Hilarity from Cooper B

Randomly on the way home today Cooper was telling me something about Anna checking her boyfriend Chris's blood sugar, and he said, "When I grow up I do not want to get shot-ted like that.  No way.  And I am not going to the hospital to get shot-ted or anything else either.  I don't want to go to the hospital at all.  And I am not driving Ella to the hospital when she has a baby.  She can just drive herself."

/Me: Okay, first of all, no.  We have had this conversation multiple times, and you will not be married to Ella when you grow up.  Remember how Uncle Will and I are brother and sister like you and Ella?  But I married Daddy, and he married Caroline.  You can marry whoever you want.

Cooper: I can marry whoever I WANT?  I don't have to marry Ella?  Well thank goodness.  And whoever I marry will still have to drive themself to the hospital when they have a baby because I do not want to get shot-ted in the hospital.  I'll explain it to her before so she knows.

Me: Coop, of course you can marry whoever you want, and you have to have to drive your wife to the hospital when she's having a baby.  It's only fair since she's the one who's going to have to have the baby.  And you don't get a shot just because you walk in the hospital.

Coop: Mom (with eye roll) - you know I am not afraid of a getting a shot.  I don't want to get SHOT-TED.  That is when you bleed.  That did not look fun.  And can you give me directions on how to get to the hospital when I am grown up?  Because I don't know how to get there on my own.  You know, after you teach me how to drive and stuff?

At this point I just said, "Okay, sure." because I was pretty sure I couldn't handle any more conversation about him driving, getting married, or having a baby just yet.  :P

Wal-Mart = 4 hour trip

I took both kids with me to Wal-Mart this morning to get approximately 500 things because apparently I have lost my mind.  The little one - Miss Sassy Pants - feels the need to say "Hey!" (loudly) to every single person we pass, but if they dare to stop to talk to her, she gives them her trademark stink eye and/or ignores them completely.  In case you don't know what the stink eye looks like (obviously you've never met Ella, but anyway...) here is one such look.

And while the little one is busy giving out "the look" or ignoring them, the bigger one is ready and willing to chat with anyone who stops.  "Hi, I'm Cooper.  That's Ella.  How are you?  I'm doing great.  Are you buying grapes too?  I like the green ones best, don't you?" and on and on and on. 

I sure do love my babies, but sometimes I wonder how many gray hairs each grocery shopping trip with them gives me.  :P

Oh, how I love fall!

We had a lot of fall fun this weekend!  Last night we went to our friends Jami, Brandon, and Hunter's house to grill out, roast marshmallows and make s'mores.  The kids had the best time!  After supper and s'mores, the boys ran around the back yard and played on the swing set, while the grown ups stayed close to the fire and tried to keep the girls from falling into it!  Ella loved running after the bigger kids and pretending she was big like them.  :)

Emma and Ella holding hands... precious!

Cooper and Miller roasting marshmallows!

Miss Ella getting some help from Daddy to roast her marshmallow.

Today Chris and I took Cooper and Ella to the pumpkin patch.  They picked out their pumpkins, petted the animals, played on the neat playground, and tried to make getting a good picture of both of them together practically impossible.  :)  We had a lot of fun just being together as a family.  Cooper took the job of pumpkin-picker very seriously, and Ella tried her best, to no avail, to pick up every pumpkin in the patch. 

 

Then when we got home, we carved a jack-o-lantern.  After we took it outside and lit it up, Ella kept going, "Oooh.  Pump-tin.  Oooh.  Happy!"

The Fair!

This week we went to the fair, like we do every year.  We had so much fun!  Any time we take our kids somewhere, Chris and I always talk about how easy going they both are (usually!).  Cooper rode a lot of rides; he is not afraid of anything!  Miss Ella rode the merry go round and had a death grip on Chris the whole time.  :)  She is not a daredevil at all!  She still doesn't like to swing.  Poor baby.  She was such a trooper though.  She rode in her stroller most of the time, only fussing to get out when we stopped, and she wanted to watch Cooper on a ride.  Both kids loved looking at the animals.  We just had the best time being together and watching them enjoy themselves.

See the nervousness...

And the death grip?  :)

This picture makes me laugh.  Cooper's like, "Who are you?"

The stuffed animals they paid for won picking up ducks.

Ears, eyes... what's the difference?

Hello footy pajamas, I missed you!

These are her "duck ducks" that she LOVES!

She is such a climber!

And I blame him.  :)

She was born giving the stink eye.  ;)

I love this video of Cooper reading to Ella...

Messy Ella = No Love From Cooper

Tonight after an interesting supper of pizza and yogurt, Ella was a disgusting mess.  Clearly she has not yet mastered eating with a spoon.  :P  

So when Cooper walked by (note the pizza on his shirt as well), she tried to give him a hug.

 I like to mess with him, so I said, "Oh come on Cooper, give your sister a hug."  Note the terrified perma-smile on his face, and the slightly evil grin on hers.

Then, in usual Ella style, she decided to try force.  He managed to escape, but just barely.

Cooper goes back to school!

