Sunny fun and ghosts

We had a busy and fun weekend. Saturday Cooper woke up and started clapping. I have been trying to get the little turkey to do that for months, so I was ecstatic! Now he is clapping constantly: clap on, clap off-the clapper.

We went to my work softball game to cheer the team on and everyone thought it was hilarious that Cooper doesn’t like to touch the grass (a blanket on a sea of green, best babysitter ever).

Then Jamie, Emma, Cooper and I went up to Idaho City. We had a fun time and let Emma play in the water and had a picnic in the cemetery (what, you don’t picnic in cemeteries??) We were super excited because we are always on the lookout for some paranormal activity when we hang out in kooky places, and we got some orbs on the camera! Oh yeah, we are ghost-hunters extraordinaire!

After our ghost-hunting adventure we hung out at my house and Brandon BBQ’d for us. Cooper had a blast and just loved Emma. They were on the yard playing and I looked over and he just picked up a toy and stood up for awhile. I think he wanted to be big like Emma!

Mmm, that sand is good!

Pioneer Cemetary Orb #1

Pioneer Cemetary Orb #2

First Camping Trip!

We had a good Memorial Day weekend and took Cooper on his first camping expedition to the Little Wood River Reservoir. Grandpa went up to Boise to get Brandon on Friday, leaving Grandma, Cooper and I to fend for ourselves. And then we all went to garage sales in Sun Valley on Saturday (us and our five dogs).

We had a good time, especially with the new trailer- it made camping so much nicer to have a nice warm bed and a roof over your head. Grandma and I still wanted to leave after one night, but Cooper the trooper, was the best camper of us all. He had a ton of fun playing outside and checking everything out. I was in a mild panic of lathering sunscreen on him (I have a new solar phobia); but otherwise, we did really well.

Grandpa, Gina and Cooper

Gina and Cooper a little dingy and dirty (yes we are cleaning up in a public restroom-thank you McDonalds!)

Grandpa and his baby (Daisy)

Gina and her baby (Cooper)

Rainy Day BBQ

Here is a throwback from May 2nd, we had a last minute rainy-day BBQ and the sun decided to shine right when we got everyone over. It was a lot of fun to get to see everyone and Cooper had a lot of fun getting to check out Parker. He just stared at him in total amazement and admiration at all the neat things he could do.

Since I don’t work on Fridays, I am going to look for some fun activities to see if Parker, Cooper, and Robbie could play and maybe we can find some fun field trips for the summer.

Mother's Day Weekend

We had a busy Mother’s Day weekend. Cooper and I went down on Thursday and had a nice time with Grandma and Grandpa. Cooper is teething again so he has had a fever and was up nearly all night Thursday and Friday, so that made us all a little grumpy.

Cooper also is over his fear of Grandpa, but they still can’t really hang out because Daisy gets a little crazy jealous when Grandpa holds Cooper. I think the easy answer would be to euthanize Daisy, but for some reason Grandpa disagrees.

With Cooper not sleeping well, he also didn’t want to take naps, so we had to go for car rides to get him to sleep. We drove up to Twin Falls and Shoshone Falls and Shoshone Falls was awesome with tons of water and a gorgeous rainbow. Cooper was pretty impressed with Twin Falls (we went there first), but by the time we got to Shoshone Falls he was a little irritated since he didn’t notice much difference.

I think he was thinking: “You actually woke me up to look at this, again??”

Grandma and Coopie at Twin Falls

Shoshone Falls

Grandma and I took Cooper for nice big walks everyday and that was a lot of fun. Saturday Grandpa drove up to get Brandon for us (I need a chauffer, you know) and Shawnae, Kenze, and Gavin came over to visit and tell us about their crazy garage sale and the nice and respectful exchange they had with a customer (the term ‘no returns’ takes on new meaning for me now, thank you guys!) And I am glad you didn’t get shot and the police didn’t have to be brought in!

All in all it was a fun weekend and it was really hard to come back to the real world and get ready for work!!

Little Slugger

Cooper and his Cuz

Here is from a few weeks ago, Cooper got to hang out with his little cousin Holden.

He's got sweet kissable baby cheeks.

Cooper was going to share his toy, but mostly he just wanted to pull on those cheeks!

How 'bout a weekend from Hell?

Sunday we went to The Cheesecake Factory and had a great lunch. This was the highlight of an otherwise horrid weekend. Cooper wooed the waitresses and people craned their necks to see the happy baby eating everything in sight. He got to have bananas and bread that the waitress brought him and he had my meatloaf and mashed potatoes and sweet tamale cakes as an appetizer. At the end of lunch an older gentleman came up and asked how old Cooper was and commented how much he enjoyed his lunch and how well behaved he was. This, of course, was timed perfectly with Cooper letting out a Banshee scream and bucking wildly as Brandon tried to strap him in is car seat!

PS I show you Brandon’s colossal breakfast burrito for no other reason than this was by far the biggest breakfast burrito I have ever seen. And yes, my hunka-hunka burnin’ love had no problem polishing this thing off.

The rest of the weekend was horrible. Thursday daycare called and he was sick again and had a fever (again, or still??) So I rush to get him and we went to the doctor where they tell me he’s sick (um, really? thanks- here’s your money) and sent us on our way. We then had the next several days of NO sleep, continuous crying, and refusing his bottle. One night we stayed up the entire night and cried (yes, both of us), while Brandon got his beauty rest (he claims he really isn’t good with a lack of sleep, um..and I am??) Poor Cooper literally cried and screamed all night and was completely hoarse the next day. As if this wasn’t eventful enough, he even managed to pop out his third tooth over the weekend.

