Christmas with the Dudus

These are pretty much in no particular order. Blogger doesn't like it when I try to rearrange pictures, so the captions will just have to explain it all!

We spent each night of our Christmas trip at Granny Ruthie and Mzee's house. Christmas morning we woke up bright and early (actually EACH morning we woke up bright and early since SOMEONE has forgotten how to sleep in....JACK!...I'm just chalking it up to being in a different room and bed than he was used to...) Anyway we got up and at em extra early to have Christmas Morning at the Coopers....and although we rushed out the door (Jack was still in his Christmas Pjs...the rest of us were dressed) we still had time for a few kodak moments....(more on that later)

On the 26th Uncle Jeff and Auntie Raychie came back to the Dudu's house to hang out and play some games. Jack got his hands on Granny Ruthie's (old) camera (she got a NEW one this year!) and proceeded to take pictures, with a quick tutorial from Uncle Jeff. I think it's quite funny that he knew to put the camera up to his eyes...even though I have no idea where he learned that since we all use digital these days and there is really no need for the eye hole anymore....below is the pic that he took of us....taking his picture. It was really TOO cute! Can't you just see Uncle Jeff egging him on! :)

Here is a picture of Granny Franny (Granny Ruthie's mother) and Grandma Mary (Mzee's mother) celebrating Christmas with us.

Here is another Kodak moment from early Christmas Morning....Daniel got a KAYAK! BIG BIG Surprise!! It had apparently been hiding in the catacombs beneath the house. He is gonna have some BIG fun next time it is warm enough to put it into the water at the farm! Duck River, here he comes!

Here is Daniel and Granny Franny.....it kinda freaks me out to see him so grown up! His Senior picture was up on the wall this year and he also gave them out as gifts...but I TOTALLY remember him being a little as Jack (and even smaller!) ...I even dug up some pictures the other day to prove it! It may be possible that I have as many baby pictures of Daniel as his own parents do! Look how big he is now, talking about college applications and such! sniff!

Here we are in our designated spot, somehow we end up sitting here each year for presents. Jack and Josh are opening up the ABC gift that Jack got from Granny Ruthie and Mzee. I thought it was cute hearing Daniel talk about picking out presents for Jack saying "Jack's too smart for all the 2 year old toys, but some of the 3 year old toys still seem unsafe since he still puts things in his mouth" (I'm blaming that last part on teething.....grrr) He LOVES this toy, we have it on the dishwasher in the kitchen to keep him occupied while I work in there....its location just makes it hard to actually do the dishes....what a shame! I am also exceedingly proud of us and all the grandparents and extended family....if my memory serves me correctly, THIS gift is the ONLY ONE he received that needs batteries or makes noise! Woohoo! I think that is impressive!

So, you saw in the Cooper post that there was a choo-choo that Jack was obsessed about at their house, well the Dudu's have a choo-choo as well and EVERY YEAR Jack is just enthralled by it! It's a plastic gift box and when you push the green button the lid of the box lifts up and there is a little train inside that goes around and round and plays various christmas songs. As long as it is sitting on a soft (noise absorbent) surface like the carpet or sofa the volume isnt much of a problem and he LOVES IT! It's really cute.

This Christmas we got lots of gift cards (which I LOVE!) some clothes, and perhaps my FAVORITE gift of all....NEW FLUFFY BATH TOWELS! The last time we bought bath towels was about 5 1/2 years ago when we moved into our townhome....they might have been this fluffy back then....but yesterday as I was folding our freshly laundered towels (both old and new) it took 2 old ones to equal the fluffiness of ONE new one! When I got to use it after my shower I felt like I was in a luxury resort or something. I know, simple things get my excited these days...my life has gotten very small and simple....and I wouldn't have it any other way!

