Merry Christmas!

Twas the night before Christmas and all through our house, Cooper, Liberty and I were stirring and thank God we didn't see a mouse. We hung up our adorable stockings, crawled into our Santa bag (I allowed Cooper's name to be added), set out some cookies for Santa, read our favorite Christmas story, and went to bed with hopes that Santa Clause soon would be here. Liberty was not in the photo spirit, but we dragged her in anyways. I thought it was so funny that Mommy kept telling Liberty to say, "cheese!" How silly that Mommy thinks that our dog can smile (and she swears that she does smile from time to time). Here is our tree photo for this year... we added 4 more sparkly ornament (Swarovski collection), two snowmen for Caden and I, and two milestone ones for Cooper. Our tree has many gifts underneath, the photo just doesn't do it justice. Mommy says it is near embarrassing as many children go without gifts. We did sponsor children this year, as we always do, to make their Christmas a little brighter.

We have several "Twas the Night Before Christmas" books, but this one is extra special because it was the one that Papa read to Mommy when she was a little girl. Papa gave me my own copy of the book with his voice recorded on it so that he can read it to me and my children someday too.

I am a little weirded out by this whole Santa coming down the chimney. Mommy and Daddy explained the entire routine and I asked Mommy to take a picture of Santa when he came down. Mommy told me this was not possible because Santa would leave our house if he was caught coming in. My Mom takes pictures of everything, so I am holding out hope with this one. Anyhow, I am ready for Santa's arrival and I hope to get some sleep tonight (and so do my parents). My next blog post will have our Christmas day events highlighted on it. Onto the last few weeks, and yes, Mommy did find her camera!

Cooper had his 6 month doctor's appt. on Tuesday and all went well. Cooper had a slight ear infection and sinus infection the past few weeks and after two antibiotics, he is in the clear. Cooper's stats are as follows: Weight= 18 lb 5 oz (70%), Height= 27.36 inches (90%), Head size= 16.77 inches (25%). Cooper is starting to slim down a bit and lengthen out. He sits unassisted, pushes up with arms stretched out, rolls over, and is "swimming" with his body when on his tummy. He babbles a lot and shakes his head "no" to be silly and copies us when we shake our heads at him. The best news from the doctor, besides the fact that Cooper is healthy, is that he should no longer need to wake up in the middle of the night to eat. Tonight will be night 3 of letting him cry it out. He cried the first night for 13 minutes, the second night only for 5 minutes, so maybe tonight will be a quiet night (not a creature was stirring, not even a Cooper!) Cooper is asleep by 7:15 at night and is an early riser (wakes up anytime between 5 a.m. and 6:45 a.m.) Cooper had many shots this visit including his flu shot. Here is our smiley guy before the shots...

Cooper loves to jump and bounces on our laps when we stand him up. He is eating many foods, hence the many photos you will see with him wearing his meals. His favorite food is sweet potatoes and he loves the blended fruits. Cooper likes his fresh food feeders that we fill with fresh fruit in the morning. We are introducing Cheerios and puffs this week!

We have had many Christmas celebrations already. This past weekend, we had Christmas with Papa and Grandma Sharon. They will be in Indiana (Sharon's house) over Christmas and then they are off to Florida for the winter. Papa was showing us the final "Twas the Night" book that he recorded for me. I gave him the book last Christmas and he gave it back this year with the recording complete. It is very special to our family.

Cousins Lexi, Sam, Auntie Stefanie, Uncle Bruce, Uncle Jimmy and Auntie Karri (well, soon to be in July) were all there to celebrate too.

Cooper loved opening presents. He lunged at the gifts in excitement but mostly loved eating the paper and bows.

Our favorite gift... the Little Tikes bouncer/slide for outside. Actually, we squeezed it in our basement, so now our house is officially a "whacky-fun house." Mommy cannot wait until spring when it can go outside in the grass.

It is always hard to say, "Goodbye" to Papa and Grandma Sharon. Papa will be home for a weekend in January, otherwise we will not see them until we head to Florida. We are planning on going to Florida for a week in March or April. Besides some toys and cute clothes, our family Christmas gift was money for our trip... thanks Papa and Grandma Sharon :)

Another fun Christmas party was Grammy's extended family X-mas. We headed to a waterpark hotel about 1 1/2 hours away from home. Grammy's family is HUGE, so we always stay in a hotel. I had fun at the waterpark and especially liked the bubblers (free edema).

