Week 2

Swish. That was the sound of another week passing. The Cooley family has been bless with Grandma and Grandpa Cooley staying at our home for the past 7 days. Nathan has gotten to meet all his Grandparents now.

Observations: There are good days and bad days. Tasks at home, become, more, interrupted. Your own baby is certainly the cutest.

Photoz:

Week 1

This is a glimpse into the Cooley house during Nathan's first week.

With the exception of bouts of struggling to calm a crying and fussy baby all is going well. Laura has the bulk of the work and she is of course doing an amazing job as I knew she would. I am attempting to serve her, give her some alone time, and allow her to sleep as much as possible.

Grandma and Grandpa Cooley have gotten to see Nathan via a couple of Web conferences. They will be able to see him in person early next week. Grandma and Grandpa Tellevik have been by several times to observe Nathan in his 'sleep' state so they haven't yet seen his eyes. Aunt Karen and Uncle Ian have been by to see Nathan as well. Indeed he is being welcomed into the family and the Cooley's are feeling the love and support on that front.

Our biggest adventure has been a trip to the Dr. for a checkup followed by a stop off at Target to compliment some of our existing supplies. This new mom and dad are figuring out what we 'really' need; aside from coffee (for Paul) that is. Our parental observation, leaving the house when you have a child is approximately 4 times as much work as before. Plus there is a nervousness around the next time the little "time-bomb" may go off - you can delay the fuse a bit with some soothing rocking, but it will still eventually burn down. :-)


Another Movie:




Another Slideshow:

The early days

Daddy Cooley has been readying some digital entertainment for you. This is a small view into the early days of our little boy Nathan.

Mommy Cooley is doing a fantastic job with our little boy. It is hard to express the inequality of the workload at this point. Not only does she need to recover from Labor and delivery, but she is the food source for our boy. She is so strong, patient, loving, and kind. She is doing fabulously.

Baby Cooley is in one of four states: eating, sleeping, looking around, or crying. We are learning how to handle these states, but there is much more to be educated on.

A video:



A slideshow:

Ready or Not here I come

Our baby boy arrived early this morning! Mom and Baby are healthy. A perfect and quick birth.

Born Aug 3rd 2007 at 5:13 PDT
7 pounds 14 ounces
one Nathan Charles Cooley

Already he is a star in our minds:














And a very happy 0th birthday to Nathan:


















And in the flesh:















Cute as a button and perfect as can be. Us parents are beaming now!

Zoom Zoom

The Audio:


Introducing my new used 5-door car, 2006 Mazda3 hatchback. I once told Paul we would never buy a Mazda due to the fact he says it like he lives in Britain. This is one thing that makes me laugh when he talks. Java, pasta, lava, drama are other that come up that he uses an a in apple sound. pah-stuh (US) vs. pas-tuh (CND). Now if I could just get him to start saying "eh?" again. Anyway my new car is fun but I will miss my 2-door Honda Civic.

Up

Going up?

On 07/07/07 two friends and I celebrated the day with a mountain bike ride up a mountain near Lake Cavanaugh. Sure the satellite images make it look flat, but there is a couple of climbs in there, if you read the elevation profile: Elevation Profile link

The tracks:


Link to the Innersource mapping project

Squirrles make a run for it.

Well we have enjoyed a year of having a wooded backyard. Where the squirrels like to run on the fence highway. That is quickly coming to a end. The property behind our hose has been sold and the squirrels will need to pack their bags and leave. We finally had gotten some quiet days now that the Brightwater project has left our road but now the bulldozers are out back making room for another 4-5 houses per acer.

Precision

Due the Brightwater project, the road that provides access to our cul-de-sac has been in a state of deconstruction.

One thing to note, is the precision of when things will get back to normal. Check out the sign that is posted in front of the construction, they are accurate to the hour. They have 7 days and 21.5 hours to finish up.

