New Developments

Cooper has had some new developments for the last week and a half or so. His sixth tooth came in on the 12th of this month. He now shakes his head"no" and "yes". The biggest development, and the one Jeff is probably the most proud of, is Cooper says "basketball", of course it comes out
"ba-ba-ball", but hey close enough, right? He still is not walking, but is getting closer and closer everyday. Each day he gets more daring and takes a few more steps before going down on all fours to crawl. Anytime now would be great, kiddo, I am tired of lugging you around everywhere we go!

Take a Picture!

Yesterday, I watched my niece, Katelyn for a few hours. Mason and Katelyn were sitting on the couch together, so I sat Cooper next to them, secretly hoping he would stay there for awhile so I could get some things ready for our Twilight Night. After sitting Cooper down, I turned to leave the room, and Mason called after me saying, "take a picture Mom!"

Midnight music

Last night around 12:30am, Cooper woke up, after trying to feed him some baby food (which he didn't want anything to do with) I sat with him in his rocking chair and sang some Primary songs to him. Although I do not enjoy hearing my oh so beautiful singing voice at this hour, or being up at this hour, I realized last night that these days of being up with Cooper are definitely coming to an end. I sometimes get frustrated because in my opinion, these days of being up with Cooper in the middle of the night should have come to an end about eight months ago, but they have not. I realized that I should be grateful for these quiet moments alone with Cooper, cuddling and singing to him. I know that he will be all grown up sooner than I want him to be, and that when he is all grown up he will not want to cuddle with me. I decided to make more of an effort to be grateful for those quiet moments with my children.

Ball popper

Every Birthday and Christmas I feel like the boys get far too many toys, so instead of taking them out of their packages all at once and causing sensory overload in the boys, I store some of the toys away and get one out every once in awhile. It's like having two or three Birthdays and Christmas' every year and I feel like they are able to enjoy each present more this way, because they are not over-whelmed by all the toys and have a hard time choosing what to play with. I still have two or three presents from Cooper's birthday (in August) that I have not taken out of the packages. This ball popper was one of Cooper's presents. I just took got it out for him a few days ago, and now it is the only toy Cooper and Mason want to play with. We literally have to pull them away from it at night and it's the first thing the do in the morning.

Laughter...isn't it great?

For some reason, Mason thought it would be funny to put a dish towel on his head at march around the house. As for Cooper, he found it just as funny (or maybe even funnier).

You know...

...your kids are up to no good when it gets really quiet in the house, right?

Not this time...

I guess he just needed to take a breather, curl up in a comfy chair, and catch up on some reading.

***Cooper's newest word: Ball

This is Cooper's first word, besides Mamma, Dadda, and Papa

Caught green handed....

I am beginning to worry about my plants dieing. It's bad enough that I never remember to water my plants, but now I have to worry about Benjamin pulling all the leaves off them!

Seriously, last week he was just rolling, now he is practically crawling... I walked away from Benjamin for a few minutes, when I came back in the room I found him pulling the leaves off this plant. Then a little while later, I forgot that Benjamin was crawling around on the floor. I had just finished getting lunch on the table for the other four boys, when I suddenly remembered that Benjamin was somewhere crawling around. I came into the living room and found my big plant knocked over with dirt and leaves all over the floor. And not to mention, dirt in and around Benjamin's mouth. (Sorry Julia and Bill)

I was really irritated at Benjamin for knocking over the plant, but then I realized that I should have been irritated at myself for not watching him more closely. So, needless to say, I made a mental note of that.

Pizza!

Last night our friend Corrine ate dinner with us. (Her husband, Kevin was at school) I made a pizza for the adults (and Cooper) and let Mason and Allen make their own pizzas. They had fun putting on their own toppings. Yummy!

He's so dang cute!

Cooper's fifth tooth!

Cooper's fifth tooth finally broke through yesterday. I was beginning to wonder if he was going to be stuck with his four "chicklets" forever! Just to give you an idea of how long he has had just the four teeth, his 2nd tooth came in on May 11th, his third tooth came in on May 13th, and his fourth tooth came in on May 14th. (I can't find where I wrote down the date that his first tooth came in, but I know it was around the time that the others came in.

First snowfall of the season!

