Happy Birthday, Mays & Dallas!

Today is Mays and Dallas' birthday!

We had a great weekend in Los Gatos celebrating the boys' birthday and going to the Neil Diamond concert. Neil Diamond is probably mom's all-time favorite singer and John & I grew up listening to his music. I vividly remember all of the Saturdays and Sundays as Mom cleaned the house belting out "Wearing Blue Jeans." Mom, John and I went to the concert together. It was nice to spend a little time together just the three of us and it was great to see mom relax and enjoy herself. She has had a lot going on lately with my Grandma in and out of the hospital and definitely deserves a little down time.

The girls really enjoyed spending time with their cousins and the twins seemed to have a great time playing with their big cousins. It was lots of fun to play with the boys and not have them be shy or afraid of us. Cooper even liked playing with all of the "big boy" toys at his cousins house. I can't believe they are already 2 years old. Only re-enforces to me how quickly they grow and Cooper will be 1 before I know it (less than 2 months!).

Emma Jo is old enough now that she gets to help babysit the little kids when I am busy. In the hotel she watched Cooper while Grace and I went downstairs for a cart and coffee. I showed Emma how to answer the door with the lock on (since she was too short to see through the peep hole) and instructed her to not open the door for anyone but Mommy or Grammie. I think she felt very mature to be given that responsibility.

We'll see when Cooper wakes up, but I think he got his second black eye yesterday. The first one came a few weeks ago when he pulled the hamper down on himself in the bedroom. The 2nd could have come yesterday when he rolled down the back step to the patio. He was playing inside while Grace and I set up her tunnel on the grass. She noticed that he wanted to come out so she opened up the sliding glass door for him. Next thing I knew he was about 2 feet away from the step laying on his face screaming. When I asked Grace what had happened she reported that he came out to play and then started crying. I asked why he was crying and she had no idea. Then I asked how he got to where he was and she calmly replied that he had rolled there. He as fine after a second, so no longer term consequences beside a likely black eye.

New Pictures of Cooper

At Emma Jo's soccer game on Saturday, Cooper John enjoyed sitting in Grace's "big girl" chair where he kicked back with a cracker.Cooper loves it when I let him have a ride in this Silver Oak beach bag. He laughs and laughs, too cute!

YTRAP DRAWKCAB

What a great idea. Some moms are much more creative than I am.

Emma Jo's friend has a Backward Birthday Party today. They did everything backwards. The party started with favor bags, cake and presents. Then moved on to games and ended with breakfast. Such a simple idea, yet the kids had so much fun...

Today should be a better day

Today is starting out to be a better day than yesterday.

Friday night the little ones teamed up to make sure Mommy didn't get any sleep. Cooper chose 11pm, 2am and 4am for his up-close and personal with Mommy. Grace went for midnight and 3am. Lucy tried to get in on the action a couple of times as well. By 5:30am everyone was up and watching tv. That was a sure sign that Saturday was not going to be a good day.

Last night Jason was hunting and I was on my own. Cooper was a little challenge to get to sleep since he was so over-tired from no real nap on Saturday, but by 6:30 he was out. Of course the pizza delivery man had to use the doorbell, so at 6:45 I was back in there and by 7pm Cooper was really out. Grace followed close behind by 7:30 and Emma Jo was asleep by 8:15.

I had a visit with Cooper around 9pm when he had apparent night terrors, but thankfully didn't see any more kids until Grace had to go potty and Cooper needed to eat around 4:30am.

It's now 7am, we're watching Mickie Mouse, drinking coffee and smelling our cinnamon rolls baking in the oven. It should be a good day today...

Can you tell that they are related?

Oh, Ick!

How do kids instinctively know when you have washed their carseats, and when you have on a dry-clean only sweater?

That was the situation this morning when Cooper had a major blowout. I can't remember the last time he had one, but this was a doozy, and of course, I just washed his carseat yesterday. I guess I really will have to make it to the dry-cleaners today before my sweater smells permanently of poop.

Pumpkins

Tonight was the annual "name-your-pumpkin" ceremony at Grandpa's pumpkin patch. Emma Jo chose a perfect Jack-o-Lantern pumpkin while Grace went for the biggest in the patch. Cooper John was just happy to sit in the dirt and play with a dirt clod.

Notice that Grace wrote her own name this year!