PSA for all dog & cat owners

My parent's dog recently became seriously ill. Pepper lost the majority of her hair, had oozing sores and was completely miserable. After finally taking her to a pet dermatologist they found the cause of her problems. They tried this new flea and tick medicine called Promaris (also spelled Premeris) and she now has pemphigus foliaceus, a condition where the immune system attacks the skin causing blisters, pustules and crusting erosions. It can be deadly if left untreated. Thankfully they figured out what was wrong before it was too late, but Pepper will have to be on medicine for the rest of her life.

Coopers growing vocabulary

Cooper is learning so much every day, it's amazing to watch him. Here are some of his words:

• uh oh
• da-for dad or dog, used interchangeably
• mom/ma
• hot (he makes a really funny face when he says this)
• hi
• blabbering nonsense
• screaming when he is excited/hungry/mad

Cooper update

Cooper has changed so much lately, here are some highlights:


He loves vegetables! If we can't get him to eat anything a sure thing is peas or corn. This weekend he tried edamame and loved it. He had that and Cheerios for lunch yesterday.

He has now moved up to a booster seat. He wants nothing to do with his high chair anymore. If he is hungry he will either pull out the chair with his booster chair, sit at his picnic table or open "his" cupboard and bring something to us. He is also getting really good at using silverware, which is great except he doesn't want to use the baby silverware, he wants to use ours.

He loves to put on our shoes and try to walk around.

He enjoys drawing with pens or crayons. We are working really hard at keeping the crayons out of his mouth and off the carpet.

End of 2008 recap

Whew! The holidays and being busy at work sure took a toll on this blog, I don't know where to start. I guess start where I left off.

We had a great Halloween, the weather was so nice! We took Cooper around to a couple of our neighbors houses and then he spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa Peterson so Rob and I could go out and have some Halloween fun.

At the beginning of November the Boie's, Peterson's and Duran's went up north to visit my grandma. It was so great to see her again! I hope we can make it up again soon. Cooper had his first bloody injury by hitting his mouth on the bedside table at the hotel. Needless to say all of us were pretty freaked out.

We spent Thanksgiving with my parents this year, it was fun to watch Cooper and Kaylin play. Friday Cooper and I spent a portion of the day at Rob's parents house since all of Donna's family was in town. After Rob got off work we went back to the Peterson's house for dinner to celebrate grandma turning 89! She is truly an amazing woman! I think she is in better shape than I am. She still shovels!

Once it started getting cold we bought Cooper a winter jacket, snowpants, hat and gloves. He hates them. We ended using another jacket and hat because it wasn't' worth the fight every morning. Still makes for a cute picture though..

We enjoyed watching the Vikings play this year. Cooper now does the sign for touchdown, super cute!

This Christmas we were really blessed. We saw a lot of our family and friends, continued our traditions going shopping Christmas Eve with my dad at 6 am, Oyster Stew on Christmas Eve and even snuck in a trip to Wisconsin to visit with Grandma Dittman. Now this is where the story gets interesting..

We had breakfast with Ron and Donna on Christmas morning and then jumped in the car and started south. About 20 miles south of Rochester our car died going 70 mph, it just stopped and wouldn't start again. Once we made it to the side of the road I called my dad and asked him if he had any ideas on what I could check. Nothing worked. We didn't know what to do, it's Christmas day and nothing is open. Then my dad called back with a plan. My brother in law was able to get a tow truck from work and they were going to tow my dad's car down so we could continue on to grandma's house. What a relief! But then we realized it would be at least 2 hours before we would see them. What to do? Thankfully we didn't have to think about it too long, a state trooper stopped and picked us up and dropped us off at a gas station. In case you are ever in this situation, they highly recommend you call 911, especially if you have kids with you. This was such a humbling experience! At the store we found a "home" in between some soda cases to sit and wait. We took turns chasing Cooper and preventing him from taking everything off every shelf. We even let him play with our cell phones for a while. Some how he managed to delete my contact information from Rob's phone and sign him up for ringback tones. The staff was so great to us, they kept offering us something to drink and gave us a free lunch. Dad and Adrian arrived a couple hours later, we switched cars and were on our way. We had a great visit with Grandma and the Petersons. Guess what happened on the way home? We had a flat tire on my dad's car in Rochester! Needless to say we were extremely glad when we finally made it home.

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.