Wee Ball 2012

Cooper is playing wee ball for the second year in a row, and it is still one of the cutest things I've ever seen.  The kids are so funny!  We are blessed that Cooper is on a team with his buddies and the parents are our buddies, so that makes it all the more fun!  My very talented cousin Michael came to Coop's last game and took some (great!) pictures of the action.  He had to be pretty quick since the games are pretty fast paced.  ;)

Ella's 2 Year Check Up

Ella stink eyed and grouch-faced her way through her appointment.  She was super mad when they pricked her finger, and even more mad when she got her shot, but she recovered quickly when the nurse offered her stickers.  :)  She is growing well, 25% for weight and between 10 and 25% for height.  Dr. H says Ella is "absolutely perfect" and "such a beautiful little girl".  He always makes the sweetest comments about her and Cooper both.  She may be a sassy little thing, but she is pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.

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Ella is 2!

Ella is two, and I'm not sure how it happened.  Wasn't I just pregnant?  She brings me more joy than I imagined.  When I was pregnant, I worried a bit about having another baby, a daughter in particular.  Cooper and I were so close, so much alike personality wise and how our minds work.  He was my best pal.  I wasn't sure how another baby would fit.  But God knew what he was doing, and Miss Ella Kate is the blessing I never knew I longed for.  She is wonderful.  She is kind and loving, funny and headstrong, independent and sassy, smart and inquisitive, and she is, as I sing to her every night, my sunshine.

Cooper knows us all too well...

In the car today, Cooper started telling me that everyone in our family was good at different things.  Then he would name somebody and describe them with a word or two (usually made up words haha).  He had done the first few before I got the camera ready so he had to repeat them, but he came up with all of this on his own...

My boy

Did you know that I think Cooper is amazing?  I do.  Today in the car we had the most interesting conversation about God, Jesus, heaven and dying.  He, out of the blue, says, "Mom, I can't wait to heaven to see God and Jesus.  Won't that be amazing?"  I almost cried right then because, yes, of course that will be amazing, and how precious is he?  So I say that yes, I think that will be amazing.  Then he says, "And I can't wait to see all of the other people in heaven who will be waiting to meet me.  Like Papaw Cooper, and Oscar (our dog who died last September)."  That one did me in for sure.  Then he wanted to know what I thought heaven was like, and what we would look like in heaven, and why did Jesus's whole body ascend to heaven, but only our souls go and our bodies stay here on earth?  He is curious, and bright, and sometimes a much deeper thinker than I wish, and he makes my heart happy.

Finally ready to post about Disney!

I came hom from Disney all pumped to post about our trip, and then I realized my camera had not come home with us from Disney.  After sobbing hysterically, calling every blooming place between Florida and here were we stopped, and waiting on hold for 45 minutes to speak to a very nice man at Lost and Found (who had my camera and shipped it to me!) it is back and I am finally ready to blog about it all!

We left Friday right after lunch, got to the hotel that night about midnight, had an interesting first night trying to get both children to go to sleep at the same time, and started our day on 2 and 1/2 hours sleep.  We were so excited that I don't really think we noticed - much.  :)  We started that day at Hollywood Studios.  The definitely highlights there were the Toy Story ride, the Star Wars ride (for Coop) and the Beauty and the Beast show (for Ella).  Cooper rode the Tower of Terror first thing with Chris, Miller, Wes, and Wes's dad Terry, while Ella and I went with Angie, Emma, and Wes's mom Debbie to see the Beauty and the Beast show.  The show was great!  Ella loved it and danced the whole time.  She kept saying, "Oh no!  The monster!"  At the end where it's suppposed to be all romantic and the beast is the prince, she kept asking, "Where's monster?  Where's beast?  Want beast!"  Very romantic that girl.  ;)  Cooper liked Tower of Terror, but he said he "was not a fan of the sketchy people".  We had a character lunch that day, and ate at Pizza Planet that night.  Cooper loved seeing all of the Toy Story stuff and thought it was super cool to be eating at Pizza Planet.

