Once again....

I dropped the ball on the blog once again. I apologize. November was uneventful month though.

We have had one big major my milestone hit that is very exciting to everyone... At 20 months Cooper is finally TALKING!! Actual words that we can understand!! YAY!!! His vocabul

ary has grown very quickly over the past few weeks, he learns a few new w

ords a day. Some of his favo

rite words are -

Ball

Da-ee (daddy)

No

Wa-wa (water)

Ow (as in owie)

Shoe

Bee (as in honey bee - theres a picture of a bee in his room)

Mommy

While he does say "mommy" sometimes he says "daddy" A LOT more. Little stinker butt.

We had a pretty fun Thanksgiving. We went to Aunti Beth's and had lots of yummy foo

d. After dinner there we

came home and put the tree up. <3>

Paul finally go the playroom painted and we have started putting things in there. We made a trip to Ikea in the middle of November to get some toy storage for the room and are starting to get that put together. The room looks great! I can't wait for Cooper to see it Christmas morning.

Here are some pictures for you.

Martimas Lantern Playdate

Yesterday we went to a friends house and made lanterns for a Martinmas Lantern Walk on Nov 9th. We had so much fun with wonderful friends and got our hands sticky with the craft!!

Here is our end result!!

Knitting

I started knitting back in July and absolutely love it! I am 100% addicted to it. The magic of making something with my own hands (yarn and needles as well of course :P) is pure joy. I spend my time playing with my son and knitting... yep the house work has been neglected some lol but not completely I swear!!!

Upland Hills Farm

On October 8th we went on a field trip with a bunch of mama friends and their kiddos to Upland Hills Farm. We had a BLAST!!! Cooper

LOVED chasing those poor ducks around! We saw ducks, a bunny, a chick, pigs, sheep, a piglet, goats, horses, cows, etc. We got to go on a hay ride and a hike through the woods as well. So much fun packed into a few hours!!!

Here's some pics from the day!

The goat pics are some of my faves. You can notice in the first goat pic he doesn't even see it. And then after it licked his hand he is very excited about it!

Family Pictures

On September 27th we met a dear friend at a park so she could take our family/18mo photos. These we extra special to me since the last time we had family photos done I still had braces... These would be my first professional pictures without braces and I was super excited!!! We ran around the park, played with giant leaves and pine cones, blew bubbles, played on the slide, etc all while Toni was taking candid pics (with a couple posed ones but not many!).

September has been busy!!

I updated the milestone list (see below) if you want to check it out.

This month we have gone to the zoo where our good friend Vada gave him kissies in front of the snake exhibit. And Cooper got pulled around in his wagon while he chowed down on pretzels.

We also went to down town Detroit with Auntie Beth and Uncle Mike and stared at Canada across the Detroit River

.

Then we went to the park with a friend and learned to walk part way up the slide, then slide back down on our bottom. Cooper also fell down and got a boo-boo, to which our friend Julia promptly hugged and made better!

Then we had some friends over for dinner. I get the feeling we're going to have to keep an eye on these two when they get older! LOL First kissies at the zoo and now conspiring together in the chair... uh oh!

Some August Pics

Momma snuggles

Arts N Crafts at Evans Bday party

Markers are yummy!

Gotta have the orange balloon, and yes, only the orange one will work for my lil guy.

Mommy is home!!!

Last weekend I traveld to Ann Arbor for my doula training. It was the first time I was away from Cooper for more then 6 hours. I left Friday morning at 10:30 and got hom Sunday night at 7:30. 57 hours without my baby!!!! It was so hard on me. Being in class wasn't that bad because I was busy but when class was over and I was in the hotel room by myself, well that was torture! I wanted so bad to hold, kiss, touch, tickle, laugh with, toss in the hair, tossle his hair, chase, etc my beautiful baby boy and I couldn't. But I managed to make it through the weekend and Paul said that Cooper did okay too. Everytime they would come down the stairs Cooper would see the family protait and point to my picture. (Talk about a tear jerker when he told me that!)

When I got home Sunday Paul and Cooper were just getting back from Kroger. I literally pulled into the driveway right behind them. Paul got out of his car and gave me a hug and then I went to Coopers door and opened it. At frist he just looked at me and then it hit him that I was. The look on his face, the smile, the laughs, the screech!! Absolutely amazing. I couldn't get him out of the car seat fast enough. Cooper and I sat on the couch for about 40 minutes just snuggling after I got home. It was so perfect.

It might be silly but I was so worried about him forgetting about me, or even worse - not caring that I was home again. I was so happy to see that he cared and loved me just as much as he did when I left Friday morning!

I really enjoyed the doula training. I will say that I didn't learn a lot though. It seemed like I knew everything she said. I mostly learned more about the business aspects of it (tax exemptions, tax forms, contracts, etc.) then I did about the actual doula process. I even said a couple things that instructor didn't know!! I think the reason I knew so much is because this has been my passion since I had Cooper. I have read SO many books, articles, magazines on birth and am so deeply involved in BirthNetwork National. But the training course was required for my DONA certification. And all in all I'm glad I went.

I have to go back to Ann Arbor on Monday night. Fortunately this won't be an overnight stay. I have Doulas Care Orientation from 6:30-9:30 on Monday night. I am actually very excited about this. Doulas Care is a non profit organization that matches volunteer doulas up with clients that can't afford a doula. It's a great way to get your DONA certification (since you need three births to be certified) and I also plan to continue to do at least 2 volunteer births a year. I only plan to do about 5 -10 births a year for a while since I have Cooper and we will be planning to have more kids in the (hopefully near) future.

I'll leave you with a cutie pic of Coop!

My tattoo

On Thursday, July 23 I finally got my "Cooper" tattoo. I absolutely LOVE it!

Pics