Thursday, May 22, 2014

LL's Gymnastics Exhibition

LL started gymnastics back in August.  At first, she started in the preschool class.  Then, a few months before she turned 5, she got moved into level one.  Once you're in level one, you get to participate in the exhibition in April.  Essentially, the exhibition is like the dance recital for gymnastics.  For the few months leading up to the exhibition, they worked on a routine, and really focused on several aspects of gymnastics (that were appropriate for their level).  I am always shocked at how well LL does performing at things.  I always think she is going to be nervous and potentially not do it, but she always surprises me and knocks it out of the park.  Her exhibition was no different!

She got a new leotard for exhibition - all of level one was blue.

Doing her warm-up stretches.


Showing off her skills on the beam.




Getting her award certificate and medal.


Everyone came to watch her exhibition - even Coop.  He did a great job watching his big sister!

We are so proud of this sweet girl!


I did take a few short videos of her exhibition.  The first one is a video of her vault.  The second one is of her floor routine; bless her, she's about as uncoordinated as a baby giraffe.  ;)  The third one is of the awards ceremony.


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Monday, May 19, 2014

Easter 2014

I can not even begin to say how thankful I am that we were all healthy and happy this Easter.  After last year's Easter disaster, I loved being able to spend all day with my family!

Before church, the kids got to open their Easter baskets.  Here's the thing: I completely want to celebrate all holidays.  And I love to buy my kids stuff.  But I think it gets a little ridiculous (in my opinion) when I see parents buying piles of stuff for their kids on Valentine's and Easter that rivals the amount that kids get on Christmas.  I just can't do that.  I want holidays to be fun, but I want to focus on how they can be fun without it being all about gifts.  I just can't justify going overboard on things.  In their Easter baskets this year, they each got a little bit of chocolate, some fun toys, some hilarious glasses, and some clothing.  Fun, happy, but not crazy.  The key for me is that it needs to fit in their basket.


After church we headed to Grammy and Pop's house for Easter lunch, naps, and an Easter egg hunt.








Grammy made some Easter egg shaped cupcakes and made different colored icing so that LL could decorate them.  She took it very seriously and had so much fun.


After naps we headed outside for an Easter egg hunt.  Randomly, Easter day ended up being pretty cold.  I had to put LL in her long-sleeved Easter shirt from last year, and Cooper had to wear a jacket!  They sure didn't care, though.  They had a blast.  

I was shocked at how Cooper knew exactly what to do.  He found eggs, picked them up, and put them straight in his bucket.  I was so impressed!  There's no way LL grasped this concept this well at under 2 years old.



LL did great at letting Cooper get "his" eggs.  We told him that his were just laying around and easy to see, and all of hers were hidden well and harder to find.  She left all of the ones in plain sight alone and was so happy to find all of the hidden ones.





Sibling picture time!






My sweet babies!

We had such a good day together as a family.  Here's a look at our past Easter's.

2013
2012
2011
2010



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Friday, May 16, 2014

Easter Tradition: Resurrection Rolls

A few years ago, we started the tradition of making Resurrection Rolls on Easter.  I really feel like it's a great way to focus more on the important part of Easter and leave the Easter bunny behind for a little bit.  Plus, none of us hate having a great dessert afterwards. ;)  Last year we had to miss out on this thanks to all of the sickness that we were dealing with.  Thankfully we were all well this year!

All the supplies: marshmallows, melted butter, sugar and cinnamon, and crescent rolls


They made these at LL's school this year, so she was fresh on what was going on.  She was a great helper!

Ready to go in the oven!


Cooper, however, was not a fan (if you can't tell).  He was way more interested in running around like a crazy man to care about baking - haha.

Ready to cut them open and see what was inside!

They're empty!  Christ is risen!

While he wasn't a big fan of the baking process, he did love the eating process. 

You can see our first year doing resurrection rolls here.

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Monday, May 12, 2014

Cooper - 22 Months!

Well.  At 22 months, there's not denying that we are on the fast downhill slope to 2 years old!

Stats:
Weight: 29lbs
Clothing: 18 - 24 months in shirts.  All of his 18 month pants are super short.
Shoes: Size 7 - we had to go get all new shoes this month!

Diaper: size 5

Schedule:His schedule is pretty much the same as last month:
7:00 - up for the day
7:45 - 8:00 - breakfast and milk
9:45 - 10:00 - snack and water
11:45 - 12 - lunch and milk
12:30 - 1 - down for nap
3:00 - 3:30 - up from nap
snack and water when up from nap
5:30 - 5:45 - dinner and milk
If it's nice weather, we try to play outside after dinner and then do bath about 6:45.  If the weather isn't great, he'll go straight to bath after dinner and then we'll play in the house.
7:15 - time for bed

Teeth:  He hasn't gotten any new ones since his canines last month, but they are all the way in now.  I love his little complete smile now.  The only thing he lacks right now are his 2 year molars and I am in no rush for him to get them.  Molars are rough!  

