Birthday Celebrations and Aggie Football

This past weekend we had a busy, but fun weekend.  Last week was my Mom's birthday, and my brother's birthday was on Sunday so we went out to Perry's Steakhouse as a family for a birthday celebration.  Justin's birthday was in August, so we threw his in there too :)  We asked our good friends to come watch Cooper for us since he goes to bed at 7:30 and we were going to a nicer restaurant so it wouldn't be quite as enjoyable with an almost 1 year old.  This was our first time to have someone other than us put him to bed, but he did just fine.  Here we are on our way baby-free!

We had a nice private room, which we have had before and is becoming a little family tradition.

Aren't they cute?  Matching and all :)

Birthday Dessert for all

Then on Saturday was the big Texas A&M vs. Alabama game.  We watched it all morning long for college game day and it was really hyped up!  To say this was a huge game was a big understatement.  We went over to my parents to watch it to add to the hype.  We also decided it was time to take another family picture in our Aggie shirts again since it had been 3 years since our previous picture and we added a new member to the family.

Gig 'Em Aggies!

Cooper wanted to play with my hair through every picture

Unfortunately the Aggies lost by one touchdown and our happy faces turned very sad.  Oh well, it's just the beginning of the season, right?  We will win the rest of them!  We still had fun watching it...

Cousin Fun

Daddy's and their sons

My Little Aggie

Celebrating Brandon's Birthday

It was a great weekend and we are thankful for fun family time!!

Cooper is 11 Months Old!

My baby turned 11 months old last week!  Only one month away from having a 1 year old.  It is true what they say....the days are long, but the years are short!

I feel a little sad that he is growing up so fast.  I do love the baby phase and soon he will no longer be a baby...womp, womp.  But I am soaking up every second with this little man.

Here's what is going on with Cooper at 11 Months:

Sleeping:  Cooper is still sleeping like a champ!  His sleep schedule hasn't changed much since last month.  He goes to bed at 7:30 and wakes up anywhere between 7:00-8:00.   He takes 2 naps a day that last about 1-2 hours.  The big news is that he can now officially sleep in the pack and play!  Yippee!  After spending 3 nights in Austin and another 3 nights on vacation, he is finally used to sleeping in it again.  I was even able to put him down in a pack and play during our small group on Tuesday and he went right to sleep.  I am so relieved!

Eating: Not a whole lot has changed with his eating, though he is trying new foods.  He now drinks 3 bottles a day instead of 4 and is eating more solids.  I can't believe he will be eating more of our food in a month.  I usually give him little bites of my food and he seems to like most of it.  He still doesn't like avocado, but I'll keep trying.  He also LOVES his cheerios.  He snacks on them a lot and half of them end up on the floor.  Our dog sure loves it when Cooper eats, she gets a treat!  I even caught Cooper purposely throwing his cheerios on the floor today to watch the dog eat them.  It was so cute and pretty smart, I must say!

Milestones:  He is pulling up on everything right now. It really is amazing to watch how much he changes each day.  It was just a few weeks ago where pulling up was a struggle for him and he would try so hard to get up on the couch or coffee table.  Each day I saw how he was getting better and better at it and now he is doing it with little effort at all.  I'm so thankful I'm able to stay home with him and watch how much he changes and grows.   It will be so fun to watch him learn to walk!  He has started moving around the furniture some, but I'm sure he will be cruising in no time. I am SO ready for him to walk!  I love his cute crawl, but I'm so over it now.  He has been crawling for a long time now and I'm looking forward to taking him to the park and doing other fun things with him when he can walk and run around.  I don't think he will be walking by his 1st birthday, but hopefully soon after he will.

Likes:  His favorite thing to do right now is open and close doors.  He will do everything in his power to crawl to the door and spend as much time as we will let him opening and shutting the door.  He will even hit himself in the head with the door, but it sure doesn't bother him.  He won't cry one bit because he doesn't want me to pick him up and take him away from his fun.  He also loves remote controls and playing with anything he knows he is not supposed to play with.  He also likes going for walks, the grocery store and even does really well at restaurants as he is thoroughly entertained by people watching.

Dislikes:   He pretty much HATES being changed.  This is now my biggest struggle and I just dread changing his diaper.  He will squirm with all his might and try as best as he can to flip over on his stomach and crawl away.  I give him plenty of toys to play with while I change him, but sometimes that doesn't help at all.  Besides changing his diaper or clothes, he is a pretty happy and chilled baby and smiles so much.

Less than a month until we celebrate his 1st birthday!  Can't believe it!

Wimberley Vacay

This past weekend we went on a mini vacation with 3 other couples plus our kids to Wimberley.  We called it our 10 year college reunion trip with our friends from A&M.  8 adults and 7 kids under 6 years old was a blast!  We rented a beautiful home through VRBO and it really was perfect for our group.  The view was amazing!

This was the view from the back porch that had plenty of rocking chairs where we could relax and enjoy our morning coffee taking in the view.

It also had an awesome pool where the water felt great and not like bath water.  There was a baby pool too which was perfect for the little ones.

The house also had an awesome game room with ping pong, shuffle board, air hockey, foosball, etc, plus a theatre room!  The adults enjoyed it, but it would be really fun when the kids are older to enjoy it as well.

But really, the best part about the trip was spending time with lifelong friends.

