San Diego

In November we decided to go back to San Diego to visit Sea World and the Zoo. The kids loved the trip we did back in May so much that we knew we couldn't stay away too long. Although our trip was quick this time we had a lot of fun. The kids love seeing all of the animals and it didn't hurt that we took Grandpa and Grandma along either.

Here we are watching Cooper and Daddy on the Elmo rides. Kamryn had so much fun watching that she insisted on riding them. I guess I wasn't all that surprised that she loved them just as much as Cooper did. (These days, she has to do everything Cooper does.)

Cooper and Daddy on the Elmo ride.

Kamryn clapping for one of the Sea World shows.

Kamryn resting in the middle of the Zoo's street without a care in the world.

Cooper resting his tired toes.

Cooper and Daddy posing on a sabertooth tiger.

Kamryn had too much fun. On the first day she didn't take one nap and was just the same old happy Kamryn everyone loves. On the second day she just couldn't go any longer without a nap and passed out in the stroller.

Grandma, Cooper and Kamryn posing in front of the flamingos.

Kamryn pointing out the monkeys.

The zoo has lots of animals for the kids to climb and play on. Kamryn loved climbing on every single one with Cooper.

Mommy and Kamryn with the gorillas.

Kamryn and Cooper showing us the hippos. It was amazing to see these large animal

Daddy and Kamryn: so cute!

Halloween

We didn't get very many pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes this year, even though I think they both wore them at least 5 times. Here are just a couple of pictures we managed to take after the kids went trick-or-treating.

Cooper, Zach, Connor and Kamryn posing in their Halloween costumes. In case you can't tell Cooper was Buzz Lightyear, Zach was a scary skeleton, Connor was Optimus Prime from Transformers and Kamryn was a cute littel Ladybug.

Tee Ball

We signed Cooper up for Tee Ball with his friend Owen and they have been playing for the past month. The kids love it (most of the time) and are slowly figuring it out. The first game was hilarious. The kids were running everywhere, laying on the bases, tackling each other for the ball, swinging to hit the ball, missing and spinning in circles and starring off into the sky watching airplanes fly by. To sum it up it is organized chaos or maybe even unorganized chaos. Either way it is very entertaining and the kids seem to enjoy themselves.

The first game: Owen, Kamryn, Cooper and Connor.

Cooper up to bat.

As you can tell, Cooper is not thrilled about playing.

A couple of cute pictures of Connor, Cooper and Zach.

1st Day of Preschool

Cooper started preschool this year. Although he is going on his 3rd month, I couldn't resist posting the pictures we took of him on his first day. He was so excited! I have noticed that he is counting to 20 (minus a couple of numbers), singing songs about his colors, days of the week and months of the year and speaking more clearly. Go Preschool! The most exciting thing about preschool . . . Cooper is finally, completely, 100% potty trained!!!

I had to take a profile picture of Cooper. His lunch box attaches to the front of his backpack making it huge! It was so funny to see such a large bag on such a little guy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COOPER!!!

THE BIG DAY

This is long over due since Cooper's turned 3 on August 26th but I couldn't resist posting pictures of his special day and birthday party. For starters, we went to breakfast at Denny's where Cooper ate for free:) It was a lot of fun and even funnier when they came out with his breakfast clapping. He was almost embarrassed.

After running some errands we met some friends for pizza and Peter Piper. The kids had a blast and loved riding on all of the rides . . . and of course they loved the pizza.

For dinner, Cooper chose mac & cheese with hot dogs and then we met some friends for ice cream. When we finally got home we opened lots of presents.

Cooper, we love you so much. You make us laugh every day and you are truly the best big brother. Thank you for being such a joy!

THE PARTY

Cooper decided (with my help) that he wanted a Toy Story birthday party. We decided to have it at the community pool again since it is always so hot this time of year. We had swimming, water balloons, a pinata, pizza and alien cupcakes. The kids had so much fun and the weather was great. It was a little windy at one point and we were worried the storm would ruin the party but it blew over and it ended up being a cool night.

Thank you to everyone that was able to celebrate Cooper's 3rd birthday! We had so much fun.

Cute Pictures of the Kids

I was going through my pictures and I found some really cute ones of the kids. Enjoy!

Kamryn's FIRST encounter with a milk shake.

Cooper jumped on behind Kamryn and told me I needed to take a picture. He was right! Look at those cute kids!

On this particular day, Cooper decided to eat his peanut butter toast outside. When I looked outside I found him pulling his toast off of his shirt . . . I guess he must have tried bending over his plate because it stuck right to his shirt.

Kamryn's first encounter with spaghetti . . . YIKES! She went straight to the bath tub. I remember a lot of negotiations took place between Mike and I as to who was going to clean her off and get her into the tub:)

Oh Boy...Can you say Dumb Mom Moment?

The other day Cooper was playing and I told him to get his toys out of the speaker that is next to the tv. (Let me just add that he does this all of the time.) All of the sudden I heard screaming and crying and there was Cooper with his arm stuck in the speaker box. I tried pulling on his arm, tried telling him to pull out his arm, started searching the box to see if there was any way to get it open, tried everything I knew what to do but his arm was stuck! (As you can see in the picture above.)

What was a mother to do? I started thinking that I could maybe call the the fire department and that maybe the fire fighters might be able to get it out . . . but then I thought the only thing they could do was to break it open. So that's what I decided to do. I started with a small hammer that we keep in the house. I told Cooper to put his head down and I started pounding on that speaker box but that thing was not budging so I had to run to the garage to find something a little bigger (keep in mind Cooper is still screaming and crying and of course Mike is at work). I found a larger hammer and continued to hit that baby until I cracked it open and out popped his little arm. Poor guy! It was really wedged in there.

Moral of the story: 1. I won't be telling any kids to retrieve any toys out of there and 2. Cooper hasn't gone near that speaker box since the whole ordeal.

Oh, and in case you were curious . . . the speaker still works:) I just popped the front piece back in place and painted the chipped areas with black paint.