Cold Camping

We went camping with Jamie and Ryan and Jerica and Justin last Saturday thinking that we would be ok to sleep in the Jeep. WRONGO! It was freezing cold and my teeth are still chattering. Here is how Emma, Cooper and Rylee like to camp anyway (watching Madagascar). Umm, yeah. So glad we drive up to the mountains so Coop can experience nature at its finest. And yes, that is a bottle. Cooper plans on having it until he is three. I hope you don't have a problem with that.

On another note, I know what Cooper dreams of...monkeys. He kicked around the other morning and shouted out, "Monkeys!" in his sleep. I tell you the kid likes him some monkeys. And since you are wondering, how on earth did she hear that? That is because Cooper still sleeps with us and plans to until he is at least four. Or maybe we can time that move with the bottle elimination. ha ha.

Cooper Spies his Easter Basket

Easter was Here

Cooper had such a fun Easter and his Nana and Papa came to visit. He loved this Donald Duck in a bunny suit-he screams when you pick him up by the ears.

Here is his first moment of excitement when he spied the fabulous play center Nana bought him.
And here he is exploring it.
And here is Papa looking grumpy and telling us how he will fall off his playset and get hurt and how he really shouldn't be playing outside anyway (it is way too cold he said).

Ode to Cooper at 20 Months

Your awesomeness knows no bounds. Even as you dig in my plant (and deposit dirt on my floor), or throw yourself down and spin and kick (when I tell you no, or even just try to help you do something), or even when you are really mad and take a run and bite my thigh leaving a nasty red mark that will last a week. No, you are still beyond awesome. Your laugh is infectious. My ability to recognize what you are doing before you do it (by the giggle of your laugh and the gait of your step-you will be throwing something down the stairs...soon) is uncanny. I love your ability to name animals. Not just a few. You know lions, tigers, bears, elephants, hippos, penguins, lizards, etc. etc. whales (specifically orcas, they are the best whale...), dolphins, jellyfish (thank you spongebob), toucans, parrots (yes, you know the difference), monkeys and gorillas, and of course all the regular everyday ones plus all the various sounds that they make. I love that your favorite toy is a book, and I try to keep you well supplied, even as you rip apart the pages. And ROCKS. I love it when you categorize them by size (big and little). I love that you LOVE Madagascar. Even though I, like you, can recite most of that movie by heart. I am even starting to love Dora. It makes me feel just a little smarter when I know the answers (yes, they are easy, but everyone loves to be right sometimes). I love it when you hiss like a cat (we have been practicing that practical skill) and I love it when I ask you how old you are and you say six. Even though we have talked about this (several times) and you aren't even two. I love it when you screetch 'Brandon', just like I do. Basically, I love you. You are amazing and you are my best friend. Thank you for being you little guy. You Rock.

Monkeys!

For my birthday Nana came up and we went to the zoo. Cooper loved it. He ran the whole way and loved looking at all the animals. I could really see how big he is getting when he got on the little tiger. This thing is our main growth chart.
Cooper LOVED the monkeys! We had to go back twice to see them and when I askd him days later what he liked at the zoo he kept saying, "MONKEYS!"
Cooper was so happy his Nana and Papa came up. I told him they were coming for a couple of days so he woke up asking for his Nana and Papa.
My favorite part of the whole adventure was Cooper and the fake penguins. He wasn't that impressed with the real ones. But we had to hang out with the fake ones for quite awhile, just you know, talking about whatever penguins talk about (fish maybe?)
When I told Cooper we had to leave the penguins he had to kiss all of them goodbye (and there were a lot!).
Then he had to make the loop and kiss them all goodbye one more time. It was cute except I had to wonder how many germs were touching his lips. Oh well, it definately wasn't the grossest thing that got close to his mouth that week.

Daddy's Little Helper

I haven't posted forever, but I just found this from when we were moving and Cooper and Patrick helped Brandon put the table together. Cooper was a big help until he got a little too frisky with the little wrench and started to put dents in the table.

My Little Cookie Monster

We are finally feeling settled enough to hang out and bake some cookies! This has been such a pain-I never want to move again! For the first full week we did nothing but paint (6am to 6pm everyday). Thank goodness my saint of a mother came up and painted our whole house. I was just slave driver and kept making her and Brandon paint the walls over and over (we had a little problem with our color not matching...ughhh, and we had some truly horrid colors picked out. Double ugh....) It was so sad after Cooper's Nana left, he really thought that she came with the house since she was here when we moved in so he spent days after she left wandering around shouting for Nana!

Anyway, the place is starting to feel like home and look a heck of a lot better too. And Brandon is so wonderful, he has been busy tiling and remodeling things. Thanks goodness for his killer crafty skills.

Cooper didn't want to let go of that cookie. He kept slobbering on it and I had to promise that we would give it back in just a few minutes.

This was Cooper's highlight today. He has been super crabby because his eye-teeth are coming in. Last week he also had an ear infection and screamed all night for two nights.

