Cooper has LOVED his new swing set.  To those of you in the family that went in on this gift for him--THANK YOU!!!  The first day we had it up, he spent 3 hours outside playing nearly all by himself while I watched from the kitchen windows.  So we BOTH thank you. :o)
Nate found Coop outside without shoes on, just socks.  Shoes at the bottom of the slide.  He said he took them off so he could slide better.  What a kid.  We moved it to another spot in the yard so that the slide has more of an angle than what is shown here.  Many hours are going to be spent playing on this.
Thank you again, and Merry Christmas!

To those of you who follow face book, this is some repeat, and some new.  To those who don't, and so I can record this for Cooper's photo book, here are a few Cooper-isms of late.

Cooper recently learned that sometimes when people sing, they use microphones.  [I think Santa just may be getting him a little microphone for his stocking.]  The other day Cooper said, "Mommy, I'm donna sing "Jinkle Bewls" in the micro wave!"
"You mean microPHONE?"
"Oh. Yeah."

A Toys R Us catalog came in the mail today. Coop immediately grabbed it and has been looking through it all night, making comments like "Oh wow look at that!" and "Whoa!" I didn't realize he'd even know what it was. Our kid is growing up too fast.




Lately Cooper has been all about buttons.  He thinks that every toy must/should have button of some kind.  Last night he examined his snuggle puppy (stuffed animal), and then said, "Puppy no buttons," all forlorn.  Tonight Coop was looking at the bottom of our dog's feet when suddenly he exclaimed, "Mommy, Brody has buttons!" He was talking about the pads on his paws.  I couldn't stop laughing.


I love our little comedian, even if most of the time it's not on purpose.

I haven't taken any pictures yet of the decorated Christmas tree, probably because I'm still not happy about the way the decorating night turned out.  First, we were decorating it Sunday, and ran out of lights halfway through lighting the tree.  So we had to stop and wait until Monday when we could go buy more lights.

Monday night for Family Home Evening, we decided that it was time for tree decorating round two.  I'd had such nice pictures in my head of our little family decorating the tree together. NOPE. More like: toddler repeatedly plugs and unplugs the Christmas lights, after multiple time-outs and many fits. Wants NOTHING to do with the ornaments, and then decides to start throwing them. Thank goodness at that point all we had out were the plastic bulbs. SO glad I made the switch from glass to plastic last year!


A total Fukushima meltdown ensued, so we decided to desist on the family decorating, and I ended up decorating it by myself Tuesday night. After years and years of fond memories decorating the tree with my my parents and siblings, it felt very lonely and un-Chrsitmas-like. :( Apparently toddlers and Christmas tree decorating just don't mix. Maybe over-stimulation? Whatever it is, I now have new expectations until my kid is a little older.


Surprisingly, Cooper has been really good about not pulling too many things off the tree.  I purposely hung all the fragile ornaments in the top section, out of his reach, so the only ornaments left for him are those few that play music that I've told him he can touch, and a few bells, which he likes to pull off and shake while singing "Jingle Bells."  It's so cute that I just can't resist telling him not to play with the bells.  So at least while the initial decorating didn't go so well, we haven't had to re-decorate at all.


Cooper is loving all the Christmas decorations around the house.  Today after work, and before I went to pick him up from school, I spent 15 minutes putting up the garland and lights over the front door, and around the mailbox.  When he got home, he noticed them, and immediately rushed over to touch them, and OF COURSE try to unplug the lights.  The kid is obsessed with anything dangerous.


It's fun having him old enough to understand a little about Christmas.  I've been telling him the story of the birth of Jesus, using his Fisher Price nativity set, and have found him re-enacting it later himself.  He is nearly an expert on Santa now, at least as expert as a 2-yr old can be.  Christmas with kids just can't be compared to anything else.  It's so fun!

Last weekend we had some Christmas fun.  We went and picked out our Christmas tree, which was almost too easy at a local tree lot less than 5 minutes from our house.  We found the one we wanted and in less than 15 minutes had it on top of the truck on and our way home.  Crazy!  Coop INSISTED on having his picture taken with the blow-up snowman, and was fascinated by it.  Of course, he also HAD to touch it.

This morning at breakfast:
Me: "Oops!  I spilled my orange juice!"
Cooper:  "Mommy time out."

After that, I discussed with Cooper what an accident is and that when accidents happen, it's just a mistake, not something done wrong on purpose. He repeated "attident," and I could see the wheels spinning in his little brain as he soaked up what I said.  I can just see the next time he does something like throw a toy at me (his new way of acting out), and I tell him it's time out, and he responds, "Attident, Mommy, attident!"  You know it's going to happen.