a few cute things as of late

I know it seems like I am blogging much much less lately. I figured it was bound to happen eventually. All my friends who blog about their kids have gotten less and less prolific as the kids get older....and I seriously, sincerely don't think it is because the kids aren't doing as many wonderful noteworthy things, if anything, they are doing more! There just isn't time to blog about it all! He/We have a lot going on and just less time to do it! Maybe now that the holidays are winding down I will find some time to record a few more memories, because I am treating this like his baby book (or shall I say toddler book!)-did I ever mention that a fellow blogger, Sharon, introduced me to blurb.com which slurps our blog (ie turns it into book form) and with a little (okay A LOT) of tweaking I was able to get it printed out as a kind of digital scrapbooking. It turned out AWESOME! The finished project probably took me as long as an actual scrapbook would have (not counting all the hours I spend actually blogging....but that was for a different purpose) if not less, and a book of (almost) all the blog entries for his first year only ended up costing about $50....which I am sure cost about the same or less that I would have spent on scrapbooking supplies etc. Plus the bulk of the work was already done and I didn't have to get out any scissors, glue, etc! I'll try to post a picture of the finished product sometime! It was awesome!
Anyway, another reason will really REALLY try to continue keeping up with the blog as best I can is that as much as I try to file away these adorably cute things in my head and in my heart, figuring I will NEVER forget them, I still do!
So I guess I need to keep notes or something and just do a blog entry of little cute things as well as ones about the big momentous events too. That is was this entry started out to be....how about we get to that:
lately trips to the grocery store have been a little bit of a nightmare. For a while I was TRYING to do coupon shopping at Kroger (double coupons there!) and take advantage of sales etc, but that was just taking too long and he was basically falling apart by the end of the trip. So I told myself I would just shop at Walmart since their prices are mostly cheaper....only walmart is so massively huge that I still spent too long (and probably just about as much money) and he was STILL falling apart. Last time we went to Walmart he was FREAKING out once we got out of the car and he saw where we were going. sigh. It was a long LOOONG trip even though I kept it quite short and concise. I have even taken to snagging the most noisy obnoxious toy in the toy department (our first stop) to keep him entertained during our trip....along with snacks, juice, raisins etc. urgh.
Then the other day I remembered something from my childhood....KROGER has something they call the "cookie club" where a child gets a free cookie to snack on during the shopping trip....SCORE! guess where our first stop has been the last few times we go to Kroger? Oh yeah! We make a beeline to the bakery section, and once the cookie is in hand, I am RACING around Kroger. This past time we had to wait a little while to get the cookie and he was SO sweet and patient, I was very proud of him. I felt bad though, because I saw a friend at Kroger that day, and I hope I wasn't too rude to her when I stopped for literally 15 seconds to say "Hi and How was your holiday?" before racing off again.....the cookie (and my shopping time) was disappearing before my eyes! I pretty much have 5 MAYBE 10 minutes after the cookie is consumed before he starts getting difficult again, since I can try to stall him with juice etc. This tactic helps me also spend less money since I am only getting the barest of essentials and NOT meandering up each and every aisle. :) This last time he MUST have been good, because not only did he get a free cookie, but ALSO those free stickers that he knows to ask the bag boy for AND one of the employees just showed up out of the blue and blessed him with a couple of mylar balloons! WOW! That made me happy too!
Then today we went to Walmart again....I tried a few different things this time though:1)we went to a different walmart than usual....I don't like it as much, but I figured maybe he wouldn't recognize it, at least not right away 2) I put him in his nice comfy stroller instead of a cart. I just propped up a shopping basket on the tray of the stroller and raced around. It DID get a little hard to steer there at the end with a full basket and a big ol' box of diapers in my hand, but we DID IT (oh ,and we also picked up a few toys and books at the beginning to play with which we abandoned before check-out....YES I am one of those moms-I used to work retail and one of my jobs was to re shelve misplaced things...and I actually didn't mind it because it gave me an excuse to go to other areas of the store when I got bored...and I figure I am just helping someone earn their money that shift!!)
He did SOOO good today at Walmart too that we both got a treat....we went to Burger King for lunch. It was kinda close to nap time, so I knew I was trying my luck, but he did REALLY REALLY well there. It's kinda fun to go out to eat, just me and my little guy. Don't get me wrong, I would MUCH MUCH prefer to include Josh in our outings, but I've noticed that Jack almost always behaves when just the 2 of us are out, I think because I am giving him 100% of my attention and not trying to get any other adult conversation. He got a kids meal (btw-NOT impressed by the BK chicken nuggets....in the shape of crowns.....but he didn't seem to mind...and my Jr. Whopper combo was quite tasty) and in his kids meal he got an "incredible hulk" toy which he started calling "green guy" ("neen die" actually) and got REALLY excited when I told him its real name. I'm not sure how to spell in toddler talk how he was pronouncing it, but it sounded amazingly similar to incredible hulk....it certainly had enough syllables!
Speaking of talking, his talking has been growing by leaps and bounds lately. My blogging certainly can't keep up with it now! He's getting more and more complex phrases like "Mommie sit here" and "Daddy food all gone" and my personal favorite "Silly Mommie, Silly Daddy, Silly Jack, Silly Maggie" all while shaking his head (I guess that is how I do it too) which is SOOO cute....because it is almost always when we ARE being silly! He is ALMOST at one of my favorite points in a child learning to talk:when you can get them to try to say almost ANYTHING.....he WILL try to say almost everything we ask him to try....he just doesn't always try very hard.....3 syllables will go down to 2 or even 1 that just BARELY resemble what we asked...but he IS trying. I would say that he understands at least 90% of what we say to him now....and when he doesn't obey or "hear" us...it is one of those temporary toddler deafness routines and NOT understanding...at least NOT very often.
We've also been working very hard with him to say "Yes" instead of his usual "yeah" because sometimes his "yeah" can sound like his "neah" and that just gets complicated. He is getting much much better about voluntarily saying "yesh" especially if he wants something and even occasionally sprinkling in a "please" without being prompted...but my favorite is the little "anya mommie" (his form of thank you) that I will get after giving him something. He still has to be prompted a lot of the time, but he will sneak them in pretty often and it always melts me into a little puddle. What's funny about him saying "anya" is that "anyong" it korean for "hello" and we have had fun having him show off his pseudo korean vocabulary to some korean speaking friends and family. One friend has even said that Jack says it better than he does!
One more thing, and then I will stop since this is becoming a very VERY long (and random) email....but one of the very CUTEST things he has done recently was last night....I was sneaking in a little computer time while he was playing (my new years resolution will be to hide the computer from myself during his waking hours so that I spend more time with him and less escaping into the www.... DARN FACEBOOK!) anyway....he decided he wanted to give me a zerbert (raspberry...whatever you call those wet, slobbery kisses) through my pants....it didn't really work, and it left a wet drool mark on my pants. I wasn't too worried about it....but he rushed over to the drawer with the kitchen towels and grabbed one, ran back over to me and tried mopping up the slobber on my pants. ..didn't work very well but it was SOOOO cute....that I just had to give him a few zerberts of my own in return...and somehow, I didn't remember to return to the computer after that! ;) He LOVES giving zerberts all over me....often they scare me at first because he has been known on rare occasions to bite (out of fun, not out of meanness) so when I see him coming at me with his mouth wide open towards exposed skin I get a little nervous, but most of the time I just get slimed with slobbery toddler kisses....and it's DEFINITELY worth it!