Thankfully, by Sunday he seemed to feel better and that was why we went to the Cheesecake Factory. And while we have been making a good attempt at having him sleep in his crib, since he was sick we had him back in our bed. So....Sunday night we had put him to bed and stacked our barrier pillows around him and then the unthinkable happened (you know where I am going with this right?) That’s right-with no noise or warning, we hear a loud thump on the monitor and Cooper had steamrolled the barrier and fell off the bed (which, incidentally is REALLY high off the ground). Thank goodness he was fine; we kept him up for another hour constantly monitoring his physical condition (and I barely slept a wink for my neurotic vigil). But I felt, and still feel, terrible. I have tried to keep him so safe and then we go and let him fall off the stupid bed. So I can cross that 'parent of the year award' off of my wish list and this can serve as documentation for the emancipation hearing (which I was anticipating for the high school years, but Cooper may have a desire to move it up....way up).

How Many Times Can She Say, "LOOK AT YOU"?

The weather is so nice, when I am not caging my kid, I make him play outside. Here he is in his new swing-we both love it. I really wish I could take it for a ride. Cooper laughs hysterically when he gets to go high.

This was our maiden voyage so we were pretty conservative on our height (who am I kidding-it was really since I was recording it and didn't want this turning up as evidence for the emancipation hearing later).

Now we really get some air. And he always has a moment of sheer terror when he starts the free fall back down.

I live for that look.

Folsom Prison Baby Blues

Ok, so before you start off thinking I am a bad mom for getting a cage for my kid, let me tell you about the stress I have been under with his mobility. Especially in the mornings. Cooper is like his own credit card logo-‘he’s everywhere you should be’. I try to put him in the closet, only to turn around and find him close to poking out his eye with a five inch stiletto, or maybe I try to apply mascara for a second only to find him reaching for my curling iron cord. And for all of you who know me, you know mornings are not my thing. I am at the top of my game at, oh say- 10:00 am, and then it is all downhill from there. So asking me to know what Cooper ‘the fast and dangerous’ is doing at 5:00 am is like asking a custodian to perform brain surgery-I simply can’t do it. I can try, but the results just aren’t pretty.

Anyways, he likes his cage, um I mean clubhouse, if Cooper asks. Brandon and I joked that he would come out of there with prison tats (maybe a teardrop) and a shank to stab us from putting him in there in the first place. But instead he joyfully ran his cup against his ‘bars’ and started to sing, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen….”

How old is Cooper?

Would you believe I really don’t know? Besides singing ‘Happy Birthday to You’ every Tuesday to commemorate his entrance into this world, I seemed to have at some point messed up his age. This is because I started counting weeks and then started transferring those weeks into months (e.g. 4 weeks = 1 month). I realized that doesn’t work since I was going to make Cooper 9 months old tomorrow and that would mean that he is 12 weeks (3 months) away from his first birthday. Looking at the calendar, I can see there are 16 weeks until his birthday! This must have happened with my transition from weeks to months since there are 52 weeks in a year, but when you turn those into 4 weeks per month, you have 13 months. Sheesh, where is a Mayan calendar when you need one!

So what does this mean??
1. Cooper’s Mom is an E-diot.
2. The good news is that Cooper reached all those developmental milestones earlier, so he is even a bigger genius that we ever imagined.
3. It is good that Cooper is smart since one of us will need to figure out how old he is, and we all know it isn’t going to be me.

So I guess he is 36 weeks (but not 9 months) old tomorrow!

No Baby No Cry

Check our B is for Bob onesie. My little Rastafarian will be learning the alphabet in no time.

Seriously, how cute is this?

Lisa dropped of this beautiful throw the other day for my birthday (yes, it is a little late, but sometimes she gives me my Christmas present in July so this was fantastic!)

I had to bundle up the bambino to see how great he looks in green. It is really his color, doncha think?

Cooper's First Easter

It has been a rough couple of weeks for us. Cooper and I got another nasty bug (on top of the other one we had) and then he got super sick with an ear infection. It was so scary since he has never been sick and he had a 104 temperature. Luckily, Grandpa brought Grandma up to calm me down and take care of my sick baby so I could go back to work. Then last Friday I drove Cooper and Grandma to Burley and then Grandpa came up to pick up Brandon (yes, we love to drive:).

Here are some highlights:

Cooper helped Grandma, Toni, Tasia, and me color Easter eggs. His job was to check the structural integrity of each egg with his two razor sharp teeth. Then he had a delightful gravity test that most of the eggs failed. Suffice it to say, we had very few eggs that weren't cracked by the end of this event.

Cooper and his Grandpa are now best friends and Cooper has lost all fear of the hairy bear-like Grandpa.

Cooper is loving standing up and likes to walk whenever someone will hold his hands and help him get moving. Lucky for him, Grandma likes to do just that.

No One Puts Baby in the Corner

He puts himself there...

And underneath every wood chair where he customarily knocks his head every single time.

And at the base of the precariously perched lamp where he likes to give it a good shake for Mommy's blood pressure.

And at every sharp edged piece of furniture we own so Brandon can then say, "Why aren't you watching him?"

This new crawling thing is WAY more fun than I thought. Cooper is banged up and bruised several times a day, Brandon doesn't think I am attentive enough (umm, hello I have to blink sometime), and my anxiety is at a new all time high as I wonder, "WHERE THE HELL DID HE GO NOW??"

Ready for Spring

It was so nice today we had to take the kid and the dogs out for a walk. Here is Cooper's first swing ride, he loved it and laughed and laughed. I am laughing as well, but more in a maniacal sense because I realized that my rear didn't remotely fit into the swing and my legs were two feet from touching the ground.
Apparently as I am getting older my butt is expanding and I am shrinking excessively. Brandon was nice and pushed our big butt so we could get airborne as there was no way we were moving otherwise.

Ready to rumble!