Polar Express Day

I was so excited to walk into Cooper's school and see a sign posted that the Friday before Christmas would be Polar Express Day.  The kids would get to wear pajamas to school and have milk & cookies while watching The Polar Express.  Unfortunately, I realized the day before that one of Cooper's Christmas pajama shirts had been left at Nana's house.  I planned on putting him in the footie pjs we'd bought, but woke up the next morning and realized that probably wouldn't work.  Shoes just wouldn't go over the jammies...so I ran to Kohl's and grabbed a new pair.  Cue the mommy guilt for the day.

It was totally worth the trip, though, to see this cuteness.

Birthday with the Family

I spent a week in Austin for work, so we decided to have a birthday lunch for Cooper at Nana's house before I left.  It makes it much easier for some of my family members, since we live about 2 hours away.

Nana & Pops cooked lunch and my plan was to open gifts after we ate...but Cooper & Haley had a different idea.  I heard squeals coming from the game room and walked in to see paper flying.

Once everything was open, the two of them had a blast playing with Cooper's new toys.  Those two have so much fun together and Cooper is talking about Haley quite often these days.

I had a short time window, so we quickly sang Happy Birthday before I had to head out.

Jingle Bells

As told by: Cooper

Happy Birthday Cooper!

We decided to celebrate Cooper's actual birthday by taking him out to dinner & to look at Christmas lights.  He is loving the lights this year and I'm a little sad that in a few weeks they'll be gone. I've enjoyed taking a detour on the way home daily to check out a few displays.

My plan was a regular old restaurant, however Jason thought we needed to do something "fun."  I also had a bit of mom-guilt going.  Since Cooper had gotten sick during the party, he wasn't keen on blowing out candles and eating cake.  I baked up a thick chocolate chip cookie and we headed out to Chuck E Cheese.

We typically don't frequent restaurants that have video games.  I'm pretty sure I've never been around Cooper when he's played them, so I can't even say he ever has.  But the general idea behind Chuck E Cheese must be a part of toddler DNA.  We walked in, Cooper took one look around, his eyes grew to the size of small dinner plates and he yelled "I go PLAAAAAYYYYYY!"  And just like that, he was off.

Thankfully, Cooper doesn't know if a game is working, so we only bought a few tokens.  Plus, his attention span is only 3.5 seconds long.  He'd run to a game, punch some buttons and run away.

I tried getting him to sit down by distracting him with a few rounds of Angry Birds.

Then Chuck E Cheese came out of his door and Cooper freaked.  Being the mean mother that I am, I told him that if he didn't sit down and finish his pizza, the mouse would get him and make him sit down to eat.  I did feel a little bad when Cooper kept telling my sister "that mouse come get you."  He finally ate some pizza, a cookie and played a few more games before we headed out.

We drove through a few subdivisions to check out lights, and then came home to open some of the gifts we held back.

Happy 2nd Birthday Cooper! Next time, I'm just going to send him with Kelly & Eileen.  She's a Chuck E Cheese pro.  :-)

Birthday Party Blowout

Because I enjoy planning ahead, I've spent a few months thinking about Cooper's birthday party.  We decided on a football theme and I used Pinterest to help detail things that I just couldn't put together.  I spent quite a few afternoons trying to catch a great photo for his invitation.  The one I loved didn't have quite the right lighting, but I kept going back to it and knew it was the one.

Cooper has been a fan of wearing his jersey, frequently saying "jersey on" over and over on a Sunday afternoon.

The week before his party, we started decorating & baking and all Cooper talked about was his "football birthday party."

We served football cupcakes, football cookies & Cowboys cake balls (that I will never make again).

We loaded up the backyard with balloons.  Jason grilled hot dogs, and we served chili, cheese dip, pretzel bites & a creamy jalapeno dip.  Perfect game day food!  

Thankfully the weather was great for sitting outside, and we loaded up on Dollar Store balls & bubbles for the kids to play with.

Although I think the sand was the biggest hit.

Cooper decided to also make a liar out of me that night.  He kept telling Jason that his belly hurt and I didn't believe him, claiming that he really didn't know what that meant.  Sure enough, I was wrong.  As I was grabbing something from the fridge, I could hear him around the corner and knew that he'd gotten sick.  A quick costume change, and we were back in business.  Although he wasn't really keen on eating a cupcake at that point.