BC - 31Weeks 6 Days

Things are going well at the Cooley house. BC is growing way too fast and has started to sit on my bladder and kick my ribs. I think he is doing the splits or some new dance in there. I have a hard time believing that my stomach is going to be able to stretch anymore. I have started my every 2 week checkups. So far we are both doing well. Notably that BC is moving lots, my blood pressure has only gone up a bit and I don’t think I have gained too much. 22 or 23 pounds so far and I have 8 weeks to go. Doctor said the baby will be here by the Aug 9^th if I would like. So if he is not here by the 4^th we will induce on the 8^th or 9^th. 8/8/07 would be a good birthday. In fact so would 8/9/07. So far he is the perfect baby, no crying, no dirty diapers and fun to play with. I might start to miss that soon.

Two very giving coworkers are hosting a co-ed baby shower at our house on the June 23^rd. Feel free to come if you know where we live. I can’t wait to see all our friends and relatives and I am happy to know a few are traveling down from Canada for the event.

To do:

Buy and Install CarSeat
Make at least 3 dishes for freezer
Get a used 4-door car (maybe)
Have baby shower
Attend Labor and Deliver Class
Thank you cards for shower
Address list printed for announcements
Phone list for hospital
Do work FMLA Paperwork
Wash baby clothes
Shop for supplies for baby
Pack bag Daddy
Pack bag Baby
Pack Bag Mommy
Sleep
Have baby

Cathy's Wedding (Where)

This is the Map of where Paul and Laura traveled while in Alberta in May 2007. Of course the purpose of being in Alberta was to get to Cathy's Wedding in Kananaskis, AB.

A link to the Google Map showing Kananaskis, AB

Our GPS tracks while in Alberta:




Link to this Map: Trip To Cathy's Wedding

Columbia Bible College Photos(1995-1996)-Part 2

This is the second post containing photos from the second year of college.

The below is a slideshow of the Photos that my camera took at Columbia Bible College (Abbotsford, BC) in the Fall semester 1995 and the Winter semester 1996.



Link to CBC 1995 - 1996 Picasa Web Album

Columbia Bible College Photos(1994-1995)-Part 1

Several moons ago, I went to college - Columbia Bible College. Not quite as long ago, my friend Jason reminded me of a photo we had taken while torturing a friend -- probably shouldn't have tortured Chad like that. The net results was me searching, finding, and scanning all of my CBC photos and posting them into a Picasa Web albums. It has been several months, but now I realized I should 'post' these.

The below is a slideshow of the Photos that my camera took at Columbia Bible College (Abbotsford, BC) in the Fall semester 1994 and the Winter semester 1995.




Link to the CBC 1994 - 1995 Picasa Web Album

A view into Baby Cooley's home

The following is the latest ultrasound (youtube movie) of our growing baby. This is week 27 of the adventure (May 6, 2007). There are three photos below. This had the 3-d portion of the ultrasound turned on, unfortunately due to some technical glitch we only got a 4 minutes of it before the tech accidentally stopped the recording. You can breathe a sigh of relief that you do have to watch all 25 minutes as a result ;)

Nursery

After hours of sweat, pain and failure the nursery is almost done. First the yellow was too green and neon in color. So one wall had to be primed and repainted. The lines between on the boarder were not up to my standards. Paul had to make runs to home depot for more paint. Mom made the skirt and valence. I spilled blue paint on the carpet and had to give the carpet a hair cut. The frames do not match exactly and I think I want to still paint them the same blue as the stars. I put the stars on with a stencil I made after the stamp I made did not work. Now I am worried I hung a giant cat toy above the crib. That makes me wonder what are the dangers of a cat sleeping in the crib with a baby? The next step is to find a rocking chair for the room and maybe a small table to have next to it. I have no idea on what color (colour for you in Canada) to get. I hope this room will last him until he is at least 5 as I have decided I hate to paint.

Movie view.

Camcorder, Kona, and Comox

In preparation for our baby, we've went camcorder shopping. To give it a workout I've used the all star cast: Laura, Kona and Comox. Enjoy.