Cooper started back to preschool this Tuesday.  He is at the same preschool he went to last year, but this year he is in the four year class.  He is in the fortunate position of knowing most of the kids in his class already.  He was beyond thrilled to see his friends from last year, Miss Carly and Miss Janet from last year, and to get to know Miss Michelle and Miss Paulette!  I was so happy to see him excited about going back to school.  He walked right in, unpacked his book bag, found his name to put on the check-in chart, and headed over to his friend Abi to start playing.  He could hardly be bothered to tell us bye.  :)

Wow. School starting back + spending every second with my babies = bye bye blog. :P

Since Tuesday will be Cooper's first day of preschool, and I am hoping (surely!) I will post all about that soon, I am making this post all about Miss Ella K!  She is so funny!  She is so sweet and loving, but then she can get mad in a second - sometimes for absolutely no reason at all.  If she is whiny or just grouchy in general, she is either hungry or tired.  Even though she likes to pitch fits, run away and hide her face when you don't do something she wants, or as fast as she thinks you should, she is usually such a sweetie!  She gives kisses and hugs all the time, would walk across hot coals just to be near her brother, and can melt you with her precious smile.

She still points and grunts, and talks a lot of gibberish, but she will surprise you by saying a word you never would have thought she knew.  So far she can consistently say: mama, dada, bubba (brother), Nana, Pop, Papaw, Mimi (Grammy), Mamaw (for Mamaw and Grandma), Anna, Unc (Uncle Will), dog, ball, up, shoes, nose, toes, mouf (mouth), bow, bye bye, no (of course haha), nuk-nuk (milk - she used to say nak for snack and after 100 million times of us saying "milk?" she now says nuk-nuk :P), nak (snack), duce (juice which she doesn't even drink, hers is water, but since Cooper's is juice I guess she just assumes hers is too haha), tookie (cookie), mm-hm and uh-huh (for yes and no), duck, moo (cow), neigh neigh (horse), bock bock (chicken), baa baa (sheep), book, uh-oh, baby, hello (sounds like ha-wo), and night night.

If you spend five minutes with her you will think I am telling tales, but she really does use all of those words consistently at home.  Around people she doesn't see often she is very quiet, and she still, even at home, will point and grunt for things she wants.  She uses words a lot when she's looking at books.  She will also say next to nothing one day and you'll think she's lost all of those words, then she'll talk all day long the next day.  Her talking is very different from Cooper's was, but as our pediatrician says, not many children talk like Cooper.  He also said he would be pleased if she had 10 words at 18 months.  Now that she does have so many words, and I can see how much she understands, I am pretty relaxed about her talking.  I'm pretty sure she just can't get a word in with Cooper, Chris and me around all the time!

She can point to the following body parts: nose, eyes, mouth, ears, hair, bow (not a body part but it does go along with hair), fingers, hands, arm, leg, foot, toes, and belly.  She has no clue where her neck, back, chin, cheek, knee, or bottom are, but hey she's only 16 months old.  ;)

She has recently decided that she loves to read, and will bring books to you constantly to read saying, "book book".  She loves anything that plays music and will dance to any music at all, even if it's just Cooper singing to her (which by the way may be the sweetest thing I've seen in my life).  She loves to carry around her "baby", sort of throwing it over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  She will carry around a phone and say, "Ha-wo.  Gibber gibber gibber.  Bye bye."  She loves ride-on toys, her little farm animals, and whatever toy Cooper happens to be playing with at the time.  She still sleeps with her taggie blankie and lambie at night.  She lives lives lives for shoes!  She loves to wear shoes, even in the house, and will throw a fit if you try to take them off.  She will spend several minutes picking out just the ones she wants from her shoe drawer (it's the bottom drawer so she can see and pull out whichever pair(s) she wants).  I think she will definitely be a shoe lover when she grows up!

Such a sweetie...

Going back to work after a great summer off with my babies is always kind of sad.  I'm excited about a new school year, and glad to see all of my friends from work, but it's sad not to get to be with Cooper and Ella all day, every day.  I know that I am blessed to have summers off with them.  I'm not complaining about having a job.  I am so lucky that Mom and Glenda keep the kids for us, but I can't help but be a little blue when it comes time to leave them every day and head off to work.  And I'm not the only one who's having to adjust.  Cooper loves to be with Mom and Glenda, but he can be a little sad sometimes too about me having to go to work.  Here are some of the sweet (but heart wrenching) things he's said lately...

"I'll miss you when you're at work Mom, but I'll always hold you in my heart."

"I meant to tell you a long time ago, back when I was a baby, that I didn't want you to go to work.  I wanted you to stay home with me."

"I miss all those days.  Those days when you were able to be home with me all the time."

Then tonight when I was tucking him in, he said, "Mom, guess who I love?  She's as pretty as can be, and the best mother in the whole wide world.  It's you!"  Then he said, "I love Daddy too.  No matter how many boo boos he has, I will always love him because he's a great dad."  (Chris had some cuts on his hands from something he did at work today, and Cooper had helped him put on a band aid right before bedtime.)

He is just the sweetest, most loving, most precious little boy in the world.  I am so proud to be his mommy!

Coop's first Panthers game...

Last night Chris took Cooper to his first Panthers game, and I'm not sure who was more excited!  Chris has been waiting for this day since Cooper was born.  Cooper wanted to eat as soon as they got there, and they did a little shopping.  After half time, Chris had taken Cooper to the bathroom, and a lady came up to them and offered them her club level seats.  So they got to enjoy the second half of the game in style!  They had a great time.  Cooper said his favorite part of the game was the cheerleaders (of course haha).  On the way home Cooper told Chris that he wanted to be a football player when he grew up and play in the stadium where they had just been.  And then Chris's head exploded.  :)

Getting ready to go!

Modeling his new Cam Newton jersey and Panther hat.

Showing off the jersey he insisted they get for Ella.  :)

Go Panthers!

Can't believe Chris actually asked somebody to take their picture.

"Sure, I come here all the time."  In the club level.