My boys are FAMOUS!

This is the Tennessee Nurse Association newsletter. Josh gets them (and many MANY other nursing related publications) in the mail ALL the time...(yes I know it is sideways, guess blogger couldnt figure out it needed to be rotated....and I'm feeling too lazy to fix it right now!) I usually gather up all the newsletters and magazines and put them in a pile next to our bed. I rarely give them a second thought, and honestly, often he doesnt worry about them either. Today he brought this one home that one of his co-workers had shown him at work....look who is on the bottom of page 5.....

Need a closer look? This picture was taken about a year and a half ago at Josh's graduation from VUSN...I LOVE this picture and just KNEW it had to show up somewhere in a vanderbilt publication....it's just too cute! Here's a fuzzy close-up.

If you want to see where I blogged about the original picture (and another cute version of it too....click here
I guess if anyone ever doubts where my wonderful hubby graduated from, now we have proof (other than the diploma and student loan payments, of course!)

Christmas with the Coopers

Jack's big present from Pops and Bertie was a Bastketball Goal. When they asked us what would be a good gift, I asked that he get toys that would encourage gross motor development aka get him to get up and move.....and voila! I think we made a mistake when we first had him playing with it.....we showed him how to slam dunk the ball....and now that is the only way he wants to play. We're working on that! :)

Auntie Hannah flew down from Portland and graces us with her presence...and presents.....here is a sweet picture she snapped of Jack.

