Them Bones Them Bones

As some of you know we've been working hard to get Cooper to gain weight- we thought we'd get him in touch with his cave man roots.

Birthday Party Helpers

Cooper was lucky to have Emily, Brianna, and Bethany helping him open all his presents!

Wok Woh

Poor Cooper! He found his way into our wok and couldn't quite figure out how to get out. He looks like he's scared we might cook him up doesn't he!

Birthday Boy

Cooper was extremely lucky to be surrounded by his family and friends to help celebrate his first birthday. He had his own special pumpkin pie that he tore into and we had to physically seperate him from it as he just kept eating and eating!

Thanks to everyone for coming out and helping Cooper celebrate he knows he is well loved.

Extra Credit Questions

We created these really as tie breaker potentials for the Cooper Trivia game. Congratulations to Chris D'Addario (Poppi)and Dawn Richling for knowing so much about Cooper!

In case you are curious the questions were-
1. Name one of Cooper's doctors
2. What eye did Cooper get pink eye?
3. Our current favorite nick name for Coop.

Extra Credit Answers

Dr. Shahin or Dr. Gennaro

Right Eye

Cooper Do

The Holidays

Hey all!

I'm not the biggest fan of resolutions because I tend to kick myself hard when I fall off the bandwagon. However, I resolved to try and update this blog at least once a week (we'll see how long THAT lasts), so I'm here to give you the first post for 2006.

The holidays were crazy this year with a 1-year old. We didn't really have the holidays last year because we were so focused on Abbie's pregnancy, so this year, we were able to decorate the house with Christmas stuff. Well, allow me to clarify. Abbie decorated. I pissed and moaned because I had to get the crap out of the attic, put it back up, and then get it back down to put all the ornaments away after the New Year (I really need to work on being more cheerful during the holidays). Cooper got a "Baby's First Christmas" stocking that was too cute. He started what I surmise will be many, many years of trying to snoop into the presents. We got all our gifts wrapped and, since we didn't do an actual Christmas tree (space allocation fell short this year), we stored them on the couch ottoman off to the side. EVERY day, that boy was standing up next to the presents and tried to pull them down, open them, etc. Oh boy, now its my turn to come up with the creative hiding places.

Abbie, Cooper and me went to Charlotte this year for Christmas after spending Christmas Eve with Abbie's mom and stepdad. Long drive. But the horror stories that people give about the baby in the car...nonexistent for us. Coop slept over 2 hours of the 7 hour drive. And was quiet the rest of the time. We drove down on the 25th, visited with her relatives on her Dad's side on the 26th, tooled around Charlotte's suburbs and the surrounding counties on the 27th, and drove home on the 28th.

When we pulled in to Abbie's grandmother's house, it was an interesting site to see as Ab brought the boy in. A large number of Abbie's relatives were crowding the door to see Cooper. They formed a...how do I put it...hallway from the back door to the kitchen. One of the husbands appropriately called it the Gauntlet. Cooper was the talk of the town. He clung to mom for a bit, but once he realized that he got lots of laughs when he gave the Bynum call, he started to ham it up. Ain't nothing like having 20 women surrounding you and paying rapt attention to your every move and every word. We spent Sunday the 25th there visiting with family.

Before I forget, thanks to Jean Bynum for letting us crash at her house. Abbie and I essentially invaded her house what with all the food we had to bring down for us and Cooper. She's an awesome hostess and we had a wonderful time. Mexican train doesn't get any better than when you beat the person who taught you (nooo, I didn't beat her...I got my ass handed to me...twice).

On Monday the 26th, we drove around Gaston County for a little bit. Then we went into Charlotte to her paternal grandmother's house for lunch and to visit with her two paternal aunts. Again, Cooper was center stage. It was a wonderful lunch, and nice to see her aunts. We followed her aunt, Susan Briggs, up to Concord (around the Lowe's Motor Speedway) to check out that area. We would've had more time to investigate with Susan, except we left Cooper's cooler at Arzella's, so we had to trek back to her house to get his food...with him screaming the WHOLE way. It was awful...and it was about 30 minutes from Susan's to Arzellas. Egads! We headed back to Jean's after that b/c it was getting late.

Tuesday the 27th was spent driving all over creation checking out the communities around Charlotte. We saw more of Gaston County, mostly Belmont which is a beautiful little town...we just didn't see where the new developments were even though Jean assured us there were a bunch. We jumped on the beltway and headed South. Saw Southern Charlotte and determined that it was really the first area that both of us were agreeing on. We went into Union County and saw the "million dollar homes" in Weddington, drove through Monroe and Indian Trail, and all the farmland in between. Some farmer's getting rich by selling off land, I'll tell you that. We looked in the Town of Concord and Abbie fell in love with the quaint ness of the main street. It's a real possibility for us should we go down there. We even found a fixer upper that was a five minute walk from the town center. Ooooh, the possibilities. :-) The drive back to Jean's took a long time because we kept getting distracted by sight seeing.

On Wednesday, we drove home. Man, I'm not sure that's a drive I'm going to be wanting to make more than once or twice a year. Everyone, let's move to Charlotte.

We think Cooper's going to like North Carolina whenever we get down there. The hope is that he'll not adopt any of those southern accents though. And dammit, he may be a Panthers fan, but his daddy will always be a Redskins fan, regardless if his mother decides to join the Panther bandwagon.

By the way, if you didn't hear it yet...Cooper's going to be a big brother this summer. :-)