I love these girls.  I have spent many, many hours with these girls especially in college, laughing, talking and praying together.  No matter how much time goes by, we can just pick up where we left off and that is always a friendship you can't take for granted.  It really was so great spending time with them and watching all our kids play together.

I know I'm biased, but are these not the cutest bunch of kids you have ever seen?  I love this picture and really couldn't believe I got them all looking at the camera!  Well, of course that is thanks for the other 3 people acting crazy to get them all to look at them.  Next time we will plan it better and have them all in Aggie shirts and probably not on a bright orange couch :)

Cooper was so cute that weekend.  Poor baby is too young to play with the big kids and while they were running around the house playing cops and robbers, Cooper would be chasing after them as fast as he can go with his army crawl.  It was so sweet how much he wanted to be with them.  I really can't wait until he walks...I feel like he can do so many more things!

The house also has a fire pit perfect for making smores!  The adults had fun while all the kiddos were asleep for the night!

It was so nice that the little kids could nap and go to bed early while the adults could enjoy the house and have some much needed R&R.  With the exception of the first night where Cooper cried and cried at night, he slept perfectly the rest of the trip.  That kid, it seems to take him one nap/night sleep to get used to a new environment.

It really was such a great weekend.  All the kids did so well and the adults had fun too!  It does bring me back to our college days when we would stay up until the wee hours of the night "studying", talking, getting java shakes at Sweet Eugenes, and eating ice cream late at night.  I do miss college from time to time, but it is a huge blessing to see the 7 little munchkins that have come since then.  I am so thankful for college friends that I believe will be lifelong friends.  

Weekend in Austin

This past weekend we went to Austin to visit Justin's mom and Aunt.  It was Cooper's first road trip since he was 2 months old, and boy does that make a difference.  I remember driving to Austin for Christmas was extremely stressful with a 2 month old.  Especially one that had reflux and was a bit fussy.  We had to stop a few times and I had to sit in the back to hold the paci in his mouth so he would sleep.  Now, look how far we have come.  That trips seems like years ago!  Cooper did so well on the trip and we only needed to stop once each way (which we normally stop once anyway) to feed him a bottle and just get him out of the carseat for a bit.  Here we are on our way....you can see Cooper in the mirror in the back :)

We made it to Austin Thursday late afternoon and we just hung around the house and Mimi was able to spend lots of time with her grandson

I was really worried about  Cooper not sleeping in his pack and play, since he has never wanted to sleep in it before.  But, I put him to bed later that night and he cried for maybe 1 minute and then went right to sleep and slept the whole night.  Who is this kid?  I'm so thankful!  I knew he was so tired.  The last time we spent the night away and we had the pack and play, he was up every couple of hours and cried and cried.  It was awful.  He also woke up pretty happy getting a full nights sleep.

Then of Friday morning, Justin and I played tennis while Mimi and Aunt Maytee watched Cooper.  We had a lot of fun playing and it was a very close match.  I must admit, I did lose, but it was in a tie breaker, so it doesn't really count as losing, right?

Mimi tried to put Cooper down for a morning nap, but staying to his true self, he wouldn't do it.  He must have been pretty tired since he did fall asleep eventually :)

Then after we got home from tennis, we took Cooper out to the pool.  He normally likes the pool, but lets just say, he wasn't really digging it that day...

Poor baby.  Just pitiful.  This was the only time he wasn't in a good mood over the whole weekend.  I think he was just tired from not really napping the day before and was mr. cranky.  It still didn't stop his cuteness.

Nothing that some cheerios can't fix, right?  After the pool, we gave him a bath, which was even more torture for him, so I knew it was definitely time for another nap.  This was the hardest nap for him to fall asleep, but I knew he needed it so I did't give in, thankfully.  He cried it out for about 30 minutes but finally went to sleep and woke up so much happier!

We then went to the country club to eat dinner and Cooper did so well.  He was smiling at everyone, and enjoyed people watching and of course eating his cheerios.  He was a happy little guy!

That evening, Cooper was obsessed with pulling up and looking out the window.  It was so cute.  He is pulling up on everything now and can do it so much easier than he had been before.

We even saw some deer out the window!  He looks like such a big boy looking out the window...when did he grow up so fast?

Then Saturday was the first Aggie football game of the year!  You know us Aggies wouldn't dare to miss that game.  Too bad I forgot Cooper's A&M shirt to wear but we still pulled out a victory.  Cooper played and played and napped great that day, hardly crying at all when I put him down.

Cooper loved crawling over to the stack of magazines and pulling them out one by one

We then went to the pool again and Cooper did so much better.  He stayed in his floaty and enjoyed relaxing in the water.  We then we back to the house to have dinner.

After we put Cooper to bed, the 4 of us played Pictionary and had a blast.  I forgot how fun that game is....we all had some good laughs! Then, the next morning, it was time for us to go :(  We visited one of my good friends from high school on our way back to Houston.  I was able to meet her son for the first time who is just 3 months younger than Cooper.

It was fun to see them interact together.  At one point, they were having a little "conversation" with each other.

Well, that was our exciting trip to Austin.  We leave again this Friday for another weekend getaway to Wimberley with my college friends.  We are really looking forward to it!!  

Had to post one more....I just can't stand the cuteness!!  I'm obsessed with this sweet face