Coop is 2!!!

It actually feels like he's been 2 for awhile.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's because lately people have been asking what ages my kids are and I've just been rounding up to 2 with him.  It is a nice milestone though.  I never realized how many things are for ages 2 and up.  Haha!  For example, he can finally have the chewable vitamins and use the same type of toothbrush and toothpaste as the girls.  He's such a handsome guy!!!  Gracie has been calling him, "Little Man Boy!"  I LOVE it!!!

My little man sleeping on his last night as a 1 year old!

The kids each got a pirate sword balloon and a set of bubbles to celebrate Cooper's birthday.

Take 3 of trying to catch the kids having a sword fight finally turned out without crying.  In the first 2 attempts there was fighting over whose sword was whose.  They'll think of any reason to fight!  They were cute though talking about making each other walk the plank, etc.

Lately whenever I've held Cooper I've teased him by saying that he was sleeping.  He's started scrunching his face all up to keep his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep.  It's the funniest thing!  

Caught him saying, "Cheese!"  Little cutie!

The kids playing with their new bubbles!

Thanks everyone for making his day so fun!  We got this awesome train track/roadway table through Amazon.com since we had a gift card from Matt (thanks Matt!) and on top of that, we got free shipping!  So far it has been a great purchase!  The kids have been playing with it nonstop.

Gracie drew Cooper a picture of him and her riding a train for his birthday.  She drew it before she knew what his big gift was too!  So sweet to think of her brother!

The table came with one three piece train so we thought it would be good to get him a bunch of hotwheels to go with it too.

John Deere tractors from Granny!

Money from Aunt Sarah!

We got him a birthday card that had a puppy barking the Happy Birthday song.  His face lit up when he heard it!  So cute!  It's fitting because sometimes he won't come to us when we say, unless we whistle and call out, "Here Puppy!!!" and then he'll drop down on all fours and come to us quickly.

Adorable train conductor overalls from Grandma and Granddad!

Little Goofball!

One feature that made us pick this particular car table was that it came with this board that you can put over it so that it can also be used as an arts and crafts table.

This little stinker would NOT look at the camera most of the day no matter what we tried.  Good thing he's so darn cute!  His grin and cuteness get him out of trouble way too often though!  Ha!

My attempt at a Lightning McQueen cake.

In these next two pictures he was singing Happy Birthday to himself.

Showing everyone that he is 2!

He sang to himself here too along with the rest of us.  He even sang the "Happy Birthday Dear Cooper" part.  We were laughing through the whole song!

I'm so glad Cooper is MY boy!!!  I can't get enough of his little grin!  He's growing up so much!  He can identify almost all the letters in the alphabet and is starting to count.  He's been getting a lot better at talking too and says things like, "No, go away!" and "Night Gacie, night Indsey" and "Livia . . . cute!" and my favorite, "Love you, Mommy!"  The other day he kept saying, "Oh Crap, Oh Crap!" and I finally realized that he had a small piece of paper in his hand and was trying to say "scrap".  Haha!  Gracie has a United States puzzle and he can grab any random state and put it in it's proper place.  Even if the puzzle is upside down!  What a little smartie!  He's such a charmer too and always grins and says hi to people!

I love you my little broozer boy!  Happy Birthday!

Pros and Cons of a Day

Bad things that happened today:

1.  I had the kids help me make heart shaped cookies for Activity Days tonight and I thought Cooper could help too.  He made ONE heart shape and then grabbed a handful of dough and shoved it in his mouth.  I yelled, "Cooper, NO!" to which he immediately grabbed the gob out of his mouth and put it back with the rest of the dough.  This brought on even more yells and I gave him back the gob and told him to just eat it and then I washed him off and gated him in the living room . . . he cried and cried because he wanted to keep making cookies.  (Just so you know, I always let the kids eat some of the dough, just not until the end of the process.)

2. I burnt one of the batches of cookies.  Lesson learned: don't bake cookies of different sizes at the same time.  Haha!

3.  Olivia spit up all over my shirt and pants and I had just washed those pants and they are the only ones that fit me comfortably right now.  (I'm in between maternity clothes and my regular clothes so I'm quite limited on wardrobe options).

