Halloween

Cooper really didn't like Halloween or anything about it. Starting when we carved pumpkins--he hated it. I think he got scared of the pumpkin once it got cut open. Then there was the costume. He HATED his costume. He would start crying if he even saw it! Trick-or-Treating was not on his top 10 To-Do list either. We were barely able to get him out of the house and then he had to deal with the other kids running around with costumes on. The picture below pretty much sums up what Halloween was like for Cooper.


I was able to get some okay pictures of him--you can kind of see that he looks like he's been crying really hard.

This is as close as he would get to the pumpkin--he had to be on Dad's lap!

Swimming Lessons

We have quite the little fish on our hands. Swim lessons are twice a week for about 4-5 weeks. It doesn't sound like much, but geez, it is quite the process. Pack the bags (one for Cooper and one for dad) with a towel, swimsuit and a change of clothes. Drive down to the YMCA and find a parking space (walk in the cold--in the winter anyway). Meet up with Daddy. Get to the locker room and manage to get Cooper in his swim trunks. Repack the bag so that the towel is easily accessible after class. Cody and Cooper swim for 30 minutes. This part is really great--I get to sit back and watch both of them have fun practicing paddling, kicking, and blowing bubbles! Grab a soaking wet Cooper from the pool while trying to keep myself dry (rarely happens). Get Cooper into the locker room to rinse off while trying to keep myself dry (again, rarely happens). Get Cooper out of his wet trunks/diaper and into his PJ's. That last part with the pj's, sounds easy, right? No way! For some reason Cooper thinks this is cry time. I think he gets too cold waiting to get dressed. Meet back up with Daddy outside the locker room. Walk in the cold back to the car. Drive home. In all, it's about 1 hr. 30 min. for a 30 minute class!

Now, that was for when Cody is swimming with Cooper. Ponder what it would be like when Cody is out of town and unable to go to swim lessons....Yes, it is that bad. That means I have to do double duty--getting Cooper's trunks on and mine--while watching him in a dirty, wet locker room. To put it into perspective, let me tell you a little story. One time, when Cody wasn't in town, I took Cooper to swim lessons. Before class, when we were getting ready, Cooper got himself stuck in a locker and then pinched his finger trying to close it. I could feel all the moms looking at me wondering what the heck I was doing. During swim lessons, I forget to pay attention to where Cooper's head was and let him swallow quite a bit of water--which caused him to start bawling. Then, after class was the worst. I was already feeling like Mom the Super Idiot when Cooper slipped on the wet floor, slammed his face into a stool and started screaming. I picked him up immediately and thought it would be okay...until the blood started pouring. What was I supposed to do? Nobody helped me. They all just sat there and stared! Needless to say, this was not the best "mom" moment for me.

Besides all of this, it is very worth it to take Cooper to swim lessons. During the last session of lessons (September), I could tell that Cooper really advanced his swimming skills. He learned how to blow bubbles in the water and now he blows bubbles during bath time, too!

Weekend Fun

Here are some pictures from the end of summer/fall. Cooper's friend Jada (and her mom) came to visit us in Yakima. I think it was September because it was a Coug football weekend, which left Tami and I husbandless. Despite the screaming and crying from Cooper, it was very fun to have them over.

This is when we went to the nearby elementary and played on the toys. Looking at this picture is funny to me--I just tubbed (put away for the next kid) the clothes he is wearing because they are way too small! And I thought he was such a big boy when he was this age!

And I'm Back...

I haven't posted in a while... I don't know why. I think the longer I went without posting, the more I would have to post about, and it just got too overwhelming. Now, I'm sitting here, ready to do all the updating and posting, and I can't think of anything to update about! I'm basically going to just put up some pictures of Cooper--that should make most everyone happy. Hopefully if I start updating now, I will get back on the blogging bandwagon. I really do enjoy it.