Kona -- Mini-Tiger



Comox's Big Adventure:

Woot

Do you woot?

My brother-in-law, a man in the know of all thing modern, introduced us to www.woot.com. Woot offers one discounted product each day on its web site. Except on days like today where they sell through their left over stock in what is referred to as a woot-off. To make the woot-off even more exciting, one watches each product to see if it is the "Bag O Crap," a $1 grab bag of goodies that sometimes can have expensive electronics items in it.


w00t!

Brightwater

Our roads leading to our house have been consumed by people walking around in orange vests and large noisy machinery. This includes the house shaking during the day due to all the drilling/pounding they do. This has been going since January and will not end until early summer. They call the project the “Brightwater” project. They are putting in a main sewer line on a road leading to our house and the road now resembles something that looks like a war zone. On the plus side traffic on this road is local access only now. This is so much better during rush hour as people use the road as a way to get around traffic on 522. The down side is we can only leave and come from one direction at any given day. That and the sewer backed up into someone’s house a few weeks ago. That poor family.

King County's Website on Brightwater

BC the Hopper

BC had a great Easter. He was busy practicing his hopping around for next year when he will be free to crawl around. He has been moving more and more all weekend.

BC is now a star on a limited addition DVD. He is the feature of the documentary "Week 21 in the Womb" Filmed by the Internal Fetal Medicine of Evergreen hospital. Transferred to DVD and music added by film editor Paul Cooley. Some of my internal organs play a role in the film but they are only there for the support of the star.

I am 23 weeks and 2 days today. I have 117 days until my due date. I have gained about 13 lbs give or take. No major symptoms to complain about. I need to stop bending over after I eat. That is a bit unpleasant. On Friday it was over 70 degrees outside. It was so nice to sit in the sun for a bit. I need to get some shorts that fit because I feel silly wearing Paul’s shorts out of the house.

I have ordered some stuff for the nursery. An airplane mobile and some airplane posters that I will have framed. I hope they get here soon so I can start to pick out some paint and fabric for the nursery. Oh and I need a rocker/glider. Not sure on a color for that. I am thinking navy blue, white, yellow and a bit of red for the colors.

BC update

Mom and Paul got to attend today's ultrasound. Baby is doing great. He is in the 66 percentile for its age. So pretty much a average baby. The baby is 21 weeks 3 days and weights about 1 lb. Heart, stomach, bladder, brain and everything seem to be in perfect working order. The heart is about the size of a quarter at this point. He is still very much a boy.

Personally I am doing great, I got the go ahead to take my Flonase for my allergies and I am pretty much always hungry. I get a bit winded if I run up the stairs. It does turn out that I have a fibroid that is attached to my uterus. It is up high and probably has always been there. I guess if there was more of them then it would be cause for concern that they would be taking blood and other things away from the placenta. So the baby would get less blood and good things it needs. Just one doesn't sound like a big deal. I go back in 6 weeks for one more ultrasound to check to make sure it is not growing.

We got todays ultrasound on VHS but we don't own a VHS player. So we might need to find a way to transfer it to be digital. Seems strange this high tech ultrasound machine that can measure and view all parts of a baby can only make VHS tapes. This logic is beyond me.

I am getting larger every day. Have to say I will be pretty big by the end of this. I have gained about 10-11 lbs so far and still have 17-22 weeks to go. The pounds have started to accumulate faster in the past couple weeks.

That is it for the BC update.

Boy

Our first ultrasound was on Monday. It was pretty amazing to get the view of your growing child. He was 4" long but what is absolutely mind blowing is that he is a mini version of us. All these tiny fingers, toes, ribs, legs, spine, and heart that you can see through the eyes of ultrasound. Those ultrasound doctors are some else, how quickly they can focus in on the little body parts is astounding.

Of course the next thing you need is a view of our boy. I personally have found ultrasounds hard to visualize, but when it is your own it is much easier. Must be the context of having 20 minutes of watching your own boy move around? Here they are ...