Merry Christmas Everyone!

Cuteness

Our photo shoot was not a very successful one this year. This was the best individual picture I could get! Bear thought it was just hilarious to not look at the camera or to eat his fingers and say cheese but look somewhere else. Guess it's a good thing he's so darn cute.

Santa 2009

To My Future Teenage Sons

Today you yelled at me. You put both hands over your ears and yelled at me telling me that my, "music was too loud! We can't hear ourselves talk!" You did not care that I was singing and dancing while sweeping up your mess. I was just enjoying my music and you wanted it down immediately.

I would just like to be able to remind you of this moment if and when I ever have to ask you to turn your own music down. Once upon a time I did like some loud music but I did respect you to turn it down. So this is me yelling, "Turn down your music!" just a few years in advance :-)

Love,
Mom

The Jumpee

I bought this mini moon bounce before spring even hit and never inflated it. The boys saw it the other day so it became a full day event of what they call "The Jumpee". They bounced and bounced and then it became our pirate ship. Then it became home base so we would run around the whole yard (me of course chasing them) and they would dive into the Jumpee at full speed. Bear would go through the smaller slats yelling that he was stuck so I would roll him over. Then they decided that I had to get in with them and jump all over me!

The next day it was raining so we decided to go out anyway and have a slip and slide jumpee day. It was a shockingly cold rain so that lasted for one chase around the playground and then we were in for a hot bath. I'm sad to report that after the first two days "The Jumpee" gets no love now and will probably be deflated shortly. It was a good run while it lasted :-)

ABC's

Gone are the days when the boys would beg me to stop singing. Now they adore to listen to music and to dance and sing. We wake up often and have dance sessions to get us going. One day they both got up on step stools to dance with me it was so cute!

The latest song is of course their ABC's. Cooper for some reason has taken to SHOUTING his ABC's whereas Bear likes to rush through and skip letters to get to the end. Either way they crack me up.

iPod and The Grinch?

I found my iPod!!! I know you probably didn't realize I'd lost it but since finding it I've been so excited getting my workout music on there and fun songs to play for the boys. They've been wanting to play with it so I gave them each an earphone..... and well I'll just let the video do the talking..... I'll give you 3 guesses as to what song they love to hear! It's been a very popular song this year.


This picture was them totally FORCING a smile for me but I swear Cooper looks like he is The Grinch doesn't he?

Good Morning

Mornings have been an evolving thing in our house. If the boys had their way they'd be waking me up at the crack of dawn. I am a much better mom if I get a few minutes to myself in the morning. So we've had to work on it- I think I may have even blogged about it before.



Cooper has been great with the concept that he can get up and go to the bathroom but then he needs to go back to bed. Bear not so much. I've found him in the playroom, my bed, the kitchen table but never back in his bed. So we've tried a bunch of different methods and we've finally gotten to the place where they can go to the bathroom and just stay in their room. Coop refuses to leave his bed and I think Bear has figured well she said bed so Cooper's will do! This morning I opened the door and RAN to get the video. They were under the sheet playing with all of their toys. The day before they were in the bed reading books to each other!!

The Boys First Salad

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I've been trying to branch out this summer and have the boys try new things. They are both picky in different ways but they will almost always try something at least once. So I made a big salad (and homemade pickles) and gave it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised at how well they took to it. I think I was secretly hoping if they loved it that would help me to eat more salads!

Daddy Train

Brotherly Love

I have been diligently updating the blog and as usual the boys were hanging out with me in the office. (I've realized lately that they follow me just about anywhere I go in the house unless they are eating.) There was a rare moment where they were silent so I started to look around for what they were getting into. Much to my surprise they were just hugging each other!!



They do fight some but I have to say the majority of their time is spent being pretty darn adorable. They've climbed under my desk now telling me they are hiding till I'm done. Bear sat up and knocked his head. Cooper immediately said, "Ohhhhhh here let me kiss it." Gave him a big kiss and a big hug. Then Cooper said, "Come on little puppy. Look Momma I'm being gentle- take a picture!" I sure do hope they remember this when they get older.

