Playing with Cousins and Random Fun

Last week we got together with Laura and the kids and for some reason Cooper was very tired and crabby. He REALLY wanted Ben to play cars with him the whole time we were at their house. Ben would play for a little bit and then would want to play with something else. But that wasn't good enough for Cooper! :) I think he was over-reacting so much because he was tired.


I think Ben was tired too

but Ben sure was happy holding Jackson!

walking like a pro!

happy boy

loving his excersaucer

and now he's anxious to eat

ahh, what silly boys. They love to play together!

A Quick Trip To Minnesota

Last weekend Jackson and I, along with my mom, dad, and Laura, went on a very quick trip to Minnesota to visit family and friends. It was Jackson's first plane ride! It went really well, especially since he was the only child who came. It was very nice having three helpers with me! I really don't know how I would have done it without them, especially because he is so long! When I was feeding him on the airplane he was kicking Laura the whole time.

Here he is on his first plane ride. No crying or anything. Actually, the whole trip I don't think he really ever cried, he was SO good. Especially because he didn't really get many naps, I would just lay him in his carseat and rock him and he'd sleep in that while we were visiting. We are very lucky to have such an easy-going baby!

Meeting Great-Uncle Mike for the first time.

My cousin Evan

My cousin Emma playing with Jackson. She loved him!

Emma again

Hugs!

Laura and me with our cousin Lisa

Mom and Dad with Jackson

Jackson looking at Uncle Mike thinking "What is he doing??!!" :)

with our wonderful friend Nikki.

with our cousin Casey.
Casey's son Cain (so our second cousin maybe?) with Jackson. He really liked Jackson and kept talking to him and smiling at him.

It was great to see so many family and friends!

Jackson's Laugh

I love this video! This is the first time I ever heard a real belly laugh from Jackson when he wasn't being tickled. For some reason he thought Cooper was SO funny! (it's the same video on here twice. I didn't think it downloaded the first time and now I can't figure out how to delete one of them!

Cooper's New Year Interview

I saw on a blog (what a surprise!) a tradition that a woman does with her children. Every year around New Years she asks them the same questions, then she also has them draw a self-portrait on the paper. I decided to start it with Cooper, using her questions. Some are a little beyond him but I thought it would be fun to ask him the questions anyway and see how much he changed next year.



Cooper's Favorites:


color: green

tv show: Lightening McQueen and Curious George

Holiday: Christmas (I gave him two choices since I knew he wouldn't know what this was!)

Cereal: baby cereal (I have been feeding Jackson baby cereal so I think Cooper thought this was funny to say)

Vegetable: food. (then I gave him choices of vegetables and he said corn)

Drink: juice

Toy: squirt gun, choo choo train, mommy

Game: Mickey Mouse (we have a Mickey memory game, I guess this is what he's referring to??)

Book: Curious George and his friends, choo choo train, and Lightening McQueen book

Restaurant: Subway

Animal: G (his stuffed giraffe)



Then here are the questions:



If you could change your name, what would you choose? "Curious George" (can you tell he really likes him right now?)

What do you love about mommy? "I love you" (then I asked WHY do you love me ? He said "Cause I love you")

What do you love about daddy? "Daddy love mama. I love daddy."

What do you love about Jackson? "Jackson my favorite."

What do you love about Lily? "Lily my favorite too."

Who is your best friend? Ben!

Where would you like to go on vacation this year? "To Curious George" (I asked where does he live) "At the house"]

What are some of your wishes for this year? "Curious George. Christmas"



So funny. Does anyone have any other ideas for questions to add to this? I am drawing a blank but I'm sure there are a few more I could add. Thanks!

First "Big Boy" Gym Class

We've been going to a mommy and me gym class at a local rec center for quite awhile now, but since Cooper is almost three he has graduated to a gym class all by himself. I no longer attend with him! This is his first class all by himself, I can hardly believe it. We can watch the class and I was impressed at how well he followed instructions and paid attention. I wasn't sure how he would do. Ben was in it with him and they didn't fight, act wild, anything! Ben did a great job following directions too.

Cooper doing the bear crawl

doing some sort of activity. (Cooper in stripes, Ben in the blue shirt with red pants)

waiting for their turn

taking his turn on the bar. Ben is behind him

So glad it went well!

In other very exciting news... (at least to me! :)) my photo book came in! Cooper's saying "yea!" ha ha. He actually really likes looking at it.
I made a photo book on Shutterfly for the entire year. It's very big (100 pages-the max) and took a ton of time to do. So I was SO excited to get it in the mail!

Showing one of the pages. I know it's kind of silly but I am so excited about it! I keep looking at it. I'm sure if you visit my house in the near future you'll be forced to look at it! :)

4 Month pics

Jackson is getting close to 5 months old already, hard to believe! I'm finally getting around to posting his four month pictures. At his check up he weighed 20.2 pounds!!! He was also I think 28 inches long. All I know is, he was VERY far off the chart in height, weight, and head size. He's even bigger than Cooper was! So he's obviously a very healthy baby, and it's also probably why he's so happy! :) Makes me happy too! He's already gotten 2 teeth! We also started feeding him baby cereal in the evenings; we started about a week ago. Much earlier than we did with Cooper but the dr. thought it might be a good idea due to his size. Plus he is very into watching us eat, I felt like he was ready for food.

Look at those thighs!

Here he is with the cute towel he got for Christmas-Cooper got one too to match their Dr. Seuss bathroom. I'll have to take a pic with the both of them, they're pretty cute!

In the middle of his first feeding of cereal. He loved it!

Here's Jackson hanging out with Lily.

Christmas!

I am FINALLY posting about Christmas. Lots of pictures in this one! We had a great Christmas. As it did probably everywhere, it snowed here Christmas Eve so we had a beautiful view that night! We went to early church and then back home for presents, a birthday cake for Jesus, and lots of anticipation for Santa! :) This is the first year Cooper really understood what was going to happen in the morning so he was very excited, to say the least. (see the above picture, it's Cooper coming out to see what Santa brought) Christmas morning was great, we opened presents very slowly and let him play with everything. He also loved opening Jackson's presents too. Then, since it was icy in the morning, we waited around until closer to lunch to go to my parents' house. We loaded all of the presents, tons of baby supplies, etc. into the car, tried to warm it up and... it wouldn't start. The battery died! So, we had to unload the entire car, switch both carseats over, and try to quickly do it so we could get over to my parents before naptime! We finally made it and then had a wonderful time over there. Katie and Roger were supposed to drive down the day after Christmas, but due to the roads they came two days after. So we had another Christmas with them! Our boys are definitely spoiled :)

Sweet brothers

Gpa S with Jackson

Gma S with Cooper-decorating Christmas cookies! Cooper loved it.

Christmas eve hugs

Our family Christmas eve.

Opening his stocking

Jackson opened his too!

then Cooper was nice enough to help him out

His big Santa gift-a tool bench

Surrounded by his and Jackson's presents at Gma and Gpa B's house!

One of the favorite gifts.. Elizabeth got a real microphone and boy did they all love it. She was nice enough to share her fun gift.

Jackson enjoying Christmas

Oooh, almost a roll-over! This was the first time he's gotten pretty close to rolling over.

Cooper with one of the favorite gifts at Gma's, a bat cave.

With most of his gifts. (most not from us! Yea!! Thanks Gmas and Gpas, Aunts and Uncles!)

I hope everyone had a very blessed and wonderful Christmas!

Cookie Decorating

Last week Laura had us over to her house to decorate cookies. The kids had so much fun!

Here's Ben...
and Elizabeth...

and Cooper...

Look at that creation!

Good until the last lick!