My Fish

One of the highlights of being off-track for Ethan is swimming lessons.  He is really turning into a good little swimmer.  And he loves being in the water.  He is currently in level 3 and it's pushing him and teaching him in ways the previous levels didn't.  

Yesterday, he passed off treading water for one minute.  Along with diving into the ten feet deep water and several different strokes.  His dives aren't pretty, but he is one of the only kids in the class who actually goes in head first instead of belly flops!  I'm impressed!

 I love watching Ethan swim.

Let Him Eat Cake! (Just not as much next time...)

I had fun making Cooper's birthday cake!

A triple layer cake with blue and green frosting in the middle, and homemade sprinkles!  I thought after piping the first 400 sprinkles I might go permanently cross-eyed, but they actually turned out to be really fun to make and tasted so good!

 We sang quietly and all contained ourselves when we finished singing - no cheering or clapping - and that was just perfect for Cooper.

 He was pretty surprised to see such a huge slice get put onto his tray...

 but it didn't take him long to give it a try

 He LOVED the cake.  My other kids did too!  But not when they were 1, they mostly just poked at theirs.

 Cooper devoured the whole piece before I could even realize that that would be a bad idea!  The poor thing had a major stomach ache after that for a good 45 minutes.

He pretty much just moaned and cried every few minutes, his little lip would quiver, and he made a few burpy sounds that made us all fear he'd never be able to keep it all down!  Luckily, he recovered fairly quickly and was back to playing with his new toys.

And that concludes the birthday blogging extravaganza.  Who ever said the third child gets gipped out of being in pictures or being written about???  I think it's my oldest who is getting gipped!  Maybe next week I'll blog about my older kids...

Everything But the Birthday Cake

Cooper loved reaching for the balloons hanging down from the ceiling fan

 Especially when we turned the fan on and they went whooshing by

 Ethan and Madeline had fun collecting toys from their rooms that they don't play with anymore and then wrapping them up for Cooper.  Ethan was disappointed that Cooper didn't care about opening presents and was quite surprised to find out he didn't care when he was one either!

 The kids also wanted to duplicate the photo shoot of the three of them when Cooper was 2 weeks old. Pictures of them lying in a row.  I knew it wouldn't work, but decided to humor the kids:

 Well, I thought it was humorous...

 Entirely too many presents...

 Yep, the balloons are still up there

 Well, he liked the gift tags...

 and patting the presents.

 And eventually, he decided the xylophone was his favorite gift of the night!

Cake pictures tomorrow.

And in other Cooper news, he had is one year check-up today only to find out he has an ear infection!  He hasn't been sick or acted fussy at all.  Poor thing.  Now we have to do antibiotics for 10 days...

He's 20 lbs. 12 oz. which is 20th percentile.  And 31.5 inches, 94th percentile.  Ethan was about two pounds heavier and two inches longer!  But one thing I found interesting was that Cooper has been going up on the height chart each visit.  He started at 50th percentile, then jumped to 70th, then 90th, and now 94th.  He's definitely mine.  :)

Cooper's Birthday Morning

Cooper started out his birthday morning by watching his cake bake in the oven

Then a little playing in the crib...

And of course, breakfast

Cheerios and toast!

Then he got to play with his new giant ball.  He loves this thing!

Just the beginning of a day of fun!

1 Year Old Photo Shoot

Yesterday was such a fun day.  My darling Cooper!  As you can imagine, I took a TON of pictures, but I thought I'd post his photo shoot ones today while I try and figure out how to organize the others.  I think I'll be posting pictures for days!  It was just as magical as I had hoped.  He didn't have a clue what was going on, and yet, it was perfect.  I loved watching him be delighted about some things and care nothing about others.  Wow, I have a one year old now!!  And here he is:

Happy Birthday to my Cooper

My little Cooper Grant was born one year ago today.  I've been so enjoying the memories from his birth all morning long.  It was one of the most beautiful days of my life.  That overwhelming rush of love that flooded my entire body when they put him on my chest, breathtaking!  I can feel it all over again when I remember.  

 Now he's one!  And I can easily say that that was the fastest year of my life.

Cooper, you are most infectious, and incredibly lovable.  You've changed and blessed my life in countless ways.  I will forever treasure the gift in my life that is YOU!  You've made all your family members better people just by living.  And given us so much happiness.  

Madeline has always said it best:  Cooper is the best gift I ever had!

Happy Birthday Baby Love.

xoxo

Crochet Elephant

My baby is seriously going to be one tomorrow.  I can hardly believe it's been a year.  I found my bag of crochet a week or two ago and stumbled upon a mostly done project I had forgotten about.  I think Cooper was around 3 months old when I began this elephant.  I decided that since his birthday was right around the corner, I ought to finish the little guy.  I think he turned out cute:

 And now I'm all into crochet again.  I have a fun little project planned for Madeline.  It's cute and includes pink and more pink, and little wings... :)

Maybe tomorrow Cooper can give this little elephant friend a good slobbery love.

Now I'm off to go make homemade sprinkles!!  That's right - his cake is gonna be fun!