Happy Birthday!

One year old!!

If you give a boy a cupcake...

You'd better follow up with a bath!

Just a year ago...

What a day it was, what a year it started, what a hold on our hearts!  

Here is where we were just a short year ago.  His start was a little early, and things were a little hard, but it's been smooth sailing ever since.  I took so many pictures, and still do, but I just don't want to forget anything of Cooper's journey!  To look at these first pictures now is just amazing, we really do forget how small he started.  Our little 3# 6 oz. peanut must have known he was going to need to be determined (ornery?), and that hasn't changed a bit!        

   

Not much to say, just a few pictures...

One tumble down the stairs a couple of months ago, and the prison bars go up...

Hi kitty, you can't figure out how to get through either, huh?

So full of beans!

Cooper is figuring out that normal food tastes better than the mushy stuff that he gets fed. Of course, it tastes best when it's off of someone else's plate; if he gets his own serving, there's lots of gagging and coughing, and it just doesn't go down as easy. I don't know why that is. It must just be tastier when he thinks he isn't supposed to have it.

This picture is a little deceiving; he looks so quiet and serious, which is a pretty rare thing from this wild boy.

Mama Love

It's happened!  Cooper has figured out a new consonant; M!  It's always been bababa, gagaga, or dadada, but now it is mamamama.  When he comes crawling after me with his 'mamama', it's music to my ears, and I just KNOW he knows exactly what he is saying.  And if I choose to ignore the fact that he also says 'mamama' while he is chasing after the cat, or 'mamama' while talking to his toys, then ignore it I will.  

sunsets

I love that the days are getting longer!  I like that it's not dark when I'm leaving work, and I get to see some great sunsets on the drive home.  

Little stinker

Cooper has figured out how to pull himself up to standing.  And now, instead of going to bed like a nice little boy, he would rather pull himself up in his crib and stand there crying and hollering  for attention.  He has also been developing a little something in the last week or so:  his temper.  I would like to blame it on him not feeling well, because then I can hope that when he is feeling better, he will be back to nicer behavior!  His temper is unpleasant when he tries to arch out of his carseat when I am trying to buckle him in.  And it is unpleasant when I am trying to wash his hair in the bathtub and he doesn't want to lay back, or when we are trying to get him to go to bed.  It's the worst though when he refuses to hold still long enough to get his diaper changed; I'm waiting for my sweet boy to come back!  

Role Call!

Here is my little family.  Travis and I have been married for almost 7 years, and Cooper is less than a month away from his first birthday.  And I can't believe how fast his first year has gone!  

This is Rex.  I met Rex 4 years ago, when he spent all of his time in a small little kennel behind the parking lot of my office.  He was a pathetic sight, this great big lump who barely moved, and would try and press himself against his kennel fence to get pet.  So when his owner said, "Do you have a dog?  Do you want one?", I immediately accepted and then went home to tell Travis of our pending adoption!  (maybe the wrong order to do things)  When we went and picked him up, and let him out of his kennel, he was so full of energy that I thought "oh no, what have I agreed to?"  I had assumed that the lethargic dog had to be at least 10 years old, but he was actually still in his puppy stage.  And now at age 7 or 8, I don't think that puppy stage is going away.  He is 100 pounds of slobbery, idiotic, hyper love, the only problem is that he has no idea how big he is, and his brain cells are spread a little too thin...  

Travis says Izzy is my little furry soulmate; mostly because she likes to hide under the covers and lay in front of the heat vent to keep warm.  She is my little shadow, and always desperate for attention.  So far she hasn't figured out that she needs to move out of the way of Cooper's little grabby hands, so she gets her fur pulled regularly.  

Badger was found on a mountain, hiding in a badger hole, and brought to me in my then no-cats allowed apartment by my dad.  He gets into everything, and thinks that there is not a single place in the house where he should not be allowed.  If he were not an inside cat I don't know that he would last very long, he'd find trouble really fast outside.