Pops and Bertie also have a new electric train set that is intended to go around the Christmas tree. Jack LOVES it! It makes choo-choo noises, plays music and has a REMOTE CONTROL! He loved having the POWER! He pretty much zones out while it is going around and around and even has a little happy dance that he does while playing with it. It was fun seeing him enjoy it so much but I must confess we had to "lose" the remote a few times to give our nerves a rest! ;)

The Cooper's dear family friend, Sharon, drove all the way in from Texas to spend Christmas with us! I WISH I had gotten a good picture of Jack with her. He warmed up to her so quickly. I truly think he can just TELL who loves him, and can love them right back! :) Thanks for coming all the way up here Sharon!!

This video shows a new talent Jack developed over the holidays. He is really enjoying Christmas Music this year. So much so, that he wants me to sing him Christmas songs at night while I rock him. The new "magic" song to calm him down at night is 3 or 4 verses of Joy to the World. After I finish he will usually lay down with no further fuss. Here is his Christmas message to you:

Christmas (Eve) Morning!

Because we were going to be out of town Christmas Day, we decided to have our Christmas morning on Christmas Eve. It was SO much fun! Jack was able to participate really well this year. I've tried really REALLY hard to talk more about Baby Jesus than Santa, and he does seem to like playing with Baby Jesus in the nativities (both here at home and the very fragile ones at other peoples homes....more on that later) I am a little bit bummed though that we never got it together enough to get a picture this year with Santa. We decided to read the christmas Story from one of his story books, hoping it would keep his attention a little better than the traditional version. At least it was shorter and had pictures, so he really wanted to talk about the animals present at the birth of Jesus. It was sweet. At least he paid a little bit of attention.

Here is Jack wearing his Christmas PJs.

Here is how our tree and stockings looked before all the festivities began. At the last minute I found the little writing desk (VERY good deal) at a local store. Josh and I did our parental Christmas Eve duties by getting out the drill and putting together the desk. It was the first, and certainly not the last time we will have some work to do on Christmas eve. Santa also brought him a nerf-like bowling set and golf set. The big coloring book was purchased for his "friend" birthday party, but since it never happened, I decided to keep it for Santa.

I think he likes his gifts, don't you?

He also got a BUNCH of books and a puzzle, and another I Spy DVD. I was a little concerned about how he would do with all the present opening that didnt involve him, but he seemed happy to help other people too. I think it helped that we took it really really S-L-O-W with lots of breaks in between the different parts. He also REALLY enjoyed the mega cinnamon rolls we had for breakfast! YUM!More on other family celebrations later.

a very Cooper Christmas

I am very excited to decorate for Christmas this year! One reason is because we have a new home to decorate. Another is because it has been 2 years since I have REALLY gotten to decorate, since the year that Jack was born I was TOO exhausted and overwhelmed with being a mommie to decorate and last year all of our Christmas decor was in storage. One of the main reasons is that this year Jack is really starting to get into the Christmas spirit. Here is our Christmas tree this year, I think you can tell it is about 6 feet tall or so:I have tried to be strategic with the placement of Christmas decor and only allow non breakable things within the reach of my curious little guy. Thus all the snowflakes at the bottom of the tree. One way I have tried to allow for his curiosity is to let Jack have his own little tree. This is the little scrub brush tree and decorations that we got last year while all of our stuff was in storage. This tree and ornaments and lights added up to less than $20. Not bad! He was SO cute when I turned on the lights when he started naming off all the colors. He has also made us laugh when Josh told him "Use your eyes to look at the tree" and Jack puts his eyeball thisclose to the ornaments in an attempt to be obedient. It may be a little hard to see in the dim light, but this tree is about 3 or 4 feet tall.

I was also able to FINALLY find a "Little People" Nativity for Jack, since all the rest of the nativities at this house are DEFINITELY not toddler friendly. I thought it was ironic that I had been searching all the Christian bookstores in town, Walmart AND Target for the set, all with no avail. After our horrific trip to walmart yesterday, I begged Josh to go with me and Jack today, and while I shopped Josh kept Jack entertained. I went to find them in the toy aisle, and they were in an aisle I normally dont go down....and THAT is where I found the Nativity Set. I knew I brought them along for a reason. Jack LOVES IT! Most of the other Nativity sets I had found for kids were still for 3+....and I figured that still wasnt good enough, because how awful would it be if Jack choked....on baby Jesus.....not a good thing! 3 of the parts of the set join together to make one big background. Jack SO has trains on the brain that he has been making choo-choo noises with the nativity set since it joins up like his train.....kinda.....here he is playing with his Little People Nativity. You should have seen how excited he was to run into the living room (a previously toy-free room, on purpose) to play with his new toy this morning!

