Bed Head

Thought I'd never get to say it, but Coop woke up from his morning nap today with bed head.

Our little baldy is finally getting some hair. In fact, I just gave him his third "haircut" last week to even out all the long strands to match the short ones and make him look like more of a little man. Thanks Chelsey for the pictures so we can all revel in this cute proof of what must have been a great nap!

13 Months (ok more like 13-1/2)

Here I am at work, finishing lunch, and thinking of things I have forgotten to blog about. I don't like blogging without pictures of the Coopster, but sometimes better to record cute things without the visual aids than not at all.



I realize I failed to do a post for Cooper's 13-month milestones. Things he started doing recently (forgive me if I've mentioned these before):

• Dancing - Coop has discovered rhythym and dance. He mostly dances in a circle with his arm in the air, but will also do a head bob, a quick shuffle of the feet, or a bounce at the knees. I love dancing with him.
• Along with dancing, he has learned to turn on the CD player. He knows what button to push to play the CD. But lest you think he's technologically advanced, he also likes to use the CD player as a seat. It's the perfect height for him. His favorite CD to date is the soundtrack to the movie Juno. It has lots of songs with distinct beats and funky upbeat sounds. Yesterday I was tired of hearing this soundtrack, so I put in a children's CD I have, and he was SO not interested. Nate says it's because he can already tell the difference between good and bad taste in music.
• Eyes, Ears, Mouth and Nose - Coop has learned to identify these things on himself and others. Well, almost. Sometimes he gets them mixed up, but he's learning!
• He's starting to notice things on his clothes. At night I let him pick out his pjs. The other night he picked some because they had a monkey on them. He was excited to "have a monkey on his belly."
• His climbing antics have gone to a whole new level.
• When I tell him no or that something is naughty (usually something he's climbing onto, or getting into), he stops and "angrily" says "Naaaaaa!" back. Then goes right back to it, all the while looking at me like, "Na, na, na, na , na." He is stubborn and somewhat defiant. Oh boy.
• Coop LOVES talking on the phone and is starting to talk back. He is constantly pretending to talk on the phone, but when there is really someone else on the other end, he gets elated. So if you want to call and chat with him (his attention span is probably about a minute), he'd love it. You may even catch him saying, "Hello?" or "Hi!" He hasn't figured out yet though that waving bye-bye doesn't cut it when talking on the telephone.
• I love his little giggle he does when he's trying to communicate something and you guess correctly. It's his little, "That's it!" Gets me every time.
• Just when I thought my little guy was going to be lucky enough to not go through it, Coop has started having separation anxiety. Maybe it has to do with the fact that for the last week I have been working on coaching him through learning to fall asleep on his own. [The "Sleep Lady" is a genius!] Or maybe it's just his age. But today I was about to leave for work, and he came running into the kitchen to give me a kiss and then wouldn't let me leave. Chelsey had to bribe him with looking out the window for birds. This may make my working career even shorter than planned...so hard.
• Coop has taken to his stuffed monkey (shown in this picture). He has refused the "snuggle bunny/blanket" item we tried to give him as a security item, and has moved on to the monkey. At night when he's crying, I tell him to lay down and give his monkey a love. It calms him, and he'll lay down and snuggle it. So cute.
• Coop loves to pull things out of bags. At church he's constantly raiding someone else's bag or purse. All the people who ever sit next to us are forever moving their stuff out of his reach. It's rather embarrassing. At home if someone's purse is on the floor, he's immediately into it. The only bag he won't get into is his own diaper bag. Been there, done that, I guess. This morning he was getting into Chelsey's purse soon after she arrived, and so I suggested putting a few things into one of those reusable grocery bags we have. Coop was in heaven.

Ok enough for now. More pictures later when I remember to re-charge the camera battery...

Halloween Celebrations

This year we had lots of opportunities to celebrate Halloween. First was a Fall Festival/Halloween Party for the kids from my brother's apartment complex. Coop posed as a scarecrow.

And got to pet a real Velvetine rabbit.

We had two trunk-or-treats to go to. The first one for our church I forgot my camera. Coop was funny that night, not fully understanding what was going on. He wasn't as interested in gathering candy as we was in the various trunk decorations, especially things that lit up like mechanical ghosts or candles in jack-o-lanterns.

Saturday night was a trunk-or-treat at the ward my brother's family attends. Ellie dressed as Dorothy (might I add that she won a costume contest for the cutest costume at the Fall Festival mentioned above. Grammie did an awesome job making the dress!). The rest of their family was centered around the Wizard of Oz theme: Chelsey as Glenda the Good Witch, Liz as the Wicked Witch of the West (Cooper was terrified of her all night as she was hardly recognizable with all the great makeup), and Bryt (not pictured) was Oz. I was a witch, and Coop was a skeleton. His outfit glowed in the dark.

Coop and Dad ready for trunk-or-treating

Nate did an awesome job both nights decorating the back of the truck. It was the talk of both parties with so many spiders, big and small, and the light behind it all. This picture doesn't do it justice.

Coop was a stinker Saturday night. He was tired and wanted to run around without holding my hand. It was a fight all night long, including taking pictures.

Ah, the crash. While we were cleaning up the truck, he pulled a lollipop out of his loot, and was sucking on it through the wrapper. Next thing I knew, he had ripped the wrapper off the top and was very happily licking the lollipop. It was his first taste of candy, and if the sticky mess was any proof of how much he liked it, we may have to hide the rest of his candy.

5 Questions

I have been tagged!

