January 23, 2010 – the day I became a Mom for (maybe) the last time.

I had to add that maybe in there… anyway…

On Saturday we had a family birthday party to celebrate Nash Potato’s 1st birthday and Coop Diddy turning 5.

FIVE.

Where has five years went?!?!?

It was soooo nice for the boys to be able to share there birthdays with so many people who love them.  That’s why we moved back to Indiana.  Those are the memories I want each of my boys to have.  I couldn’t have been happier for them (and although selfish… myself too).  Otey’s parents drove up from Missouri, and the FABULOUS Shannon made my boys the cutest cakes ever.  Yet another benefit of living in Indiana… I can totally take advantage of my cousin-in-laws baking skills!

I don’t know how in the world we ended up with a “racecar” birthday but we did.  Cooper NEVER plays with cars.  He’s totally a dinosaur/animal kid.  For some reason completely out of the blue about a month ago he told me he wanted a racecar party.  I tried my darnedest to show him all the other “way cool” options for birthday themes, but in the end… checkered flags it was.

Nash had a perfect 1st birthday.  I swear that baby is THE happiest kid on the planet.

I haven’t let him have many sweets, so when he did get a chance to get his hands on that birthday cake… it was pretty good watching.  He started out slow…

…but he got the hang of things quickly.

He had some coaching from my cousin Heather.  Did I say somewhere up above that I was happy to live close to my family again?  Maybe I take that back.

Remember this sweet giraffe?

Nash decided he looked quite tasty.

And this beautiful cake that Shannon spent HOURS on…

Nash decided he would just go ahead and put the smack down on it.

We had the party at Cobblestone Crossing (my house wasn’t ready in time) and on the drive back to my Mom’s house I asked Cooper if he had fun at his party.  His response?  “Ya Mom.  It was TOTALLY AWESOME!!!”

I love that kid.

Happy birthday to my two sweet boys, and thank you family for sharing the day with them!

1st up my little G-man.

Grady has really came out of his shell in the past few months.  When he turned two in July I was pretty sure he was going to grunt like a caveman and hide behind my leg the rest of his life, but at 2 years 6 months he is speaking in full sentences and not shy AT ALL.  He’s like a different kid.  He climbs right up in Mari’s chair and fills her in on everything important in his world.

“Grady, show Mama your handsome haircut”

2nd up, Coop-Diddy

Cooper on the other hand, has for some reason found a shell the past six months.  The kid who used to greet random strangers in the grocery store now stares at the ground and is stone faced when he is around anyone he doesn’t know well.  If you know Cooper personally, this is hard to believe (he did sing Flo Rida’s “LOW” with no accompaniment complete with choreographed dance moves at BOTH of our Christmas gatherings).  But for some reason, he climbs up in Mari’s chair and never makes a peep.  Once we get out to the car, the REAL Cooper shows back up.

“Cooper, let me take a picture of your cool haircut.”

Don’t ask me what’s up with that face.  He’s my little performer for sure.

3rd up… teeny tiny itty bitty Nash Potato (sniff… sniff…)

See what I mean about the Tomato look?  He sat in the chair like such a big boy.

He was super happy and did pretty good for awhile.  By the end I was making alligator noises with Mari’s hair-clips and letting him chew on her water spray bottle.  If I would have put my camera down, I could have probably been a little more help (sorry Mari).

Nearing the end…

And finally… my handsome little Nash ditches the tomato look and models the final product.

Awwww…. no more tiny newborn.  In just a couple of weeks Cooper won’t be able to tell people “My brother’s zero” anymore.  One month from now I will be the mother of a one, two, and five year old.  How did this happen?  Three babies AND I’m rolling in a mini-van.  Never say never my friends

THE McCLOY FAMILY and KATHY McCLOY PHOTOGRAPHY ARE RELOCATING!!!!!!!!!  After three years living in Iowa, we’re headed to another middle America “I” state with lots of corn fields… home to INDIANA!  There are not words to really describe how excited I am.  I am from Terre Haute, Indiana and my family (along with lots of wonderful friends) live there.  I am so so SOOOOO happy to be moving back to be close to the people I love.  We’ve already bought a house and hope to be moved by the first of the year.  Gigantic life changes, and along with that… gigantic business changes.  Don’t worry my loyal Missouri clients, nothing is going to change for you.  I will still make several trips a year to shoot in Missouri with no travel charges.  As for Indiana… I am super excited about starting fresh and growing my business in a new community.  Once we get moved (yikes… the thought of packing up my house makes me shake in my boots) I’ll be running all sorts of fun specials for Terre Haute and the surrounding area!

