Skype

The beginning of this month is going to be rough. Sharon started her first week away on Tuesday followed by two more weeks. She is gone four of the five days during the week so she's home on the weekends. Cooper was pretty mad at her when he found out she had to leave. He had a hard day that Tuesday, he whimpered a lot, kept saying things like, "I can't go on a walk because it's too cold and Mama isn't hear to keep me warm." As he gets older he is way more vocal about his disapproval in her traveling. He likes to be comforted by me when he is feeling sad and it's hard for all of us.

This week we decided to try Skype. Cooper isn't big on talking to Mama on the phone, we thought seeing her may help him. Skype is awesome!!! Cooper did a complete 180 last night after Skyping with Mama. He did a happy dance, got totally crazy and talked a ton. It was great.

Today we had a long day and we Skyped with Mama again tonight. We could see how relaxed he got after talking with her for awhile. She read him a story, I read a story and we talked. When we hung up, Cooper was asleep within 30 seconds.

This is definitely a tool that we will use on her trips. It means so much to him to see her on the computer and it allows them to be silly and laugh together. He kissed the computer tonight and said "I love you Mama."

Christmas Time

We put our lights up on the outside of the house last weekend. Cooper was very excited about that.

Yesterday we bought our tree and decorated it. For the last three years we have gone to Sherwood, OR to a place called Sleighbells Tree Farm and bought our tree, sat on Santa's lap, had some hot cocoa, bought fudge and an ornament or wreath or two. This year we decided to bypass the gift shop place due to gas prices and we hit the local tree farm in town. Grandma Lindsay came to our house, we had coffee and a friendly game of cribbage before heading out. The tree lot is about 1.2 miles from our house, they bring the trees from their farm in Mollala, OR and they are very reasonable. Cooper gravitated to the 8' tall 8' wide trees. He said we needed a big tree for all his decorations!

Here is our tree and Cooper decorating.

Tower

Cooper and I were making towers with wooden blocks the other morning.

New Toy

I finally bought Larkin a baby doll and accessories to play with. She gravitates to them at other people's houses and I know she has some at home so it was about time I get one. Cooper brought it out for her on Monday and they played together a little bit. She played with the baby in some form all day when we were home.

Happy Thanksgivig

We had a great Thanksgiving today with our family of friends. We had an exquisite feast including deep fried turkey, ham, yams, green bean casserole, rolls, fresh cranberries, delicious salad, sausage stuffing and roasted garlic mashed potatoes. Dessert involved homenade apple pie and homemade pumpkin pie with fresh whipping cream. This is the first year since getting pregnant that I ate the turkey (yay for deep frying)!!
I am excited about leftovers tomorrow.
I intended to take lots of
pictures today but didn't. Cooper enjoued a movie marathon with his movie buddy Angie.

Bedroom

We are slowly transitioning from a family bed to Cooper sleeping in his bed in his room. We have had his bed on the floor in our room for the last few months and he has been sleeping in it every night. Typically he will wake up sometime in the middle of the night and climb in our bed for the remainder of the night. We have talked to him about sleeping in his room and he kept saying he would do that when he is 5 years old. Well Sunday we decided to go for it and we put his mattress on the floor in his room. It's a great spot under his loft and it doesn't take up that much space. He's slept in there twice so far. Monday night he told Sharon very seriously, "Mama, I think we should sleep the other night in your bed and the other night in my bed so Mommy won't be lonely." Mondays I have band practice so I wasn't home when he went to sleep. Monday he slept with us and Tuesday he slept in his bed until 3:30 am. Tonight he is in our bed. We are doing this slowly and it is working for us. I have found that I don't sleep if Sharon is home and not in the bed (Sunday night she slept for half the night with Cooper in his bed). I also found that I can't sleep too well when Cooper isn't in our room. I woke up last night at 3:00 because I thought I needed to check on him. I ended up not checking on him and he woke up thirty minutes later to pee. We are having Riley sleep with him because we know she would bark if something happened. Riley is not too happy about this arrangement, her herding instincts and desire for us to be all together are making her anxious. But she is doing it (well she can't leave his room because she won't walk through the hallway with the floor vents, so really we are trapping her in there :)

Funny Sayings

Cooper is hilarious lately. At Erin's the other day she and I were talking and I said, "if I were to ask Sharon today she would say no." Cooper, who was sitting next to me goes, "Then don't ask her Mommy." Oh my gosh we were laughing hard. Today we were watching Handy Manny and Sharon said, "I want Handy Manny to come finish our bathroom." Cooper said, "Mama you are Handy Manny." How cute, right. He constantly tells her she can't work or travel because she has to work on the bathroom. He is very concerned about the progress apparently.
Some other things he is saying. Today he had two separate playdates and Larkin was here. Larkin was coming outside with me and Cooper said (with his pouty look), "but then I won't have anyone to play with me." When Emory left this afternoon Cooper said (with an even poutier look), "Now no one is here to play with me."
He has never been especially sad to not have friends here and it's not like he was really playing great with Emory at the time but it is interesting to see/hear this commentary from him.
In other news, we had our first preschool parent/teacher conference this week. It was cool to hear the teacher's observations and go through the checklist. It is exciting that this is the start to his school life. I love the play-based model, the freedom it allows and the lack of pressure on academics at this age and I love his teacher!
We also had our first preschool playdate today at our house. We asked Cooper who he would like to invite over and he said Graham. So we had Graham and his Mama Kim over this morning and they had a great time together.

Bus Adventure

Libby and I took Cooper, Emory and Larkin to the airport on an adventure a couple weeks ago. We haven't had a bus adventure since this summer so Cooper and Larkin were super excited! Waiting for the bus.





We took the bus to the Max and the Max to the airport. We stopped at Target after the airport too. Cooper is getting excited about Christmas so he is checking out toys for his list. Libby and I took the boys on another adventure Thursday because there was no preschool. We went on a short adventure to a different toy store at the Clackamas Mall. The boys played for awhile and then we left to play at Emory's before swim class. In both toy store adventures, I didn't buy anything! This is huge for me because I am a consumer. Cooper is also doing really well and isn't ask me to buy him anything. We are continuing to add to his Christmas/birthday list.