Breath of Fresh Air

After a long brutal winter, we've finally started seeing some temperatures on the warmer side of freezing. It's hard keeping two active boys cooped up in the house.

It took a while for the snow to melt off the playgrounds, but finally March weather did the trick. Reid and I took a much needed trip to the playground. I love showing him new things like the slide.

Weeee!

That ride was definitely drool worthy!

Happy baby loves some swing!

March was definitely madness at our house as Kentucky made a much deeper than expected run in the tourney. I begged and pleaded to stay up late watching each game- just one more commercial!!! I had to know which team was which, even if it wasn't the Cats playing. I always asked how many team A was winning by and how much team B was losing by - which you would think would be the same amount, but that's not what I meant. I really wanted to know what the score was. Watching basketball taught me a lot actually - not only do I know all about bounce passes, threes, rejections, defense, fouls...I also am now able to count all the way to 100 without missing a number, and this is solely from me watching so many games. I also can identify all numbers up to 100 which is helpful when looking at scores. I cheered my heart out! Turns out the bracket I made with UK in the final game wasn't too far off!

Reid looked pretty fierce in his pregame exercises before the UK/North Carolina game!

But he was all smiles by the end of the game!

Soccer season is back in full swing. I've moved up to the 4 year old league this time. Little Reid is not a fan of coming to my games.

I'm on the light blue team this year. Our name is the Blue Jays. Mimi came up for the week of Mommy's birthday and was able to watch my very first game this year. Funny how we didn't take any pictures of her.

I was definitely right in the middle of the action again this season, but there are some other good players on my team.

Go Coopy Go! I'm good at defense and still really fast. I scored one goal in this game, but I was very disappointed in myself because other kids on my team scored more than one. I was in tears. I still haven't gotten the concept of "team" and no matter who scores, as long as it's for our own team is a good thing. I'm mister competitive.

Later that afternoon, Mister Competitive moved on to trying his hand at baseball in the backyard.

Sometimes you swing and miss... a lesson that I still have to learn.

Cute Little Reid turned 8 months old on Mommy's birthday! He babbles a lot - lots of dada, mama, bubba, and other nonsense. He's really starting to clap a lot. He's eating three meals a day and practically begging for solid foods off of our plates, so he's really gotten to eat a lot of stuff. He still has no teeth. He loves to stand up while holding onto stuff, but he's not pulling up on his own yet. He can scoot backwards on his stomach, but he hasn't figured out the crawling forward motion yet.

A first wagon ride, when pulled by Mimi, is met with all smiles!

More birthdays...my buddy Avram had his fourth birthday party at a real gym, complete with a real trapeze. I rode this over and over and over. I even figured out how to touch my toes to the bar and fly upside down.

Weeee!

From one flying trapeze artist to another, my best buddy Kaya and I took a trip to the Big Top.

We've been best buds since we were 18 months old! It's gonna be tough not seeing Kaya every day when I'm at school in the fall.

And I'll leave you with a little cheese...this is Reid's new face when the camera flash goes off!

He was mad about scooting all the way backwards under his toy, but when the camera went off, he was all cheese!

Cheese! Let's hope the days of normal smiling pictures are not gone!

Nothing But Cuteness!

Aaahhhh...the weather is finally warming up. All the snow -yes ALL the snow - has finally melted. Spring is in the air. We still didn't do much this past month, so this post is mostly filled with cute pictures of my little brother.

I have broadened my interests a little from just cars, cars, and more cars. I really like to practice my letters, and I'm pretty good at it if you can tell. I must know how to spell everything and I'm starting to read little words. We finally made a school decision for me next year. I will be attending Mount Alvernia Academy PreK program. http://www.mountalverniaacademy.com It's a Catholic school in a suburb near the house that goes all the way to 6th grade. I start there in September.

I had two birthday parties this month - for my friends that Midura twins and for my buddy LuLu but I didn't take any pictures.

I'm also very, very into March Madness. I love playing basketball in my room and getting lots of scores. I pretend that I'm Rondo or Shaq. I score lots of points. I even filled out my own bracket this year. I chose teams based on what I knew - for example, I picked Georgia to win because I knew Mimi had been there, I picked Connecticut and Florida because Kaya has relatives from there etc. My final two is UK versus UofL with the Cats winning it all. I even got to go to see Boston University in their conference championship. Since I knew that team, I of course chose BU to beat Kansas. We shall see.

