Election day

If you would have asked me 10 years ago would I be willing to get up at 5:30 to get ready for work, do my final candidate research and then go stand in line to vote my answer would have be no, more like hell no. Yet, I found myself up at 5:30 yesterday morning, standing in line at the neighborhood church watching the sun come up waiting to vote. I felt compelled to vote in this election more than I ever have and I have to say it was an incredible experience. It's not that I haven't voted in prior elections, but this one seemed special/different. By the time the polls opened at 7:00 there were about 200 people waiting to vote. Everyone was in a good mood, no one complained, one guy offered another a free cup of coffee, I even saw someone allow an elderly lady and her daughter access to the front of the line. After I voted, I couldn't wait to find out who the winners were going to be. Aside from popular the presidential and congress races, I was excited to find out if the Constitutional amendment and if the school referendums had passed. I have been trying to put into words how I felt last night after watching the election results and then I got this email from my friend Angie and once again I am in awe of her eloquent use of words. I asked her if I could post this email on my blog to document history, of course being the great friend that she is, she agreed. Here is the email she sent to a friend in Italy today:

I thought I’d shoot a quick note to my friend across the sea to paint the picture of what the election night was like in the US…. In a word, amazing. The pulse of the country was something that could be felt through the veins of nearly every American. Waiting, figuratively holding their breath in anticipation of what the next chapter would bring. Mostly with the understanding and realization that not only were we, the citizens of the United States, watching…. But the world was watching; Standing on the other side of the glass peering in like a fish tank and wondering what our next move would be. Would it be a woman Vice President for the first time in history, or would it be the very first African American to hold the highest position in office? Either way, it marked the end of the Bush era and the beginning of a long anticipated change. I can’t wait to see what the coming days, months, years bring in changing perceptions and repositioning the country: financially, politically & emotionally in the souls of people that have had a difficult time coming to terms with where their country was headed these past years. As I drove home last night the sky was dark, but streets were lit by houses with people gathering to witness the historic events… The contrast of the dark night and the lit houses I saw people glued to their TV sets. House, by house, by house…all watching history in the making.

I hope everyone enjoyed this historical election day as much as I did.

Cooper's Musical Grandpa Ron

Tonight we celebrated Grandpa Ron's birthday. Whenever we get there Cooper runs straight to the piano. Ron joked that the piano might have to come to our house for Cooper to take lessons on. Hmm I think we will send Cooper to their house for lessons instead. Grandpa Ron also has had Cooper playing the drum, guitar and many other instruments. We also took a family picture tonight. It's really hard to get a good picture when the boys (not just Cooper) are always messing around. Here is the best shot.

Pictures

After blogging over a months worth of entries there are always pictures I want to share that don't "fit" in with the titles. Here are a couple more pictures I thought you might enjoy.
Everyone is always saying how much Cooper looks like Rob so I bought my boys matching shirts.

This one just makes me laugh. Something about the look on his face reminds me of Rob.
Cooper recently loves the broom and dustpan. He pushes the broom around, now if only I could stop him from putting the dustpan in his mouth.

Weekend up at the lake

Cooper and I went to the lake this weekend while Rob stayed home to study and go to Ian's birthday party. We had a lot of fun. We went fishing with Grandpa, Grandma and Fish. Cooper was really great in the boat except for trying to "touch" the water. At one point I had him just by his waistband. He liked steering and touching everything. He definitely is my son. He liked touching the worms, leaches and fish.

We also attended our first sheep camp at the Gatt's. Cooper liked all the animals there and wanted to pet them.

Kaylin turns 1!

Kaylin turned one today! It's hard to believe it's been a year. It was a great party with a lot of people, great food and thankfully great weather! How cute is she?
Kaylin once again proved the difference between her and her crazy "monster" cousin. While Cooper had cake everywhere... Kaylin was very delicate and hardly got cake anywhere.

Christy asked if Cooper could get messy. Of course he could! Like I really had a choice? So he helped Kaylin eat some of her cake to show her how good it is.

Coop's one year stats

We took Cooper in for his one year well baby appointment and here are his stats:

Height: 33 inches (off the charts percentage wise)
Weight: 26.10 pounds ( in the 90 percentile)

It's amazing to think he grew 10 inches his first year and gained 16.2 pounds.

Kaylin's sleepover

The night before Kaylin's birthday party she had her first sleepover at our house.


The kids took their first bath together, Cooper didn't want to share his toys and ended up splashing Kaylin most of the time.

Both kids (and me) were pooped by time we left to go to the party. It was a lot of fun and I can't wait for her to stay over again. Even if she does wake up at 5:00 am. :)

Birthday

Even though we had a party, we couldn't let Cooper's actual birthday go uncelebrated. At daycare Miss Christy has a party for each of the kids. Unfortunately Cooper had a virus so he didn't go to daycare. We had both sets of Grandparents and Rob's Aunt Jodi (who was in town from CA) over for dinner, more presents and cake. We could definitely tell Cooper wasn't feeling 100% last night, he didn't eat any cake. We also took a new family picture in front of our house. We hope to make this a tradition, it will be interesting to see how Cooper and the tree grows.

Weekend at the lake

We headed up to the lake this weekend and were lucky enough to have both kids up there to play. Mom and dad brought Kaylin up so Christy and Adrian could have a well deserved break. Here are some fun pictures of the kids.



Grandpa with his babies

Rob teaching the kids to play slots

Four Wheeler rides were their favorite!

State Fair

Since I didn't go to the fair last year I definitely made up for it this year. One of my co-workers gave me free tickets to Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley at the grandstand. Since Rob doesn't like Country music mom and I went. We had a great time! The weather was great, the concert was great and the people watching was awesome. I don't get to do much people watching with Rob, or at least comment on it.

