Colorado Family Vacation

We just got back from a wonderful family vacation to Beaver Creek Colorado.  My brother won the trip through his work and he graciously chose to take our whole family along.  It really was a dream vacation, staying at a ski in/ski out resort where everyone treats your like royalty.  The weather was absolutely perfect...sunny days, not too cold and beautiful!  It was also Cooper's very first time on a plane.  I was a little nervous going into it because I didn't think Cooper could sit still in our laps for that long, but he did so well!  Our first flight was to Dallas and he slept the whole time.

Our 2nd flight was the longer flight and he was super fussy until we finally took off and then he fell asleep again.  Phew!  We finally made it to our resort and were able to take in the beautiful view of the mountains from our room.

That evening we went to dinner in the hotel and tried to get to bed early since we were getting up early the next morning for skiing!  My parents were so nice to watch Cooper so Justin and I could go skiing together.  We started out the first morning taking a private lesson together since it had been awhile since I've skied.  Justin definitely did not need a lesson but he was sweet to take it with me.  

The greens were a lot harder greens than what I was used to, so it took me awhile to get back into it again but it was still a lot of fun being out in the snow!

We met my brother and nephew up for lunch as they also took a lesson.  They had lots of little restaurants and shops and an ice skating rink at the bottom of the slopes where you can walk around for a break.  

Justin skiied the rest of the afternoon while the rest of us went back to the hotel.  Cooper did not sleep well the night before so he was pretty fussy and tired off and on that day.  Though he was tired that day, he sure LOVED playing with his cousin!  Cooper loves playing with other kids and he is constantly hugging Peyton.  It's so cute to see them playing together and Peyton was such a good big cousin to Cooper.

That evening we had reservations to go on a sleigh ride to the top of a mountain to eat at a nice restaurant.  It was so fun...and cold!  The ride up the mountain was beautiful looking at our resort and the city at night.

The restaurant was beautiful and the food was A-mazing!  It was a very fun experience.  After dinner we rode the sleigh back down the mountain and then sat outside by the fire roasting marshmallows.

The next day Justin and I went for day 2 of skiing by ourselves.  I knew this would by my last day skiing as I wanted to spend time with Cooper the next day and give my parents a break.  We skiied out of our hotel and skiied across to the main Beaver Creek area.  It was fun skiing together (even though I may or may not have had a small panic attack at the very end of the run where there was an extremely steep drop off..ugh, this was not a GREEN folks) (I did survive and made it down thanks to my patient hubby).  All in all, it was a fun and beautiful day of skiing!

After skiing we met the rest of my family for lunch.  These Texans may have gone a little crazy bundling up the 14 month old....this was his position in the stroller, poor baby couldn't move his arms!

 It reminded me of The Christmas Story when the mom was getting her son ready to walk to school and he couldn't move his arms.  I think it was clear to everyone around us that we are the Texans...people were even pointing and laughing at sweet Cooper all bundled up.  I'm not sure if the laughing was due to his absolute cuteness or to our absolute craziness.

The next day Justin decided to take advantage of skiing one last day and I stayed with Cooper to take him to play in the snow.  It wasn't quite what I imagined it being in my head of Cooper playing in his first snow as he really didn't want me to put him down, but hey we still got some cute pictures of him in the snow!

The weather was so great that we even got hot in all our layers.  We really didn't even need a jacket with the sun out.  On the last night, we had reservations to go to a nice dinner at the resort.  We wanted to get some good family pictures in too since the hotel was decorated so beautifully for Christmas.

We decided it would be more relaxing for everyone for my family to eat first at 6 and then Justin and I would put Cooper to bed and then we ate just the 2 of use after my family came back.  It was perfect since Cooper is pretty unpredictable at meal time and we were able to have a nice date night.  After having a nice dinner, we went outside to sit by the fire for awhile and then came in and sat in the hotel lobby.  I enjoyed a chocolate martini, which reminded me of our honeymoon when I had one almost every evening.  It was a very nice evening!

And then before we knew it, after 5 days and 4 wonderful nights, our vacation was over and we were on our way back to Houston.  It was such a fun family vacation and I am thankful for my brother who worked hard to win this trip and to take us with him!  We were very blessed :)

Thanksgiving in Austin

For Thanksgiving this year we went to Austin to spend it with Justin's family.  We left Thursday morning since Justin worked late on Wednesday and there is much less traffic on Thursday.  Here we are on the road...

Cooper did pretty well on the road and slept off and on the whole way.  He would get fussy from time to time so I would hand him snacks which always helps :)

We made it to Austin and Cooper LOVED being with his cousin Alayah.  It was the first time for us to meet her and it was so cute watching them interact.  Cooper is in a major hugging stage and wants to hug every kid in sight.  He really loves being around other kids.  He also loves to give open mouth kisses, which I'm not sure if the other kids appreciate it as much as I do :)

Annnnnd another one of them hugging....

We did what pretty much most people do on Thanksgiving, eat and football!  Here is a good picture of Justin and his brother with their kids.

I'm really not sure how I managed to not get in any Thanksgiving pictures, but that's how it goes!  We also took the kids to the park one day and Cooper enjoyed the swing, playing on the slide and crawling around everywhere to explore.

Some of Justin's cousins and their kids also came over to visit on Friday.  It was great to see them and Cooper loved playing with the other kids.

Of course he also loved tackling them and hugging them!