Despite the upset stomach, Cooper recovered quickly and went back to playing, running and chasing.  A short sprinkle brought everyone inside and before I knew what was happening some of the kids were chasing each other around the house.

We're still not sure how it happened, or what they were doing, but all four were screaming and yelling and I have no clue who was chasing who.

We had a few dog piles...

but everyone got back up and kept running.

Happy birthday Cooper!!

Yes, he is wearing a third shirt.  Sometime after we came in the house, Reagan informed me that Cooper was breaking the rules by flushing the toilet without using the potty.  Jason went to tell him to stop, and found a really wet sleeve.  Draw your own conclusions...

2 Year Photos

As much as I looked forward to taking our family photos, I really dropped the ball on booking a photographer.  We talked about it and thought about it, but by the time we decided to do it...I realized that it wasn't going to be easy.  Thankfully, photographers make it easy to find someone in your area by adding key words when you Google.  A few searches later and I landed on a new-to-me photographer - Beth V Photography.  I really liked the photos I saw on her blog and the dates were perfect for us.

We planned ahead and took a book for Cooper to play with.  I love that it also shows what he is in to these days.  When I'm old and senile, that will probably matter.

Even though we're not looking at the photo, I love this one.  It really is us.

This is the "Big Truck!" expression.

 

I really loved the photos Beth took.  It amazes me every time I try to catch a picture of Cooper doing something how easy photographers make it look...and how hard it really is!  I can't wait to share these.

Christmas Train Ride

When Jason told me about the steam train close to his parents house, I'm not sure who was more excited.  Me about seeing Cooper's face or Cooper.  We decided to ride the train the day after Thanksgiving and being the awesome parent I am, I used that train all day to get Cooper to eat lunch, nap and listen.

All afternoon Cooper talked about how he was going to ride the train.  He was going to ride James.  (for those of you not fully immersed in Thomas-speak, James is the red engine)

Cooper was excited.  I was excited to see him see the train!  Then it happened.  That train pulled into the 'station' and he looked at me and said "I go ride in car."

This would not be the face of an excited boy...

We managed to get on the train and he was OK, as long as I held on tight.  We finally figured out that he's most likely afraid of the dark.  The train took us through a trail of lights that told the story of Christmas - he would be fine when things were lit up, but when the trail was darker I'm pretty sure he managed to climb into my skin.

Later that night, I asked if he wanted to ride the train and Cooper responded with a very quick "No."  He was perfectly happy playing with his small, motorized train set.

You know, where he could play Godzilla.

He wasn't traumatized - the next day (and every day since) he's talked about going to ride the train.  Next time we'll make sure it is daylight!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We went to visit Jason's parents for Thanksgiving this year. After lunch, we decided to run off some of the lunch outside.

Sometime before Cooper could crawl...or maybe before he was born...his Papa bought a bicycle from the neighbor who outgrew it.  Even though he's really tall for his age, he still can't quite reach the pedals.

Yes, it is pink.  I think we need to paint it, but apparently that is still on the table.  We pushed him around, trying to get him to not run into anything, but that was about it.

The rest of the day was spent watching football and playing trains.  I'm still trying to forget the football watching.

Pun-kins

This post falls into the "better late than never" category. We carved the pumpkins in October, don't worry.  The late part would be that the photos were on a different memory card and I sort of forgot about them.

Cooper was so excited about Pun-Kins this year.  So, I insisted we buy one and carve it out.  Jason wasn't as excited as we were...probably because he was the one who did all of the carving.

Cooper was pretty interested in the whole process and tried to be helpful.

Once it was all cleaned out, Jason took the pumpkin outside to show Cooper...and that's where the fun ended.  He refused to go outside.  I tried carrying him out to see it lit up, but he wanted to stay safely inside.  Go figure.

Also, since we always seem to have a few wine bottles lying around (no idea why...) I decided to channel Pinterest and try something crafty.  They look ok in the photo, but you can't see that painting wine bottles with spray paint is not as easy as it sounds.