Happy 1st Cooper!

The epic event arrived on Monday, June 20th~ Cooper turned 1! Our little Coopie had an exciting celebration to honor his big day. What a busy year we have had and we love all of Cooper's milestones he has reached along the way.

Mommy decided to go with a circus theme for Cooper's party. She laughs at her "teacher ways" of making everything thematic for events such as this. We decided to throw his party on Father's Day this year. He was actually born on Father's Day last year and my parents thought it was like killing two birds with one stone (ick) to do everything together. They later reflected on that poor decision as it became a Cooper day instead of Father's Day (sorry Daddy!)

Mommy's friend, Jeannie, made this adorable circus lion cake for the party and she even make Cooper his own little one to demolish for pictures and good laughs. We loved the cakes and the flavor was just as amazing. Thanks Jeannie!

We decided to invite our immediate and some extended family, along with Jenny's crew since she takes care of me and Cooper while Mommy teaches. She is definitely a special person in our lives. Kali and Mas came to celebrate and we attempted a group photo shot in the picture banner Mommy put up for the party. How silly we look! Papa bought us our "Jumpy House" for Christmas and every circus/carnival party needs to have one of these. Even adults wanted, but refrained from jumping in there!

Jenny has this fun little rollercoaster that we borrowed for our party. I am fearless on it and zipped right down our hill (no broken bones yet!) My parents are wondering if this will prepare me for some fair rides in a few weeks... if you recall the airplane ride at the State Fair last year, it was traumatizing!

Our little prince had his favorite toys outside to share with the kids. We are so glad it was a beautiful summer day which has been rare and annoying so far this season.

Quite unbelievably... our grandparents and Duke drove down again to celebrate another birthday with us. They live a good 4 hours away and yet they have adopted the slogan, "We might as well take advantage of these opportunities while we still can!" I don't quite understand this quote, but maybe one day it will make sense! Anyhow, thank you Great-Grandma and Great- Grandpa (our trusty blog followers) for coming to see us. We owe you a visit very soon. XOXOXO!

We settled in for the gift opening and all I can say is Cooper and I are two lucky boys. All of his gifts quickly became mine. One advantage of being only 25 months apart is we do have similar tastes in toys (trucks, water toys, balls, games, etc...)

Yes, we did have golf on since our family are die-hard golfers and insisted on following the US Open.

Everyone makes such a big stink out of the first photos of a baby eating cake. It is a must that they eat with their hands, get super messy, and the mystery of whether they get sick or wired builds anticipation and excitement. Cooper L-O-V-E-S chocolate and his German Chocolate cake with cocoa frosting was the perfect concoction for a messy photo op.

Mmmmm.... first taste became an instant hit and soon Cooper was a true circus act at his own party.

Does the movie, Christmas Story flash across your mind as you look at Cooper above (Ralphie eats like a pig and oinks at the dinner table)!?!?! The expression of someone who realizes they maybe overindulged a bit too much?? The good news is that he didn't throw up and he didn't get all silly on us. Maybe that is just a testament to Cooper's demeanor. Way to go Champ!

We took this picture for Karri because if anyone hasn't witnessed it in person, I am CRAZY about Jeeps. I can spot a Jeep in a parking lot full of cars and it doesn't matter if it is a Liberty, Grand Cherokee, Wrangler, or Patriot, I know the Jeep line. So, poor Karri humors my obsession and allows me to play with all of the buttons in her Jeep. My Mom begs Karri to never let me play with the keys because I might test drive it.

Cooper's actual birthday came on Monday, June 20th. The day was a bit anticlimactic since he had such a fun day on Sunday. Daddy went to work so we just played at home and sang "Happy Birthday" at least a billion times to him that day. For dinner, we went to the big yellow M since it is my favorite restaurant, if you call it that. Cooper loves fries, cheeseburgers and nuggets. No wonder kids are so obese these days.

When we got home, Cooper had left-over cake and we sang one.last.time to him just for good measure. Cooper has this goofy pirate smile; he is clearly demonstrating it in the picture above. Argh!

Cooper is learning sign language and is signing for more and all done these days. In the above photo I think he is saying I AM SO DONE with all of this partying. Even Cooper got tired of the pictures, sweets, presents, and celebrating.

Cooper did "OK" with opening his presents but he definitley is not an expert unwrapper like me. I wanted to open all of his presents for him, so for the most part I opened his gifts and yelled and begged my Mom and Dad to take them out of the packages. We need to build an addition onto our house for all of our toys!!

We had time for some fresh air and Cooper's favorite toys are balls. He is quite athletic for a one year old and can throw a smaller ball overhand across the room. Maybe my parents will retire a little early?!?!?

On our drive home from McDonald's, we went by a field that we pass at least 5 times a day and Mommy's eagle eye spotted a HUMONGOUS "wish flower." She forced Daddy to wade up to his knees in tick and poison ivy infested weeds to bring the flower home with us. The awesome Daddy that he is, he did what he was told and captured the prize for our family. Can you believe how big this thing is!

