A Piece of the WTC

Saturday a piece of the World Trade Center stopped at the Hot Rod Cafe in Post Falls on it's way to the Kitsap 9-11 Memorial. We didn't have anything else planned for the morning, so we decided to go see it.

It was draped in the American flag. They also had firefighter clothes for the kids to try on. Mason and Cooper were like "that's not all that cool, I get to wear my Daddy's anytime I want".

Look how twisted to metal is.

Me and Cooper. So I'm not very good at taking pregnancy photos. In this picture I am 26 weeks 4 days.

Here is Mason's favorite motorcycle at the Hot Rod Cafe

This one was...well...unique.

Fish Hatchery

After our hike at Indian Painted Rocks we went over to the fish hatchery. Neither Jeff or I had ever been there. Pretty pathetic considering we've lived here our whole lives. The boys enjoyed watching the fish. The hatchery had rainbow trout, brown trout, and cutthroat trout there at the time.

There were some older kids there too and they shared their fish food with Mason and Cooper. They enjoyed watching the fish jump out of the water when they threw food in.

Indian Painted Rocks

or should I say ROCK. Friday morning we took the boys on a little hike to Indian Painted Rocks. We found one painted rock. A bit of a disappointment, but the boys had fun anyway.

Here is the one rock we found. Ohhhhh. Awwww.

The boys hiking. I love to watch them discover new things. Every little noise, or movement caught their attention and they had to know what it was.

Mason thought it was pretty cool that these trees were leaning on other trees, so he HAD to take a picture.

Me, Cooper, and Mason on a rock that Mason just HAD to get a picture sitting on it.
Daddy and Cooper sitting on that same rock.

Dental appointments

Mason and Cooper both had dental appointments on Thursday. Jeff and I were both able to go. I went in with Cooper for his appointment and Jeff went in with Mason for his appointment. Last time Cooper had an appointment, he wouldn't sit in the chair without me holding him, he let the hygienist count his teeth, but that was about it. This time he climbed right up in the chair and let the hygienist clean his teeth and put fluoride on them. Mason has been letting the hygienist clean his teeth and everything for about a year, so I totally didn't expect Cooper, at just 3, to let the hygienist do much. Both the boys have a "dark spot" on one of their back teeth. The dentist doesn't think either of the spots were cavities, yet. We just need to take extra good care of each of their spots, so they don't turn into cavities.

Shiloh's room

This past weekend we cleared out the room that will be Shiloh's and began painting. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted, but once we got going, I realized that the idea in my head was not coming out on the walls. So we re-painted over some of our color choices. The final product is closer to the idea in my head, but not exactly the idea. But overall I am happy with the way it turned out. Here we are in all our painting glory painting the brown on the lower half of the walls. Check it out, it's another one of Cooper's awesome "smile" faces. Then we painted a few brown stripes on the upper half of one wall.
Then we put yellow stripes on and painted the upper half of the other three walls yellow.
After doing all the brush work, I had just a little bit of paint left in the pan. So I thought I'd mark the room as Shioh's.

Once we got all the yellow on, I realized I didn't like it, but decided to wait until the rest of the room was done to make a final decision.

Then the dark pink and orange stripes when on. The dark pink turned out to be more of a purple, not at all what I had in mind.So once we got the light pink and green stripes on, we decided to change the dark pink/purple to a hotter pink. At this point all the painting was done and both Jeff and I decided that the yellow had to go! So we changed the three upper walls to green.
The yellow stripes also had to go! I really didn't want to buy more paint, but I wanted a lighter green. So I took some of the green we had and mixed in a little of the yellow and made a light green, so this is what we changed the yellow stripes to.

After all the painting was done we put the crib together. Mason has been begging to put the new crib together since we got it, but we kept telling him that we wanted to wait until after we painting. So literally, as soon as we cleared the room of all the painting stuff, out came the crib box.

Here is the crib all done. The boys did a great job putting it together. My sister, DeAnne is helping me, or should I say, she is making the quilt and bed skirt. All I have to do is drive to Kennewick to have her put the quilt and bed skirt together. Hopefully I will be making a trip down next week.

Boys play

One night while Jeff was gone, I was painting Shiloh's room. The boys helped me paint for a few minutes. Once they were bored with painting they entertained themselves with the camera. They pretended to be wild animal hunters, on the look out of wild animals.

They found some really cute tigers don't you think?

