Garrett and Cooper

I promise I will post pictures soon. I'm still illiterate when it comes to uploading pictures on this Mac and I forgot to upload the pictures when I'm on the Dell, but I have several I want to share and I'll do it soon.

I wanted to share that we've finally decided on Cooper's middle name. First off, we made a list of about 5 names that we both could agree on. One of them was Cole, which is why I had previously asked about first and middle names starting with the same letter, but ultimately Keith took it off the list. So we narrowed it down to Gage and that's the one we're going with. I know it's different, but I like that name, though I was hesitant to pick it for a first name, so we decided to go with it as the middle name instead. The funny part is that we know of a set of boy twins named Garrett and Gage, but that's not the reason behind our choice, though I will admit that was probably the first time I had heard of the name Gage.

Cooper has been pretty active lately. Keith was able to feel him kick the other day, so that was pretty cool. I'm also definitely showing now. I hadn't really noticed until yesterday and then I had a lady ask me when I was due the other day at the store, so it's always funny when strangers start to comment.

I bought Cooper's coming home outfit yesterday too. It's a cute, little overall outfit, with a light blue t-shirt, and blue/green plaid overalls. I bought a newborn size because I remember how big clothes were on Garrett, even newborn stuff at first. And he wasn't a tiny baby. He weighed 7 lb 12 oz and was 19" long. So assuming this baby is roughly the same size or even a little bigger, this outfit should fit just fine. I debated having him wear Garrett's coming home outfit, but decided against it. I'm keeping a box of memorabilia for each boy and those outfits would probably be the only baby clothes I'll save, so they need their own.

As I type, Keith is painting Garrett's new room. I'm in hopes that by next weekend, the painting will be finished and I can start to move his things over to the new room and maybe even move him in within a couple of weeks. I think it will really start to feel "real" when the crib is set up in Cooper's room and I start washing baby clothes and hanging them in the closet. My mother in law is fixing a few pieces on Garrett's crib bedding and I plan to reuse that. If Cooper was my first child, I would be appalled at the thought of reusing baby bedding, but now I just find it a waste of money since he will only use it, at the most, for 2 years. But if for some reason my mother in law isn't able to fix it or I find a really cheap bedding set that I love, then I might consider buying something else...

Garrett has earned himself a new nickname: Motormouth. He talks constantly. This morning we brought him into church with us because it's been a few weeks since he's been in the worship service. He talked the ear off of the greeter who came up to us and said hi. She told us "I'm so sorry you're raising such a shy child. It's really a shame." Ha! He would have kept on talking if I hadn't told him to tell her bye. Of course that mouth got him in trouble about 1/4 of the way into the pastor's sermon. Garrett was being loud, so I got out crayons and some color sheets for him to color on. He says "I don't want to color!" in a voice loud enough to be heard from the front stage. I told him to be quiet (we had already had a talk before church about not talking in church and if he needed to say something then he had to whisper). He said it again in the same voice, so I picked him up and we started heading out of the church. We were thankfully only 3 rows from the back. Garrett immediately started yelling "I want my Daddy!" It was a lovely scene. I took him straight to the nursery, even though he didn't want to go, and explained to him that when he gets loud he can't stay in church. He was not happy about it, but hopefully it will be something I can point out the next time we decide to take him into church with us.

I know some of you are wondering why we even bother taking him when we have the option to put him in the nursery. In 6 months, he won't be able to go into the nursery anymore and our church doesn't have children's church. I would prefer to slowly get him used to how to behave in worship services now while I have the nursery to fall back on when he's behaving like he was this morning. Rather than just start things off when he turns 4 and have to train him from the beginning. I'm sure that would result in Keith or I spending time out of the auditorium because I refuse to allow my child to disrupt the services. You never know when someone sitting around you really needed to hear what the pastor had to say, but your child afforded them a reason to be distracted and ignore God trying to get their attention. That's not to say that children will always sit quietly and motionless throughout a church service, nor is it to say that those same people wouldn't find something else to distract them if your child wasn't acting up. But I still don't want to contribute to any excess noise during the worship services when I can help it.

Now that you've had your sermon of the day from me, I'll will close here with the promise to post again soon with pictures. Joy spoke at MOPS a few weeks ago about how to get the most out of your digital camera and how to take the best pictures with any camera, not just the expensive ones.  So I've been attempting to use some of her tips when I can, and I do see a difference. (Thanks Joy!) I'm looking forward to trying them all out on Cooper in a few months. Atleast he'll be still enough to try it, unlike some of my other subjects around here.