One of My Favorite Sounds

Bath Time Fun

Cooper has always enjoyed his baths, but recently he has discovered splashing. This is a funny video of him splashing the water.

4th of July Weekend Trip

Last week we went to visit Paul's family for the 4th of July. Five hours is a long drive for Cooper but he did pretty well. He slept most of the way and really only became fussy the last hour or so. I think we were all ready to get out of the car by then. Most of the weekend was spend relaxing and visiting with family and a few friends. Here are some pictures:

Jabez eying Coopers toys

Erin making Cooper laugh.


Cooper eating a banana.


This is Cooper, not sure if he should continue eating the banana. Everyone was watching him.


Kelly working on favors for April's wedding.


Terry 'fixing' the favors that Kelly did :)


Mommy and Cooper playing outside.


Cooper loves the new bowls grammy gave to him. His new favorite toy.


Grammy feeding Cooper.


Because the bathroom was being remodeled the bathtub was unavailable. The sink worked perfect.


Mommy and Cooper enjoying the nice evening weather.

I wonder why there were no pictures of daddy? Mommy needs to learn how to use his fancy camera so she can take some pictures once in awhile.

Cooper

Cooper has been trying some new foods lately and loving every minute of it.

Here he is after trying to feed himself oatmeal and carrots. It went everywhere! He even had it in his hair. He went right into the bathtub after this meal.


Cooper loves to eat blueberries . Since these blueberries were frozen they became very juicy when thawed. They were very messy going in and borderline disastrous coming out. Everything was stained blue for the day.


Here he is eating rice. He had to help by holding the spoon. He's trying to be a big boy and do it himself.


Cooper loves playing outside. He would spend all day outside if we would let him.


Mr. Cool wearing his new sunglasses. As you can see, I'm reaching for his hand to keep him from taking them off. He likes to chew on them more than wear them.


Ever wonder what Cooper looks like with a pacifier in his mouth? We don't usually give it too him but lately this is the only way he will take a nap. On this particular day he would not let me take it out of his mouth. When he was done with it he took it out himself and tossed it aside.


Here is Cooper sitting on the couch and playing with his musical drum. He is always happy to hear music.

Happy Father's Day!

This was Paul's first official father's day. He has been the best father and husband anyone could ever ask for. These are a few of my favorite things about Paul:

• The way he cares so much about his family. He will drop any thing he's doing to help me out.
• He is the best "nurse" anyone could ever ask for.
• I love it when he is goofy and silly playing with Cooper, it's the cutest thing.
• He is adventurous and willing to take risks {hey, he married me didn't he :) }
• His passion for his "hobby" taking pictures. He has taken some awesome photos.
• His knowledge of math and science. It may sound silly but it's helped me a ton. ( I don't seem to have the math gene). Cooper will learn to love math and science!
• He cooks yummy meals. His specialties include biscuits and homemade gravy, banana pancakes, spaghetti, mahi mahi, turkey burger... I could go on and on.
• He is often laid back and doesn't worry too much. (That's my job)
  

Thanks Paul for being a wonderful father to our little Cooper and a super husband!
Here are a few of my favorite pictures of my 2 boys.

Our Perpetual Motion Machine

Like every child, Cooper is unique in so many ways. As a parent, I appreciate the individuality and dynamics of babies to a much greater extent than I ever have. This brings me to one of Cooper's unique traits. We discovered early that Cooper is an active boy. In fact, we didn't even know he was a boy yet. It was the first ultrasound when he was approximately 1 inch long that we noticed how much he moved around. Kelly felt this quite often towards the end of the pregnancy. As Cooper is getting older, his motor skills are improving and his movements become more refined. Nevertheless, he is quite an active little boy. This video, which is a time lapse exposure at 1 second intervals shows the rate of activity displayed by Cooper. It is pretty entertaining to watch him move from one object to another, although he did spend a lot of time on the water bottle! Thank goodness he is not really that fast!
















Cooper attempting to remove balls from his new favorite toy. This is a difficult proposition for an 8 month old, but Cooper is persistent. It could be an expression of the infamous "Slinky (AKA Eckes) Gene." Although unsuccessful so far, he still has a good time reaching his hand in the box.

8 Months Old

On Friday Cooper turned 8 months old. We can't believe it. He is growing up so fast right before our eyes. He is really a good little boy and so much fun.

New abilities:
rolling over from back to tummy really fast
scooting on his stomach backwards
holding toys with one hand (it especially impressive with a ball)
starting to hold the bottle on his own once in a while
sitting up with out falling over (almost all the time)
grinding his 4 teeth together (drives mom and dad crazy!)
sleeping through the night once (hopefully more often)
babbles mama and baba (although he doesn't know what they mean yet)
Putting pieces of food in his mouth (most of the time it gets stuck in the palm of his hands)

Likes:
sleeping on his stomach
being outside
rolling over and playing on his tummy
trying to scoot/crawl
chewing on books (sneaking them in his mouth when mom and dad aren't looking)
eating bread, bananas, peaches, carrots, sweet potatoes
pacifier
playing with the computer keyboard/mouse
watching abstract music visualizations
talking to grandparents on Skype
chewing on bath toys and playing in the water
touching and trying to eat grass/flowers/leaves (anything I can get my hands on)
looking around the yard while dad tells me what we have growing

Dislikes:
eating peas, green beans, white grape juice
being rocked to sleep
mom/dad blowing nose or sneezing loudly
looking at people wearing sunglasses