On a personal note…

1. I’d like to go ahead and apologize to the teachers of Dixie Bee.  Starting next fall you will be subjected to ten years straight of McCloy boys… for a few years, three at a time.

2. You will see me in Wal-Mart in sweatpants, no makeup, and bad hair.  Keep walking please… don’t make eye contact.

2. If you have a preschool suggestion (starting in January) let me know.

3. If you know of a daycare that takes drop ins (no set schedule just here and there as needed) let me know.

4. If you know of a very good, very proven, very dependable interior painter, let me know.

5. If you know of a very good, very proven, very dependable cleaning lady, let me know.

6. If you enjoy moving heavy furniture (for free) while being tripped by naughty children, let me know… have I got a job for you!

Actually he turned four twenty days ago (on February 1st) but I’m a little behind on blog posts.

Where on earth has the time gone?  It seems like yesterday that we headed to the hospital to have our first baby.  Here we are… four years later and my sweet baby is FOUR YEARS OLD and a fantastic BIG brother twice over.

I pride myself in being calm, cool, and collected the majority of the time… but knowing that we are only one year from FIVE???!!!  One year from going to school??!??!?  I am going to be that blubbering Mom on the first day of Kindergarten.  The thought of being away from him all day long five days a week makes my heart ache.   I just can’t imagine…. so for now, I’m going to cling to four with all I’ve got.

Here’s a three, two, one Birthday flashback for you…

Coop Diddy turns three

Coop Diddy turns two

Coop Diddy turns one

It’s amazing  how real everything becomes once that IV is in, the monitors are turned on and you begin the wait for your baby to make his move.  Some of us relax and wait it out with a little TV time…

Some of us get ridiculously happy with the thought of the soon-to-be baby eviction… oh, and maybe keep our phone in arms reach to blog every ten minutes or so (check out July 2008 archives for baby Grady’s play by play)…

I have never “went” in to labor.   I like to call it “cozy uterus syndrome”.   With Cooper and Grady both, my delivery date arrived only with the help of modern medicine… specifically… a little Pitocin.  Now as soon as they pump me full of the fluids (let’s blame those fluids for my above puffy face), get the Pitocin flowing, and most importantly get the epidural in, I’m fast as lighting.  I’m talking like a labor ninja.   That’s when the above perky happy pregnant lady turns into the “holy crap I’m about to deliver another kid” lady…

But for the lucky ones like myself, the doctor walks in and tells you it’s time to push and ten minutes later you hear the cries of your new baby.  The real magic happens an hour later when the true miracle that you were a part of for the past nine months gets rolled in to your room… bundled like a perfect little clean burrito sleeping away after the hard work of entering the world.

And the real kicker?  They actually let you take it home with you two days later.  That part still remains the most amazing (and scary) to me.

I CAN NOT BELIEVE that 18 months ago I went throught this… and two weeks from now I am going to go through it again. When I say I CAN NOT BELIEVE…what I really mean is…

HOLY COW.  I AM ABOUT TO BE RESPOSIBLE FOR THE LIFE OF ANOTHER TINY HUMAN BEING.  YIKES.

I have been starting to get ready for the big day this week.  I actually bought a package of newborn diapers and drug out my tub of newborn baby boy clothes (one of the benefits of having three boys in four years… the clothes don’t have time to get dorky).  Tonight I was folding the tiny itty bitty little shirts and was overwhelemed with how small they seemed.  Otey and I both just can’t believe we’re only two weeks away from baby boy number three.