Snow fell for the fist time of the season on Wednesday, which I am not too happy about. We have found that the climate is completely different here on Five Mile. It was snow up here, but I think that once the flakes reached the bottom of the hill, it turned into rain.

Double fistin' it

Wednesday I spent all day at my sister Jenny's house, helping her organize her house. ***On a bit of a side note, I think I should start charging people to organize their houses, I constantly have people asking me to help them, so hey, maybe I should get paid for all that time (and energy) away from my family. Anyways, back to the topic. I didn't have anything planned for dinner, so I stopped at Taco Bell on the way home. Once I got home and got Cooper in his highchair, he was really ready to eat! Jeff gave him a taco. Cooper did not think one was enough, so he grabbed the one Jeff was eating. Cooper switched back and forth taking a bite of each one. Yeah, he thought he was pretty cool with two tacos. (The banging sound in the video is Cooper kicking his highchair)

Have you voted yet?

*Warning: While reading this post, you may think you landed on Jeff's crazy opinion blog by accident, but you really did land on Crystyne's blog.

I am not one to push my political views on anyone, although being married to Jeff, I am becoming more out-spoken about them than I ever used to be. I usually leave the rantings, ravings, and other crazy opinions that Jeff and I share for Jeff to blog about and take the heat for when someone doesn't agree with what he has said.

I feel like this is a very important election. Not only at the national level, but also at the local level, especially here in Washington. For those of you who live in Washington, do you remember the governors election four years ago? Dino Rossi won, Christine Gregiore disagreed with the results. There were (I think) three re-counts, in which Dino Rossi won all but the last re-count. He lost the last re-count by something like 145 votes. Outrageous I know, and to top it all off, us, the tax payers were stuck with the bill for all those re-counts.

Anyways, PLEASE VOTE! Every vote DOES count. Besides, if you don't vote, you can't complain about how the government is being run.

The (day after) Halloween Party

Jeff and I just came from a Halloween party at some friends of ours, Rob and Katie Leale. The Leale's are in our ward. We had a great time, and as we are new in the ward, we didn't know some of the couples very well, so it was great to get to know a few more of the couples in our new ward! I don't have any pictures from the party, I forgot to take our camera, as I ALWAYS do, so the only pictures I have are of us before we left for the party.

We went as Jasper and Alice from the Twilight Saga. I don't think anyone knew who we were, until someone (Jill Rippy) was brave enough to ask who I was. All I had to say was that I was Alice and it was like there was a light bulb went off for everyone in the room.

Jasper

Alice

Here is a shot of the back of my hair, I got my hair cut like this just for the costume.

Halloween

Yeah, I know, a pile of black yard-trash bags is NOT what you expected to see, right? Well, let me explain. My sister (and her family) moved to Richland today, and so last night we pawned our two boys off on family, and Jeff and I went up to Newport (where they moved from) to help DeAnne and Justin pack their U-Haul. We got to their house and were greeted by a yard full of leaves. Justin asked us (expecting us to say no) if we wanted to rack up their leaves. So, as you can see, Jeff and I set out to get all the leaves racked and bagged up before dark. We bagged up a total of 16 bags, and the two Maple trees still have about half their leaves on their branches. Racking and bagging all those leaves helped me come to the conclusion that I never want huge Maple trees.

Our cute Firefighter went trick-or-treating with Jared, Michelle, Ethan, Britany, and Michelle's family. Thanks again for letting Mason tag along!

Mason, Ethan, Kimber, Khloe, & Kelsey

Our cowardly Lion helped Grandpa and Grandma Borders hand out candy to their trick-or-treaters. Cooper also spent the night with his grandparents, he did really well and he even slept through the night. Which if you know Cooper, you know that is a rare occurrence, although it is one that is happening more. Thank goodness.

Here are our cute little guys together.

When we returned from Newport, we went to Jared and Michelle's to pick up Mason. We stayed for a while and ate some yummy home-made caramel popcorn and played "Clue". Britany won the game. It was Miss White, in the Conservatory, with the rope. I was way off!!!

Breakfast conversation

This morning we were all sitting at the table together, eating breakfast. Out of no where, Mason says:

"Hey guys I have a story....so....a boy was walking down the street, with his dog. Then a dina-hourse (dinosaur) came up and went RRRROOOOAAAAARRRR!!! The dina-hourse scared the boy. The End"