UNI...I will try to get them up tonight.

Potty training

Today was day one of all underwear, all the time. So far, not so great. Pee is no problem at all, but for some reason pooping on the potty chair is totally out of the question. She went through 3 pairs of underwear today. Pray that we make it through the week.

One year.

One year has passed by us since that Friday last fall when my Grandma Dalene passed into Heaven. I don't believe that a single day has gone by when I haven't thought of her. Sometimes it is a warm memory that brings a smile to my face, and sometimes it is a pang at my heart to know that I can't share something with her, but still, she is never far from my mind and always a part of my heart.

When I came home from the time we spent in Tabor last year saying goodbye to Grandma I had a note in the mail from my mother-in-law Sandi. In it she included the For Better or Worse cartoon from the Thursday paper, one day before my grandma passed away, September 13th, 2007.

Leila was so little when Grandma died, she won't remember knowing her, she won't remember her hugs. We have pictures of her around our home, and she can pick her out of a picture and knows that is her Grandma, but she will never know her like I hoped she would.

Leila loved the horse that hung in Grandma's kitchen, and when we were visiting last July Grandma took down the horse and told me to take it home for Leila to have. That horse is hanging inside my front door, so we all see it everyday when we leave and come home. Taped to the back of the horse is the cartoon that Sandi gave to me.

Hanging in the classroom at Love A Lot is a little questionnaire about all of the kids in yellow group. Leila's says that she has brown hair, and blue eyes (not so much).
Next comes the statement, "I live in a... car." Yep, she told her teacher that she lives in the car. We do spend a fair amount of time in there, but come on!? Next comes, "When I grow I want to be... like Daddy." That is our Leila...offer some comic relief and melt your heart all in one swoop.

I have a doctor's appointment this week on Thursday. We should get to hear the heartbeat for the first time--as far as the doctor knows anyway. I am one of those paranoid people who has my own at home dopler so I can check in with my little one as needed. Aside from that I expect her to tell me not to eat so much and send me on my way. I will fill you all in if there is anything more to add, but I wouldn't count on any excitement.

Mommytolbc

So I started my blog when Leila was about 4 months old. I did it when I was at that point where I was starting to come down from the hormone surges of pregnancy and giving birth, and I found myself in a moment of morbid thought. I thought, what if something happens to me, and Leila never gets to know who I was? Sure, people will tell her about me, but she won't ever have any of me for herself. So I started this blog, with my first order of business to share some of myself with my daughter, that she may otherwise never have. That isn't the only point of my blog though. I have a lot of family that I love very much, but I don't get to see all that often. I wanted them to have a piece of Leila that they may not have had the chance to know otherwise. So the blog became my way of sharing our lives with everyone out there on the internet who wanted to know us. I am an open person and I really do like for those that I care about to know how I feel about them...so this blog has felt right from the beginning.
I named the blog after Leila, and myself. Mommy to Leila Brianne Coobs. Now I am finding myself at an interesting crossroads, in a couple of ways. First of all...for the past 13 weeks, I have been keeping a big part of myself off of the blog. I have toyed with the idea of sharing my news, but what held me back was that I did not want to take for granted that I would find at the end of this 40 week period the promise that I saw on my positive pregnancy test. I am not one who likes sympathy. I am quick to give it, and I always try to empathize, but I would rather deal with my sadness alone. Now, 13 weeks later, I have nothing to be sad about, aside from my very first migraine, which hit me on Thursday and hasn't left yet. I know that if something had happened to this new baby, not that anything is ever a garauntee, I would have wanted to blog about it, my blog is therapy to me in a lot of ways. But I gave up the opportunity to share on here about my feelings when finding out that Leila will be a big sister, and about my fears as I waited for the day that I could hear that little heartbeat racing away in my belly. I am a little sad about that, but I am also just glad to be here.
Now onto my other dilemma, mommytolbc. I have become pretty attached to this place on the web, so I don't want to relocate to a less specifically named location. For now I will have to be Mommy To Little Baby Coobs's. And as my little babies continue to grow, I wil have to come up with a new way to represent my LBC acronym. I hope baby number 2 doesn't take it personally...as I already love him or her just as much as I do my first LBC.

Now, on to the big questions.
What is your due date? March 9th--Uncle Kim's birthday. Aunt Sheila is hoping I hit her birthday (March 3rd) instead, and I have to say, I am down with earlier rather than later.
Are you going to find out what you are having?
No--We are going to wait and find out when everyone else does.
What does Leila think?
If you ask her about it, she will tell you that mommy has a baby in her tummy, but lets face it, she is clueless. We talk about when the baby comes and she seems cool with everything, but I am sure it will be an adjustment. We are going to take her to our big ultrasound with us so she can see the baby and hopefully that will help her understand.

What does Cory think? He is thrilled, we both are. We know we can't afford a second baby, but we both very much wanted this, and we are excited.

Photo Update