The rules of this game are that you answer the questions posed by the person who tags you, and then you leave 5 new questions for people to answer.

1. What is your least favorite household chore and why? Most favorite?
I don't like ironing. It's tedious and hot, and my neck and shoulders always ache afterward.
Most favorite...hmmm...vacuuming. Feels very methodical, and it's usually a time when I am left with my own thoughts, even with a toddler chasing me or in my arms. Plus, I'm always sweating afterward, which makes me feel like I got a workout for at least a few minutes. And I love how clean things seem after vacuuming because to vacuum you have to pick things up first.

2. What holiday traditions do you most look forward to each year? How did these traditions begin in your family?
Christmas. As a child we had so many Christmas traditions from picking out the Christmas tree to going down the stairs in reverse birth order. But my favorite was reading a Christmas story about a family that earns straw for the Baby Jesus' manger by doing service for one another, one piece of straw for each act of service. Mom would always cry when reading the story, and we would spend the month doing secret service. Of course, I knew Mom was the one who put the baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas Eve, but I always looked on Christmas morning to see if he came, to see whether we did enough acts of service for him to have a soft bed of straw. I so look forward to starting traditions with my own children.

3. Share your FAVORITE recipes for an appetizer and dessert:
Favorite appetizer is bruschetta (Nathan's 2nd cousin's recipe). But if I shared that family recipe here, he would have my head. I have already nearly lost my life for sharing it with the few that I have.

Favorite dessert is cheesecake. New York cheesecake. With fresh strawberries. But I'm not sharing a recipe for that because I haven't found one yet that I like. So my recipe is...go order a piece from Cheesecake Factory.

4. What has frustrated you this week?
Having to take a trip to ATL for work, leaving behind my husband and child. Aching knee. Incessant aching. Scheduled a day for surgery, but no day ever seems like it's going to work. Never a good time to get laid up.

5. How would you describe your personal style? (Dress, decorating or both.)
I don't have a style. My clothes are a hodge podge of remnants of what still fit me from my pre-pregnancy wardrobe, and what I've broke down and purchased since then. Was thinking recently I need to reclaim my personal style, or I fear I may end up on that TV show "What not to wear." Decorating--much the same story. Someday when we buy a house I'll put effort and money into decorating. Until then, while we rent, not much point in decorating, I mean truly decorating.

Okay, I tag:
Camyll
Chelsey
Liz
Hilary
Megan
Anyone else who is looking for an idea for a new blog post

Here's YOUR questions:

1. What do you like to do in your spare time, or what would you like to do if you had any spare time? Why?
2. What is your favorite book and why?
3. Think of something that makes you smile. What is it? Why do you smile?
4. Do you have a scar? How did you get it?
5. What is the worst thing that happened to you today? What is the best?

A Fall Day

Last Saturday started off in the wee hours. Coop was an early riser. I was taking advantage of the extra morning time, and making french toast. While I was busy in the kitchen, Coop was busy himself...figuring out how to climb up and on top of his toy shopping cart! He figured out how to climb onto the wheel, pull himself up, and into the basket, and then stand up. Oh. My.Goodness. I about had a heart attack, then thought to quickly grab the camera and hope he didn't fall off and break his neck before I could snap a shot.

Later that day we took advantage of the BEAUTIFUL southern fall weather and visited a local pumpkin patch. Coop didn't know quite what to think of the petting zoo.

But he was quite interested in the ramp leading into the General Store...another climbing mechanism.

We stopped at the General Store for some needed refreshment.

Coop had fun exploring the pumpkin patch. He toppled over about every other step due to the unevenness of the ground, but just got right back up and took off.

He has his eye on the prize...

the TRACTOR!

Coop has two books about tractors, and so he knew exactly what they were. He was ecstatic to check out the big tractor, but it was pulling hay rides, so he had to settle for the little tractor. (We didn't tell him it was really an old John Deere lawn mower.)

This puppy-faced pumpkin was his favorite. (All the little scratches in the paint are from him.) He kept going back to it over and over again. Such fun!

Little Red "Wagon"

Cooper can be quite creative. The other day he was playing with this suitcase, and was delighted when his Dad took him for a "ride."
Almost as good as real wagon.

The Coopster being the Coopster

Gotta follow up that depressing, venting blog with a fun one!

Status from today's 1-year checkup:

Weight: 24 lbs (50th %)

Height: 29.75" (30th %)

Head Circumference: 19.5" (over 100% for his age)

Our child is ever so slowly thinning out, and getting taller. But honestly, I can't tell the getting thinner part. He's still chunky as ever to me. Love it!

He's such a toddler lately. Not a baby any more, so siree! The only baby thing he seems to do any more is drink a couple bottles a day. The other morning, while I was getting ready for the day, he found our squirt bottle of water, and I found him trying to feed it to his monkey stuffed animal. Too cute! My sister snapped this shot of him a few days ago, trying to feed the same monkey his real bottle. What a kid.

Sick, but happy!

Last Sunday in between Conference sessions of church, we took a stroll in the fall weather (Finally a break from the summer heat!) to the park in our neighborhood. For the first time ever, Coop went down a big boy slide all by himself. It was one of those twisty tube slides. I was at the top, and laid on my belly to get him in and halfway down before letting go. It was a little nerve wracking wondering whether he would topple over. But nope! Here he is at the bottom, so happy! If you look closely you can see his thin, sparse hair standing straight on end. LOL. Taking Coop to the park is becoming more and more fun.