Halloween

Every year for Halloween we take the Hester kids out trick or treating. This year was no different, OK maybe a little different. Our day started out with having Grandma and Grandpa Peterson come over for lunch to see Cooper in his Halloween outfit. They brought Cooper a Halloween book for him to read every Halloween, what a great gift. Then it was time to put on his costume from Uncle Tim. It was a little small but it looked so cute on him. After lunch we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Boie's house for pizza and tricker treating with the Hester kids. Cooper didn't go out tricker treating with the kids but they really enjoyed seeing him again. Christy, Adrian and Kaylin also came to mom and dad's house, so of course we had to take pictures of the cousin's together.

What a beautiful flower!!

It's amazing how fast the night went. We headed out around 6:30 and then all of a sudden it was 9:30 and we still needed to sort candy and then take the kids home. It was a long exhausting night, but a lot of fun.

Cooper's first trip to the lake

This past weekend we took Cooper up to my parent's lake cabin for the first time. We had to winterize the boat and take it into storage before the snow falls. Since we didn't get up there when it was still nice here is Cooper dressed for his first boat ride up at the lake. Can you say Christmas story?? I was amazed that the 3-6 month snow suit I had bought for him right after he was born was almost too small for him already. We couldn't button the first button. Unfortunately Cooper slept through the entire boat ride, but we did get some cute pictures.

My parents really enjoyed having Cooper up there for the weekend as well. I can't wait until Cooper gets older and can't wait to go up there like I do.

Nate's wedding

We took Cooper to his first wedding this weekend. Rob's cousin Nate got married in Viroqua Wisconsin. Cooper was such a great little guy as usual. He hardly fussed the whole way there and then got to meet his Great Grandma Charline who was so excited to meet him and rock him. Rob was an usher in the wedding so Grandma Donna and Grandpa Ron watched Cooper at Great Grandma's house while Rob and I went to the rehearsal. After the rehearsal we drove to Lacrosse where the reception was to check into our hotel and to go to the rehearsal dinner. We had a good time at the dinner and the food was great. It has been raining for what feels like the last week or so and thankfully Saturday was beautiful! All the family that was in town for the wedding met at Grandma's house for lunch before the wedding, she is such a great cook. The ceremony was beautiful and Nate and Greta looked so happy. Cooper didn't make a sound during the whole wedding even though he was awake for part of it. After the wedding we took some family pictures and then headed back to Lacrosse for the reception.

We had a great time at the reception as well. Here are a couple more pictures from the wedding.

And lastly our handsome boy in is big boy outfit.

6 Weeks

It amazes me that Cooper is already 6 weeks old. He has been such a great baby so far! We have been doing so much already- from parties, happy hours, road trips, shopping and visiting. He makes it easy because he is so good! It's weird to think I will be going back to work in less than 6 weeks now. I had some projects I wanted to get done before I went back to work thinking 12 weeks seemed like a long time. Now with my leave half over I am re-evaluating the projects that need to be done. I can get those projects done any time, what's important to me now is to spend as much time with Cooper as possible before I have to put him in daycare and return to work. Speaking of daycare, we did find a great in-home daycare 5 minutes from our house that we are really excited about. Cooper will be the only boy there with 6 girls. It will be interesting to see how he does after he gets older. Cooper has been sleeping really good again - usually between 5-8 hours each night. He likes to have baths and hardly ever cries when we change his diaper. Actually when he is fussy we put him on the changing pad and he usually quiets down for a little bit. I have been trying to take pictures of Cooper as much as possible, but realized I missed last week. So Rob and I made up for it last night. We took a ton of pictures of Cooper, here are some of them:

What is it about little naked babies that are so cute? I need to have Rob take some pictures next time Cooper has a bath as well so you can see his cute smile.

Deck

This weekend we decided to use what might be the last nice weekend day to stain our deck before winter. Rob's parents Ron and Donna came over to help. Ron helped Rob and I stain the deck and Donna hung out with Cooper inside. It was nice to be able to get something done around the house without worrying what Cooper was doing.

After they left I found this picture on my camera - I wonder who took it??

First Road Trip

This weekend I took Cooper on his first long road trip, we went up to Hallock Minnesota to see my Grandma Gladys. Rob couldn't get off of work so thankfully my family went up as well. With all the people going we had to take two vehicles. It was so great, my Aunt Bev also flew up from Houston to go see Grandma as well. So in my car it was me, Mom, Bev, and Cooper. Christy, Adrian, Kaylin and Dad rode in Mom and Dad's truck. Thankfully we did have the truck. It's amazing how much stuff we needed to bring with for the kids! Both kids were amazingly good on the trip and we didn't have to stop as much as anyone figured we would have. We got up to EGF and visited with Peggy, Jerry, Ron and Leann before taking the last leg of the trip up to Hallock. We visited Grandma after dinner on Friday and got to enjoy the program at the nursing home with her. Everyone at the nursing home loved seeing the kids so much! Bev and I walked around to each table with Cooper and Kaylin so everyone could see them. Saturday before we went to visit Grandma, Dorothy and Laura stopped by our hotel room. Laura loves babies and helped both Christy and I out by holding the babies and even feeding Cooper. Ward, DeAnn, Nick and Morgan also stopped by and we were able to visit with them as well. Morgan loved holding the babies as well. Then we went to the nursing home to visit with Grandma and take the 4 generation pictures. That night went to Dorothy and Odeen's for dinner. A lot of my family members that live up there were there as well as my Uncle Chet who was in town from Michigan. It's always fun when everyone gets together. Sunday we went to see grandma again before we went home. It was so hard to say goodbye! I am just grateful we got up there so she could meet Cooper and Kaylin.

Smiles

Cooper is starting to smile at times when people are talking to him! It's so amazing. His first one that I can remember was on Sunday on our way home from Hallock. Mom took him out of his carrier while we were at a rest stop and was talking to him and he got the biggest smile on his face. I have been able to get him to smile a couple times since then but have been unable to take a picture of it. I will try and get a picture of it soon and post it so everyone can see it. He had a big smile for me this morning when I took him out of his bed. It made everything worth while, even the fact that he wouldn't go to bed last night until 12:30 and I was so tired.

Cooper's first happy hour

Our friends Jenn and Phil hosted Cooper's first happy hour at their house last Friday. We had a great time and are so grateful to them for giving us a chance to share Cooper with some of our friends. We had Cooper dressed in his Gopher outfit from his aunt Katie who is in Africa, but no one got to see him in it. He wet through is diaper before we got there. Thankfully I had another outfit in his diaper bag.