Reid and I are good little playmates. He likes to eat all my toys.

We play in the tent sometimes.

Finally, it warmed up enough that we could go to the playground - Reid's first time!

Mommy took the camera to take lots of pictures of Reid in the swing for the first time, but of course the battery was dead. He loved it though and squealed in delight.

Here is Reid on his 7 month birthday. He's sitting up well by himself. He is getting on his hands and knees and I just know he'll be crawling soon. He can stand by himself while holding onto a few things for a few seconds. He says lots of mama, dada, and other consonant sounds. He shakes his head no - no and blows rasberries.

He really is a happy guy!

Everything goes in his mouth!

Reid standing up unassisted.

He loves his bathtime. We promise more exciting adventures next month as soccer season and Easter are quickly approaching!

House Bound!

Welcome back to the winter extravaganza! This blog is short and not so sweet.

I'm sure you all saw the snow from last month's blog post and thought, "Wow, that's a lot of snow!" Well, that was only just the beginning. Starting right after Christmas, all the way through January, we had a MAJOR snow storm just about every 2-3 days. I'm not sure what the totals ended up being, but it was something like 71 inches in about 5 weeks. Unreal! The sidewalks were clear, thanks to Daddy's nearly daily shoveling endeavors, the cars could get out, and one lane of our street was clear. It was no longer any fun to play on. Reid got his first taste out in the giant snow piles.

He didn't mind.

Mighty Coopy and the Mighty Icicles! Crazy snow. Only in Massachusetts is it acceptable to have your Christmas decorations out all the way until March - you can't take them down!

I had my four year old check up this month. I weigh 40lbs and am 43 inches tall. I got 5 shots! I did pretty good though, although bribing me with a new Lego set always does the trick.

Reid had his six month check up too! Can you believe he's been here for half a year! He weighed 17 lbs 3 oz and is 27.5 inches tall. We're both really tall boys! He got three shots plus the oral rotavirus vaccine. Reid is now sitting up on his own. He tries to scoot on his hands and knees but ends up pushing himself to roll over. Everything goes in his mouth! He makes all sorts of sounds like dada, mama, bababa, gagaga. We joke that he is a pirate because his favorite sound is "Aarrrrgh!"

Another reason this blog is so short... The day after our check ups, Mommy came down with a fever, chills, cough, and body aches. She felt really crummy and stayed home from work for one day then went back for the rest of the week. Two days later, it was Daddy's turn for the same thing, and poor little Reid got it too! Mommy had been seeing a lot of flu at work and had a pretty good hunch that that was what it was. A trip to the pediatrician later and little Reid was diagnosed with the flu. He and Daddy started straight away on some tamiflu (it was too late for Mommy). Little Reid was pretty sick and later that evening, still had a fever to 103 and was breathing really quickly, so Mommy took him on his first trip to the Children's ER. After two hours of waiting, his fever finally broke and he perked up, so by the time we got triaged, he actually looked great. It's been over two weeks now since they had the flu and everyone now is just starting to feel better. I escaped all of it! And just for the record, yes everyone did have their flu shots but got it anyways!

Sweet Reid is feeling better but still has some wicked boogies and cough.

He's very interested in everything that I want to play with. Now that he can sit, he's kinda fun to play with sometimes.

Although everything still goes right in his mouth...

Including me!!! "Aaarrrgh!"

I got to see my first Broadway show this month. Mommy and I went to see Mary Poppins the Musical. I loved it! My favorite parts were the Spoonful of Sugar song, the clean up part, when the statues came to life, when Bert walked on the ceiling, when Mary Poppins flew, Supercalifragilisticxpealidocous (um, or something like that)...pretty much all of it.

So hopefully we'll be a little more fun this upcoming month. Not much you can do with all that snow and when you're sick. It's funny because Papaw felt sorry for us and bought us a big ole snowblower, but of course, it hasn't snowed since it arrived at our house.

I'll leave you with some movies of me, Daddy, and Bubba sledding!

Cooper and Dad versus a Snowman

Bubba uses himself as a sled

Cooper, all by myself