Duluth

We decided to enjoy the beautiful fall weather and take a day trip to Duluth. We started at the Lake Superior zoo and had a great time. They have a small stream and waterfall and we took full advantage of the beautiful weather and captured some family pictures. Since I am the one who normally has the camera I don't have many pictures of Cooper and I. So starting out I told Rob that was his goal was to get some good pictures of Cooper and I and he did a great job! I think he is starting to enjoy my new camera as much as I am. Here are some of my favorite pictures Rob took:

Now some that I took:

If we were having a contest I think he would have won. After the zoo we went to Canal park to have lunch at Grandma's and then walk around. We were lucky enough to be there when a large ship was coming through so Cooper could see that. He didn't seem as impressed as I thought he would be but he loved throwing rocks into Lake Superior.

Never again..

Whew! I have spent the last couple of weeks catching up on blog posts going back to April. I plan on never getting this behind again. I have multiple excuses if you want to hear them..

• Work has been busy and I normally do the majority of my blog posts while eating lunch
• I got a new camera and now I have to fix and organize pictures from two cameras instead of just one
• I wanted to spend as much time as possible outside this summer playing with Cooper
• Our crazy schedule

The list could go on and on. I have now moved updating the blog to to the top of my priority list so keep checking in for new posts.

Happy 3rd Birthday Cooper!

This year we decided to celebrate Cooper's birthday a little different. Instead of the big party where we invite everyone, we decided to have a smaller party with just our immediate family the weekend before his birthday. Then on his actual birthday spend the day with him at the State Fair making the whole day about celebrating him.

The birthday party started out a little shaky with a trip to Urgent Care. Around 11:30 I looked at Cooper's face and he had a ring of small red bumps around his mouth so I checked the rest of his body and he also had them on his chest and back. Once we got there they said it would be at least a 2 hour wait so I called Rob and asked him to bring supplies (food and toys). So we waited and waited until it was finally our turn to see the doctor all he said was it was a virus. Which in my opinion is their code for I don't know. Even though I was frustrated with the diagnosis I was glad that it wasn't something contagious and we could still have the party, just postpone it a couple hours. Thankfully we had decided to keep the party small so we only had a few people to contact and everything went well. We got Cooper an inflatable bouncy for his birthday and he had a blast jumping on it with Kaylin.

The fair forecast wasn't a good one for 9/2, when I woke up it was raining though Belinda Jensen said it would stop mid-morning. So we took a leap of faith and packed up and headed out. By the time we got to the fair it was beautiful! Not too hot and not too cold, a perfect day to head to the fair. Plus I think the morning rain prevented some people from heading out so it wasn't very crowded either. Cooper was so excited about going on the rides that was the first thing he wanted to do. I though it was very interesting that every ride I thought he would love he hated and every ride I thought he would be terrified on he loved. Rob was a trooper and went on quite a few rides with Cooper that he wasn't tall enough for, I stuck to the carousel. We had a great time checking out the animals and finding great food to eat. Though it was hard to convince Cooper there were other things to see at the fair besides the horses.

First trip to the theater

Tonight we took Cooper to the see his first movie in a theater. I was a little nervous thinking he wouldn't sit still or would talk through out the movie. Lately everything is Toy Story so we figured Toy Story 3 was a good choice that might hold his attention. So we got some popcorn and settled into our seats. I wish I would have had my camera with me, the popcorn container was almost as big as he was! I will have to remember to bring it next time. It was a really good movie and he did better than I expected.

Cooper's ever growing vocabulary

Cooper has been talking nonstop and constantly asking questions. He is very curious as to what people and/or things are doing. He always asks "what is that guy doing?", when we make up an answer his next response is always "why?", it's very cute but can get exhausting on a long car ride.


Cooper has also been very sassy lately. It’s not unusual to hear:

• “I can’t do that, I am too crabby”
• “In a minute mom, I am doing something”
• “I don’t want to do that EVER!”
• “FINE! I am going to my room” (picture him with a pouty face, arms crossed and stomping off)
• As he is leaving the house he tells the dogs “Be good today and don’t poop in the basement.”
• The other night he told Grandma, “I’m going to have to let you go now.” while he was talking to her on the phone.
• My favorite: "Do it right now!" sadly I can't get too mad at this after I realized he learned it from me.

Ben & Steve came to visit

Our friends Ben and Steve came into town earlier this week and we were able to have dinner with them. They brought their new "toy" the ipad and let Cooper play with it. He loved playing with it and was able to figure out pretty quickly how to use it. It was so great to visit with them, hopefully someday we can go and visit them. Who doesn't love a trip to California?

Becker's 2010

Becker’s this year was a lot tamer with a lot less of a crowd, which turned out to be just fine. We were excited to have our own cabin this year and therefore Cooper got his own room, which he was very happy about. He couldn’t lay flat in his pack and play anymore so figured that probably wasn’t good for him. This year the weather was nice again which allowed us to enjoy plenty of boating, swimming and fishing. It was nice to have Abby up there and the kids played together really well. The first night they had a dance off and had the entire cabin up and dancing, it was pretty funny, I think even Doug danced for a few seconds. We took a day trip to Itasca State Park (Ron, Donna, Roger, Diane, Tim and our family all made the trip) on Tuesday and went for a 17 mile bike ride. Cooper came with and rode in a trailer and Tim and Rob split pulling him along. The girls all got electric assist bikes which helped, especially on the hills. We also did our annual golf outing to Chippewa National, Brian drove it over the lake but Rob still handily beat him with consistent drives and awesome putting (yeah I wish.) Ron actually played pretty well too, who knows he may up his golf outings to a 2 a year, watch out world. Cooper enjoyed the pool and it is kind of scary how fearless he is, with his lifejacket he can swim on his own and will just jump in wherever. He also had a lot of fun pushing the big kids in; Josh, Jordan and Sam were all great with him. Uncle Tim is Cooper’s favorite as he pretty much does whatever Cooper wants him to, playing horse, riding him, dancing, etc. After Tim left on Wednesday though Cooper became obsessed with Sam (16 year old girl) that was up there and almost every minute needed to know what she was doing. He was very excited to give all the kids tattoos as well. We didn’t have a lot of luck fishing this year (not a big surprise as I think we only went out 3 times) and Cooper is still scared of fish. The first time he was in the boat when we caught something it was a decent size northern that Roger caught, we got it in the boat and it flopped out of the net, Jami screamed for Cooper to get out of the way because it was close to him which kind of freaked him out. The rest of the week we tried to get him to touch smaller fish to no avail. Hopefully we can cure him of this next summer.

Fourth of July

Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays, it falls right below Christmas Eve. We had another wonderful long weekend at the lake. Cooper went tubing for the first time and loved it. He is going to terrify me when he is older, I can guarantee it. He kept asking to go faster and loved hitting the big bumps that seemed to come out of no where.


The kids had a great time at the parade in Randall this year and got way too much candy.

Then we watched fireworks on lake in our boats, Cooper loves Sam. He stuck by her side for the majority of the weekend. It was so cute considering Sam used to do the same thing to me when she was his age.

Twins game part 2

After Cooper and I went to the Twins game in May we decided it would be fun to go as a family also. We invited our friend Janet along and had a great time.

Father's day

For the last couple years we have started a tradition of going to Canterbury for fathers day. Rob remembers going there with his grandparents when he was a kid. We started the morning out by surprising Rob with breakfast in bed and his present.

This year neither of our dad's were able to join us as in prior years but Brent, Heather, Abby and Brian were able to. The kids had fun running around and hanging out on the playground and the adults had fun watching and betting on the races.