Then they started taking random pictures of things. They would bring me the camera and say something like, "Oh my goodness mom, it's the strangest thing! Someone has the same train table as us!" Or "Can you believe it?! Someone took our recycle truck!"

They took probably close to 30 pictures and after they took each picture they would come in and tell me all about it.

This picture puzzled Mason, he couldn't figure out how his hand had turned red when he took a picture of it.

Sunset

These are just some pictures of the sky during sunset. Just thought I'd share them.

Cooper's 3rd Birthday Party

Friday night, after eating the yummy dinner Jeff made for Cooper's birthday dinner (see post below), we had some family over to celebrate Cooper's 3rd birthday. Cooper helped make his cake, and just like any good baker, he had to try out the batter. I'm pretty sure he liked it.
Cooper is REALLY into Percy the train. Percy is Cooper's best friend and serves most of the same purposes as a security blanket does for most kids. Here's my not so Martha Stewart attempt at making a Percy cake.
Singing to the birthday boy.

We only got a little bit of singing on video. Cooper was really cute. He sang to himself.

After cake and ice cream he opened his presents.
Clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Borders.

A card and money from Grandma and Grandpa Meador

Look at Cooper's face in this one. This is his new "smile" face. We have other pictures of him doing this same thing that will be posted later.

The boys had earned enough money for a Wii. We found a really great deal on Craigslist that had the Wii, two controllers, two nunchucks, and four games (including Rock band) all for less than it would have cost to buy just the Wii with one controller! We saved these two games for Cooper and Mason to open on Cooper's birthday.

Cookin' It Up: With Jeff

I have been trying to make a special dinner when its somebody's birthday. Usually I will ask them what they want. With Cooper, he would probably just say pepperoni, so I had to think out of the box. So because I had to work on Cooper's birthday I had some extra time to get inspired. And after a couple of shows on the food network I had my idea. The first thing you see below is "Goody Girl Championship Potatoes."

Just some of the ingredients for your reading pleasure. Lots!! of butter, colby-jack cheese, bacon, bacon and more bacon, red and green onions and some seasonings and the red potatoes. A true southern meal (A heart attack waiting to happen, but Shiloh sure loved it.)

Next item below is "Chicken Georgia". Wow! I must say and not just to toot my own horn, I have never made chicken this good or this juicy. And it was so simple to make, seasoned chicken with sweet onions, mushrooms and butter, smothered in mozzarella cheese.

I crossed my fingers hoping everything would turn out well. The food network didn't let me down. It was a hit. In fact I was full until noon the next day. (Which is highly unusual for me.)

Both the recipes are available on the food network.

So what's up next on Cookin' It Up:With Jeff

Southern Style Sheppard's Pie.

Well child check up

Mason and Cooper both had their well child check ups today. I love that their birthdays are so close together! I can get away with scheduling their appointments together so that I don't have to be at the Doctor office so much. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind going to our Doctor, in fact, I think Mason and Cooper would LOVE it if I didn't schedule their appointments together, it would give them one more excuse to see their favorite Doctor. I am so not exaggerating, they both love their Doctor and get so excited when I tell them we are going. I have learned to tell them the morning of, so I don't have to hear for a week, "are we going to the Doctor's today?"

Mason weighs 49lbs.= 87% and is 46" tall= 95%

Cooper weighs 39 lbs.= 96% and is 39" tall= 85%

They are both doing really well and are meeting all the correct milestones.

Birthday boy

Today is Cooper's 3rd birthday! This little man has brought so much joy into our lives! He is a great son and brother to Mason.

Things Cooper loves:

-Cooper loves most is FOOD. He eats, and eats, and eats. As soon as he eats a meal, he asks for a snack. As soon as he eats a snack, he asks for another snack. He literally lives to eat and eats to live.

-His favorite thing/toy would be Percy the train, from the Thomas and Friends set. He also loves to sing, and sings ALL. THE. TIME.

-He loves green, all things green.

-He loves to help me with everything, in fact right now as I write this, he has a chair pulled up to the sink and is cleaning the sink with a sponge and probably WAY more soap than needed. It can be a great thing, but sometimes he just gets in the way.

Birth. Born on Sunday August 12, 2007 at 10:44am.

First birthday
Second birthday
A few days ago. And that shirt really does fit him, he was just relaxin' lettin' it all hang out!

Happy Birthday Coop, we love you!