Backyard Picnic

The boys were begging me to pack a picnic so we could go to the "Frog Pond" and play at the playground. We are so lucky to have Crowder Park across the street but with this lovely weather they are wanting to spend many hours over there. I can't get them to play on our playground for anything lately! I was not interested in packing yet another picnic so I asked if they wanted to have a picnic in our backyard. They LOVED it. It was so perfect with the breeze and our freshly mowed grass. We sat on a sheet and had our dinner. The funny part was they couldn't decide how to sit. They tried laying down. (Bear followed Cooper's lead.) They tried hovering. They tried sitting up. It didn't matter they made a mess each way but it was still fun. Of course after we were done they still wanted to go to the "Frog Pond" so off we went but I didn't have all those extra dishes to clean :-)

Fancy Hair Cuts

Much to my friend Jamie's dismay I've been cutting the boys hair for some time now. We go out on the back deck and let the hair fly. Some hair cuts have been better than others but I have been proud that I didn't need to shave their heads to make up for some mistake I made. Their hair has been getting long and I was mentioning to them to get ready we're going to cut your hair again soon. Usually I get, "Ok!!!" But this time Cooper looked at me and said, "I'm sorry but I have to get my hair cut by a barber." (I'm not convinced Jamie hasn't gotten to him but I think pre-school is the culprit for this one.) S o off to the "Barber" we went. Well it was our version of Hair Cuttery called Great Clips. We had a bit of a wait and they happened to have 1 children's book in the waiting area. It was all about this little girl who likes to make everything "fancy". Cooper then said, "Do you think she can give me a fancy haircut?" I told him to ask. No joke Cooper climbed up in her seat and said, "I want a fancy hair cut please." After they were done (with 4 other men in the waiting area) Cooper yells, "I LOVE MY FANCY HAIRCUT!" They were all trying really hard not laugh. They were all reading their magazines but their shoulders were shaking. It was beyond comical. It's been a week and he's still asking me if his haircut if fancy :-)

4th of July (2009)

We celebrated 4th of July this year by making our way to downtown Apex for the day. We got there as they were opening and got to watch them raise the flag and honor our soldiers which I thought was pretty cool.

This was a little train ride that I think the line to get on was longer than the actual train ride itself but they boys enjoyed riding through the alleys of Apex and squealed when he did his zig zag.
The boys had a ball meeting the fire fighters and playing on the old fire trucks.

We spent the majority of the morning inside a moon bounce shaped like a train that had a big slide at then end. Because we got there so early there was no line so the boys just kept going and going and going. Cooper was all about the slide. Bear stayed inside a lot holding on to the ropes inside as the other kids bounced him around.



After the moon bounce, the train ride, riding fire trucks, listening to kids karaoke, and watching everyone get face paint the boys decided that they wanted to ride the really, and I mean really, big slide. The one that they have a rope to help you climb up. I don't know why I didn't get any pictures. I have be honest I thought once they got in the line and had to wait the 40 minutes we did they wouldn't want to go. Cooper was determined though and as soon as Bear saw Cooper going up he had to go. It was all so very chaotic. The poor girl manning the back had to keep the flow going so I didn't give me any time to hem and haw. That meant I had to go because Bear wouldn't go up the ladder alone. That was the most pressure I've felt in a very long time! The line was SO long behind us with anxious kids. There was no time to even get prepared up top or to even look around and get scared. We plopped down on the little potato sacks and off we went. Coop had no fear he beat us down. Bear and I came barreling down and they both said, "Let's do it again!" Luckily they both had to go to the bathroom and forgot about it!! We left then for a picnic lunch at Hemlock Park. We were rebels! They say no food but we did it anyway. Then that afternoon we did sparklers and they were out before it was even dark!

