The rest of December went by in a blur. My pregnancy morning sickness disappeared at 16 weeks, 6 days--ll weeks to the day of when it all began. Thank goodness for the reprieve, because it was a week before Christmas, and I was able to enjoy the holidays A LOT more now that I could be around and enjoy food.
To celebrate my nausea liberation, Cooper and I made some yummy Christmas sugar cookies. Nate was thrilled to know these weren't for friends and neighbors, but for us to enjoy. Coop had a fun time helping me with the cookie cutters. As we were frosting the cookies later, our neighbor friends came over, and the two girls frosted a few cookies with Cooper before they went outside to play in the beautiful December weather we'd been enjoying (65 degrees--say what?!).
The children performed some songs at our ward (church) Christmas party. Although Cooper doesn't officially attend Primary (the childrens' portion of our church services) until January, he'd been learning the songs, and was very eager to sing with them. ALL DAY LONG the day of the party, he kept telling me that HE was going to sing with the children on the stage, and I had to stay in my seat. However, come go-time, he wanted me right there, which worked out because I was helping direct some of the children anyway. This picture was taken between songs. Not sure why the somber face. He didn't really sing, except for "Away in a Manger" when he sang, "asleep, asleep." The rest of the time he bobbed his head to the melody, and swallowed like he was about to sing, but then didn't. It was too cute, and was his first performance of any kind in church, albeit a little impromptu.
I finally found the pics of Santa driving through our neighborhood on the firetruck, mentioned in one of my last few posts...
Cooper is certainly loved and spoiled by our family, even though none of them live close by. As such, when Christmas rolls around, Cooper receives A LOT of packages in the mail (so many that he got used to looking for them from the mailman, UPS guy and FedEx guy each day), and has A LOT of presents under our tree. Since we would be going out of town to the coast to Nate's Dad's for Christmas, and there were so many presents for Cooper, we decided to let him open a few gifts each day for a few days before we left on vacation. Cooper's excitement erupted when we told him he could start opening a few gifts each day. He exclaimed, "It's Christmas time now?!!" I had to explain that while we were still counting down to Christmas (per the countdown chain we'd made together), and it wasn't Jesus' birthday yet., we'd start celebrating a few days early. He was ecstatic.
Here are the gifts for the spoiled kid, not in any order:
A John Deere front loader from Uncle David to play in the DIRT!!! It took him about 2.5 seconds to throw on his boots and hurry outside to break this new toy in. He knew exactly where he wanted to play with it. Since David had ordered this toy at Thanksgiving, and I'd been privy to knowing what it was, I'd suggested to Nate that we let Coop open this one at lunch time so he'd have time to play with it before going to bed. That was such a good decision. Coop ended up playing outside in the beautiful sunshine with his new JD tractor for 4 hours, pausing only for bathroom breaks and forced water breaks from Mom. Needless to say, he was in John Deere, dirt heaven.
So sad that this picture won't save my red-eye corrections. :( Aunt Denise gave Cooper this handsome shirt. But his FAVORITE outfit is his Patriots sweatpants and hoodie, which I have yet to capture on camera because it takes only a few seconds for him to get it all dirty while playing outside. Maybe I'll just have to take one with mud all over him. I know he loves the dirt, but I do love when he lets me dress him up a bit, and he looks so handsome.
Cooper had been BEGGING all week to open this colorful Christmas box from Grammie and Papa.
He LOVED everything in it too! He got right to work playing with the action figures. He also loved reading the Christmas stories Grammie sent. We have enough Christmas storybooks now that we can read about one a day leading up to Christmas, which is so fun!
Nana and Grandpa sent some dapper clothes, perfect for church.
Nana and Grandpa also sent this fun fire station/ Transformers set. Cooper played with this for a few hours that night before we could convince him to go to bed.
A few days earlier, Cooper opened this gift from Aunt Eileen and Uncle Peter--a Little People airport set. He played and played, and told us those were HIS airplane and helicopter, NOT ours. I also hosted/ taught preschool that week, and this was a big hit with the preschool kids as well.
Not pictured are a dry erase board from Samantha and Elizabeth (2nd cousins), which he loves to tote around and draw on, and some Christmas books from them that they used to read as kids. Winnie the Pooh is not a popular cartoon for Cooper, what with Curious George and Caiou, so he didn't know the characters in the books, and when I said, "Pooh," he giggled and giggled that I said poo, and then said that's a time-out word, unless I'm in the bathroom. I had to try to explain the difference to him. Ah, boys and their bathroom humor.
Also not pictured is a remote control dump truck from Uncle Tom and Aunt Delia, which he plays with constantly as well. Time to clean out the "baby" toys and make room for these big boy things.
Lastly, Cooper gets a new Christmas ornament each year to add to the tree. This year he got a John Deere tractor to go along with his mild obsession. Our family ornament was a beach house from our vacation in September to Folley Beach, SC. Cooper also made us several ornaments at school and such, and I helped him make one with his hand print on it, which we also gave away as gifts to grandparents.
May I also mention that Nate and I received a lot of wonderful, thoughtful gifts from family as well. We also feel very spoiled, and thankful. It's fun to receive a bit of Christmas from home, even when we're so far away. Thank you to all of you who spent time and money sending things our way. You are all so wonderful, and we love you, and wish we could spend every holiday with ALL of you!
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