PUPPIES!

Look what Cooper got to do today!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Summer...

Cooper LOVES to play outside, even when it's cold and rainy. I'm so glad the weather is warming up for him.

Cooper isn't the only one who is loving the warmer weather...

Last weekend we went over to my sister's house to celebrate her birthday with a surprise party. On Saturday, her neighborhood had a neighborhood-wide yard sale. We found an awesome cargo carrier thing for the top of our car for FREE! We think it's worth around $500 and I don't know how we were so lucky to stumble across it and get it for free. We had actually been looking into buying one the week before, but had decided that they were too expensive. It's going to be so nice when we drive down to the beach for a week and also when we go camping and snowboarding. We will probably get a lot of use out of it.

For sale at my sister's yard sale was a toy vacuum. Cooper had a great time playing with it, and then a little boy wanted it. His Mom paid $2 for it and off they went. Cooper was totally bummed out. If I would have known he was going to like it so much, I would have just pulled it out of the yard sale. About an hour later, the boy and his Mom were walking down the street with the vacuum and Cooper saw them. He sprinted out to the sidewalk and grabbed the vacuum from the kid and tried to run back toward the house with it before I caught him. We were all a little shocked, but it was so funny! The rest of the weekend he pretended that this little, plastic golf club holder thing was a vacuum.

The surprise party was great and we really enjoyed spending time outside in the sun.

Cooper usually doesn't like swings and he refused to try it by himself, but he was having so much fun swinging with me.

I LOVE THIS FACE!

(I think I missed his chin when I put the sunscreen on. Ooops!)

Family Updates:

David is still a stay-at-home Daddy right now. He is loving it, but we are both anxious for him to find a teaching job. I start school in August, evening classes from 5:30-8:30/9:30 M-Th, and I don't want to work while I'm going to school. If I worked all day and then went to classes until 8:30 or 9:30, I'd never get to see Cooper, and that's just not going to happen. I'm willing to work part-time, but I don't even want to do that. Plus, I'm not sure when I'd be able to do homework if I worked full time! Oh man, just thinking about it stresses me out.

We are heading to the beach in a week and half. We are so excited!!! Spending a week at the beach with my family is going to be so much fun!

Potty Training

We haven't been the kind of parents that are in a hurry to get their child out of diapers. We've had all the potty training stuff for a long time, but we haven't been trying to push Cooper to use it. He loves to sit on the potty, but he always holds his pee in until I give up and put him in the tub (that's always fun) or give up and put a diaper back on him. He has no problem going pee in the tub right away or immediately after the diaper is back on. Just my luck!

He's gone #2 in the potty a couple times, probably 6 months ago, but it's only because we were able to catch him in the act and hurry him into the bathroom so he could finish his business in there. After doing that a couple times, he started to rebel and would rather just go #2 in his diaper. 

We didn't want to push it, so we backed off and just let it go. I've heard boys take longer and he's not even 2 and a half yet, so I'm not all that concerned about it. Maybe it's more that I'm not totally ready to have him out of diapers. I don't look forward to having him be able to take off his pants on his own, or cleaning up pee in the bathroom when he has bad aim. Really, changing a diaper isn't that bad of a task for me. I'd really rather have a pee-free bathroom. But I know it's going to need to happen sooner or later, and what better time then when his Daddy is home with him all day?!

So we bought some pull-ups with Lightning McQueen and Mator on them. They are the ones that get cold when they get wet so Cooper will feel it when he goes pee in them. He didn't want to wear them, so we didn't push it. We've probably had them for 3 weeks and he always tells us he wants to wear an elephant diaper, and not the Cars ones (our regular diapers have an elephant on them). Well today we ran out of elephant diapers and the only thing left in the house were Cars pull-ups. David talked to Cooper and was able to get one on him without a fight. They called me at work to tell me about it and I could hear how excited Cooper was to be wearing a Mator diaper. So here we go... potty training! Wish us luck!

This picture is from March. Hopefully he'll stay this happy to be sitting on the potty as we battle through this next big milestone.

Cooper's First Camping Trip

The weekend started off with a bang - actually it was more like a pop...

Packing to go camping is quite the challenge in itself. Trying not to forget anything, trying not to pack too much unnecessary stuff, and then trying to get it all in the car is exhausting. We got everything packed and then Cooper and David headed for the mountains with his sister and her kiddos. David's Mom and I were going to drive up there together after work. Thankfully we both got off work early because we had quite the adventure getting there. First we got lost. REALLY LOST! We were following my GPS, which has always been good to me before, but this time it really messed up. Instead of taking hwy 12, it sent us over the mountains on a logging trail. 18 miles on a single lane, muddy, twisty, steep trail. And it was raining, which made the mud slick. Then came the pop. So now we are lost, with no cell service and a flat tire. Do you think either one of us knew how to change a tire?!

We found a campsite and pulled in. It turned out to be the best place to stop! We were standing around trying to figure out what to do and a man who was camping with his family came over and asked if he could help us. He was a mechanic and had all the tools. He even had a hydraulic jack! He changed the tire for us, told us where to go to find our camp and even warned us of a cop that was radaring up ahead. I really don't know what we would have done if he hadn't helped us.

I'm surprised I didn't start crying earlier, but when we finally found our campsite and I saw Cooper and David, the tears started coming. We laughed and cried about our horrible journey. They made us both much needed drinks and we sat around the fire talking and laughing. Cooper loved being out there and so did Rocky.

Our Boys Taking a Nap

The next day we went fishing. Cooper tells me that was his favorite part about camping. He had said that he wanted to catch a shark, but he was super excited about the trout that we caught. Our nephew, Ethan, caught 8! After coming up empty handed and getting out-fished by his nephew, David finally looked at what Ethan was using, stole a hook and some bait from his tackle box, and came back with a fish on his first cast. Cooper helped him real it in and even touched the fish. David's going to take him fishing some more this summer.

So sleepy after fishing.

We cheated and brought along our portable DVD player.

Some other random pictures from the weekend:

I had told him to stay in the tent for a second until I could come put his shoes on. Think he waited for me? Nope! He listens like I do. At least he put some shoes on.

 

It rained that night and it was COLD. We woke up and were totally ready to get back home, so we started packing up as soon as the sun came out and started drying everything. It takes a really long time to pack up! So we finally get everything loaded into the cars and are ready to go... turn the key... battery dead! Dang it! So then we had to unload to get the jumper cables out. This just wasn't our lucky weekend. We drove 50 all the way home, because we were on a spare tire, and got honked at and a birdie flipped in our direction by people that really don't like going 50 in a 65. We pulled over to let people pass every chance we could. Don't know what else they wanted us to do.

Even though we got lost and had so much car trouble, we still had a good time camping and are excited to go again.