More Halloween Pictures!

Animals of the Safari

Quite the crew in the radio flyer!

Best Buds

Updates

Happy Halloween and Thanksgiving!

I am doing duel posts as history has shown that I am terrible at updating the blog. :) We are all doing great and loving the cooler Arizona weather. I swear it was 110 one day and the next it was a beautiful 75 degree day. We are definitely enjoying our time outside again.

We had a great Halloween and had a very busy October. Cooper had parties with friends, at school and also attended a Hot Air Balloon festival. (this was all BEFORE Halloween!). He dressed up as a very proud Georgia Bulldog and even let mommy put eye makeup on him so that he would look like Scout. Halloween night we went over to our friends, The Stuart Family, and went trick or treating in their neighborhood. Coop was so into the running from house to house and had a lot of fun saying "Trish o tree". As he loves his sweets, he had fun sneaking a couple of chocolate bars during trick or treating.

Here are a couple of Cooper's favorite things at 21 months:

- Playing outside, or "outshide" as he says

- Pointing out the doggie's do do outside. He can spend many minutes a day doing this!

-Wheels on the Bus song

-The Wiggles

-Elmo

-Dessert. This boy loves his sugar!

-Helping momma bake and licking the spoon

-Pointing out trucks and buses at every opportunity

We are planning on having a quiet Thanksgiving at home with just the 3 of us. Troy and I are getting ready for our big trip for his 40th, off to Europe! We are both very excited as neither of us have ever been overseas. :)

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! We are so incredibly grateful for all of the love, friendship and happiness bestowed upon our family. Enjoy great food and relaxation.

Love,

Kaitlin, Troy and Cooper T

Just like his great Pepere!

My grandfather was a heavy construction machinery afficionado and would be so pleased to see his great grandbaby loving trucks as much as he did. Every time we go down the road and Coop sees a big truck he immediately yells out, WHOA!

We love and miss you Pepere!

Cooper dancing!

Cooper loves Thomas the Train and every time the theme song comes on TV he goes crazy! Enjoy the video, we laugh so hard every time we watch it! :)

* sorry for the poor video quality- Troy's cell phone video camera isn't working so well

18 months!

Cooper somersaults!
Cooper and Eli in the tub

Coop, Eli and Miss Jen

Bouncy Bouncy Fun!

Coop at the golf course in Pinetop, AZ

Chase me Daddy!

Mommy and Coop on her birthday!

Twins

We ventured up to the mountains over Mommy's 29th birthday! We celebrated at a cabin with our friends the Stuart Family and had a relaxing couple of days with weather that was 40 degrees cooler than Phoenix! We rented the cabin from friends and they had so many fun toys- Cooper was in heaven! He got his first taste of a trampoline and loved to go bouncy- bouncy!

Mommy had a great birthday and is somewhat embracing the fact that this is the last year of 20's!

Some of Cooper's New Developments at 18 months:

- He is showing signs of a nut allergy- he has produced welts with peanuts ( an accidental discovery with a babysitter) and hummus (sesame seeds). We will have our 18 month check up next week and I will be requesting an allergy panel.

- He says: Mine! No, Bye Bye, Key Key (for Chica, his favorite puppet on a TV show)

- He does: Fist bumps with mommy, daddy and his friend Ashlyn from school. Dances when the Thomas the Train theme song comes on or any loud music, Rides his dog Scout like a horse, twirls in circles and falls down with a loud grunt. He has recently learned how to do somersaults and we will occasionally find him with his bum in the air ready to roll! He can't quite do it on his own just yet but he is trying! Last but not least he loves his blankies and his Bla Bla doll. Every morning he wakes up and has to collect his "friends." He won't leave his room without them and absolutely has to have them. Swims like a fish! He will jump into your waiting arms in the pool and loves to splash in the water!

His personality is really coming out these days and he is an absolute darling. We are so lucky!

Updates, updates and more updates!

My sincere apologies for my lack of posts within the last 6 months! It has been a whirlwind of traveling, illnesses and changes since my last post in February and we have had no shortage of things going on.

During the past few months we have traveled to Atlanta twice, Tennessee, Florida (for work) and of course Troy has been a traveling fool! We visited the Norton side of the family for a quick trip in April and had a great time visiting and relaxing in the North Georgia Mountains. Coop and mommy then headed to Tennessee in early May to spend time with Grandma and Pops. Coop stayed a week in Westhaven while I attended a National Sales Meeting in Orlando. It was an exhausting week in Orlando but Coop had a great time in TN! We all ended up getting sick once again ( I think that was the 4th time in 2011!) and had to lay low for awhile.

In between traveling we found out that we needed to find a new preschool/daycare for Coop because his in home nanny found out she was pregnant and couldn't keep watching the kiddos full time! We love Miss Melissa and are so happy for her family. We interviewed new schools and finally found a place that we and most importantly Coop is comfortable at. It is 2 miles down the road and is just a happy place to go to. :)

Onto trip #2 to Atlanta and we were there to celebrate our niece Lindsey's graduation from high school! We celebrated all weekend with family parties and Troy and I even got to sneak away for a quick date while Nana watched Coop!

After our trip to Atlanta we decided no more traveling for a couple of months. We were sick once again when we got home and decided that we were going to stay put in the hot and dusty land of Phoenix. We have had no shortage of excitement since we have stayed home and have had a million home improvement projects going on! We have gotten a new roof, new windows, new sliding door and I started refinishing our kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Whew!!!

We spent a fantastic 4 day weekend together on July 4th and had a wonderful weekend full of pool time, fireworks, barbeques and family time. It was so nice to finally get a chance to be together without work distracting us and just focusing on us being a family. Cooper loved the fireworks and ooohed and aahhhed at all of them.

Some of Coop's new discoveries:

Mommy: What does the chicken say?

Coop: Bak, Bak

Mommy: What does the cow say?

Coop: Mooooooooo

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New words- Bubbles, ba (bottle, even though he uses a sippy cup!), miiiiine, bye, daddy and momma

Coop can now point to his nose, belly, toes, hair, eyes, mouth and ears. He is showing a lot of interest in the potty and is constantly interested in what goes on. We will see what happens in the next couple of months- I hope it is a smooth process when the time finally comes!

He absolutely loves books, golf clubs and playing in the backyard with his daddy and the pool. He jumps in the water and splashes around with the biggest smile on his face! His swimming lessons has definitely paid off and he is much more confident with his swimming. He kicks around and splish splashes for hours. Great way to get the little guy good and worn out for naptime. :)

I promise it won't be 6 months until our next post! Enjoy the pictures of our love!

Little guy loses his locks!

The little guy got his first haircut on Valentine's Day this year and despite all of my complaining about his long locks, I am pretty sad to see him looking like a big boy now!! We took Cooper T to Cool Cuts for Kids and had his haircut in a bright red fire engine by Miss Barbara. He was amazing and sat perfectly still the entire time! He did not fuss one time and was more intrigued as to why mommy and daddy and Grandma and Pops were so excited! We are so proud of our big boy and while we miss his baby mullet, he looks pretty darn cute with his new cut. :)