Yes, my husband is awesome!

From the day after Thanksgiving, until the middle of this week, Jack has been sick with apparently 2 different sicknesses, one of which was croup. With croup you have to try to keep your child very calm and avoid getting him upset, because that could lead to some scary coughing fits. So, Jack was basically spoiled rotten for a week and a half...which I really dont mind doing when he is sick....UNTIL....he gets better and still wants to get EVERYTHING his heart desires, and throws a fit if he cant get it. The latter part of this week was pretty crazy as far as his behavior, culminating with a VERY stressful trip to Walmart on Friday. Jack's behavior, combined with all 3 of our dads being under the weather and some discouraging news had me pretty stressed out. As I was sharing this with Josh on his way home the other day, look at what he stopped to get for me:
I can count on one had the number of times Josh has brought me home flowers (other than anniversaries and holidays, of course) and this time it meant so much! Jack was REALLY adorable sniffing the roses. He must have asked to sniff them at least 10 times. Yes, my husband is awesome. I am so thankful that even though I am telling him about how frustrating our day has been and how crazy things were seeming, he still comes home and takes charge and comforts me at the same time. Yes, my husband is AWESOME!

Happy 2nd Birthday Jack

He had another rough night last night, waking up 3 times between 10 and 6. During the 2nd waking Josh went in an slept on a pallet in Jack's room. When his fever is up he is just pitiful, but when we can get it under control with tylenol and ibuprofen, he seems pretty good. In this picture he woke up from his nap very fussy, so I took him into snuggle with Daddy while watching the Titans game. Apparently the game just wasn't as interesting to him as finishing his nap, so he's watching the game "through his eyelids"He's enjoyed opening some of the presents that have been trickling in from our sweet friends who sent the gifts even though the party was cancelled. So far he has gotten an awesome Mr and Mrs Potato Head set with about a gajillion pieces, which he LOVES. We are getting all sorts of different mix and match Potato Heads including a girl/police officer/nerd/fireman/doctor with 2 sets of eyes and some scary configuration with 2 mouths. He is very particular how he wants the body parts arranged, it's really kind of funny. He also got to open up a couple of books from Mommie and Daddy which he seems to enjoy and a shape sorter barn which is cool. He already has a small shape sorter with basic shapes, but this one is much neater with lots more interesting shapes and decorations. He's already getting really good at it! Josh and I ate a little bit more birthday cake today, and I'm sure we wont mind sharing a bit more later when Jack is up for a bite. Please say a prayer for our sick little birthday boy...I know he doesn't know the difference, whether it is his birthday or not, but it still makes me sad! Also say a prayer for Jack's Papa John to is back in the hospital with a serious case of pneumonia. The Doctors feel that they finally know what is going on and have stopped it in its tracks and have a game plan about how to get him back up on his feet, but it was a close one! He is having a small procedure tomorrow to help him feel better, so please pray for him as well. I get a weekly email from babycenter.com. During Jack's first year it say "Your Baby week ___" This past year it said "Your Toddler week ___" and the one I just got today said "Your Preschooler week _____" WHAT!?!?!?!? I'm just barely getting used to calling him a toddler and now we have to jump to preschooler?! Oh my heart and my nerves.

Since we aren't really partying today, and there wont be many of Jack's little friends running around for a little while, I decided to go ahead and start Christmas Decorating today during his nap. I'm just wondering, but WHAT WAS I THINKING when I purchased all these Christmas Decorations. Probably 80-90% of it is very fragile and breakable! Did I really not think I would have a child some day! It is fun, since we haven't put up all our stuff for 2 years. The year Jack was born I was too humongous and then too tired to pull all that stuff up, plus I knew we would be moving soon....and last year all our holiday stuff was in storage. I did manage to get a little "Charlie Brown Tree" last year, spent only a total of $20 on tree, lights and ornament and propped it up on a table out of curious arms length. This year we are putting up the full tree, and I am trying to strategically place the breakable and non breakable ornaments and decorations so that if he does (inevitably) get curious, it wont be the end of the world. I am also planning on letting him set up our itty bitty tree from last year with toddler (or is it preschooler now?) friendly ornaments and a child friendly nativity so that he has fun Christmasy things he CAN play with and I (hopefully) don't have to say NO NO NO to everything. We'll see. It's an experiment. I'll post a picture soon. Please don't make fun of the fact that all the non breakable snowflake ornaments all happen to be on the bottom half! :)

