Christmas and Birthday Wishes

So, a lot has been going on since my last post...sorry about the lagtime in updates. Cooper has been through his first ear infection and presently starting on his second, taken his first two steps, and has learned to play peak-a-boo...a significant milestone in my book. We have had a couple of sittings for pictures given the fact that Christmas and Cooper's birthday are readily approaching. (How is that already possible!) And of course, my son, the somber one, cannot crack a smile for pictures we actually pay for to save his life. I see a lot of bribes in his future. He will be all smiles immediatly prior to and following the session...but do not under any circumstances ask him to smile on cue...you either get tears or a "this is a waste of my time" stare. This causes lots of frustration for Mommy and Daddy, but I think they turn out good anyways. We've got our own personal pictures to prove our kid isn't miserable and that he does know how to smile.

I am so excited for his first Christmas this year. Although I did have to give up trying to find a "Baby's First Christmas" outfit in 18 months size. I've decided that is definitely a lost cause. That's OK, we know it is his first one, and oh boy, are we really overdoing it. Cooper has got more presents than he will know what to do with. We have had to muster up all the restraint we have not to just let him have them now. That is hard! I can't wait to see the look on his face with all this new stuff!

And then right behind Christmas comes his birthday. I'm really kind of stressing about that, but it will still be fun. It is going to be Baby Einstein themed since he loves and practically has all the DVDs. As a matter of fact, he is getting four new ones for Christmas and his birthday just because Greg and I are completely tired of his others that he watches OVER and OVER again. Do you think he is too young to get hooked on something cool like Star Wars or something? Now that I could watch over and over again with no problem! Ha!

Super Cooper's First Halloween

Well, we just experienced Cooper's first Halloween. It was a lot of fun. We made some stops at grandma's house and we went to a church carnival, and after all that, we sure did have a tuckered-out little boy. He even got to have his first taste of candy as you can see in one of the pictures below. He liked it A LOT, and I had to distract him to take the sucker away. I know I am a MEAN mom, but I was afraid he would try to bite into it or something. Needless to say, after the candy experience, Cooper and I were sticky from head to toe. But it was worth it to see his cute little expression when he tasted the yummy sugar. And, I think every kid should have something sweet on Halloween! I think he earned it anyways, after we carried him all around town in that hot Superman costume. You know my son had to spend his first Halloween in a Superman outfit. I figured this is the only time I really get to pick so it was definitely a "no-brainer" as to what he was going to be. The other pictures on the blog were professional ones we had Greg's cousin take for us at the pumpkin patch in town. You can't tell from the pictures, but Cooper was in a horrible mood that day. That is a tribute to the photographer for not catching Cooper's mood in the pictures. I think they turned out pretty darn cute. So, enjoy the pictures and Happy Halloween!

Cooper's Cruise Control

I had put Cooper down for a nap one day and then left the room. After a few minutes I walked back in to check on him and this is what I found. He was standing up looking at me! To tell you the truth, it kind of scared me. I'm not used to someone staring back at me when I walk in. As you can tell from the picture, Cooper was really proud of himself. Now he is pulling up everywhere and on everything and even starting to cruise a little bit! Did I mention that he is crawling all over the place?!? It is like all this stuff happened within a week. Now, Greg and I are trying to teach him what "NO-NO" means...(Can a ten-month-old grasp that concept?) because he gravitates toward anything that he is not supposed to have. It is amazing, he can have a room full of toys, and it is the fireplace tools or the dog beds that mesmerize him! Go figure.


This is a picture of Cooper at his first birthday party. A friend of our's son turned one, and I didn't ask if I could post the pictures of everyone at the party so here is one of just Cooper.



Here are some cute pictures of Cooper posing with us. He was just in a cute mood that day.

He is ready for football season with his new chair. GO TEXANS!

And finally, we got our landscaping redone...Here are what I like to call our jungle pictures before the landscaping:

And here are the after pictures. You really can't tell much from the photos, but it really did make a world of difference. Before there were bushes covering up half the house from the front view. With them gone, it looks like our house is twice at big from the outside.

Cooper's First Trip to Minute Maid

Cooper went to his first ballgame at Minute Maid Park last Sunday which happened to be the Astros' and Biggio's last game. Cooper did so good, and we all had a lot of fun. It was sad seeing Biggio out there for the last time. I'm glad Cooper got to be there to see it. It will be a great story to tell him some day. They even won the game with Biggio scoring a run, which was a perfect ending to his career. I think it was more crowded at that game then at the World Series. But it was worth it, and a memory that we will have forever.

There really isn't much new news to report in this blog. I just had a few pictures I wanted to post. I mentioned earlier that Cooper started holding his own bottle and we got a picture of that. However, I think we got over-excited because as soon as he started doing that, I broke out the sippy cups. As you can see from the bottom picture, he isn't quite ready for that leap yet.

And this is one of my favorite pictures to date. Cooper is wearing his little NASCAR onesie that his daddy bought him since that is his new favorite thing to watch on TV. Number 8 is Dale Earnhart Jr.'s number. I just thought Cooper looked so cute with his little tube socks!

New Discoveries

Cooper is a week away from being 9 months old now. Our most recent discovery is that he is getting 4 of his top teeth all at once! It is funny because he is experimenting with new sounds that he can make that sound something like the "f" and the "th" sound. And of course that is followed by the usual "baa-baas", the "woe-woes", and my favorite, the "bop-bops". I just know that sometime soon the "ma-mas" are going to emerge. He sort of says it when he is upset or wants to be picked up, but I'm waiting for a happy "ma-ma" for it to really count.