Monihan Visit

Kat, John, Lauren and Andrew came for a weekend visit this August. The boys loved having them here and every time we are out at a store want to buy something for Lauren or Andrew it's quite adorable. Cooper also liked helping his Aunt Kat feed Andrew his bottle.


We'd had a bit of rain before their visit and we noticed that birds were taking a bath in the gutters. John was kind enough to get the ladder and find a very old tennis ball clogging the drain and cleared it out for us. (He also fixed my leaking hose issue, put together the soccer goal nets and figured out how to replace a light bulb in the boys bathroom that had been blinking for weeks!!)

They also brought along one of the best toys of all time. This little air rocket launcher was a huge hit. You step on the air bag and the styrofoam rocket goes shooting into the air. As you will see in the video below Cooper figured out how to get the most bang for his buck.

Brotherly Love

Captain America

There is a new obsession in our house and it's being a super hero. Cooper loves to be:

• Superman
• Sporticus
• Captain America
• Spider Man
• Wolverine

He doesn't even know who any of them are except for Sporticus (but I haven't ruined it and told him that he doesn't count!) Bear on the other hand likes to be Robbie Rotten or just anybody who needs help. He yells, "Help!!!" over and over letting Cooper come save him. The first few times I admit to a bit of panic hearing his cries for help.

We had to do a bit of shopping the last two weeks. They both got new shoes, socks, pajamas and underwear. It was time for Coop to upgrade to the 4T underwear. Well that started a pretty major ordeal in our house over having to have the exact same pajamas and underwear as the other. (They used to wear these adorable zip up jammies. Now that they are "big boys" and they get to get out of bed when they want to use the potty so those just do not work for them.) So they have these totally overpriced super hero underwear and I'm trying to hold the hard line that only Cooper needs new underwear but they are not having any of it. None of this is really that important to the story other than it was a pretty dern big deal buying these underwear.

Every morning for the past week they have picked which super hero they want to be. Cooper won't look at his though he only wants to put them on and then turn so I can tell him which hero he is wearing. Today he was wearing Captain America which was red to match his red shorts. Late this afternoon I had some packages to take to the UPS store. We've instituted a lovely game where they can earn 5 stars and get a prize. Today's star was for how quiet they could be at the UPS store. They were whispering and tiptoeing, it was very cute. As the clerk was telling me how I could track Jim's package I heard Cooper talking very quietly to a woman behind me. I turned and he had pulled down his pants and was showing her his Captain America underwear!!!! (The odd thing was she was encouraging him to do it and telling him it was ok as I was snatching his pants up!)

Cooper said, "But Momma I was only showing her Captain America!!" So Bear not being one to be left out pushes down his shorts and says, "Look no underwear just my penis!!"

Blurgh!

Big Hair

I'm not sure why but I thought it would be fun to try some styling gel to see if I could create the Robert Pattison effect :-)

Backpack....backpack

Everyone at pre-school has some sort of "cool" backpack. We started off using what we had in the closet one was a large adult backpack and the other was a cool REI thing that slung over one shoulder. Somewhere along the way the boys decided that they had to now carry their backpacks into school. The take a thermos, a snack, 2 bottles of water and a change of clothes. Needless to say it was beyond comical watching them try to carry these things. Bear could not get down the stairs and went down many times on his bottom. It was either that or he would strap it around his neck and try to pull it behind him!!! Coop on the other hand was pretty determined. He would get a low center of gravity and would look like he was climbing up a hill getting his backpack into pre-school. SO off we went on a hunt for backpacks. We tried the three places I could think of and no luck. We found some of the smaller cute toddler backpacks but they wouldn't fit what they had to carry. I'd given up hope and turned a corner at "The City" and there was huge display of new backpacks. The boys were adorable trying to decide what color they each wanted. Bear picked blue and Coop picked red. They are still a "tad" big for them but we tightened the straps up and they can carry them pretty well. It's still a bit difficult for Bear but man it's adorable to watch.

My Cuties