Talking:  Since last month, Cooper got evaluated and approved for Babies Can't Wait for speech therapy.  He should be starting this week *hopefully*, so I'm hoping we'll get in the routine of this soon.  This summer might be a little crazy between swim every day and speech once a week, but busy is good!  Even though he still isn't talking very often, we did hear a few new things this month: no-no (here's a cute video where you can hear him saying it), and choo-choo.

Chores:  Cooper is still a laundry boy for sure.  He looooves to help with laundry any time you give him the opportunity.  He has also randomly decided that he loves to swifter the floor.  No joke - he will do this for 20+ minutes.  He loves it.  We also started working with him on cleaning up after himself.  He has been working on putting trash in the trash can by himself and dirty dishes in the sink.  Of course, this also means that I find a random assortment of things in my sink (like socks - haha), but at least he's trying!




Temper Tantrums:  They have arrived.  I do think we're lucky because they started much younger than they did with LL.  With LL, she was a fall on the floor and cry type of tantrum.  Cooper is a hit or throw things tantrum.  Not cool.  I mean, not that any of it is okay.  But hitting and throwing are terrible.  We've been working through them, but I do think it's going to take quite a bit of work to get him to stop completely.  He has gotten better over the month, especially with throwing.

All Boy:  I know I've said it 100 times before, but this child is all boy.  He is into everything.  Over Spring Break, it walked into another room to put something away and came back to him on top of the table drinking my soda from Sonic.  Both are big no-no's (duh - I don't give my kid soda).  Luckily, it was really mostly gone, so he got more watered down mess than anything.  I did snap a picture really quickly before I got him down because it was pretty darn cute.  ;)  But this kid is into everything!

He also has decided that one of his favorite activities outside is to dump a bunch of dirt into the dog's water bucket and then climb inside of it.  So gross!!!  But you know I had to take a video of it before I got him out - haha.

Body Parts:  Cooper is doing great with his body parts!  Here is a current list of things he can point out (from the top down): hair, head, eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, ears, arms, fingers, belly, belly-button, pee-pee, legs, feet, and toes.  And diaper.  I know it's not a body part, but he does have it at all times!  I was impressed that he could point it out while wearing it.  I think this is a pretty impressive list!

Sickness:  Cooper had another "first" when it came to sickness this month - his first ear infection.  LL had quite a few her first two years, so I've been a little surprised that he hasn't had any.  Over Spring Break, he was feeling pretty terrible and had a yucky green runny nose.  He woke up from nap one afternoon with a 103 fever, so I took him right in.  Ear infection it was!  He really is such a trooper.  He was fussy for the ear infection, but he never led on that he had a huge fever and was in pain.  He is tough!

He also had a random stomach virus this month.  One Saturday morning he was feeling really puny.  We were snuggling on the couch and watching a video, and he just threw up everywhere.  All he wanted was for me to hold him.  I cleaned him up, and sat on the floor with him.  He ended up falling asleep like this with his head on my foot.  So sad!

Misc:
-We've been working on teaching Cooper "If You're Happy and You Know It".  At the beginning of the month, he didn't know it at all.  He's getting it down pretty good now!  Since we're not getting a lot of vocabulary, this is a great song for him to participate with since it's mostly just movements.  LL did great with helping us teach him.  Here's a video of her doing it with him at the beginning of the month.


-This boy is obsessed with vehicles!  If you give him even a second of an opportunity, he will climb into the driver's seat as fast as he can!


-I love watching both of my kids sleep.  They just look so so cute, and I love seeing the cute positions that they get in.  Cooper is still a pretty big mover when he sleeps, so you never know what you're going to see.


-My sister gave us an old toy of Ben's that has a slide on it and we built a new play set in the backyard this month.  Between both of those, he has become pretty awesome at sliding on his own.  Here's a video of him on the little slide from Ben, and here's one of his first times going down the big slide on the new play set!

-We got a new mattress for our bed this month, and we stored the old one in the living room for a few days propped up against the wall.  We decided to lay it down in the middle of the living room and let the kids have a ball.  They had a blast jumping and wearing themselves out!


-Cooper got a long overdue haircut this month.  This was the first time that he sat in the chair all by himself while she cut his hair.  We had to really work on keeping him busy, but overall he did great!


-He *loves* all water.  When we go to my mom's house, he loves loves loves her pool.  He starts swim at the end of May, so I'm interested to see how he does since he seems to be a water lover.



-Cooper is not a big "hand holder".  He does not really like for us to hold his hand.  Occasionally, he likes to hold hands with LL while he walks.  We've been trying to work with him on "parking lot rules" and actually have him walk through parking lots instead of being carried.  Matt snapped this cute pictures when we were leaving church one Sunday.  


Misc Pictures:
Breakfast at Waffle House with Daddy








Love :)



Both of my sweet babies at 22 months!


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