:: What am I to do with you?::

 {hair styled on his own while eating PB&J}

What am I to do with this boy?

Nothing but LOVE him.

I LOVE HIM.

Cohen is big. I keep saying that, but every week I think to myself "he is completely different than last week." Brock and I keep saying we love this stage the most, but again we keep saying that about every stage. Kids are so great, aren't they?

Cohen is starting so many new things:

- he is starting to form sentences, for example he'll say 
"Mama, Dada, outside". He wants Mom and Dad to go outside with him.

- he is copying more words we say than ever. 
He attempts all of them. I can make out most, but not all.

- he is starting to do more actions to songs, such as: 
I'm a little teapot, head shoulders knees and toes, 
five little monkey jumping on the bed {his favorite}.

- I could throw his binki away and he would be just fine. 
He only has it in his crib when sleeping.

- he is drinking water more and will ask for it. {wah wah} 
Loves to drink it out of a glass like Mom and Dad.

- he LOVES playing with cars, trucks, tractors and will 
drive them around making sounds all day long.
- If I leave the room he will instantly say 
"Mama, Mama?" Little anxiety I guess.
- STILL a mama's boy 100%.
- He is a tease more than ever.
- He answers yes or no questions when asked.
- If I am down close to the ground ever he will come up and lay on my 
back and say "Hi" with an accent on the end almost like a question.
- He is starting to vocalize that he recognizes places.
Like when we go to pick up Daddy from work we pull into 
the parking lot and Co will say "Daddy?".


Almost 17 months.
Learning like crazy.
I absolutely love watching his wheels turn.
He is my bud.

:: BYU Basketball ::

 Tonight we went to our first basketball game of the season. BYU won BYU-Hawaii. Woo go Cougs! The mommies and babies left a little early for the kids sake.

 We sat up in the nose-bleeds, but it was great! We didn't have to stand the whole time {like the whole student section does} and the kids were blocked in their own little play area.

 Co and Abs do so well together. They love toys and snacks, so we had plenty of both.

 The game kept Cohen's attention pretty well, considering his attention span is about 3 seconds, always. He loves clapping and saying Yay! and him and Abigail were quite the dancers when music played.

 Cohen beaming after seeing the ball make a "bassett"{basket}.

Good times with the Sommer family!

:: Halloween Night ::

 {Grandma Carma and I}

How crazy cool is this cute grandma? Carma is the best. Her and Grandpa Ron both make me feel like I am "at home" every single time I am at their house. She was dressed up when we got to their house on Halloween night for their traditional Chili party. Grandpa Ron makes one mean pot of chili. He made white chili as well as a regular pot. It was spicy and so addicting. We also had doughnuts and the famous Shirley's bakery sweet rolls. YUM!

 {from left to right: Shellie, Ann, Ashley, Alyssa, Brooklyn & Lindsey} 

All enjoying the chili dinner.

Sweet cousin Faith LOVES Cohen to death. She just follows him around and wants to hold him. He doesn't cooperate like she wishes. She is a sweetheart. 

I don't know why I never think to take more pictures at Ron and Carma's. I guess I'm too occupied enjoying their company. :)


P.S. This is my 200th post.

:: Halloween Party @ the Allsops ::

{rodeo clown, rodeo queen & cowboy}

We had another successful Halloween party! Char and I are quite the party planners. :) The party was held at Ben and Char's beautiful home. Maybe one day I'll have a home....{in 15 years} To begin, we had such a yummy dinner! Chicken Tortilla soup in bread bowls, salads and homemade root beer. We partied hardy with some fun games this year....

First off, the doughnut eating contest.

RULES: You have 60 seconds to eat as much of the doughnut but keep it on the string.

The women dominated this game, by the way.

Homemade rootbeer by Ben Allsop a.k.a. Steve Young

The candle blow out game. Whoever could blow out the candle from furthest away won.

We had a candy guessing game. Whoever was closest to the amount of candies in a jar won a prize.

We decorated, ate and very much enjoyed cupcakes made by Char.

Cohen Kitchen :: Troy Allsop :: Noah Paulson

 The Hillbillies & Pea Pod :: Braden, Mandy & Brightyn Boyer

  Scarecrow, Lion & Steve Young :: Ben, Char & Troy Allsop

 The ABC's :: Rich, Rachel & Noah Poulson

The Covey's :: Steven, Emily & Steven

Happen Halloween!

:: Halloween on Campus ::

 YEE HAW!

My cute litte cowboy and I went to a kids party at BYU. Laura and Abs joined us and it was CRAZY! SO many little kids, you can only imagine. There were very few games and things for the little ones, like Cohen, to do so we were in, out and on our way home.

