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!