Baby boy number three who from this point forward will be known as Nash.

Nash McCloy.

Nash (my-parents-can’t-come-up-with-a-middle-name) McCloy.

Nash McCloy.

Nash.

Cooper, Grady, & Nash.

Does it sound like I am still trying to get used to it?  That’s because I am.

Otey’s Mom really wanted a picture of all four of her grandkids in the same shot.  I told her I would try as long as she had realistic expectations.  I mean we are talking three WILD little boys and one sweet one.  When I deliver baby version 3.0 in January, Otey’s parent’s will have five grandsons under four.  Can you imagine what holidays are going to be like at their house in a couple of years?  So anyway, this is about as good as it gets with a 3.5 yr old, 2.5 yr old, 1.5 yr old, and a (did I mention sweet?) almost 1 year old.

I think this was the second frame I shot and about 6 seconds later Grady was done.  Arched back, get your frickin’ paws off of me Cooper… done.   And sweet baby Jasper?  He would have been hitting the road with Grady if only he could walk.  Instead he was left to scream for help while Cooper and Cole stuck grass in each others ears.

Cole and Jasper belong to Otey’s little brother Ben and his wife Brandy.  I forced them into an unplanned family photo.  Ben with his deer hunting beard and Brandy… who am I kidding, she always looks photo ready.

The forty-three second shirtless photo shoot somehow led to a spontaneous bathtub party.  Cooper and Cole were WILD… a good Mom wouldn’t have let a kid Grady’s age in their with them.  There goes my Mom of the year award.

The plan for Sunday morning was to get all the kids dressed and ready and try again to get all four of them in some photos.  TRY is the key word here.  We missed the “happy kid” window.  Grady and Jasper were ready for morning naps, Cooper and Cole were once again (you’re never going to guess) WILD.  I did catch a few of them around the house before we headed out to the barn.

For my photog friends… no dodging no burning.  Do these boys have killer eyes or what?

Otey and Ben somehow got stuck in the middle of the photo shoot when they were really in the middle of working (notice their nice boots).

Let me commentate this one for you…

Otey just said “Why do I have to be in the picture?”

Cooper is shouting “I’m a lion!!! ROOAARRR!!!!”

Which of course leads to Cole on all fours shouting “ROOOAARRR!!!!!”

Grady is still trying to get it together from the breakdown he just had at the end of trying to shoot the four boys (that’s why he has his binky).

And Ben is smiling like that because he knows his sister-in-law with the camera is leaving town as soon as we get this photo over with.

Oh, and Jasper?  I’m sure he’s just seconding what his Dad is grinning about.

Moral of this story?  If you have four kids 3.5 and under that you would like a photo of?

Call me in three years.

I’m not exactly sure how I came up with the name Cooper.  I just liked it.  We had it narrowed down to three choices… Cooper, Carson, & Carter.  We had no middle name (Otey picked Dawson at the hospital while I was in labor).  I remember that we had just found out that we were having a boy and we went to Pottery Barn Kids in Kansas City so that I could buy the boy bedding I had circled in the catalog months before and as we were leaving with our bags full of loot Otey said “I think this stuff looks like a kid named Cooper would have it in his room.”  And that was that… his name was Cooper.

Grady… that was an entirely different ballgame.  I stressed and worried from the time I found out he was a boy until the day I went in to labor about Grady’s name.  I LOVED the name Cooper, and I wanted my 2nd born to have a name I LOVED too.  Problem was… there weren’t any.  My sweet husband on the other hand was not worried about it at all.  By the end he was so sick of hearing we stress about it that we hardly discussed it.  About a week before I had Grady, I sat up one night and read through the “Top 1000 baby boy names of 2007″.  That is where I located Grady… somewhere around 800-ish.  I couldn’t wait to tell Otey about it the next morning and his reaction was a little less than what I had hoped for.  I think it went something like “it’s okay”.  Every time I mentioned a new name there were two responses I came to expect during the nine months prior to Grady’s delivery… “It’s okay.” or “I hate it.”  So that day, I posted this blog post hoping that my loyal blog readers would help me out.  You all voiced your opinions… but it did me no good.  Poor baby vs. 2.0 still had no name.