Cooper is still having trouble sleeping anywhere else but his own crib/room.  He had to cry for awhile the first night but after that he did well going to sleep.  The problem is, he is such a light sleeper that he wakes up when we go into the room for us to go to sleep.  After he wakes up, he has trouble going back to sleep especially since we are in the room with him.  We tried co sleeping for the first time ever and he did pretty well one night and the other night was terrible.  We didn't get much sleep and are still trying to catch up.  I don't know how you co sleepers do it but we were all happy to be back in our own roooms/bed again!  

Cooper with his Uncle Nick

Reading Together

I am very thankful for my husband who is such a gift from the Lord and my sweet little boy that makes me smile everyday.

13 Months Old!

Well, Cooper turned 13 months last week.  I didn't think I would continue to do the monthly updates, but I have looked back on them so many times remembering what Cooper was doing each month.  I also enjoy reading other mom's monthly updates so I will continue for now.  I won't be doing the monthly pictures but probably just put some random iphone pictures I have taken that month.  This month, I'm going to include his 1st birthday pictures since they were taken just a couple of weeks ago!

I decided at the last minute to get Cooper's pictures done since I wanted more pictures with his shirt and hat I bought on etsy and I thought I would regret not getting any 1 year pictures.  They turned out so cute and I'm glad we went!  Cooper did pretty well for the most part!

Eating: This month I started giving Cooper whole milk and it has been a good transition.  We are definitely saving a lot more money not having to get formula now too!  He still has some formula if he hasn't eaten well that day or if he is really fussy, it calms him down.  But for the most part he is enjoying his milk.  He had been a pretty good eater and tries most things.  Just like a typical toddler one day he will love a food and the next day he refuses to eat it.  His favorite food right now would be yogurt as he gets  so excited every time he even sees it.

Milestones:  He is still crawling around everywhere very fast and pulls up on everything.  He pushes his push toy around the whole house and he stands up without holding on to anything.  The other day he was standing up in the middle of the room and took one step, but then sat down and started crawling.  He is getting closer!  He also loves to play peekaboo, claps and plays patty cake, gives high fives and my new favorite, open mouth kisses!  Also, when we were praying last night at dinner and he folded his hands by himself to pray.  It was too cute!  He also had his first ear infection last week and I had to give him medicine twice a day for 10 days.  The first day I gave him his medicine, I clapped and cheered after he swallowed it.  From that day on, after every time I gave him the medicine, he would clap all on his own.  It's so funny what they pick up on.

Likes:  He is starting to enjoy more playing with his big boy toys.  He loves his car track and puts the cars on it and loves watching it go around the track.  He also loves his leggos and his intruments he got for his birthday.  He dances when music comes on which is so cute I can hardly stand it.  He also loves pulling everything out of any drawer he can find.  And his new favorite:  taking anything he can find and throwing it in our big bath tub.

Dislikes:  Right now he is going through some separation anxiety and doesn't like to be left in the church or gym nursery.  This is such a hard phase!   He fusses and cries if we leave him and I'm praying he will grow out of that soon.   He does fine if someone comes to our house and I leave, he just doesn't like to be dropped off somewhere.  Other than that, he is pretty easy right now.  

It's hard to believe that my baby is turning into a Toddler!  

The Cummings Catch Up

Here are some random things that have been going on in the Cummings household over the past few weeks:

• We got a zoo membership!  It's actually a great deal if you plan to go more than 2-3 times in a year and it includes zoo light tickets.  I went with my family last weekend while Justin was working.  Cooper was perfect the whole time and we had a lot of fun! We look forward to many more family outings and mommy play dates in the future!

Cousin fun at the zoo!

Elephants!

• Speaking of animals....Cooper was a Tiger for Halloween!  He was SO cute, I could hardly stand it!  Since Cooper is still too young to do any Halloween festivities we just stayed home and handed out candy to the trick or treaters.  Our neighbors got really into it and put out a huge speaker playing Halloween music and were dressed up, which caused us to have a ton of trick or treaters.  It is so cute to see all the little kids dressed up.  Here are a few pictures of Cooper as a Tiger...it was so hard to catch him smiling on camera but he really was happier than what he looks in his costume (and he actually wore it the whole night) 

• Justin and I are really enjoying our new Church home at Genesis Church.  It's an Acts 29 church and it's super close to our house with most people living close, which was important for us coming from churches where so many people commuted.  I just got back from a Women's Retreat over the weekend and had a great time!

• Speaking of Church, it's been a year since I stepped down as Children's Director to be a stay at home mom.  I had been praying for a while now about what ministry the Lord was calling me to serve in without neglecting my main ministry to my family.  All that to say...I am now serving as the children's director at our new church.  It's more of an administration role, which I enjoy and I'm excited to be getting into ministry again.  

• My little muchkin is 13 months old now!  He is still not walking yet but he is oh.so.close!  I think I will do a 13 month update since it helps me remember what he was like each month.  

• Cooper is going through this crazy stage where he is obsessed with Justin.  If we are both home, he wants to be held by Justin, he wants Justin to feed him, and he cries when he leaves the room.   When Justin isn't home, he is perfectly content and happy with Mommy, but once Justin is around, I'm not existent !  I know I used to tell Justin that I didn't want to raise a Mama's boy, but this might be going a little to far!  :)

• Cooper also go his first "real" sickness over the weekend. He had a cough/cold on Saturday and then Sunday morning when I picked him up he was burning hot and had 102 temp.  I still can't believe he went through his whole first year without having a fever or getting sick.   It's always hard on Mommy when they get their first sickness.  Ends up he has an ear infection so he is on antibiotics now and I sure hope he gets over this soon!

• Only 6 weeks until Christmas and I am itching to get our Christmas Tree up...except that I'm pretty sure Cooper won't be able to keep his hands off of it :)

That's about it over here!  I sure am thankful for all that the Lord is doing.