The End of Summer

So the end of summer is here. School started on the 27th, so I had to teach for three days--it felt like a whole week. Everything seems to be going well so far; it seems as though I have a good group of kids again. Of course, they are on their best behavior for the first week. I'll wait to make the call until about mid September! It's nice to be back at work so that I have a schedule, but I already miss being able to go out and about whenever I feel like it.

Here are some recent pictures to close out the summer (with the weather we've been having the last couple of days--60's, summer is gone)...

Trying to keep up with my garden this year was tougher than I thought. I thought that Cooper would be old enough to just play outside and I could do my thing...partly true, except that he wanted to get into all my things:

He always started with clothes on outside, I promise!

This is after we got back from our vacation...I swear, I picked all of the zuchinni on the plants before we left! Either Cooper is really small or these zuchinnies are huge. I'll let you decide.

Vacation

Cody and I went on vacation to California--It was great! Grandma Corki was kind enough to watch the Coopinator for the 5 days we were gone so we could have some time to ourselves. We did quite a bit, in short detail here it is:

• Flew into Oakland, went to the Great America theme park
• Drove around the Bay and into San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge--All I could think about was the intro to Full House!
• Drove north to Vallejo and went to Discovery Kingdom--6 Flags
• Drove all the way down Los Angeles--toured around Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica. This part was really fun for me, however, there were no celeb sightings. :(
• Went to Magic Mountain--6 Flags in Santa Clarita. This was by far the best theme park. Some of the rides were absolutely crazy!
• Drove down to San Diego and toured around--went to La Jolla Beach. This beach was the definition of a "California Beach" except that it was only about 75 degree and everybody was still swimming, crazy if you ask me.
  

That was in short detail our vacation. It was really a lot of fun. With how busy life gets, it was very nice to catch up with each other again! We rented a car to do all the driving--a Chrysler Sebring convertible. I'm sorry, but I don't think the whole convertible thing is for me. I will remember the rats that I had to get out of my hair forever, so painful!

Here are some pictures from our vacation--

Ya, we were way under dressed--it was freezing at the Golden Gate Bridge!

This is the opening to the Santa Monica Pier. By the way girls--Santa Monica/LA would be a great place for us to have a girls weekend (or week)!

On La Jolla Beach--How Californian are we?! What dorks :) Funniest story ever--we were driving around La Jolla, a trendy beach town with the top down in our car. Cody had taken his shirt off, regardless of the 75 degree weather, to try and fit in at the beach. As we were driving, a pleasant local driving past us yelled, "PUT A SHIRT ON!" to Cody. I about died!

Friends & the Zoo!

Cody was out of town all last week for work, so Cooper and I decided to make a couple of trips to keep us occupied. On Tuesday we went to Seattle to visit the May's and Heinz's. On Tuesday night Tami and I loaded up the screaming children and took them out to Sammamish where Stacy, Derek, and Evie live. It was soooo fun to see all three of the kids run around together! Cooper was the youngest by about 5 or 6 months, but he was the same height as Jada and Evie. Those two little girls are just the cutest things in the world! It was also great to see the different parenting styles in action. I realized I probably should work on not yelling "NO!" at every single thing! Oh well, what works for some doesn't work for others...at least I try. :) It was super funny at the end of the night--the little kiddos were definitely getting tired and tying to tell their mommies that it was time to go. We ended up singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider about 45 times, but it kept them so entertained! Even Cooper was starting to try the hand movements! Stacy, I didn't get any pictures of him with Evie--did you?

This is Cooper with Jada. Future romance???

On Wednesday Tami and I took Jada and Cooper to the Woodland Park Zoo. Cooper had a blast! I was curious to see if he would really know what we were doing or if he would be able to really see the animals. He sure did though! He would just stare at the animals in amazement, it was so fun to see. After we saw a few of the animals we went to the Zooasium (I think that was what it was called). It is a place where kids can go run and play around. They had really loud music that Cooper loved--they even had maracas for them to shake around. We also go to go into the petting zoo and pet the goats. I really enjoyed getting to experience the zoo with Cooper--I might have had more fun than he did!

Cooper and Jada again--hanging out of the log waiting for the petting zoo to open.