That night we all crashed, but we were back it the next morning for Magic Kingdom!  It was soooooo cold that day!  In the 30s that morning and at night, but around 50 during the day.  50 doesn't sound too bad except that it was cloudy and really windy.  Brrrrrrr.  In spite of the chill, we still had so much fun!  That was the day you could stay late at the Magic Kingdom, so we were there until 1 AM!  Ella crashed out a little before midnight, but Cooper was still going strong on the bus back to the hotel.  The Magic Kingdom was of course magical!  Both Cooper and Ella had the best time.  They were amazed at all of the sights, the characters, and the rides.  Some of the highlights of our day at Magic Kingdom were meeting Mickey and Minnie, Cooper and Chris riding The Orbiter late that night, and Ella meeting the princesses.  Ella with the princesses was one of the cutest things I've ever seen in my life.  There were 3 princesses in a room, and you waited in line to see them.  Ella was so excited in line, but when it came time to walk up to the first one - Ariel - she was not at all sure.  She wanted me to walk with her and was holding my hand so tight!  The next one was Belle.  She held out her hand and let Ella feel her gloves.  She ended up holding Ella on her lap, just whispering to her and cuddling with her.  By the time we moved on to the last one - Cinderella - Ella launched herself at her and hugged her so tight.  Cinderella was holding her too, talking to her for a long time, but the best part was that she gave her a kiss on the cheek!  The man at the door told Ella she was very special to get a princess kiss, which Ella absolutely ate up.  :)  Oh, and my stupid camera that betrayed me by getting lost at Disney World, also decided to have no battery right when it was time to see the princesses.  So I have video from my flip camera, and I have these pictures that I bought from Disney Photopass at the bargain price of $9.95 a piece, so please enjoy them.  Look at them a loooong time.

Here are a few more pictures of our wonderful day at Magic Kingdom...

Ella Loves with a capital L Minnie Mouse.



The third day we spent the morning at Epcott and the afternoon at Animal Kingdom.  Cooper loved the ride Soaring at Epcott, Ella loved the Nemo ride, and we all loved that the weather was much warmer that day!  At Animal Kingdom, Cooper loved the dinosaur rides and the animal safari.  It was really neat, and Ella would have loved that too, but she was tuckered out and slept through the whole thing.  We ate that night at Rainforest Cafe, and it was a huge hit!

Our last day was also Valentine's Day, so that morning we gave the kids their valentines in the hotel room.  Then we headed back to the Magic Kingdom.  That day was so warm!  It felt like summertime!  We had dinner reservations at the T-Rex Cafe at Downtown Disney, but after that we decided to go back to the Magic Kingdom and just leave later that night. 

 

We intended to drive a couple of hours that night to shorten our driving time the next day, but Miss Ella will not sleep in the car, and she had several huge meltdowns that led to Chris deciding to stop a little before midnight for the night.  I was amazed at how well both kids did riding in the car, well and just how they were the whole trip.  Chris and I enjoyed being with them so much, and were so proud of how flexible they were.  They never complained, were rarely whiney, and were just fun to be with!  I think we'll keep 'em!  :)

Cooper's love life - at 4

Yesterday...

Cooper: "Mom, guess what happened at school today?  I told A that I was going to marry G, but A got upset and cried because she wants to marry me.  So I gave her a hug and said, okay I'll marry you because I really do love her.  Then she felt better, but G started to cry.  So I gave her a hug too, and they decided they would just both marry me."

Me: "Well I'm glad you worked that out Coop, but you've got a long time before you need to worry about who you're going to marry.  Just make sure you're being kind and a good friend to everybody so that nobody's feelings get hurt."

Cooper: "Oh that's good because girls are complicated."

It's a hard life he leads I'm telling ya.  :P


Then this morning we were watching Gnomeo and Juliet during the part where the frog tells Juliet that she can tell she met a boy because she's got "that glow" and her cheeks are rosy.  He looks at me and asks if his cheeks are red.  I said, "What?  Why would your cheeks be red?" (because I was looking up recipes on pinterest and not paying very much attention to the movie that we've seen 895 times).  He says, "You know, because I'm in love with A."  So apparently he's not sworn off girls entirely.  :)

Hokey Pokey!

One night putting on Ella's pajamas, I started singing Hokey Pokey.  She loved it!  Every night now she asks for, "Pokey!"  Tonight, after I got her jammies on, she wanted Cooper to do the Hokey Pokey with her.  That was the cutest, funniest thing I have ever seen in my life.  Chris and I laughed and laughed.  Funny, precious babies.  :)

Cooper is AWESOME!

