Iced In

We had an "ice" day here, and school was cancelled, yea!!! Although, it was on one of my days off, of course! It was still fun, except we couldn't go anywhere, even to our gym class that we do on Wednesdays. So I was definitely looking for activities to occupy our time.

First we made some Valentine decorations.



Then we made a cake! Cooper hadn't helped me do that before so he thought it was fun.

Here he is watching it bake. Don't worry, after this I didn't let him near the oven and told him it was hot!

Cooper REALLY wants his cake...NOW!

yea, it's done and he's so happy.

Yummy cake!

Ben's Farm Birthday!

My nephew Ben is two!! Yea! Hard to believe. Ben's mom (my sister Laura) planned an adorable farm-themed birthday party for him. Here is Ben with his b-day hat.

The incredible barn she made. The kids LOVED playing in it. Here are Cooper and Elizabeth in front of the barn.

Cooper and Ben playing in the barn with the "hay." (Laura made some paper hay) Cooper thought it was SO fun taking the hay and putting it on top of people. Can you tell? I videotaped his funny screams but I'm having a hard time downloading the video, so I'll try again.

Ashlynn, Elizabeth, and birthday boy Ben playing in the barn.

Cooper trying out the fishing game. Laura had the garage set up with four different games for the kids to play. It was great, the kids were out there almost the whole time playing.

Here's Ben (with Drew in the background and Elizabeth in the front) searching for the farm animals in the hay.

Elizabeth and Jake "milking" the cow. They had a great time doing this. Isn't this a creative idea?

Cooper playing in Ben's ball pit that he got for his b-day. (He has a ball in his shirt-Uncle Chris taught him to do that! :))

Cute birthday boy Ben!

Here are some of the kids posing. There were other children there running around, so this is who we could get posed together. The kids are: Zach, Ben, Elizabeth holding Cooper (at this point I think it turned into a choke-hold :)) , Drew, and Josh.

Nemo

Cooper got the movie Finding Nemo for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa and he is now OBSESSED with it! He loves it, and any time the TV is turned on, he'll say "TV, Nemo." He wants us to put Nemo on! I bought him a Nemo book and we read that a lot. At the mall today with Ryan, Ryan saw this big inflatable Nemo and got it for Cooper. Ever since they got home he has been inseparable from it. We ran an errand later in the day and Cooper had to take Nemo with him. (See pic below) It's so funny because the thing is HUGE, and Cooper sat there so content the whole time, just holding Nemo.



I had him say "cheese" so you could see his cute face :)


I wonder how long this obsession will last!

This is why...

we don't paint a lot in this house! I thought Cooper was a mess but it doesn't look too bad in pictures. If you look close you can see paint on his neck and of course on his outfit, and in his hair (I don't think you can see that). We weren't fingerpainting, we were actually trying out some really neat paintbrushes he got for Christmas, but of course it was more fun to fingerpaint! I need to be more adventurous and not care about mess as much, so I am trying! :)

Here he's showing me his hands.

The beautiful finished product!

I thought I'd tack on a few pics from our trip to the zoo last week, when it was 70 degrees here! I didn't get very many pics, just a few cute ones. Here are all the kids (Elizabeth, Ben, and Cooper) on the alligator at the zoo.

Cooper and Ben, best friends, checking out the birds.

Christmas in Kansas

Here are pictures from our second Christmas, in Kansas. Cooper did a great job on the drive up, we actually only had to get him out of the car once! We watched an entire movie on the way up, and then another on the way back, so that definitely helped. We spent our time mostly at Grandma and Grandpa's house, but we were able to see a few friends and other family while we were in Kansas.

Here is Cooper with Grandma and Grandpa on Christmas Eve.

Cooper with Uncle Chris. Cooper LOVED Chris. When we got up in the morning he'd say "chris Chris" wanting to find him right away. It was so funny. Unfortunately Cooper's other uncle, B.J., is in the Cayman Islands right now, along with Cooper's Auntie Jodi, so we didn't get to see them. But we did get to see them on the web cam which was really fun!

Cooper with Mommy and Daddy.

Cooper and the snowman we made. I think that's the first he'd made. He thought the snow was SO fun, he kept wanting to go outside and play. Luckily Grandma and Grandpa had this snowsuit so he stayed nice and warm.

Cooper playing his train with Daddy and Chris. Cooper got this present for Christmas and it was one of his favorites!

Cooper visiting Great-Grandma and Grandpa!

Cooper with more family- Cousin Megan, Great-Aunt Jeanne, and Cousin Eric

Cooper playing with his friend Will.

Visiting our friends Megan and Avery! (I'm holding Avery, Megan's holding Cooper)


Visiting our friends Linsey and Cole.

Christmas in Texas

We celebrated two Christmases this year, which made it fun and stretched out the holidays for us! The first was in Texas with my parents and sister's family. We had such a great time.


Here is Cooper on our "Christmas Eve" at our house. He's opening his pjs. We give him pjs every year for Christmas, just like my parents did for Laura and I.






Here he is posing in front of our tree wearing the pjs. What a cutie! :)







Here he is "Christmas Day" at my parent's house. This tool belt was one of his favorite gifts.




This was another favorite gift. Ben got one too. Here's Cooper pushing Ben's to him. If Cooper was playing with it, he felt like Ben needed to be playing it too! They are so funny.

What funny boys!

Holiday Play-dates

On our winter break from school we had a few groups of friends over to play. Cooper had so much fun and actually did an ok job sharing his toys! No hitting at least. That's his favorite thing to do to Cousin Ben sometimes, so I was worried he'd start hitting other kids, but that hasn't happened yet :).

Here is Cooper with our neighbors: Frankie and Bryson. (Cooper doesn't look very happy but I promise he had fun!)



Here are some other kids who came over to play. It was a challenge getting a picture of all of them! (Jane, Jake-on the floor, Josh, Drew, Ben, Elizabeth holding Emily, and Cooper.) We had a great time also! We decorated Christmas cookies and played with some of the new toys Cooper got for Christmas.



Here are the moms: Suzanne, Laura, Allison (with Emily), Joanne, and Janet






The kids enjoying their snacks and decorating cookies. (Drew, Jane, and Cooper)





Surprise surprise, Cooper is the only one left eating!



The kids playing!