Cooper staring at the goats.

Cooper loving the music at the Zooasium and shaking his maracas like a crazy man!

When we got back home to Yakima it was like Cooper had grown up so much. I don't know why, but he seemed like he had developed so much more. He was making more sounds that actually sounded like he was talking, he was more coordinated in some of his actions, and he was understanding so many of the things I was talking about. I don't know if it was because he was around Jada and Evie, who are older and more advanced than he is, so he was trying to keep up with them. But that doesn't make sense either, because he is with older kids at daycare everyday too. It was just the neatest thing though to be able to see such growth in a short amount of time.

Our second trip of the week was to Wenatchee to visit Grandma and Grandpa Brownlee's house. I definitely had more fun than Cooper did there because I got to go shopping with the gift card my parents got me AND we went to dinner--El Porton--Yum Yum! We went to dinner for a very special reason--We were celebrating the fact that my mom is done with her cancer treatments!!! She went through chemo and radiation like a freaking SUPER STAR. No offense to any other women reading this, but my mom is DEFINITELY the strongest woman I know. It was like the treatments didn't even phase her and I don't know if I ever heard a complaint out of her...well, maybe about the loss of hair :), but that's it!

The Sacrifices We Make...

So I bought Cooper a mini swimming pool for his birthday. It sat on the table, in it's box, for about two weeks. I kept passing by it thinking, "I'll get to that tomorrow." Well, I finally got to it. Not having a handy-dandy air compressor or pump, I had to manually inflate the pool. Yes, I blew the whole thing up by my own breath. After nearly passing out four times and almost an hour later... my sacrifice of finally blowing up the swimming pool was this...

(don't watch it if you get queasy, just listen)

Oh my gosh, the sacrifices we make for our children! I'd say it was WELL worth the time it took to blow up that dang swimming pool! Cooper and I were outside all afternoon. He LOVES being outside. If Cody or I open a door we have to watch for Cooper bolting to get out. It makes my heart so full to see him have so much fun. It didn't matter that the water was really cold--he went right in with not one whimper! In the video I was throwing his koosh balls into the water and splashing him. He thought it was the funniest thing ever! I'm putting some more pictures up of him in the water. Also, there are some of him after swimming, when we were just outside wandering around. We have a ramp on our back deck instead of stairs--I think we walked up and down it about 100 times!

Is it possible that life can get any better?!

I'm soooooo happy!

C'mon Mom! It's nice in here!

I feel like I'm floating...

I love being outside!

Swish!

Do I have to go to bed?Okay, enough with the pictures...of course, this blog is for me to blab on and on and on!

Having Fun

Have you ever had soooo much fun that you can't stop yourself and go to bed? This was Cooper's big debacle in the picture. He was having so much fun driving around in his car that we actually had to drive into his bedroom to pick up Snuggles (his most treasured blanket). On our way back from picking up Snuggles, he all but fell asleep at the wheel!

Speaking of having sooo much fun... As a mom, I still find myself being able to kick back and relax and have some good fun that doesn't include Fisher-Price, Little Tikes or Leap Frog. Of course I have so much fun with my baby and husband; there is no doubt that they are my whole life. But occasionally, the fun I'm talking about is when I get a babysitter and get to spend an evening with my girls that consists of food, drinks, dancing, and some darn good conversation! Being able to have times like these are possible when two things happen... 1. Husband or Grandparents are kind and wonderful enough to babysit and 2. I have THE BEST FRIENDS IN THE WORLD!!! Tami, you said it right when you were talking about us married ladies being on the dance floor. I will pay anyone a million dollars to show me someone, anyone, who had more fun than us on Friday night! The one problem with having so much fun in public, for me, is that I tend to make a fool out of myself with my Elaine-type dancing, idiotic faces and voices, hyena-type laugh, and general oddness. If sacrificing my ego, pride or whatever you want to call all of those things put together is the one sacrifice I have to make to have a good time like I did--I'll make that sacrifice every dang time!

I look forward to many more years of good times.