2nd Birthday Party, plan B

So, on to plan B. Josh and I figured that the croup would (hopefully) not affect adults in good health, so we let the family members who were planning to come that they could still come, if they felt comfortable, and thankfully, THEY DID! Mzee, Granny Ruthie, Uncle Daniel, Auntie Raychie, and Uncle Jeff (with their new puppy Chaco) all came up to celebrate. I have to confess, although I was MEGA BUMMED that we had to cancel the party, a small part of me was a bit relieved....a simpler family party would mean less stress...and less cleaning up before and after. Granny Ruthie ended up providing almost all of our meal, and I still got to decorate the cake I had planned! We even used some of the party supplies I got. Sadly, we didnt have time for decorating our own airplanes or playing bean bag toss :) I kept waiting to see if someone didnt get my message and showed up for the party, but Evite did it's job and there were no unexpected guests. We are looking forward to partying with the Cooper side of the family as soon as our sick little birthday boy gets 100% better. He did such a good job today, only the slightest fever which was well controlled with tylenol and almost back to his normal self, so we thought that we could party with Pops and Bertie tomorrow, but when he woke up from his nap, his fever was even higher than the first night he was sick. Argh!
Jack eating his carrot cake like a big boy! YUM!

I mentioned the Theme was Planes, Trains and Automobiles, right? I am continuing a Cooper Tradition: when Josh was little, Bertie would use actual toys as cake decorations! Jack has had these toys for a while, and I figured they would be PERFECT at cake decor since they are designed to be put into the dishwasher, so they could be cleaned before decorating the cake. I had a lot of fun making and decorating his semi-healthy carrot cake!Jack did such a good job opening his presents by himself. This Christmas should be FUN!
He LOVES the gift from Rachel and Jeff, a Medical Kit....and he already knew how to use a lot of the medical tools....guess that is from having an NP in the house!Jack enjoyed coming around and giving everyone shots!Jack got some new shoes from the Dudus. He had seen these particular shoes a few weeks before, and he made us laugh because he remembered EXACTLY how to make the lights on the shoes flicker. He had a great memory!

I am hoping to reschedule Jack's play group that was supposed to be this coming week for the week before Christmas and hopefully we can use the fun party activities I had planned. Maybe I'll even treat his little friends and their Mommy's to some carrot cake too....most of them were planning to be at the party anyway.

2nd Birthday party, plan A

Since we have the space, and we know more people, Josh and I decided to plan a 2nd birthday party for Jack to include family AND local friends. 3 weeks ago I sent out the Evite, and I invited A LOT of people figuring since it was scheduled for a weekend in December and I predicted that most people would have Christmas plans....well...I was a little off in that assumption. At final count we had over 30 people RSVPd for the party....10 of whom were children, the rest were their parents or our beloved family members. I was stressing a little bit about where we would put everyone, but figured we would have fun figuring it out! I wavered back and forth between several party themes, and finally decided on "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" since he LOVES anything with wheels. I had all sorts of fun indulging my former teacher tendencies inside of me and planned all sorts of fun "center" activities including coloring, decorate your own airplane, sticker pictures, bean bag toss, among others. I enjoyed shopping for deals and keeping the cost within my set budget. Josh constructed a bean bag toss game on his day off. I had planned out how I would decorate his cake. It was all coming together....THEN.....
Early Friday morning, a mere 32 hours before the party, Jack woke us up at 2am with a 101 fever and a barking cough. Since he has had the croup 3 or 4 times previously (and because we have a medical professional living in our house), we recognized the symptoms, and given how it usually runs for him, we knew the fever would last for a few days and the barking cough would last even longer....a party with a bunch of young children just wouldnt be a good idea.....too much potential sharing of germs. While Josh gave Jack a breathing treatment, I went to the computer and sent out a "Cancellation" notice through Evite. Beyond Bummed, I had to cancel the first friend party I had ever planned for Jack. BUMMER! Time for plan B!