We get a little crazy around here...

This morning, since my children were sick - though you'd never know it from how much fun they're having - we skipped church so as not to expose anybody else to their "yucky, red throat virus".  Sunday mornings are special to us since it's the only morning we are all here together.  Saturdays Chris works, and Wednesdays when he's home I have to hurry to work.  So anyway, we love our Sunday mornings.

This morning after breakfast Cooper wanted to play pet shop.  That basically meant he brought all 800 of his stuffed animals into the den and wanted us to come pick one and buy it from him (using his new cash register that he got from Santa).  First Ella was going to be his assistant.  Chris asked her if he could buy an animal, and she said, "No biting!"  Cooper, Chris and I laughed until we cried because she was serious, pointing her little finger at Chris and fussing at him because she thought he said he wanted to bite an animal instead of buy one. 

Then Chris got smart and asked Cooper about buying an animal.  Cooper sold him a monkey for $64.  Then Ella came up, pointed to the monkey and said, "Mine!"  Chris said, "No way.  I just paid $64 for this monkey.  It's mine."  Then they got into a nice argument with Ella getting pretty mad that Chris was teasing her and not giving her the monkey.  Cooper walked up and said, "Daddy, giver her the moneky.  You can have this cheetah."  So Chris agreed to a trade.  ;)  Ella put the monkey in a bucket she was carrying around as her, "picketbook", then looked at the cheetah and said, "My fox!"  Cooper said, "That's not a fox, it's a cheetah."  Chris said, "I already paid $64 for a monkey and got a cheetah, and now you want my cheetah?"  To which Ella replied, "No.  Fox!"  Silly, silly girl.  :)

Love my girl...

Miss Ella is quite full of personality these days.  She is such a sassy, funny, sweet little lady.  I want to remember everything about her at this age, so I'm going to write down some of the funny, cute things she says and does so I won't forget.

She loves to say, "You's" as in "You's coat Bubby?"  "You's shoes Mommy."  Especially funny since we live in the south.  :)

She says so many phrases and is putting words into sentences really well.  Some of her faves... "I get it."  "I fix it."  And anything ending with - ing... "I running!"  "I coming!"  "I going!"  "I hiding!"

She loves to play hide and seek with Cooper.  She'll look for him saying, "Bubby, where IS you?" 

She also loves to say "ont" (want).  When she wakes up, the first thing she says is, "Ont Bubby".

If she's not calling Cooper "Bubby" or "Bubba" she'll call him "Coopee".  She has only said "Cooper" a couple of times.

She has really good manners.  She says, "peez", "tanks", "tank you", "welcome" and "scuse me."  She will also say, "soddy" whether she actually should or not.  She will apologize even when she did nothing wrong.  Like if Cooper bumps into her she'll say, "Oh soddy".  Bless her.

She recently has decided she wants to be rocked to sleep at night.  This is such a change for her!  She has always practically dived out of my arms to get to her crib every night.  She'll say, "Rock Mommy."  And as soon as I sit down, "Sing!"  She can help say her prayers at night (saying sleep, keep, night, light and Amen), and sing along to "You are My Sunshine".  She can hum the tune and catch some words while I sing, but she can also say the words at the end of each line to "You Are My Sunshine" too (sunshine, happy, gray, dear, you, take, away).  She still sleeps with puppy every night (Cooper's old build-a-bear dog Froglina).

When we got the puppies for the kids for Christmas, Ella's dog Daisy had a red collar and Cooper's dog Trixie had a black collar.  We took them to PetSmart to let them pick their own collars.  Cooper picked this black and pink collar, but I told him I thought a different brown and pink one would be cuter because the puppies are brown.  So his was mostly brown with a little pink.  We let Ella pick from a couple that matched, and she picked one that was mostly pink.  Then she got upset and was pitching a fit about something, so she and Chris were walking around a little while Cooper and I still looked around.  I started to feel bad because I knew I sort of convinced Cooper to get a different collar, and we had agreed to let him pick whatever he wanted, so I told him if he really liked the first collar best, he could get that one.  So he did and since Ella was gone with Chris, I just picked one that sort of matched his - a light pink and gray one.  That night we put their new collars on after the kids went to bed.  When we were playing with the puppies the next morning, Ella insisted that Trixie was Daisy and Daisy was Trixie.  She just new that the bright pink collar was the one she picked (the one she picked did have a lot bright pink, and the one I changed it to had light pink).  She kept on and on pointing to Trixie (Cooper's) and saying, "No.  Mine!"  Then pointing to Daisy and saying, "You's.  Trixie."  So funny.  It didn't matter what Cooper and I said or how many times we tried to explain it to her, she was convinced that we had them mixed up and that Daisy was the one in that pink collar.  I finally took Daisy's new collar off, put her old red one on and said, "See Ella?  That's Daisy."  Then she said, "Oh Daisy!  Hey!"  Funny funny girl.  I think we'll keep her.  :)