Cooper likes the new house. So far he has avoided serious harm, but it isn't for lack of trying. We coached him about going down the stairs on his bum (but when I wasn't looking he would go on his belly-so much faster you know). He even told Chloe, "No Coco, sit bum bum" when she tried to walk down the stairs. But alas, that was short lived, he was hanging out at the top of the stairs and tripped and rolled all the way down. Of course, I was at the bottom and got watch a streak or green roll down the stairs. So we decided to get back out the gate. Then yesterday he pulled down a propped up door that Brandon had off as he remodeled the bathroom. Luckily it didn't hit him, but geez, this kid is killing me in this place.

We've Been Missing!

So I haven't posted in a long time. But I have a good excuse! We got our house sold so we have been busy packing everything, gathering all of our loan documents (what a pain!!) and most important...shopping for the new house!! Brandon and I are getting a couple of leather chairs for the family room and there was a super cute little chair that was perfect for Cooper but it was $150 dollars, so I was sad because that is just way, way too much for a baby chair. So then we went back to the store a couple of days later and they marked down the chair to $29! So here is Coop big pimpin' in his leather chair.

Christmas Pics

We had such a great Christmas and got to stay in Burley for over a week. It was really hard to come back to work after that long and I miss my Momma taking such good care of me! It was so nice of them to let us stay since we come with a wild child and bad dogs!

Kenze came over one day so we could see Brynn. She is getting so big and is still the cutest little thing ever. I wanted to trade babies again:)
Here's our Hodge Herd
We went to Mitch and Shari's for Christmas Eve. Cooper loved the guitar and really wanted to help Mitch play.
Here is the big guy opening up a present. We had to practice Hanukkah and open a present a day to keep Cooper entertained. So he really didn't have too much to open by Christmas, but he still enjoyed ripping into the paper.

Casey's Party

It has been forever since I updated, but here are some pictures from Casey's going away party we had over Christmas.

What a cute family!

Ok, so I wanted to trade Cooper for David for just a minute. I really couldn't help it, look at those eyes!

So now you know why I wanted to trade him, right?
(Cooper, Mama's just joking-kind of...)

Naughty Red before her domination of the bouncy horse and her exiling scary Uncle Dick upstairs, and far, far away.

Cute little gang

Holiday Fun

Here is Cooper and Santa. Coop wasn't scared of the big man at all. After all he's been 'good'. He said 'Santa!' when he saw him and promptly asked for an offical Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle!

Last weekend we had a ton of snow so we stayed home and watched all the old Christmas shows and Cooper turned into the Santa-Dragon. We got kind of bored, as you can see.

Laughing with Co-Co

And screaming as the Santa-Dragon.

Yost Christmas Party

We had a great Thanksgiving and went up to Yost for the Christmas party. Cooper had a blast since he got to play 'outside' and he ran all over the place looking at everything. He also loved to get to see his cousins, he loves to see what the big kids are doing.

Here is our cute cousin Taylor and his dad.

The Grinch even paid us a visit, but didn't steal the presents (the kids were happy about that!)
Here is Cooper and his Momma, Nana and Papa.
Dick had fun yelling at all the kids to be careful and parents to watch their kids. Oh, if we didn't have Uncle Dick to point out all the options for potential death and maiming, how could we possibly survive?? Taylor liked his new Grandpa Uncle Dick. I think Dick actually looks more like a bad Santa with all that chest hair!

Katie, I had to steal this picture, it is too funny (thanks!). Here is Cooper playing the role of Randy (Ralphie's little brother in a Christmas Story). His snow suit was so puffy that whenever he slightly leaned over, he toppled over. Here he is face planted in the tree decorations and when I pulled him out he had bird seed stuck in his snotty nose. Nice. But the snow suit was really handy since whenever he fell (which was a lot thanks to the suit) he never got hurt and he couldn't get up so I could always find him face down and waiting semi-patiently for a rescue.

Here is the herd after the decorating. They all seemed to have fun decorating and eating all the animal treats. Good thing bird seed is so nutritious.

More Burley Fun

Here we were able to get all the kids together for a picture, of course my kid was the only one screaming, but whatever works.
Avery is giving Brynn a kiss on the hand. It was sooo sweet. And Kenze, Brynn is so beautiful and she has the greatest smile! You can really see her little personality and it is so cute.
Here is Cooper's first haircut! Thanks Shawn, it looks awesome. We have successfully avoided the Joe Dirt syndrome (at least for awhile).

Avery and Cooper Hang Out

Shawnae came over while we were in Burley to cut Myrna's (and Cooper's) hair. So she brought over Avery and McKenze brought over Brynn and it was fun to get all the kids together.

Avery wasn't too excited about hanging out with her cousin, but I really think it was because he was sporting that mullet and she was not having any of that. Here Avery is doing the Stewart (from Mad TV) "Shut up! Gooooo AWAY!!!"

And here (after the haircut) she is more willing to love on him. They had a very tender goodbye moment of cheek pinching and eyeball gouging.
After the gouging, we were able to get our hug on.

Really, how cute are these blue-eyed heartbreakers?

Check out those lashes...

These are really a foot long, of course they would be given to a boy who could care less about them, but oh they are pretty.