The next day we took Cooper for his first time.

You would be surprised how hard it was to take this picture with Rob taking the picture.

Happy Birthday!

Because Cooper's birthday falls the day after Labor day we decided to have his birthday party the weekend before. We were very lucky to have so many people show up for his party. I think we had about 25 adults and 8 kids all under the age of 3.

Cooper had fun playing with his two big guy friends Harrison and Henry and sharing all his toys. He also shared his Exersaucer with Conner and he loved it. Baby Liam also came to help celebrate.

He also had fun playing with Abby and Kaylin and liked Abby's hat. We were also really lucky that Madeline was there to help us. She handed us presents and helped Cooper open a lot of his gifts.

Then came it was time for cake. I wasn't sure how Cooper would do since we don't normally put a full cake in front of him, but he did really well until he got frosting in his eyes. Here are some of my favorite pictures.

After his bath Cooper showed everyone his new trick. He loves toliet paper.

By the end of the both of us were popped out.

Cooper

Here are some new pictures and updates of Cooper:

He is such a big boy now, this was taken in the middle of the lake. The other kids (Aries and Akaya) were swimming and Cooper wanted in on the fun. I think he is almost ready to battle tube with daddy!

Cooper is teething (I think) again and wouldn't eat anything we gave him except for corn on the cob. He loves it!

He loves to climb up on the couch to sit with us. The other day he used my face as a stepping stool because he can't quite make it up himself yet. He also still loves the remote. Last weekend at the cabin he had the remote and pointed it to the TV and kept looking back and forth to see why it wasn't working. Little did he know he had the DVD remote.

We took this picture for our friend Dave who gave us this shirt for Cooper to wear. Unfortunately after it was washed it became a belly shirt before he could wear it. So we put it on his bear instead.

Kaylin

Both of the kids have grown so much lately I figured I would share some of my favorite pictures of my niece Kaylin with everyone.

How big is Kaylin? SO BIG!

Busted for playing with a dog toy.

She loves the water!

Crazy hair

Walking

Cooper has been cruising on furniture since mothers day but around the first of August he started walking. It has been so amazing watching him learn and get better every day. What started out as a couple steps attempting to catch the cat which always ended in a face plant, grew to walking back and froth from Rob and I to get his AWESOME sparkle ball (thanks again Ang), to now becoming more and more adventurous and walking for what looks to be the fun of it.

Crazy Cooper

While I was going through pictures to put on the memory stick for Donna, I found this video I took of Cooper a month or so ago. It's so cute and funny I really need to share it, so here you go:

First Sleep over

After Becker's we head to my parent's cabin to drop off the boat and spend the night. This year I really wanted to get home to unpack and relax before heading back to work on Monday. Why is it when you get home from vacation you feel like you need another? Any way on the ride to the cabin we were talking about how we were going to tell my parents that we wanted to go home. Knowing that they were excited to spend that time with Cooper, we decided that we would ask if they wanted him to spend the night with them. I know this probably doesn't sound like a big deal to some people, but for me this was huge. Of course my parents agreed. It was hard leaving him because over the week at Becker's he had become a huge mommas boy and when ever I left the room he would start crying. This time was no different. So I left him in the capable hands of my parents and we went home. I have to admit it was a lot easier unloading and unpacking without him freaking out every time I wasn't in sight. We relaxed and watched a movie after we unpacked. Going to bed that night was really weird seeing his empty crib and knowing he wasn't home. When we got up I couldn't wait for my parents to drop him off. I think Cooper did better than I did, but I did ok.

Beckers 2008

For the last 20 some years Rob's family heads up north to Becker's resort. Prior to missing last year while being uncomfortably pregnant, I have going up there every year I have known Rob. This year of course there was one small change.. Cooper. It was a very different trip this year, but a wonderful one. Gone were the late night fires and binge drinking, they were replaced with putting Cooper to bed followed by a good night sleep and waking up with a hang over. I wouldn't have changed anything.We didn't do as much fishing as we normally do, but we did take Cooper out for his first trip out on lake Winnie. My idea for shade worked out pretty well. He even took a nap for a while which was nice.




We spent a lot of time at the pool as well. Cooper loved the water, even though it was really cold! Abby and Cooper had matching swim floats and enjoyed splashing each other.


Cooper finally got to meet his Aunt Kate who just came back from Africa and was able to join us at Becker's.




This year besides having Cooper up there, we had another small change. Instead of sharing a cabin with Ron and Donna we shared a cabin with Tim. This worked out really well. We had a quiet place to put Cooper down for naps and bedtime and we even talked Tim into helping change a diaper. I couldn't believe Rob actually talked him into it, so I had to take a picture.


Cooper did spend at least part of every day with grandma and grandpa watching him so Rob and I could run to town, go fishing or just go for a boat ride. It was really great for all of us. He enjoyed going into their fridge and pulling things out, pulling things out of their cabinets and grandpa showed him how to use a pot cover as a drum. Thanks grandpa. Grandma and grandpa also bought Cooper his first Becker's outfit, super cute.


They also have a play ground there and Cooper loved the swing. We had bought Cooper a wagon thinking how great it would be for Becker's and I have to admit I was right. The kids loved riding it in.

We were really lucky this year, Brynn and Jeff flew in from LA to stay with us for half the week as well. It was so great to see them again.

At some point in the week it's tradition that Rob, Roger, Ron and I have a fishing tournament up the river. Ron caught a nice rock bass, can you find it in the weeds? As for the winner, let's just say it was the one person who wasn't up there last year. ;)