Santa made an appearance at the hotel. When he asked me what I wanted, I told him I wanted him to sing "Jingle Bells!" So, Santa sang and I chimed in from time to time. Everyone thought this was a silly thing to ask Santa. I loved it!

One thing I have learned about Christmas is to be PATIENT. I am not afraid of Santa and could hardly stand waiting my turn to talk to the big guy. I was grandchild number 8,907,321 with receiving my gift (OK, maybe I was number 15 or so), but with a big family, it took forever. My parents are proud of my patience as it is getting longer than 5 seconds these days.

My parents are thinking that Cooper's toys are going to become MY toys. I got special coins from Great-Grandpa Bud (he passed away but had special silver dollars for us), a playdoh factory (I actually will sit for 30 minutes or longer playing with this toy and Mommy LOVES that), and I also received Flicker (Handy Manny's flashlight). Cooper received silver dollars, the cute train in the above photo, and a cute dishes set.

It was fun to see our many cousins and family members. Cooper really liked playing with Anna, who is 5 months older than he is, yet they are the same size. That's our big boy!

One of our first Christmas parties in December was with Great-Grandpa Jim. As some of you know, he is Papa's Dad and has lived with Alzheimer's for over 10 years now. Great-Grandpa is very special to all of us and it is really hard to see him in these later stages of the disease. Great-Grandpa had a nice gathering despite the MAJOR snowstorm that struck the midwest that day! We had almost 2 feet of snow! Luckily, we drove over the night before and only had to drive 15 miles or so from Grandma's house to Great-Grandpa Jim's. Even with our short drive, it was the worse driving conditions my parents have ever driven in. We were happy to make it safely and enjoyed our visit.

Our family received many wonderful gifts. I loved my puzzles, zoo membership, and the special sparkly ornaments for our tree; Great-Grandpa loves sparkly things, so he has given us Swarovski ornaments every year to add to our collection. We love our tree :)

We attempted a group photo with the great-grandchildren, which was not an easy task! I was a bit of a stinker and did not want my picture taken. Luckily, Mommy was able to catch me before I ran away. There are more great-grandkids who are not pictured, but we were happy to have this many at the party considering the road conditions this day.

Finally, we went to the mall at the beginning of December to have our photo taken with the mall Santa. We met up with Mason and Jenny (daycare Mama and her little boy) and Laurie Jo, Lily and Lucy. As a reward, Mommy promised I could ride on the helicopter if I was a good boy. The helicopter has become my most frequented ride at the mall and is a MUST when we go now. Mommy hates that she started this awful routine.

Once again, I had to be patient while waiting for my turn to see Santa. Lily and I did pretty good and soon it was our turn!

I told Santa that I wanted a chainsaw, a snowmomomobile, and a mixer (like Mommy's kitchenaid). As you can see, I am loving gifts that I have seen big people use. I have also told other Santa's that I would like candy canes because they are my new favorite treat. I cannot wait for Christmas to arrive at our house tomorrow morning. My parents asked me if I have been a good little boy this year and my answer to that is, "OF COURSE!" Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!

Tis the Season....

"Tis the season to be crazy, fa, la, la, la, la....." As if life these days didn't feel crazy enough, December arrived. Between major snowstorms, Christmas parties and traveling, decorating, and more, life has been a crazy, fun mess. It all started a few weeks ago when my parents told me it was time to cut down the annual Christmas tree. We went to our favorite tree farm on one of the coldest days this month. Grammy met us there as well as we kicked off the holiday season.

As I mentioned above, it was one of the coldest days this month and look at whose not wearing mittens in the above photo. Hello!?!? To be honest, I am not good at keeping my mittens on and pitch a major fit if my hat lowers over my eyes. My parents have told me many times this month that Santa Claus is watching me carefully. I am not sure what that means, but it sounds kind of creepy.
We headed out to cut down our tree; this was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip. We rode on a wagon pulled by none other than JOHN DEERE.