4.  Olivia needed to eat right when I was getting the kids lunch so I didn't get to eat lunch myself until awhile later.

5.  While cleaning up lunch, I heard a yell from the bathroom that a butt needed wiped.  I thought it was Gracie so I yelled, "You gotta wipe yourself this time!" only to find that it was Lindsey who had been yelling. I walked in the bathroom to find her with poo all over her hands and on the toilet seat, and big tears streaming down her cheeks.  Poor thing! She did TRY to wipe herself. She was about to go down for a nap and she sucks her thumb.  Even though her hands were washed, the thought grossed me out, so I put a bandaid on her thumb, hoping it would keep her from sucking on it.  Bad Mom award.

Good things that happened today:

1.  I made heart shaped peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and had just enough squeeze cheese to give each kid their own I Love You wheat thins. (I never do fun things like this, so I was pretty pleased.)

2.  The cookies are done for tonight.

3.  I got our bedding as well as Cooper's washed this morning and I finally got some milk stored in the freezer for Olivia since formula makes her puke. (Too much information I know, but I've been wanting to get started on this for a long time.)

4.  I actually got to shower before noon. (Make-up and hair have yet to be done.)

5.  Olivia finally fell asleep for a nap so I was able to burn off pictures from my camera and work on the blog.

6.  I found this adorable video of the girls making cookies last year on Valentine's Day.  It seemed to be a lot better experience than this years so I wanted to share it.  I can't believe how much they change in just one year!

Blessing Day!

Sweet little Olivia Lynn was blessed today!  Tim did such a good job (he always does) and Olivia was so good!  Tim said she let out a sweet little "coo" at one point during the blessing.  She had two blowouts this morning, but luckily none of them while her dress was on.  I changed her out of the dress as soon as possible just in case.

These first pictures weren't taken today, but I just thought they were cute.  She might end up being our only blue-eyed baby.  I know I've said it before but she really is a good baby.  She already sleeps through the night and she doesn't cry once she does wake up, even when she's waiting to be fed.  She always gives us smiles and tries to talk to us.  She went through a stage of wanting to be held all the time but now she's content to just be in the same room as all of us.  She doesn't demand food every 2 hours, so that gives me time to take care of other things throughout the day.  She's just a perfect little angel!!!

We were going to bless her last Sunday but we got the flu and a stomach bug in our house.  Luckily Olivia didn't get it since she's the only one who can't have meds and thanks to everyone's prayers, blessings from Tim, and tamiflu and some pills for stomach, everyone is healed except for an occasional cough out of Cooper and Gracie.

Trying to talk to me. . .

Sweet little grin. . .

Her beautiful blessing dress!  Thank goodness Tim convinced me to order a bigger size.

The picture below shows how I was feeling too while taking her pictures.  I was getting so frustrated because I couldn't pose her and there was always clutter in the background because I've gotten behind on the house. Thank goodness I was able to crop most of that out.  I kept thinking "I wish Heidi were here!"  Haha!  Poor Olivia must have felt my frustration too and Cooper was crying in the background because I couldn't handle all the kids around while in this stressful situation so they were "gated" in the girls room, and he wanted out so bad.

Part of my frustration was that her hands were always flailing in her face, or in her mouth, right when I tried to take a picture.  That's why my hand is in this picture, holding her hands down.  She still looks so cute in all the pictures though!!!

We didn't have much time once we got to church and that was when she had one of her blowouts (right when I went to change her into the dress), Lindsey said she needed to go to the bathroom right as we got there, and the bishopric told Tim that there was a minor change in the way the blessing should be given (not really a change, just a way that wording should be, which is often not done properly.  Instead of saying, "we bless you that . . . you are addressing Heavenly Father, not the baby, so you would say "bless her that she. . .) so Tim was so stressed out with adjusting the wording and me wanting pictures taken, that he made himself sick.  You wouldn't have known it at all because the blessing was beautiful!

Anyway, here is our family on Olivia's blessing day!

We love you so much Olivia!!!