Now… fast forward a week and I am in induced labor in Ottumwa Regional Hospital with a husband by my side that is EXTREMELY worried that I am about to have his child… his nameless child.  If he said it once he said it fifty times “What are we going to name this baby?”.  As you can probabley imagine, even with my epidural in full swing, after nine months of stressing about a name… at this point I could have cared less if we named him Donald Duck.

When Grady finally arrived it was late that evening.  Just Otey and I were there and we deicded to call my Mom at our house and tell her to just wait until morning to bring Cooper to meet him.  That night when we finally got settled in to our new room and I was ready to finally get some sleep, Otey said “Kathy… what are we going to name this baby?  He has to have a name.  Cooper can’t meet him until he has a name”.  I layed there still enjoying my drug induced comfort and got a tiny but of pleasure (sorry Otey) from the panic in his voice.  I wanted to name him too, but for the first time in nine months Otey was REALLY worried about it.  He mentioned Grady and Max again… and I brought up Nate, and than I drifted off to peaceful slumber with my little no-named baby in his rolling bed beside me.  That next morning I woke to Otey declaring that he wanted to name him Grady.  At this point I wasn’t near as comfortable as I was the night before and discussing baby names was not helping.  Cooper would be there soon… my poor husband was sure this baby would need counciling his enitre life from the 12 hours he had went without a name… so for the sake of everyone’s sanity… Grady it was.  And you know what?  I LOVED it.  I must admit I forgot it about eight times that day… but I LOVED it.

That brings us to baby vs 3.0.  We hope to have him named by Christmas so I have at least a month to remember the poor kids name.  Like I mentioned in the last post… I AM A PLANNER.  Things need monogrammed… I need to wrap my head around the new name so I don’t have to feel guilty for forgetting it eight times the first day of his life.  I just went through the top 1000 baby boys names of 2008 (you can find this info on the Social Security Webpage) and here is the list I narrowed it down to after applying all my naming rules.  They are listed alphabetically, and the number out to the left is their ranking from 1-1000 of all the baby boys born in the US last year.  So… the smaller the number, the more babies that have that name.  If there is a “X” beside the name, it didn’t make the top 1000.  When looking at that number overly obsessive planning mothers like myself have to take in to consideration names like Nate.  Nathan has been in the top 30 for the past eight years, so even though Nate didn’t make the top 1000…. there are a pot load of “call him Nate for short’s” out there.

714    Ace
90      Blake
840   Bo
X        Brant
202   Braxton
277   Brock
833   Brogan
601   Brooks
116    Bryce
839   Dale
350   Dane
594   Davin
766   Dax
244   Drew
31      Dylan
76     Hayden
358   Holden
880   Houston
37     Isaac
692   Jax
X        Knox
319   Lane
212   Lincoln
19      Logan
208   Maddox
35      Mason
126    Max
688    Memphis
681    Nash
X         Nate

X        Pace
422    Paxton
415    Reece
799    Rex
678    Rhett
928    Slade
872    Sterling
433    Tate
508    Trace
312    Trent
316    Trey
247    Ty
816    Van
765    Vance
846    Vaughn
884    Zack

Didn’t the stork used to bring the baby with his name already written neatly on the little tag?  Why can’t it be that simple?

Sidenote… for all you long time blog readers out there… there will be photo posts coming soon!  Now hurry up and name this baby so we can return to our regular programming!

HOLY.

COW.

During my hiatus, my blog turned three years old (happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear (neglected, sad, tired, lonely, old) blog, happy birthday to you).  I don’t know why I haven’t blogged the past couple of months.  All I can figure is that it was just time for a break.  Well, break is over and I’m going to do better.  Maybe not EVERY SINGLE day… but as close to it as I can get living with two needy monsters and version 3.0 perfecting his karate moves all day long.  So my blog people… spread the word to the 400+ blog readers that I have lost in the past two months…

I’M BACCKKKK!!!