No new news to report on the crawling front yet. Although, he is so very close. But somehow he gets around without having to crawl. It is so weird. I will put him in the middle of his pallet to play with his toys. Then, I'll walk away to do something, and when I come back he is completely off the pallet, halfway across the living room, but still in a sitting position! How does he do that! In the picture below, he is sitting underneath his jumperoo. That is one of those times that he scooted himself practically to another zip code!

He is just so funny. He is constantly surprising us. Like, just last week, we were shopping at Babies R Us (which has become our favorite shopping place) and out of no where, he just starts holding his bottle on his own. We were like, where did that come from?! Or another one of my favorite new discoveries is that whenever I pick him up from his daycare or children's church, he gives me the biggest kiss, like he had been waiting for me all day. You just can't put a price on that. That is the best part of my day. Life is never dull anymore! I love it!

Bo-Bo's and Bye-Bye's

Well, Cooper is 7 and a half months now. I cannot believe how fast time has gone by! It just seems like yesterday that we were bringing the little munchkin home from the hospital. Now he is going through about 6 jars of baby food a day, and he is wiggling and baby-talking up a storm. Staying still and quiet is just not an option anymore. He is always wanting to stand up, and he is constantly trying to climb up from a sitting position whether he is in somebody's lap or sitting on the floor. Because of all that wiggle-worming around, he got his first bo-bo a couple of weeks ago. We had him sitting on the couch playing with his toys, and then all of a sudden he was on the floor, face down. Luckily, he landed on a blanket, but his head hit the laminate flooring. You can see the red bump on his head in the picture above. As you can see, he didn't cry for very long, and he was all smiles after a while. And, I didn't even freak out and demand we take him to the hospital to check for a concussion! Well....I did think about it, but since he seemed all right just a little while later, I suppressed the urge. So, I think I handled his first injury pretty good!

The other big news is that I swear he said his first real word today. We were all eating out with Greg's family and he started saying bye-bye and waving his arm. We have been working on it for a long time, and I think he finally understood it. We would say bye-bye to him, and he would say it back! He did it several times, so I think we are going to count it as his official first word. The only problem is now we can't get him to STOP saying it! It is really cute.

As for crawling, it is still a work in progress. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks. He thinks about it real hard, but then he lays on his tummy after a while and that is about it. It won't be long though. He has come a long way.

Corpus Christi Vacation

This past weekend we took the camper down to Corpus Christi. Cooper got to go to his first baseball game. We saw the Corpus Christi Hooks. For you non-Astros fans (shame on you), that is their double A minor league team. Cooper was skeptical at first. The loud noises made him nervous, and it was really hot, but after he got used to it, he enjoyed just being outside...his favorite place to be. As for me, the game was fun, but I'm spoiled. I am used to watching games in the nice, cool air-conditioning. It makes me miss the good ole' days in the Dome...

The next day, we took Cooper to the Texas State Aquarium. You can tell from this next picture that he wasn't exactly bubbling over with excitement when we got there. But he woke up soon, and he got to see all the fish. There was also a dolphin and a bird show that was really neat. I think Cooper had a good time.

And finally, the next day we took Cooper swimming for the first time. We were a little hesitant after his obvious dislike of the Frio River. Surprisingly, he got right in. However, we could not get the boy to crack a smile the entire time in the pool. So, I couldn't tell if he was actually having fun, or if he was just, once again, humoring the parental units. I'm just going to assume he was having a blast. OK, well Cooper is in my lap right now and he is just dying to type, so I'm going to let him go for it. Until next time....

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/0 JH V2Z M CBN XZC D L

Love, Cooper

Frio Fun

Last week we took our annual Frio River vacation with Greg's family. This was Cooper's first family vacation. He was such a good boy. As you can see from this picture, the deer were everywhere, and I bet they were sorry to see us go since we kept them well fed the entire time. I think Cooper had a lot of fun playing with his cousins. We had a little bit of a scare while we were there, however. On Saturday there was a flash flood, and the worst thunderstorm I have ever been in. There was a lot of water around the house we were staying in, but thank goodness, water never got inside. Cooper kept his cool through the whole ordeal...which is more than I could say. I was a little freaked out by it. But all was well. The guys even floated the river that evening, so it wasn't that bad. As for Cooper floating the river...this is about as close as he got. Here he is in his little plastic pool. Friday we took all the kids to the river just to swim in. I got Cooper all dressed up in a cute little swimming outfit with a matching hat and cute little Thomas the Tank water shoes. He barely got a toe in the river before he started crying like his heart was broken. I guess it was just too cold for him. I tried several times to stick his feet in the water to get him used to the temperature, but I hated to hear him cry. Even when we got his play pool out, he wasn't too terribly crazy about it. He just kind of humored us and sat in it for a while, long enough for us to take a couple of pictures. I even tried putting some warm water in it. He played in it a little bit, but let's just put it this way...we didn't have to twist his arm to get him out! So Cooper spent most of his vacation hanging out with family and playing with his toys on dry land.

The Fourth of July

There may not have been fireworks this Fourth of July due to the bad weather, but we sure had a busy day. We took Cooper to get his pictures done at Sears. He wasn't in the best of moods considering that it was right in the middle of his nap time, but I think the pictures turned out pretty good anyways. Then we went to Mamo's house and hung out with the family. We had a fun and educational game of Scatagories where we learned about "Tall Oaks", "buffalo farms", and "peacock safaries". Long story....

We had our 6 month checkup today. Cooper weighs 17 pounds 6 oz and is 25.5 inches long. He is growing so fast. We are adding new things to his diet all the time. He is not too fond of peas and carrots, but we are going to work on that. He would be happy if applesauce was on the menu three times a day! He can sit up for longer periods of time now and he plays and chews on his feet a lot. He babbles constantly and says things like ba....ba and ma...ma which means "Mama" is just around the corner, right? Sorry, Greg, better luck next time with "Dada" being the first word!