We hoped it was a wish flower and if it isn't, just humor us here. We all made wishes and blew and blew until we nearly were out of breath. I finally just pulled the cotton off the flower stem since it seemed our wishes might never come true otherwise. Daddy is now in full fear mode as he explained to Mommy that the seeds from this weed are now all over our front yard. She secretly hopes we get some of these hybrid wish flowers to grow in our yard :)

One of our gifts to Cooper came a day late, but it is just so cute. To match his Madras/Turtle room from PBK, we ordered him a personalized chair to replace the rocking chair. Mommy was a little sad to remove the rocker and replace it with this big boy chair. The rocker is now safely stored in our storage room which means they are not getting rid of it, which means maybe another sibling some day, no... seriously Mom and Dad? Never say never and NO Mommy is definitely not pregnant nor expecting to even consider another one for at least one to two years!

Sadly, our Daddy had to take a backseat to Cooper's party but we still had a 15 minute race of a celebration that morning. We made him breakfast, gave him gifts and of course wrestled him to the floor. I gave Daddy a new Brewers hat, and a personalized frame (see above) that contains my handprint, a sunset picture of just the two of us in FL, and a funny questionnaire that Mommy conducted. Some of the questions she asked included... "What does Daddy wear all the time?" My answer, "Green and white shorts!" (my parents are not sure where I got this). Another question, "Why do you love Daddy?" My response, "Daddy is sooo shy!" My randomness to these questions made Daddy LOL and as a new tradition, we are going to do new questionnaires each year and replace the new one into the frame just to compare year to year.

Cooper gave Daddy a picture of the two of them on the golf course and we all gave him some new work and play clothes. His most exciting gift was walleye lures that he will take with him to Canada as a "yes you can go" gift from Mommy. He was thrilled.

Last week, I had my three year check-up. I haven't gone to the doctor all year except for a quick whiff of the flu vaccine in the fall. I am a very lucky kid to be so healthy! Some of the new tests they do since I am 3 years old included taking my blood pressure (which is hilariously low but normal for kids), measuring my height by standing vs. laying down, and turning my head to cough.. just kidding but he did have to check down there and counted 1, 2 GOOD (yup, both are present!) My stats are as follows: Height~ 3 feet, 1 inch= 50% for my age and Weight~ 29 lb= 10% for my age. If you asked my grandmas, they would probably tell you that my parents need to fatten me up. According to our doctor, this is just fine and OK for me to be "thin" framed since I am healthy and I eat as I am hungry. As much as I love visiting my pediatrician, I hope to have another healthy year so that I don't have to be checked again until I turn 4.

Fortunately for Cooper, he hasn't needed any trips to the ER since May (upper-respiratory infection). From the look of his new favorite climbing toy (above) he might end up there soon. My parents are using sterns, "NO, NO" when he pulls these kinds of stunts. Cooper just smiles and shakes his head no. Please pray for his safety since he doesn't seem to be concerned about cracking his head on the tile or burning his fingers off.

We had to snap a quick photo of Liberty who is smiling as she watches Cooper scale up the stove. I wonder what she is truly thinking?

One of our recent outings was to the Express baseball game. My parents have never gone to one of their games and heard it was a good time. We left Cooper at home with a sitter and I had a date with my parents! Lily and family and a few others joined us at the game. Lily met me at the cars outside of the gate. It appears she was trying to hit on me or maybe it was the hot rod I was driving.

Surprisingly, we sat and watched the game for a while and then headed to the kid area where there are games and a bouncy house. It ended up being a great evening for a game and my parents were surprised at how well I did (why doubt wonderful me?!?!) It was a fun night and one we hope to do again this summer.

At the end of the school year, we talked about getting together with Rachel and family (Mommy's co-worker and Heather and family for a dinner and playdate. I was so excited to see baby Hadley and to play with Carter and Owen's toys. It is always a fun challenge to see how 5 boys will handle sharing and the picture below is just too funny! It seems that maybe Carter was telling Cooper the ins and outs of using his toys!

As summer continues to defy the odds with cold temps and rain, we still had a great visit with Finley and Hadley last week. We went over to Heather's to play and see nurse Stephanie, who took care of me as a preemie. She unfortunately couldn't make it, so Finley and I entertained ourselves in Patrick's lovely garage. We only nailed Heather's truck a few times and I also managed to run Finley's calf over. Sorry buddy! We made a race course loop and drove around in circles for a good 30 minutes. Funny how something so basic can be such a major hit!

The final event to share with you is that I went to the dentist for my first time. Mommy prepped me about this experience. She said the dentist is SO cool and that their toothpaste is SO yummy and that they would give me a few toys and maybe a sticker at the end. I was very excited to go get my teeth brushed. At the appointment, Kari counted my teeth, let me wear cool shades since the light was very shiny, and she even introduced Mr. Thirsty to me. Mr. Thirsty is a vaccuum that sucks water right out of your mouth. I just cracked up laughing at this tool. She even humored me and gave me my own Mr. Thirsty tube when I left even though it doesn't suction like the one at the dentist office. The good news is that I have very nice teeth, all 20 were present, they are now freshly polished and no cavities! I will go back every 6 months and Kari even gave me TWO prizes from their basket. I chose a bouncy ball and a boat.

We had a few other pictures but didn't get a chance to add them since this blog post was started a few days ago. We will post another blog entry this week, because our professional photos are now here, yeah! We can't wait to share my 3 year and Cooper's 1 year pic's with you. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!!!