Oops (photos must have uploaded in the wrong order)...we are going to talk for a second about the very important guests who drove even farther than we did to get to the tree farm, Santa and Mrs. Claus. Most babies are scared to pieces when they see Santa for the first time, but not our Cooper. He was the biggest flirt and flashed his cute little smile. Once again, he is such a show off. How cute are we in this photo and LOOK, everyone is smiling and looking at the camera, priceless! I told Santa that I wanted a snowmobile and a chainsaw for Christmas. My parents wished they had this on video camera. Santa and Mrs. Claus couldn't believe their ears! How many 2 year olds are that specific about what they want??!?!?!? ME :)

Cooper cooed at Mrs. Claus and she just ate him up, not literally of course. He ended up in our car back home with us, but I think Mrs. Claus wanted to take him to the North Pole in the sleigh. I was very excited for that idea, but my parents poo poo'd it right away. I guess we will keep him another year. The tree farm has a living nativity each year, so we made a very brief stop to see the animals. I cordially greeted them as I petted each one, "Hi goats, " "Hi sheep, " Hi llamas, " Mommy did not let me pet the llamas because this is the one animal she fears. She told me a disgusting story that they spit on people.

OK, back to the tree part of this trip. We headed out to cut down a tree for our house. The tree farm must have put us in the last tree lot, 2 miles (maybe a stretch) from where we were dropped off. We hurried as fast as we could, but the tree selection was not as good as "usual" according to my parents. They wanted to stop along the way for pictures, but as you see, I did not feel like doing this. I wanted in and out, just pick out a $)!_!+~( tree already. My cheeks were rosy red for a full day! Even Cooper had enough in the above picture, so Mommy cropped him out and used the photo below for one of the pictures on our X-mas card this year.

It was nice to have Grammy along to keep us boys warm while Mommy and Daddy ran around to find the most perfect tree. They found two (one for us and one for Grammy) and we were finally heading back to warm up.

Do you see why I asked Santa for a chainsaw? We would have been done 3 minutes earlier if Daddy had brought one along. I noticed on our way out of the tree farm that they had many beautiful pre-cut trees right next to the parking lot. I am voting for one of those next year.

Mommy decided to play photographer because we were not able to coordinate pictures with Kristin before Christmas. We found a white sheet, were dressed in sweaters and made Mommy very anxious and disappointed as none of them turned out. Cooper was a ham as he wore the cute sweater and hat that Great-Grandma made for him.

As you may recall, I had to lay on the antique sleigh naked and here Cooper got to wear clothes. I still can't get over all of my rolls!

Mommy and Daddy allowed us to play with our tree lights. Usually they do not allow electrical cords near my hands, but for the sake of our mock photo shoot, they allowed it. The picture ended up pretty cool, although Mommy wishes we would have smiled at the camera and she regrets keeping me in my dirty white socks. Another kick-off event for the holidays was our town's Christmas parade. We had several families join us at our house for dinner and then we went to the parade together. It was a very fun and busy night, hence little Easton above who was caught eating Liberty's dog bone while playing with the salad spinner.

It was comical as the parents attempted to get us all to smile. And this wasn't all the kiddos... Chloe was downstairs and baby Lucy was at her grandparents. This is the best we could get.

Grammy was at the parade to see the hospital's float that she helped create. Cooper was cozy in his stroller for a bit, but then became Mr. Fussy Man, so Grammy took over. Yes, he is wearing a reindeer snowsuit, in case you are wondering what the heck he is dressed in (Go Badgers!)

I wasn't the happiest boy at the parade b/c I couldn't see the floats that well and I was having a fight with my hat and mittens. Daddy was happy to see his favorite float (he cut off the Clydesdales pulling the Leinie's float). We survived an hour of the parade and left 5 floats short of seeing Santa~why would any parade organizer put Santa at the end!?!?!

Kerri, Mommy, and Laurie Jo enjoyed the parade and the hot drinks they brought from home :)

It took much longer this year to get our decorations up, but we did it! The house has pretty lights on it (this picture does not do Daddy's job justice), our tree is up, stockings are hung, and house is festive. The only thing missing...holiday treats! Mommy says she is not wanting to bake this year since they (Mommy/Daddy and Daddy's side of the family) will be heading to Jamaica in a few weeks for Uncle Matt and Auntie Jill's wedding!

We hope you are enjoying December as it flies on by. Mommy hopes to update the blog very soon with last weekend's photos and this week's. Currently, the camera is MIA and she does NOT want to add a new one on her X-mas list. Happy shopping, decorating, eating, wrapping, and whatever else your heart desires :)