BBQ at Mitch and Shari's House

Cooper and I went down on Thursday to Burley and we had a fun little BBQ/photo shoot at Mitch and Shari's house!

These Feet Are Made For Walking!!

The past couple of weeks Cooper has been frantically perfecting his walking ability. He still looks like a drunken Leprechaun doing the limbo a lot of the time, but he is getting pretty good. Please ignore my messy house, I really have to blame that on Cooper. And do note how well he listens to me and how I resort to mild psychotic behavior.

He has lots of other little tricks-he likes to clap when we say 'yay!' (we like to do this as he walks across the floor happily clapping and Brandon and I chanting 'yay!') He also likes to raise his arms when we say 'arms up' and he loves to wave, backwards (towards himself), but I am still counting it. Oddly, he had a lot of words he use to say and he seems to have abandoned talking for walking!

Happy 11th Month, Kiddo!

Wow, what a difference a few months can make. Here is Cooper back in March, strangled by Grandma and looking tiny on the tiger.

And here he is this last weekend, looking more and more like a little boy than baby and able to touch the ground!!

He is so close to walking right now and takes steps whenever he feels like it, he also loves to chase the dogs around laughing maniacally, and we have his ball pit set up in the living room and he likes to go there and have a little privacy to 'do his business', if you know what I mean.

4th of July for Old Foggies

We had a fun 4th, we went out to breakfast and Cooper yelled every time he wanted a bite of something (exactly every 2.3 seconds). I think our restaurant days are nearing an end. Then we went to the zoo where Cooper was more interested in the animals than the last time he was there. He even waved to the tiger, his new trick that he learned while wooing all the women in Albertsons. Then we came home and hung out in the backyard all day. Cooper had his ball pit, his pool, and he was fixed up. And he would scream if you tried to take him in the house. This past week he has really been good at taking a few steps once in awhile, especially on the grass because if he crawls he has to do a daddy-long leg crawl (he still doesn't like the grass touching him).

Brandon bought a ton of fireworks for Cooper's first 4th and he proceeded to light them off periodically throughout the day and Cooper really did enjoy them. It was a good thing too, since those were the only ones we saw. Cooper hates going to bed on weekends so two hours past his bedtime, and several multi-faceted attempts to get him to sleep, we finally both took him to bed and waited him out. Unfortunately, since he kept us up the night before we conked out with him. I woke up at 11:00 to hear the happy sounds of a neighborhood a-light with fire power-and I promptly went back to sleep. I woke up this morning wondering what on earth we will do with the pile of fireworks since it is so tacky to light off fireworks on days other than the 4th of July.

Cooper doing his patriotic pose-and no eating the flag does not count as desecration.
How happy is this guy??
Quite the clam digger, this one.

Reunion Time

Last weekend was our annual Durfee-Brackenbury reunion and it was a busy time. Friday Cooper threw up on me (twice). It was a little ironic since I packed multiple outfits for him, but not so many for myself! It was also freezing cold, even in the trailer that Cooper and I commandeered from my parents. And Saturday he exploded in my cousin Rhonda's baby's walker! Then he woke up screaming at midnight and as I stood up to turn on the light he dove past me out of the bed and onto the floor! EEK! Then he screamed for two hours (I promise not because he fell out of the bed) but because his teeth were bugging him and he was really stuffed up.

But we really did have a great time. It was super fun to see everyone and we had a huge crop of new babies, so that was exciting. We had horseshoes, kids games, finger painting, face painting, a dismal craft project that I put on, an excellent talent show, and our ever popular auction. It was a fun weekend, but I am still tired from it!

Cooper getting a little crazy with sponge painting

Eating his ever handy snackins with cool sunscreen hair

Gloria and Dick and their respective mean and fat dogs

Cousin Vicki, or a crazy hillbilly (or both??)

Durfee girls doing a little ditty

Backyard BBQs

Jer had a BBQ yesterday since Amanda and Bryan were in town. Here is our little herd.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there, but especially to the two in my life!

Check that off the list

Jamie and I took Kevin, Emma, and Cooper up to Silver City yesterday since we have been on our ghost hunting kick. We had to take my car since Brandon "forgot" to leave me the Jeep and Jamie and I couldn't figure out how to remove Cooper's car seat to put it in her truck. The road was super scary-we were nearly run over by several ATVs and a gigantic passenger bus that had NO business on the mountain. We also nearly got high centered on the very rustic road (umm, foot trail?) to the cemetery. Once we were there a downpour started, which really limited our ghost hunt and we had to spend a half hour backing out down the road since we couldn't turn around (all while I envisioned the road off the mountain getting washed out and Brandon saying 'I told you so'). The rest of the time was kind of lame as all the buildings are privately owned and you can't really explore much. At least we were able to check this off of our list since we have wanted to go for years.

Here is when we first got there, Emma and Cooper in front of the Idaho Hotel.

Here is 15 seconds later after he did a complete flip off of those stairs. Apparently 5 year olds have pretty short attention spans and when I said, "Watch the baby and don't let him fall", Emma thought I meant until she sees a rusty railroad tie which is a treasure hunt clue, which clearly takes precedence.
# of knots to the head: 1
# of kids crying at some point during the day (not individual crying sessions): 2
#of tantrums, spankings and fights: maybe around 7
# of ghost sightings: 2 orbs in the hotel (and a bunch we attributed to the rain)

But really we did have a lot of fun. We always have way more adventures when the guys don't come with us. It is much more exciting and dangerous when we are left unsupervised:)

Nevada Trip

Last weekend we went down to Nevada for Hailey's graduation and Joel and Brittney were nice enough to let us stay with them so Cooper got to play with Holden and all his fabulous toys!

Here is Holden-how sweet is this guy??

Cooper loved to take over the exersaucer

It was a 100 degrees at the graduation. Cooper spent the time shedding clothes, periodically bawling when everyone clapped and shouted, and pulling the hair of the lady in front of us (yes, it was just a little embarassing).
Look out ladies!!

Happy 10 Month B-Day!

Oh Cooper, how you keep me busy! I remember just a few months ago how you liked to take naps. And you were immobile. Oh, I loved immobility. I could play dress-up with you all day long. Now it takes 20 minutes to put your clothes on you all while you scream and try to kick me in the face. But I am flexible; that is why you only have to wear a diaper now. Who needs clothes, right?

And diaper changes? I didn't appreciate how easy they were. Now you scream and flip over and try to run away (maybe with a little poo still stuck to your bum). And when left in the Cooper Corral for 30 seconds, you scream bloody murder unless I give you some less than nutritious snacks to divert your attention. Of course, I admit, I shouldn't ever leave you alone (going to the bathroom solo is just plain lonely, right?), or put you down (that constant backache reminds me of you all day). If I do put you down, it is much better if you are left to roam free at lightning speed scavenging dog food and anything on the floor that you can stuff into your mouth before I pry open your chubby little hand. At least you know your name, I know this because whenever I chase after you shouting it, you speed up the demolition process. And the dogs? You know they love you. They make that yelping sound to show you how much they love you and your quick little hands.

And I love it when you wake me up in the morning with a friendly hair pull/face slap, or when you wake me up several times during the night just because you wanted to say hi. There isn't any time of the day I'm not happy to see you, and all joking aside- I really do mean that. I am loving every minute of this life and I wouldn't trade a second for anything. Especially today when you said mama, and I really think you meant it and you weren't just stringing some syllables together. I am just hoping someday you stop the desire to eat everything since your affinity for the small and disgusting does stress me out. Especially if I don't have that piece of dog food in your bait bag:)

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