New Year's Eve in the ER

I am so far behind on blogging.  :P  I want to write about all of the fun things we've done throughout this Christmas season - because there were a lot of fun things, and we had a great Christmas - but I am so far behind that I can't get motivated to start.  So I am skipping all of that, hopefully to catch back up later, and writing about our very eventful New Year's Eve...

So New Year's Eve we had plans to go out to eat with friends, and then back to Angie and Wes's to hang out (kid-free!) to watch the ball drop.  (I should add here that I actually spent time trying on outfits because I am sick sick sick of my clothes and feel like I wear the same thing over and over, so I wanted to make an attempt to look cute for New Year's.  I was even going WAY out on a limb to wear black leggings, black boots and a long sweater.  Black leggings = not in my comfort zone.)  So as we are just starting to get ready, and I need to change Ella's diaper.  I took her to her room to change her diaper, and Cooper followed me in there, because you can be sure wherever I go, Cooper will follow.  :)  As I'm changing her diaper, I was talking to Cooper about all of the fun things he was going to do with Grammy when she got there to keep them.  I heard him fall, and by the time I looked behind me he was jumping up, holding his arm, and saying, "Mom, I broke my arm!"  He just had this shocked look on his face.  I was trying to feel on his arm to see if anything felt out of place, and figure out where it hurt, and then I felt this huge, nasty knot on his elbow.  I called Mom to ask her to come on up to the house to keep Ella so we could head to the ER. 

While we were getting on socks and shoes, and waiting on Mom, poor Cooper was in so much pain.  He didn't cry after the first few minutes, but he was really pale, and his face had that pinched look like he was in a lot of pain.  So pitiful.  In the car it was a little better because the car seat supported his arm.  By the time we got back to the hospital, he was his usual smiley, chatty self.  We got there a little before 7:00.  Waited in the waiting room until 8:00.  Went to triage where they gave him some Motrin.  In triage the nurse asked him to look at that stupid pain scale with the faces and tell which one showed they way he felt.  During the time we had been in the room with her, he was laughing and asking questions (What does that do?  What does this do?).  He said, "That one way on the right, with the tears."  Then he grinned really big and we all busted out laughing at him.  It was just so at odds with the way he was acting.  I know it was hurting - but a 10 on the pain scale?  Funny.

So we went back to the waiting room.  About 10 we went back for x-rays, not too long after that we went back to a room.  We finally saw a doctor who told us the arm was in fact broken around 11:45.  He said because of the swelling, they would splint it and then we should go see an ortopedist and get it casted on Monday.  Cooper crashed out at 12:39, and at 12:40 the nurse came in to splint his arm.  At 1:00 we carried a sleepy, splinted, shirtless, blanketed boy out the car.  We finally all went to sleep in our bed at 2:00.

It was a long, long, very long night.  We counted down the time on the big clock in the room, Chris and I kissed Cooper at midnight, and played tons and tons of Angry Birds on my phone.  Cooper was such a trooper, precious to be with all night.  He was only whiney twice - to say, "I am very upset that I am missing my special night with Grammy." and "They are never going to let me go home!"  I totally felt like they were never going to let us go home either, so I could relate.  He even apologized to us that we were missing dinner with our friends and having to spend the night in the ER with him.  He said, "That was not a good choice I made about doing tricks in Ella's chair."  Poor sweet boy.

Here is a video of him talking about his arm:

And here is one of my all time favorite videos of him when he was about Ella's age - 21 months, the first time he broke his arm.