Captain Cooper's Pirate Party!

 On May 14, some of Dutch's family came up from Indiana and we had a pirate themed birthday party for Cooper (or should I say Captain Cooper!?). 

In true pirate fashion, me and Dutch sported our pirate gear to get ready for Cooper's party! Arrrgh!





Uncle Craig surprised Cooper (and all of us too!) by traveling up from Florida for the party! (And yes, their shirts do match! Haha!)

 

Cooper with his Nana and Papa! His party wouldn't have been the complete without them!



Cooper and his great granny who came all the way from Indiana.




Uncle Rhett and Uncle Evan made it up for the party too!

  

All decorated and ready for the party! We didn't let the darn rain get us down too much!



Cooper is all ready for his party...complete with a cool pirate hat from his Uncle Evan!



Papa was Cooper's 1st Mate!

The yummy dessert table filled with cupcakes shaped like a pirate ship, colorful fish cut-out cookies and chocolate gold coins!

We even had real goldfish as centerpieces (even though hard to see in this picture)! Cooper loved them, even though they all died a few days after the party! :(



Cooper was excited to open his gifts! Here he shows Granny how to drive his new car from his Gma and Gramps!

 

Cooper loves his new chair, especially since he can get in it and out of it all by himself! Oh, and notice how his shirt that one of my talented friends made...it says Captain Cooper!



Cooper sure loves playing with balls! He typically always has one in his hand. He can't quite hold this one in his hand, but he still loves it!

A fun activity center for Cooper to climb on and slide down! This will work much better than climbing on his chair!

Cooper's got lots of different kinds of BALLS for his birthday!

Time for cake..."Happy Birthday Dear Cooper, Happy Birthday to You!"

Cooper is becoming a pro at this! He sure knows how to dig in!



Yummmmmmmy!



As if 1 cupcake wasn't enough, my Aunt Chris decided it was a good idea to give Cooper another cupcake with chocolate frosting! He went straight to the tub after this! And he paid for it the next morning! Poor thing! 



Cooper shows Uncle Rhett his new Elmo that laughs and rolls around on the ground!



The day after Cooper's party was Nana's 60th birthday so we sang "Happy Birthday" over breakfast! Her "cake" was just a little disformed. Ooops!



Cooper is one cool dude in his new car. He now likes to push it around rather than drive it. Go figure!



Happy 1st Birthday, Cooper!

Cooper turned 1 on May 5th! What an eventful day we had! I took the day off of work to spend it with the birthday boy! We started the morning with Cooper's 2nd haircut seeing he was getting pretty shaggy again....

A few pictures in his chair were a must after Cooper's haircut...

After lunch, Cooper & I headed to the zoo with my friend Sarah & her little boy Hudson. The weather was perfect too! Cooper loved it! He's really been into animals lately and all the different sounds they make. He likes to pant like a dog and trot like a horse! It's so cute! He's really into pointing lately too so it was fun to see him point at all the different animals as he recognized them.

The grand opening of the new elephant exhibit was the same day we were there. We only got to see 1 elephant, but hopefully we'll get to see the rest of them on our next visit. They had a busy morning!

Funny side story: So most kids have an attachment to some kind of blanket or "lovey", but Cooper really hasn't become attached to anything yet. However, that may not be the case anymore. I have to laugh though because Cooper's attachment appears to be to a ball. As of lately, he always has one in his hand and doesn't want to part with it. He takes it everywhere, including to the zoo! I've put him to bed with it the last few nights and he grabs for it as soon as he wakes up in the morning. Dutch is loving it!

Back to Cooper's birthday celebration...

Dutch surprised Cooper after school with some birthday balloons. Cooper was quite fascinated with them!

Cooper had been waiting all day to open his birthday presents. He was so excited about them that he walked completely across the room for the very first time to get to them! And I actually caught it on video...

Cooper had so much fun opening all of his gifts!

Gma & Gramps got Cooper a lawn mower. Now Dutch can put him to work in our yard!

Thanks Uncle John & Aunt Allyson for the fire truck!

It was then time to sing "Happy Birthday" to Cooper for the very 1st time. We were singing to my mom too since her birthday was on May 2. How fun for Cooper to share his birthday with his Gma!

Yummy! Cooper definitely has my sweet tooth! He gobbled up his cupcake pretty fast!

Easter Fun!

We headed to Huron for Easter weekend. On Saturday, we attempted to color eggs with Cooper. I think we did most of the work, but Cooper did at least like eating the hard boiled eggs!

Gma & Cooper coloring Easter eggs

Cooper kept trying to put the whole egg in his mouth...

The finished product...

We went to church on Sunday, but Cooper had just cut a new tooth & wasn't feeling the best. I felt bad for him! We managed to still get Cooper to smile for a few cute pictures in his Easter outfit before he went down for over a 3 hour nap!

Cooper loves his new wagon from Gma & Gramps!

When Cooper woke up from his afternoon nap, he finally opened up all his Easter gifts! It looked more like Santa had arrived than the Easter bunny!

Cooper was quite fascinated with the bubbles!

Cooper has his own cupboard at Gma & Gramp's house so he was in heaven! I think we might need to do this at our house too. He was so entertained!

Here are a few videos of Cooper...

Cooper loves the walker at Gma & Gramp's house. He's so close to walking on his own now too! He takes 4-5 steps on his own now & then usually loses his balance. It won't be long now!

Cooper gets so excited to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse! His favorite song is Hot Diggity Dog!! :)