Perfect amount of time for us mommies.

 Did a little people watching, won a duck, and played the rings game.

 Fishing at the pond.

Co thought it was SO SO cool that he could play a game to win a treat. His face expression prooves that.

:: good thing he's cute ::

 I have a story to tell.

Yesterday was quite the day. It was a semi-decent day, but I just felt hurried all day, and I shouldn't have been. I did a haircut in the morning, cleaned the house, did some laundry, then met my good friend Aubree for lunch at the wonderful Zupas. Some stressful things came up, but all in all it was an ok day.

Other than the "POOP" incident.

Lunch was great. Aubree is great. The food was GREAT.

When we were getting ready to leave I smelt poop. Zupas is just down the road a few minutes from our house so at first I thought I'll just stick Co in the car, we'll zip right home and change him. Well, I got to the car and felt a VERY full diaper. So I thought I would just change him in the backseat which I've done plenty of times. BAD IDEA.

Right as I open the diaper Cohen grabs his poop, it's all over his hand and dripping off everywhere, he wipes in down the seat, down his leg, and then grabs a play wooden spoon that was by him. All this was happening while I was holding his kicking legs and ripping more wipes out. I got his bum fairly clean when I grabbed the diaper and set it on the ground. As I'm finishing cleaning him up from head to toe in poop he decides it's funny to kick both legs as fast as he can. Trying my hardest not to get more poop on the seat of the car, I'm holing on to him for dear life, not paying attention to the diaper on the ground and I STEP in the poopy diaper. Now my shoe was COVERED in poop. Very stinky poop. GROSS! I'm gagging at this point thinking "why did you not just wait til you got home to change him?". But then again, who knows what would have happened if Cohen would have sat on all the poop in his carseat. YUCK.

I think it was an "11 wiper" diaper change.

 Good thing he's cute!

 {random pictures cause I was not about to take poopy pictures}

:: first comes Fall, then comes Winter ::

 It's time to get the warm clothes out!

Fall is beginning to leave us, and I don't like it.

Fall in Provo has made me fall in love with it,

and has become my FAVORITE season of the year.

This will be my last 'Fall' living in Provo,

so I'm milking it for all it's worth.

 Yesterday we played outside for the first time in our snow coat and hat. Cohen's little hands were ice cubes by the time we went inside. It doesn't even phase him to be so cold. 

He loves being out in nature. Period.

We are still trying to enjoy every minute we have outside with no snow.

I feel the snow coming, soon.

Ready or not Melissa, here it comes!

:: the place that I call home ::

 We went to my beautiful home town of St. George, again. I love s.g. trips. You may have already caught onto that. I may be a little bias, but I can promise you one thing....if you go live in s.g. for no more than one year {so you can witness each season} you will be hooked. You will fall in love. You won't be able to leave - EVER.

 {Co watching the fish in my parents pond}

 Lots of swinging + lots of playing hard = good naps and night time sleeping for Cohen = happy mommy

 We played every kind of ball, played guns with Kai, cars with Corby...

 And had yummy treats the WHOLE weekend.

 {taking a play break for a popsicle - do you think these cousins are watching a movie? I think yes.} 

 Playing golf with Daddy. Cohen is drawn to golf balls. Not the fake ones, only the real ones. My parents have just about every kind of ball in their backyard and Cohen only wanted to play with the real golf balls. Maybe I have a future golfer on the hands....

 Or maybe the next Michael Jordan...

 Possibly a mini Babe Ruth. He's all boy that's for sure.

How cute is Nana K?! Playing a little baseball in her dress even.

 We had a surprise CONGRATULATIONS party for my sweetheart for getting accepted to Medical school. I went to St. George a day earlier than him, so when he got into town we had a party waiting.

 {My beautiful sister-in-law Jenna and I}

 {playing some crazy basketball with Daddy and Uncle Josh}

 THE REASON WE MADE THE TRIP.

My mighty, manly, hunter shot us a deer.

Yuck, but yay!

I'm sure this will be his last hunting trip for quite some time, and it was a successful one.

Way to go Brock! Now let's hope I can cook and eat the meat. Yucky.

 Two of my good friends from high school came and played one morning with their sweet babes.

Wish we had more time to play! One day....

 Ty Partridge : : Aubree Wiest : : Cohen Kitchen

We wore him out AGAIN.

He was sleeping before we made it to the freeway.

It never fails. St. George is just way too much fun.

We love our families so very much.

I just can't think about possibly moving far away from them. Blah.

One day - We will get to see them on a daily basis when we live in the beautiful town that I call home...

St. George, Utah.